The reflecting pool is now the mirror of how bad things are to come

 

I have posted previously on this topic, yet as time marches on the disaster waiting is getting worse.

We all know it, it is staring even his supporters in the face, yet what happens after Trump passes away is potentially getting uglier by the day. Months ago I suggested the Republicans start planning for a Trump world. Then later on I was a bit more direct of what the Republicans will be facing once Trump is gone. Now it is beyond the planning phase time frame and what is looming for this country is flat out insane.

The power play after Trump will wreck havoc on this country. We have all heard the phrase power does not exist in a vacuum or something to that nature. Also today I was overhearing a podcast from a historian named Heather Richardson I think talking about there is a power shuffle or loose power structure going on in the administration right now. Not exactly sure since I was overhearing and not paying complete attention. Yet her point seemed to be that behind the scenes people are starting to position themselves for what happens after Trump. Some names she mentioned that might be jockeying around were JD Vance and maybe Tucker Carlson, but she also mentioned Carlson may be backing Vance.

The real issue is most of his cabinet and sycophants rely on Trump for power. They need him more for their future than their own careers will allow them to be successful. And there isn’t much cohesiveness amongst the group either. If and when Vance becomes President, how much of Trump’s cabinet and staff will he keep. And what happens when the infighting begins as they desperately cling to power.

Also Trump’s supporters will allow people to tell them it isn’t Trump that was a failure, but all these cabinet and staff members that let him down which will include Vance. People like Andrew Vought and Steven Miller may be the first to go, but also the most dangerous as the go out. Especially Vought because he probably has the most cohesive plan working, yet needs Trump to continue it. Well, honestly I am going to leave that sentence out there, but I do not know if Vance and Vought are on the same page. Vance may keep him since he does have a working plan. Miller not so much and offers no real advantage to Vance and whatever he may want to do once he becomes President. Personally though I would love to see both go since for different reasons, they are both dangerous to our democracy.

There are a plethora of cabinet members though that need to go and how attached to any of them is Vance. I don’t think much, yet they may do some crazy things (not that they aren’t already) on the way out the door. Most of Trump’s cabinet since there for loyalty reasons to Trump won’t offer much for Vance and easily are a hindrance if not an outright disaster ongoing for him.

Vance becomes President by default if Trump passes away before 2028. Yet every problem that Trump created will fall onto Vance’s lap. It could end up being the worst thing that could happen to any one person. And the problems are only getting worse even if oil and gas prices come down a bit in the short term. Iran already thinks he is a joke and will probably shut the Strait of Hormuz down or slap ridiculously high tolls on certain countries daring him to do something about it. Trump’s tariffs still cause headaches for our trade partners and they won’t want to jump on board to save him. He will have to repair NATO and trade alliances with people who will not trust him one bit, nor respect him.

So Vance will become impotent from day one, he will have cabinet members trying to hold onto their jobs either with outlandish actions or accusations, and a country that never wanted him in the first place. Why this isn’t major fodder for the talking heads world astounds me.

The post Trump world is going to be a nightmare and now that there are temporarily some Senators acting tough may not be enough to settle the power structure down in D. C.

Add the rise of socialist democrats in very democratic cities, you can see major jockeying of partisan madness as both sides get dirtier and dirtier with their hate and finger pointing. I know these same socialist democrats think they have tons of momentum going their way, but it will hit a major wall outside their specific regions. They think their ideas will take hold because of how bad Trump has been, yet to this day they do not see the fact that people wanted Trump to succeed because of what he says were his policies. Those policy wishes do not change just because Trump passes away. And of course there is the far right that is more emboldened and just hates everybody (including themselves) so they aren’t going away. The possibility of political outbreaks throughout the country exists if someone doesn’t grab the national attention quickly and offers some policy that tampers down inflation and more importantly the political rhetoric. It won’t all go away, but if we get lucky and someone can grab the middle’s attention and support, it might be less of a rocky ride.

Yet there is no one currently in any spotlight that offers us a chance to settle down the partisan hate without the ugly happening first. Our country as a whole can look much worse than a green reflecting pool very fast. The good news is and I think Ms. Richardson also brought this up is that most people in this country still like our country and what we represent. What we need is for a very dynamic person to rise to the top with practical ideas that people see as possible. Sounds fairy tale like, but we are almost to that point. Most people ignore the far right so they very rarely gain much traction with the body politic of this country, yet the far left does garner some waves of momentum occasionally and that is more dangerous than the middle realizes. Right now too much socialism is not the answer even though to rebuild our way of life some socialistic type ideas will need some attention. A delicate balance to say the least but yo yoing from one extreme (Trump’s right wing bigotry and authoritarianism) to the other extreme is not the answer no matter how often the left is going to cheer it on since people like Mamdani are capturing some major attention with some success in New York. Yet what works for New York isn’t going to fly in quite a few other cities and states. Just the nature of the political beast in a large and diverse, in more ways than one, country.

This large and beautiful country with the infamous melting pot we so love to tout works best when there is local politicians having some control over their respective areas, along with a national government that tries to create basic baselines of federal oversight and balance that gives equal benefit throughout the country. With the rise of the one percent, that hasn’t been the case in decades and people do feel it. We just hope that the center line is strengthened going forward and the wealth divide crumbles in a positive way so the majority have the opportunity we always say we have.

Yet to even get there we will face the ugly algae of Trump’ reflecting pool running rampant throughout D. C. for possibly years. A sad and true reality we face.

I was going to stop, yet I remembered one hope is that we get a new Speaker of the House that people respect asap and is open to busting open some of Trump’s political wins to bring back some leverage for the middle class.

It is way past time the Republicans ditched Mike Johnson as Speaker (and some other observations)

 

He has failed in so many ways. He fails as the Speaker in general. He fails as the Republican Speaker. He fails the Republican Party. He fails the people of this country. He fails Donald Trump and what is weird Trump and the people have completely different interests that are diametrically opposed yet he has managed to fail both of them. He fails himself. He fails his constituents specifically.

It is pathetic to watch this man on the news. He fails at lying. He fails at even trying to explain the madness he is wanting us to believe.

Time for the Republicans to realize surviving the midterms or not, Mike Johnson needs to be removed in any aspect of leadership in the House of Representatives. The sooner the better.

 

And I do not take credit for this observation, but I wish I said it. Scott Bessent looks like the ventriloquist dummy in a grade b horror movie about a ventriloquist. And Kevin Hassett could either be the dummy or the ventriloquist. Both those guys scare the crap out of me and not because they look dangerous. They just look creepy. Them being Trump sycophants is another reason they scare me because they throw some much BS out there it is maddening to realize they will say anything to make Trump look good. They go on talk shows, interviews etc and sit there with a straight face and bold face tell you not to believe what is going on in your life. And worse Mr. Hasset just smiles at you while doing it.

 

And finally I wish the media quits talking about the price of gas as it is the one and only problem average Americans are facing. The price of gas is eventually going to drive up costs across the board. Some economists debate the different types of inflation measures we should use. Well they are all about to climb into the danger zone for us. To say we need to exclude volatile items out of the measure, is just a shell game in the current situation. If truly there was an accident in the Strait of Hormuz or something similar then I could agree the price of oil and gas could be discounted in inflation measures because those prices would fall once things were cleared up. This war though is an insult to all of us. Mr. Trump cannot negotiate away the problem Netanyahu and he created and Iran is emboldened to make lives hell for half the world just to spite Trump and Netanyahu. The people of Iran are suffering immensely. The leadership is loving this moment.

Some tariffs are still around in some shape form or another which is another behind the scene problem right now. And on top of everything beef is about to get way more expensive if this screw worm situation grows. Sure beef is only one item, but once it gets expensive then chicken and pork will see more demand which will drive up their prices. The price of groceries before now is not talked about enough, next month between higher prices, tariffs and now beef, people aren’t going to want to celebrate the Fourth of July. This should have been a wonderful moment in our country’s history, instead our current leadership at all levels of government have destroyed any idea of celebrating or even reflecting positively on our country.

So going back to the original part of the post, Mike Johnson needs to go so we can get a Speaker that starts thinking about how to help Americans deal with the real inflation facing us, not to mention the ongoing healthcare debacle, arresting the corrupt leaders and more. And I am not holding my breath for Democrats to actually do something except lecture MAGA, which goes over so well.

People are still ignoring a post Trump world

 

A few months ago I wrote a post about what happens after Trump passes away. Since then the economic, political and geopolitical landscape began to fall off a cliff.

There needs to be some kind of come to reckoning about what we do as a country once mother nature takes over. He is not young and contrary to White House nonsense, he is not healthy.

And once he passes here is the short list of problems, if things stand as they do, Vance faces:

Iran war: Trump has put us in a precarious situation as it is and once he passes we have no real strategy. Not an iota of one to start negotiating. Vance has different viewpoints than Trump also. And then there is Hegseth, what might he do in the immediate aftermath. Will anyone in the Pentagon step and in and try to manage the war? Iran may be just sitting back and waiting for this moment because they could come out of this real strong due to Trump’s lack of vision and Vance’s ideology of no foreign wars. The Strait of Hormuz will be under their control for decades possibly. The whole war is a disaster to begin with and Trump passing will force , to even have a chance of salvaging anything, into a very forceful stance. And yes what does that exactly mean? The repercussions of this war are an immediate and long term disaster.

Economy: First the war has driven up the price of oil, gas and food worldwide. Vance may do something stupid to try and resolve the war to get shipping through the Strait of Hormuz so he can hold on to any inkling of a presidential bid. We are about to lose on three or four fronts economically on the world stage and only very stringent matters will let us hold on to some semblance of respectability. China is loving this and my bets are on they loved having Trump over to gauge his health to see how fast they can move on Taiwan, world trade and more.

Putin and Europe: Putin is getting desperate and in a bid to save his Presidency he may take even more action in Europe while we are dealing with Trump’s death. No one in Trump’s administration has the cajones to do something about him or will care. Europe will be hung out to dry and either get mired in a slow moving WWI scenario or come out with a quick victory and manages to save their identity. Unfortunately not their economy unless their victory is complete and they can open their doors to a new Russia so new trade with Russian oil and gets off the Middle East pipeline. If Europe survives Putin and a more open Russia emerges then that is good for Europe, yet all countries not named Iran in the middle east will suffer a setback as they lose customers for their oil.  Iran will still be the main supplier of oil to China and will be openly competing for other Asian markets. This can only embolden Iran and with us out of the picture some of the other Middle Eastern countries are in trouble.

Israel: Just saying the name almost says enough. Once Trump is gone, what is Netanyahu’s fate? What is Israel’s fate? Does Iran rebound enough to repress their surrogates attacking Israel? Will we even respond? Could we respond?

Japan and Korea: Not as dramatic as Israel, yet they are both facing what will be a very emboldened North Korea.

Domestic political turmoil: Who survives Trump? Are there real Trump allies willing to create violence in America for their benefit?  Who fights them? Then there is the duopoly’s lack of vision for a post Trump world. Neither side is ready with a plan going forward to address the above listed issues or even the most basic of issues like restoring law and order, punishing the grift and fraud, actually passing a domestic budget and whatever else may come up. We still need healthcare costs addressed, social security improved, better education, the infamous infrastructure addressed, homelessness, food security, small and mid size businesses helped, tax reform, campaign finance reform and imagine the financial markets in the immediate aftermath. Who does what? Does the market crash?

In my original post I just talked about the very basics. Since then, I have only seen one or two articles maybe talking about a post Trump world. We were unprepared then and Trump has only made things worse. The possibility is there for complete domestic upheaval and no one in this country has the political clout to pull together enough of a coalition to maintain some stability.

And this could happen at any moment. Am I doom speaking? Yes a bit. Could more practical heads manage to salvage the aftermath? Yes, but we need to start planning now to help that become a reality.

And the duopoly is not ready. Too many Republicans have succumbed to Trump’s influence over the party to even begin to think, much less act productively. Their desire for power has rendered them incapable of governing responsibly. The Democrats are clueless. Sure they talk pretty words, have wonderful platitudes, shout to high heaven about the evils facing us, without even knowing the true depth of those evils and then more down to earth, have no real plan. They think they do, they talk like it, but really pull back the curtain and again it is high minded words and platitudes. And the current Youtube and other blogs from the ideological spectrum only add to the partisan madness. They are not independent. They are noise. They complain about the other side or just make stuff up for an audience. So many pro and con to Trump are so tied to him that what do they do afterwards? 

I have tried throwing out ideas to take better paths historically in this blog. Yet some of them are very grandiose. Yet who knows maybe some large projects may help bring us together as a country. If we all started working on the same goals instead of pointing fingers at each other we may live on. For now though, natural disasters and more are going to test us each and every time. And slowly due to Trump’s rot on our infrastructure, it will catch up to us.

Hopefully my pessimism is misguided and we drudge our way through and come out on the other side with some semblance of our country. It looks bleak to me, yet though I still have hope. If saner heads on either or both parties or my dream of more independents and third parties come to fruition then we can rebuild this great country because more often than not, if a people survive a calamity they usually build something better. Or let’s hope so.

Cheers

I know it is Sunday and we shouldn’t be negative, yet it needs to be said. And yes I don’t like name calling, but there is no other way to say it. People need to hear it whether they like it or not.

 If you do not like to travel, you are an idiot.

 

It doesn’t matter what you like, go see it, go visit it, go do it. Our life on planet earth is too short not to digest as much of it as you can. God created a beautiful planet and mankind has added some wonderful things too.

 

And yes I know we should put the beauty of the Creator first, but honestly I don’t think God minds if you explore what he gave us.

And I hate it that for too many they consider travel a luxury. And that is a shame. Obviously travel is not a “right” but it should be available and affordable to the masses. There is a whole host of political problems that is preventing people from traveling, so we need to find a way to balance this, yet for now, people need to find a way.

Travel is education, relaxation, awe inspiring, socializing, meeting new people, see different cultures, new food, new sights, new activities, new scenery, new tastes, new excitement and more. If some of that seems redundant, it is not. Sights and scenery can be different completely and need to be experienced to be understood.

And yes travel to do what hobbies or interests or whatever you like. Go fishing, yet fish in many rivers and lakes, same as for camping, go to different campsites. If you like mountains, go see many. In North American alone you definitely have years of travel plans to make with all our mountain ranges from Canada to Mexico from the Pacific to the Atlantic. If you love adventure, you can never do it all. If you love water parks and amusement parks, go wild. You cannot even begin to see enough beaches. And if you are the person that says, well all that looks the same. You aren’t traveling, you are going through the motions. Stop, look listen smell taste and breath it all in. You will see and enjoy the differences. And while you do what you like do something different also along the way. If you enjoy camping, go to a museum every now and then. If you love museums go fishing every now and then. There are a million ways you can mix it up.

So go!

I love beaches, cannot get enough of them, but not one beach looked like another. Not one wave I jumped over was the same as the one behind it because I experienced it. The morning walks through the shallow surf always brings a moment of joy and peace. I saw wide sandy beaches, beaches with rock formations, small beaches, tourist trap beaches, beaches with large waves and others with small waves, white sand, black rocks, beaches with steep drop offs or some you can walk out way too far and there is more to see. I love listening to the waves after dark, what a great way to go to sleep. And I have seen much more than beaches.

I implore you to travel. I wish I say could the right dynamic words to make you drop what you are doing and go right now.

I love getting in the car and going. Summer family vacations were something I thank God I gave our kids. We drove. We flew. We went. You should too. And to this day the better half and I do not feel fulfilled unless we travel at least once a year. We can be broke and make bad financial decisions and still go. Yes, honestly we go no matter what our financial situation. And we have paid for it in more ways than one afterwards. We don’t regret it.

And times we have gone with enough financial security that every moment was pure exhilaration, pure fun, pure enjoyment, pure relaxation or whatever else may have been the reason for going.

With all the hate and madness in our daily news lives and political shenanigans going on, you need to do something that brings you happiness and joy.  And looking at all the pretty pictures on your computer is not traveling. You need to go. I always rant and rave about how we can do better, yet today I rant and rave to try and convince you to do something better for yourself. Please do.

Cheers

It is going to get ugly. It is going to get stupid. And it is going to be beyond expensive.

 

And I bet some of you know up front what I am talking about here.

 

Yes the Senate race in Texas will show us just how bad our politics have become. I know some Democrats will say we have nominated a worthwhile person. And maybe so, yet have you seen him. He is about to be taken apart by one of the ugliest politicians around. Not ugly in looks, (well) but ugly in human values. And the entire MAGA wing of the Republican party and possibly some other Republicans are going to spend the next few months denigrating Talarico beyond belief.

Why? Well first they don’t have any public policy to mention or tout. They just don’t have squat. There only hope is Trump steals the election. Second they have the mentality of childish bullies.  I could say middle school bullies, but they don’t rise to that level. Absolutely nothing to do, but make fun of someone because they are weaker than diarrhea. They talk tough, but honestly they all go crying to the world every time someone calls them out. The entire Trump and crony playbook is name calling. That is it.

The other issue is Talarico is a Democrat and I am gathering somewhat of a very liberal Democrat. This is Texas. That won’t fly well with many swing voters because most of them spend the day trying to decide which conservative they like better and liberal policies will get them to close their ears faster than aforementioned diarrhea goes through your system.

Talarico cannot sit idly by and let the insults fly. He will be forced to fight which will be better for him than trying to sell his policy ideas in Texas, yet once he goes low, the spiral to the bottom is just unstoppable.

So we here in Texas are about to get hundreds of millions of dollars (I wonder a billion?) of political ads where one guy will stubbornly try to take the high road and the other will keep going lower hoping to keep Donnie boy interested in him. The end result will be brutal no matter who wins. Politics in this country are already bad enough, partisanship bleeds our sanity out and this race will become the epitome of campaign and political failure.

I just hope for some strange and mad reason everyone in Texas wakes up and votes entirely third party. Unfortunately the party I like doesn’t have a candidate. I hate not voting so I will probably vote for who knows who right now. I guess I have to wait and see what the ballot looks like. It is sad. Our once proud nation on its 250^th birthday has devolved so fast sane people cannot find a real choice.

And if you actually look at this election and what it will become, you will get an idea of why I have been saying for 45 years we need new parties.

Two posts for the price of one: A) Is MAGA nihilistic? B) And this upside down world is beyond tiring

 

So part A is a widely discussed set of madness from both conservative and liberal writers. You can find articles on this topic from the Atlantic to the (pacific, sorry couldn’t resist) New York Times to the Bulwark to the Guardian and more. And even a website called the Conversation.

So why bother adding to this list of esteemed writers if this has been dissected before? I don’t know, but maybe it just helps to understand that one third of this country has no direction except it thinks it does, yet others include many thoughts, hate, apathy, or as on the Conversation, the author references Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky saying: “explored what happens to society when people who rise to power lack any semblance of ideological or moral convictions and view society as bereft of meaning.” Trump feels it has meaning, meaning for him. Or Tom Nichols saying the movement is less about policy or compromise and more about pure destruction and political anger. Or how about in the New Republic the article talks about the rule-breaking approach of Trump administration figures, arguing their actions are performance-driven rather than goal-driven. And this to me is more about greed than nihilism.

And this last statement is part of the problem. Where does the apathy of some meet the greed of others? And maybe it isn’t apathy, but a complete throwing in of the towel to society can be better way to say, which is more nihilistic. Apathy is lack of caring whether it be a better world, or a better person while nihilism is complete dismissal of life or what it offers in general if you want my distinction.

But you didn’t ask for that, so let’s move on. Nihilism is the philosophical belief that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. So yes it is a step further from reality than apathy. Yet does MAGA truly meet this definition? I do not think so.

There are subsets of thinking behind nihilism that also do not describe MAGA. Some of these are the core principal mentioned above, moral, cosmic or epistemological nihilism. That last one is a mouthful, anyway they all pretty much say the same thing, there is no knowledge and it doesn’t matter what you do to keep it super simple.

Now Trump’s administration demonstrates moral nihilism by definition, but really they are either power driven or greed driven. They care, but for all the wrong things morally.

MAGA wants something I just do not think they know what they want. This is probably what causes this confusion around nihilism. And whatever they want they are motivated by some type of hate partly caused by Democrats and partly by Fox News. Yet to say they don’t care or have no compass, yet it may not be pointing north, that isn’t the case. Does what they want have meaning? If not then you can apply some nihilistic tendencies? I think buried deep there is some meaning. Now it may be based on principles antagonistic to our country’s values even though wrapped in patriotic fervor. In fact some of it is antagonistic to our values, but they believe lies that let them think they are the patriots. The problem is why they believe these lies, yet the reason is not because they are nihilistic.

So all you great writers time to get out the pen and paper and try to figure out what is driving them. Something is and until we figure that out and counter balance it correctly this MAGA movement ripping up our country is too entrenched for us to be able to have a rational government. Hence we are stuck with the charlatan Trump and all the destruction he is doing to our country until you great thinkers throw out another philosophy to muse on.

Or another words, dare I say……… we need something new. The old ways are dying before our eyes. MAGA is just one monstrous symptom of the underlying moral decay cancer eating away at our country that some of us are tired of watching. MAGA is not the disease, it is a part of the body showing the disease.

 

And now for B:

That moral decay is what is right side up right now in our country. There are answers to our problems, even good ones. Until we find the leaders who are willing to stand up to the monsters we slowly rot and the greatest government experiment on the planet turns to mush.

And yes I know there are a few voices trying, yet until they break through the madness of social media, the loud quiet of so many Americans who spend more time trying to budget than pay attention to what is causing their budget morass we are in trouble.

What is wrong is up and what is right is buried deep beneath the wrong. And for those of you who follow my second blog on Substack, you know we live here on earth, where some are headed to the City of God, while others live in the city of man. My creek for the moment is why can’t we sail through the city of man and do the work of the moral high ground. There are hints we can. So how do we claw our way back to the earth and bury the demons that do not want us to do what is right? And you do not have to believe in demons to see the upside down aspect of our world right now. I just ask you to open your eyes and realize change won’t happen until we get the courage to confront the demons of greed, power, lust for earthly things and more. There is nothing wrong with being successful, it is appreciating what opportunities you were given and allowing others to share in the beauty of what we are given.

Cheers

After fifty years the Democrats are starting to wake up

 

I am including a link to an article that says everything I have been saying for decades, maybe not in the same words, but generally speaking.

The democrats have been clueless for a long time. This article is couched that the Democrats have sucked up to Wall Street and more, yet overall it says the Democrats quit being Democrats and to me that is basically why I have been calling them clueless elitists. 

I am including the article for reference. Since I am a conservative I tend to fear too much government spending especially with the enormous debt we are carrying so I cannot jump on the policies in the article. Yet it is the Democrats actually trying to do something again and some of the ideas are workable if managed well.

Republicans whether Reagan, RINO or MAGA will immediately denounce these ideas because they are now incompetent when it comes to governing. That is the one talking point Democrats have had for years that is correct. Otherwise and this article calls it out indirectly neither party has cared for the vast majority of Americans for an extremely long time. The article even references how Trump won in 2016 by appealing to the working class in the rust belt. Of course that is well known history, yet people especially Democrats have glossed over that for years.

So have some people in the elite DC circles and elite press circles starting to wake up to what has been obvious for decades. We need new parties. On occasion I have said if either the Republicans or Democrats get it together and change then that would work too.

Apparently or maybe that may be happening if you read this article. I need to see more. Again as a conservative I would rework some of their ideas, but at least they are doing more than lip service and whining. They are putting some work into change.

We will see what happens. Maybe we can claw something together from the ashes of the Republican party that Trump is burning down. And finally go forward putting the people of this country first.

Whether liberal or conservative we need to get money out of politics which includes as the article mentions getting rid of super PACS and even more, stricter rules on lobbyists, (if you try to eliminate them you will get too many lawsuits around freedom of speech) and stop gerrymandering all together. That has done more to prop up the duopoly and stifled true representation of the people. Make the candidates earn their seat and we will get better governance and policy.

Here is the link:

This phony Democrat got blown out of the water — and that's terrifying for Trump | Opinion

Cheers