Somebody is up to something good

 

I was reading one of the news composite sites where they pull news from various sources. One of the articles was about a State Senator from Utah changing his party affiliation from Republican to Utah Forward party.

I haven’t jumped on the internet to research the Utah Forward Party, yet as you can imagine the change to a third party caught my eye.

I read through the comments on the article and there were quite a few positive comments about switching. Some even addressed maybe it is better to piece meal a new national party at the state level. Or another words third parties develop in individual states and then coalesce over time into a viable new major party.

I am all for something like this happening. I scream we need new parties, yet understand that it won’t suddenly appear overnight. Glad to read about his change. Personally not all on board with his exact reasons, yet hey, a win is a win.

So if you are in Utah and are looking for something center right which from the little bit I read appears to be their direction, then check them out. For everyone else, lets keep our eyes, ears and mind open.

One of the comments even stated tired of the us versus them attitude currently in politics so hats off to that commenter also.

Cheers all

Trump’s yo yoing tariffs and the Republican tax bill

 

Pretty straightforward. How can we trust any numbers the Republicans introduce about tariffs to offset their income tax cuts for the rich if we have no idea how much (even) potential revenue will be collected from tariffs?

It is madness to even think the American public can trust what the Republicans are doing if their leader changes his mind as consistently as Trump does. First of all most of us don’t trust what they say from the beginning, yet it just becomes more and more obvious they have one goal in mind and that is the tax cuts for the rich. Somehow or another they will talk their way into it no matter how much they destroy this country. Maybe one day the rich will realize if this country falls apart at the seams and no one has any money those tax breaks are worthless. Let’s hope it is today, tomorrow at the latest.

The performative show the other night was a waste of time since it was all bluster and show and tell. Nothing substantive mentioned except we will screw you to get what we want. Of course they didn’t say that, but they did.

Musk needs to be fired. Vance needs to go back to Ohio and stay there. Johnson needs to find God and listen to what God says. And if anyone thinks a crypto reserve is no more than another sham or like Musk says a ponzi scheme then they deserve to lose their money, yet the rest of us still remember 2008-09 and do not need nor want another financial disaster. And that will happen if Trump starts investing America’s tax dollar into that scheme. Or cuts taxes with no real budget in place, or keeps cutting the government with no real plan in place, the list goes on.

Trump is driving this train high on narcissism and Casey cannot find the damn brakes, much less any reliable track. My apologies to the Grateful Dead.

And ironically Trump is making the President of Mexico very popular in her country. Heck she may make Mexico great (again?).

Too bad the man who needs our help the most and deserves it since he is fighting for liberty and against oppression is treated like the third step child once removed from an abusive parent. Again Vance needs to go back to Ohio and sit on the porch and chew straw. Nothing he says shows any competence. And too bad Trump wants to gut the Department of Education, we certainly need better public education right now.

The list of madness goes on. And tomorrow will bring us more because in two weeks the government shutdown madness reaches another crescendo.

Americans just don’t want the truth

 

And this is any American, they fight hearing it daily. And this goes back decades. I think in the 1960’s there might have been a desire for truth. Then the seventies happened and people either got too high and effed up or they became Republicans. So the need for the truth wasn’t put on the back burner, it was put out with the trash.

Think about this for a moment. When the Republicans introduced trickle down economics, they should have been tarred and feathered. Even the name was the biggest hint. It was the rich saying we come first and you come what fifth, you will get what trickles down. At that point working and middle class America should have brought that government down in a heartbeat. Called for elections the next day if they really cared about themselves, much less the truth.

Trickle down is the biggest joke played on the American body ever. And yet here we are still talking about it today in one shape form or another.

Please don’t tell me it works. Please don’t tell me the Democrats are against it. Please don’t tell me squat until you are ready to make real change.

The first sign the Democrats aren’t against it is the fact, we still need major campaign reform, we still need lobbyists out of Washington, we still need to support the middle and working class, we still need better public education and I could go on.

And the Republicans still support it in its current Donald Trump tax breaks for the rich and then whatever else falls from the table you might get concept.

Neither party cares about a better America. They only care about staying in power, which means lying to their base and taking millions in campaign contributions. Did anyone try to legislate Citizens United away? DID THEY EVEN TRY??????!!!!  NO!!!!!!!!  Or were any significant campaign reform ideas legislated, much less passed? Nope

We would rather complain than work even if the work is better for us. Hate me, I don’t care, but I am telling the truth. You don’t want the truth, heck like the movie says, you cannot handle the truth because that takes real work. It is easier to be lied to than make change, even if it is the change we desperately need.

You might say, you just ate a great dinner, had a nice fine table wine (even the better half enjoyed it and she doesn’t like white wine), are digesting and should be at peace, and I should. Yet, I watch what happened with Zelensky and watch people act like he is in the wrong. Sure some people stood up and said that was a bunch of crap, but where in Congress is anyone pushing bills to change the narrative. Too much work. Too much reality.

We let the power brokers lie to us, fail us, ignore us, and sit here with our fine table wine and whine. Yes I am just as guilty since I am not beating my Representative’s door down. I should be, we all should be.

Go back and check the history if you believe we shouldn’t help Ukraine. Just in case you don’t know, we signed an agreement as the United States to protect them if they gave up their nuclear weapons in 1994. And now we watch Trump tell the world our word means shit. Again some outrage, but for the body politic as a whole, we fail Ukraine, we fail ourselves and we don’t give a damn about ourselves because if we did we need to hold our government accountable.

The tax breaks are crap. So the next time you are outraged either as pro Trump or against Trump or whatever remember the concept is trickle down. So when you don’t get yours, don’t complain because the rich are getting theirs first as always.

Nothing wrong with the rich until WE, THE PEOPLE, let them run roughshod over us. And they have been for decades.

I guess we get to enjoy our spring of discontent wine or no wine.

Something fun, something ugly

 

There is something I always tell people that if they read this they will know immediately who is writing this blog. I write under this alias(?) of a name so I can say what I want to say and not have to listen to people tell me how wrong I am. And as you know dear reader I never tell you what to do or think, yet….

Do not grow old. Live long, prosper, live a fruitful life, but under no circumstances grow old. It is way too much of a pain to bend down and try to pick something up or be extra careful with just about every movement so you don’t throw your back out. Or watch what you eat or drink, how much you exercise, why getting out of bed is an immense struggle just to put your feet on the floor. You ever hear the phrase you must give thanks every morning when you sit up and put your feet on the floor. When you get old, you certainly understand that phrase with multiple meanings.

 

And for your paranoid, outrageous conspiracy theory of the day. Have you ever wondered why Trump is so okay with Putin taking over Ukraine, you know a border country that really isn’t Russia’s yet he makes believe it is Russian. Why would Trump even care? I don’t know, yet if I was the Mexican President I might want to know.

Watching the dominos fall, great real world experience for Econ 101 students

 

I am not an economics major, yet like most even average Americans we can see the dominos being lined up to fall.

I am not one hundred percent sure a recession is coming, yet if you lay off thousands of people especially concentrated in one area, yet also some in other areas you can perceive what might happen next. Many local businesses will suffer do to reduced business such as restaurants and other local spots in D. C.. Once the local businesses start losing money then they either lay off or close completely. Once they close then distributors and wholesalers lose customers and you guessed it, they start laying people off. Company by company up the corporate food chain will be impacted. More workers losing work with less employment opportunities in an area either creates a spiraling situation in that area or a drain of the workforce as they move elsewhere to survive.

If this drain in D.C. starts to migrate then where does it head next. Of course and as always the workers, especially the service industry workers are hit hardest. If they cannot find work, then things start to get dicey as they look to alternate means to survive.

Do they do the right thing and move to new locations and start their own businesses or find employment? Or do they wallow and let circumstances sour their attitude? Well lets not speak bad of those less fortunate.

And in our current Administration’s worldview, how would they react to large scale claims to the unemployment system? If current direction of cuts are the leading example, many people could be left with nothing.

That’s okay because Trump says he can fix it all and it is only him. So Econ students get out your pen and paper and start taking notes because Trump will save the day and you can record the great savior at work. Or you can deal in reality and take notes about how bad things get when you let a fraud take over the government. I bet you can even get a book or two out of it.

Have fun

Oops forgot to add the call to action

 And like all milquetoast calls to action it is probably what you expect. Write your Representative or Senator, just like that the world’s problems are solved. Okay not really, however, if you are specific and let them know you mean business it might help a tad bit.

And let me make this easier for you.

For your Representative go to this link:

Find Your Representative | house.gov

You can enter your zip code and you have their email address. And if you feel you need write or address your Representative professionally there are resources you can internet search to help you.

For your Senator:

U.S. Senate: Contacting U.S. Senators

There are two per state so you can write one or both. And same for Senators if you want to make sure you write a proper salutation or what not, there are resources on the internet.

And if you think what should I say, well in my milquetoast call to action, try talking about, why is Musk in charge of my information?; how about writing legislation that overturns Citizens United; why don’t you control the budget, not Musk; we want a balanced budget, yet we want it done correctly which is Congress’ job, how about working on making Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid healthy, instead of hacking up the government, why don’t we make these agencies more answerable to Congress and the money allocated for them; how about tax breaks for me, not the one percent who do not need the money; and make sure they don’t lie to you about trickle down economics and all that BS; and whatever else you might think of like making the Department of Education a quality endeavor instead of just pushing over a cliff; or what about accountability to people who hurt the people with their actions. The list can go on yet  for now just touching on these subjects is a start or even a few.

Now here is the real call to action. Let them know you expect results and if you do not get them, you will work within their district to primary them. Yep this means if they continue to screw you then you need to recruit someone to run as a Democrat or Republican probably starting late this year to run against them in the primary. And be prepared to work.

As you know I would prefer just to ditch the Republicans and Democrats completely and elect a slew of independents, yet if you help overall the parties then that might work too. As long as you let them know, you are paying attention and expect results now. If not expect a whole new crop of people looking to replace them in Congress.

Either way it is time Congress went back to doing their job, which is control the purse strings, hold the Executive branch accountable for how the money is spent, balance the budget and most importantly represent you.

You pay their salaries through your hard work, why not spend an extra few minutes a day making sure they work hard for you.

Or primary the lot!

I’m sorry to say, you won

 Wait who is the you in the title? Is it every bogeyman you can think of in our modern society? So, guess who is losing? No one? Well no, but why aren’t we winning.

And as you have figured out by now whether you want to admit it or not, you are not winning by design.

Common sense, practical thinking, taking time to actually study is discouraged. Is it by society’s bogeymen or by us?

It could be us since we spend more time playing games on our phones than reading books, well thought out articles on the events of the day, even watching worthwhile videos on Youtube beyond how to fix the washing machine at home (those are worthwhile because it never hurts to save some money, the problem is when you absolutely need to just to eat) or history videos, yet do we learn anything to apply to our modern world. We do, but how do we apply it?

I am coming across five times more negative than I would like, yet it is hard to drive a point home in the modern world without being hit upside the head by the problems of our society. And there is so much doom and gloom. Do I espouse a revolutionary world? No, I would just like to make our world better within the existing system for all of us. You know, the milquetoast of revolutionaries. The polar opposite of Trump.

Yet, what is wrong with wanting something better in a practical fashion. Apparently everything in our modern world. You have heard the phrase in some shape form or fashion, if you ain’t rich, you ain’t shit.

And that does seem to be the modern mantra. And then as always our elitists love to tell us how to live  in this world, there is now de-influencers. Yep, you are now supposed to listen to people tell you not to buy everything you see on the internet and we need people that are popular to tell us that? “back in the day” we use to call that common sense, now the idea of common sense is to be discarded along with everything else that helps us do better such as values and morals. And have you noticed elitists love to tell us how to live like we need them to do such. Otherwise how would we exist. Elitism is just another entity taking our souls and lives away from us and replacing it with programs and self help books (maybe the ones we shouldn’t be reading) to live a better life.

We are stuck though. To lead a better life requires effort, not just the watching the washing machine repair video work, but work at many levels. Is it revolutionary work? It should not be, however we keep postponing it so eventually it may need to be. I hope not. I prefer my little milquetoast attitude if we just do better, things will be better.

Partially goes back to my need to start using resources better. There is quite an extensive list of viable and even easily readable books on what is happening and not looking down your nose at us elitism with valid answers to our problems. I don’t use them enough or this blog would be peppered with them right and left with answers. You read a well thought out book on society and resources supplement or enhance the point the author wants to make. And there are the books, articles  etc that can supplement why I am trying to encourage you to take action in our society.

Do I get lazy and say you need to do your own research? No because to prove my points I need to direct you to the correct resources. You know, common sense approach to helping you help me.

 

And I also feel that the world’s bogeymen have not won yet, even though that might be hard to prove with the richest man in the world running amok in our lives vis a vie his access to all our information through the entity that is supposed to protect us. The picture looks bleak.

And there are many saying we are in decline and that eventually we will need to rebuild from the ashes after we have burnt the planet down. Again the milquetoast in me says we can do better. The longer we wait the harder it will be to prevent the complete burning of our house.

So what next for me, you, the winners, the losers, the in between, the future generations, the diehards, the decrepit? I don’t know. What I do know is I am not ready to give up on us and hopefully one day a few of you will agree with me. After that it is just another small revolution to bring back common sense and decency to our lives and a government that is responsive to us not them.

Yes it is a dreary cloudy day here in North Texas so maybe I am just feeling a bit morbid. Who knows? It is about to become cold. The news tells us it will be the coldest two days of the year. Let’s hope we survive 36 hours of below freezing temperature because spring is right around the corner. And yes this is Texas, surviving 36 hours of below freezing temperature is a big deal, said sarcastically.

Cheers