American Democracy, RIP

MAGA Republicans in their zeal to protect the Second Amendment, have forgotten there is an amendment that precedes it. For those in that group not good at math, we are talking about the First Amendment.

“The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (adopted in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights) prohibits the government from restricting five fundamental freedoms: freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. It protects against government censorship, allowing individuals to express opinions, practice religion, and assemble peacefully without fear of government punishment.”

When the United States government prohibits peaceful protest, arrests journalists covering these protests, bans books it doesn’t like, dictates to universities and other schools the curriculum they are allowed to teach, threatens the news media with financial ruin if it continues to publish or cover news it doesn’t condone, and actually kills people exercising their right of free speech, that means we no longer have a First Amendment.

When the courts are powerless to correct the lawless actions of an elected official, we no longer have an effective judicial branch of government. When the Congress, by lack of action, fails to use their power to enforce the rights guaranteed to its citizens, we no longer have an effective legislative branch of government.

Without either a judicial branch or a legislative branch of government, we are left with an authoritarian dictatorship. We need not fear the collapse of American democracy before our 250th birthday, that ship sailed during the Insurrection of January 6, 2021. That ship finally disappeared over the horizon on January 20, 2025, when Donald Trump granted blanket clemency to all people involved in the insurrection.

The American experiment in democracy had failed. When the founders outlined this novel, unproven system of self-governance in 1776, it would last 241 years before unravelling. On January 20, 2017, the architect of its demise would begin his task of removing those freedoms that got in his way. He spent four years chipping away at that democracy. His reelection in 2024 would send him back to complete his unfinished task. Democracy was doomed.

Today, with SS-like troops marching through our streets killing our citizens with reckless abandon and without repercussions, America’s 250th birthday celebration will be hollow and devoid of true patriotic emotion. The prideful songs of our once great nation will be but a funeral dirge for what could have been. It will be the job of future generations to see what they can build from the ashes of this failed experiment. Those of us who remember what it was like to live during the successful period of our American experiment, can only wish them well.

Chaos Theory

 

In the mid-sixties, the TV series Get Smart had an international spy organization known as KAOS, pronounced chaos. It represented the forces of evil designed to disrupt world peace and cause chaos. Today, we have a president who uses chaos for his own evil intent. Chaos is used as misdirection, much as a magician uses distraction to steer the audience’s attention away from what they are really trying to accomplish. Look here, not there. They manipulate focus to hide secret actions.

Trump tells the world that he is going to invade Greenland, no Iceland, no Greenland, but maybe not. He gets the two countries confused. As any grade-school student knows, Greenland is mostly covered in ice and Iceland is covered in lush green vegitation. It was Norwegian Viking, Erik the Red who named Greenland in 983 A.D., in a sneaky attempt to lure settlers to this new land. The trick worked and settlers in the first century were fooled into moving to the mostly ice-covered land. Donald Trump is still confused.

Like a kid who likes to blow things up just to see them blow up, we now have a president in control of the most powerful military power in the world with the same mindset. He is a lame duck president who cannot legally run again so his only restraint at this point is that he doesn’t want to lose the House in the midterms. If he loses the House, he faces legislative gridlock and aggressive legal scrutiny. He could possibly face impeachment but not removal. He has been impeached before and will not be worried beyond the claim of becoming the first president to be impeached three times.

It is chaos for chaos’ sake. Attack Venezuela. Threaten to annex Canada. Threaten to invade Columbia, Mexico, or Cuba. “Acquire” Greenland through any means possible. Abandon NATO. Use your secret police force to attack democratic strongholds in your own country. Sic the Justice Department on political leaders who you don’t like. Attack and threaten US schools and universities. Ignore the economy. Accept unearned trophies. Tear down the East Wing of the White House. Rename the Gulf of Mexico and arts centers on a whim. Impose arbitrary tariffs and make wild tariff threats to intimidate. The result, chaos.

Chaos in government, marked by instability, unpredictability, and dysfunctional decision-making, can have severe repercussions for the economy. When a government operates in a state of confusion and disorder, market confidence falters, leading to the potential loss of trillions in market value. This instability triggers significant volatility, making it difficult for investors and businesses to make decisions with any degree of certainty.

The creation of "radical uncertainty" in such an environment causes businesses to hesitate, freezing investment and stalling economic growth. Supply chains, which rely on predictability and stable policy, are also disrupted. As chaos persists, the overall economic climate becomes less conducive to constructive activity. Growth and stability suffer.

Trump couldn’t care less. If attention is on Greenland, nobody is talking about his involvement with pedophiles and his association with American financier, human trafficker, child sex offender, and serial rapist Jeffrey Epstein.

Full Circle

 Full Circle

In just 250 years these United States of America have come full circle. We’ve gone from George William Frederick to Donald John Trump. George William Frederick was aka King George III who ruled over Great Britain and Ireland and those new colonies we call America. King George III was also known as the Mad King who had recurrent and eventually permanent mental illness. Now America is under a new king, King Donald I. Our second king appears to also suffer from mental illness and will likely be known as America’s second Mad King.

When the new colonies declared their independence in July 1776, that document listed twenty-seven grievances against the British king. In that list it was charged that, “He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.” It remains to be seen how King Donald I will fare with historians once he has been dethroned.

Unlike our current King Donald I, King George III was a chaste and religious man who never cheated on his wife. His early life found him to be of good moral character. His current counterpart is by all accounts a moral leper. King Donald’s claim that the only things controlling him are his morals means nothing stands in his way. Not even our country. We almost made it to our 250th birthday as a constitutional republic and a representative democracy. We are becoming a constitutional monarchy just as Great Britain was under King George III.

"Haben Sie Ihre Papiere bei sich?" “Do you have your papers with you?”

 "Haben Sie Ihre Papiere bei sich?"

The title above translates from German as, “Do you have your papers with you?” In Nazi Germany of the 1930s and 1940s, such documentation would be checked to focus on a person’s identity, residency, compliance with racial laws, racial status, political loyalty, and proper registration, especially for Jews or those suspected of disloyalty.

The movie classic Casablanca opens with a scene where Nazi officers search a hotel for refugees. The first line of the film is spoken by a police officer to a civilian he stopped on the street: "May we see your papers, please?" The civilian produces a document, but a second police officer declares that it "expired three weeks ago" and begins to tell the civilian he is under arrest. The civilian attempts to flee the police but a gunshot is heard and the civilian falls to the ground.

This enforcement of laws and the checking of identity papers was known as Ausweiskontrolle. It was carried out by both uniformed and plainclothes security agencies. The Geheime Staatspolizei aka Gestapo were the secret state police and were the political police force of Nazi Germany. There was also the SS or Schutzstaffel who wore paramilitary uniforms with white armbands. They could demand to see the papers of anyone anywhere. They were Hitler’s enforcers.

The goal was control, ensuring everyone fit the Nazi racial and political framework, with documentation used to categorize, target, or allow passage, often leading to harsh consequences if papers were missing or deemed "incorrect".

Today in America, under the guise of correcting years of lax immigration policy under an outdated, underfunded, and overwhelmed system, immigrants and citizens alike are being treated like the people in Nazi controlled areas of the early twentieth century. Armed and masked secret police with Gestapo-like tactics are now roaming our streets and demanding to “see our papers.”

They are doing this without probable cause. Their justification is mainly that, by using racial profiling and targeting areas where immigrants are known to travel, shop, and work, they can stop, question, and detain anyone who does not comply with their demands or who cannot provide documentation that satisfies them. Just as Trump is quoted on saying that his power is limited by, "My own morality. My own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me," so too, it seems, the power of ICE is limited only by individual officer morality.

In their lust to fill quotas they will gather up U.S. born citizens, naturalized citizens, legal foreign-born citizens of other countries, and some people who are undocumented. Some end up the victims of violent arrests, detention, incarceration, and in rare instances they are shot, wounded, or killed.

I have seen news reports where over 20-armed ICE and other federal agents and numerous armored carrier vehicles were used to arrest a single non-violent immigrant with no criminal record in his home. How much did this operation cost for a single person in these situations? Estimates vary widely but can run tens of thousands of dollars. The ICE estimate is $17,121 per person, though most calculate that figure is much higher. If you factor in salaries, logistics, detention, transportation, and court costs, most estimates are around $25k per person.

The ICE budget went from $3.3B in 2003 to $9.6B in 2024. In 2025 it went to $28.7B with Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. ICE is the center of the new “Deportation-Industrial Complex” with over $170B in its budget for the next four years.

As I watch the nightly news, I find that I can only take a few minutes before I have to change channels or shut it off. I find it too upsetting to watch as armed masked goons, authorized by the President of the United States, walk through communities and drag citizens from their cars and out of their homes and away from their jobs in handcuffs, if they are lucky enough to not get shot and killed, just so this group of marauders can “check their papers,” and make their quotas.

I asked AI to compare ICE with the Nazi SS and it came back with: “Comparisons between the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the SS (Schutzstaffel) or Gestapo of Nazi Germany are a subject of significant political debate, historical analysis, and public controversy. Historians and commentators point to both sharp differences and concerning parallels, primarily as a warning against authoritarian drift.” They went on to clarify with, “ICE's operations do not involve genocide.” Well that makes me feel so much better.

I’ve Seen A Lot in Eighty Years

My “history” goes back to 1945, with valid real memories beginning in the 50s. It was a time of I Like Ike stickers on my Radio Flyer wagon. I see where that classic wagon now sells at Walmart for $208. An AI search tells me that my parents likely paid under $10 for it back then.

I grew up with the racial segregation of the South. There were “Colored” water fountains and restrooms and the schools were fully segregated through my high school graduation in 1963. The gay community was still closeted and risked legal consequences if they “came out.”

We got many things wrong back then, but we slowly evolved to enjoy the promises of our Constitution even if we had to fight our way through at times. Free speech was constantly threatened. We had both the HUAC (House on Unamerican Activities Committee) and Senator Joe McCarthy with his Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Both entities thrived within the self-induced paranoia of the Red Scare.

While McCarthy focused on the State Department and the military, the HUAC directed its ire at Hollywood and unions. This period of ruthless investigations, suspicion, and paranoia was branded as McCarthyism. The HUAC started early in the 20th century fighting Germans and Nazi propaganda and would evolve to focus on investigating suspected communists. In 1946, they considered investigating the KKK but declined with one white supremacist member stating, “After all, the KKK is an old American institution.”

Fast forward to the present and we find that, while we have evolved a bit, some things never change. Joe McCarthy is now our president in the form of Donald Trump. While McCarthy had his “commies,” Trump has his Mexicans and Muslims.

Both men learned early on that allegations need not be consistent, accurate, or founded in fact. McCarthy claimed that he had the names of 205 State Department employees who were members of the Communist Party and probable spies. Trump would have you believe that America was overrun with immigrants, most of whom were active gang members involved in heinous crimes.

McCarthyism has given way to Trumpism. Their common tool, fear. Both McCarthy and Trump learned much of their trade from attorney Roy Cohn. Their mentor had a three-dimensional strategy: “1. Never settle, never surrender. 2. Counterattack, counter-sue immediately. 3. No matter what happens, no matter how deeply into the muck you get, claim victory and never admit defeat.”

As demagogs go, Trump has McCarthy beat. Trump’s ability to arouse the populace against the “elites,” scapegoating minority groups, exaggerating their danger to stoke fear, and lying for emotional effect to discourage deliberation, has no equal in modern memory. Since Trump is a billionaire and a member of the “elites,” he has redefined the bad guys as wealthy woke liberals.

McCarthy died in 1957, at the age of 48. He had been censured by the Senate and was an alcoholic who was also addicted to morphine. At the time of his death, he had declined physically and emotionally.

Trump turns 80 this year, so for a short time he and I will be the same age. He has floated the idea that he wants to celebrate both the nation’s 250th birthday and his 80th at the White House with UFC fighters brawling on the White House lawn. One of the scheduled headliners is Conor McGregor who was found liable for sexual assault in 2018 in Ireland.

Both McCarthy and Trump excelled in keeping people angry at one another to distract from their own failures and lack of progress. McCarthy’s exploitation using fear prompted his downfall. It remains to be seen what line Trump will cross that will end his reign. Also uncertain is the ultimate national cost of his delusion and cognitive decline.

Doublethink; Don’t Believe Your Lyin’ Eyes

 

Introduction:  The following is based on the barrage of video evidence and news reporting of a recent (Renée Nicole Good occurred on January 7, 2026) event. I make no judgement of the officer involved in the shooting. He was ex-military (Indianna National Guard deployed to Iraq Nov 2004-Nov 2005) who had served in government/law enforcement almost twenty years. He was in a similar incident in June of 2025, where he was dragged by a car and injured. His actions, motivations, and training in de-escalation are unknown. I will wait until after the evidence can be weighed from all sides before judgement. The accompanying graphic includes statements being made by some on the right who have already reached their final conclusions.  That this government has placed so many tactical military personnel in our civilian populations on the pretext of clearing our cities of violent immigrant criminals, is the underlying cause of this incident.  It was bound to happen and will happen again.

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Doublethink; Don’t Believe Your Lyin’ Eyes

Winston Smith, the protagonist in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, worked in the Ministry of Truth rewriting history. The term doublethink was defined as the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and accept both as true. In Orwell’s novel, in his world of Oceana, doublethink involved knowing both the real truth and the Party lie and required subjugating the truth and promoting the lie. Party loyalty was its own reward.

Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948. It was published in 1949, and Orwell died in January 1950. He wrote of a time he knew based on his observations of the second world war brought on by totalitarian regimes. The main difference between totalitarianism and authoritarianism is just a matter of degree. As the name would suggest, totalitarianism wants total control of all aspects of human life including culture, family, and personal beliefs. Authoritarians will allow some latitude of autonomy in non-conflicting areas outside politics.

Seventy-seven years after 1984 was written, we find ourselves at the mercy of an authoritarian with some in his camp dreaming of adding family and religion to the mandate. While there are many examples of our new dystopia, the Trump Insurrection of 2021, stands as a prime example of the doublethink mentality. We are asked to ignore the hours of video evidence and testimony of the event as investigated and documented, and to believe the contrarian opinion that it was a peaceful demonstration.

Fast forward five years and we have a second glaring dystopian event with government explanations contradicting what we can clearly see with our own eyes. We are told to ignore the video statement that recorded the last words of Renee Good to the man who would shoot her to death, "That's fine, dude, I'm not mad. I'm not mad at any of you". We are told to ignore the video, actually shot by the ICE officer, who then put down his personal cellphone to grab his sidearm to fire three shots into her car killing her.

As is typical with any authoritarian regime, Donald Trump then went on to push the new Big Lie. In a Truth Social post he stated, “The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense." He went on to say, “…it is hard to believe he (ICE officer) is still alive, but is now recovering in a hospital.”

Trump said these things in reference to the Good shooting after reportedly watching a video clip. His statement would have had some credibility if only he had made it last June when this same officer was dragged by a different car and severely injured. In that event he had shot a man in the head, face and shoulder with his Taser through a broken rear window and then he was dragged a distance before falling loose.

Kristi Noem said, “This was an act of domestic terrorism.” She said this before she had conducted any investigation and without all the facts. She certainly hadn’t seen all the video footage from the event as more is surfacing now.

The ICE officer, Jonathan Ross, left the scene of this active shooting event in an SUV with other officers before any investigation was completed. He had just killed a civilian and left the scene. There were “medics on the scene” according to a video statement made to a doctor who offered his assistance and was turned down. If officer Ross was “seriously injured,” was he seen by their medics? Was he treated at a hospital? What were his injuries? From the video available at this writing, nothing shows him being injured.

The wagons have circled. The spin doctors are spinning. The doublethink begins.

Orwell was the unwitting harbinger to the era of the MAGA Party and Donald Trump, its leader. His experience was with the era of the Nazi Party and Adolph Hitler. He predicted a time when another leader would push the Big Lie and promote doublethink.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth’s centre. With the feeling that he was speaking to O’Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote: Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”—George Orwell.

“Two plus two is whatever I say it is.”—Donald Trump

 

 

 

 

Tax the Rich

I regularly see, un-wealthy individuals, make statements to the effect that everyone should be taxed equally and that the progressive income tax structure is “un-American.” It’s true that the old progressive income tax structure saw the top tier paying 91% in 1963. It was dropped in 1964 to 70%. Then it was Republican Ronald Reagan who oversaw that 70% figure dropped even further to 28% by 1988.

Reagan did this without curbing spending, in fact he sharply increased spending on defense which contributed to a significant rise in the national debt. So, during the past 60 years, with the uber-wealthy paying less and less in income taxes, the national debt rose and the government was forced to begin to look at other places to save money.

Republicans went after healthcare and social programs, but never defense spending to help. Today, the government is shutdown while Republicans make their case to blame the poor for our dilemma. Democrats have largely tried to protect these safety nets for the lower classes suggesting that we raise the top tier tax rates to help cover the deficit while protecting the non-wealthy. These protections would cover Republicans, Democrats, Independants, everybody.

I will have to admit that I had a hard time justifying an income tax structure that took 91% of a person’s income. This rate did not kick in, however, until that person’s income hit $200,000 ($2M in today’s dollars). Still, such a rate would seem on the surface to be unconscionable. That is, of course, unless you realize that the uber-wealthy don’t actually subject themselves to much that is covered as “income subject to income taxes.”

While I would never hold myself out as a tax expert, it has long been accepted as fact that “tax dodges” are available to the wealthy but not for others. To try to understand how they do this I posed the question to the Google AI engine and came up with a rather detailed explanation. If you are curious, I have included that response below my writing.

Now, with the explanation of how the wealthy avoid paying their fair share, and knowing that hitting them hard with higher rates for what little they are not able to protect, I have a different attitude. I now say, “Tax the bastards.” We could then afford to feed the less fortunate among us, provide them with proper housing and healthcare, and join the rest of the civilized world.

The AI explanation of how the wealthy avoid taxes is provided below.

Yes, wealthy individuals often structure their finances to receive income or access capital in ways that legally avoid or minimize taxes, using strategies and incentives written into the U.S. Tax Code.

Key methods include:

1. The "Buy, Borrow, Die" Strategy

The primary way the ultra-rich avoid income and capital gains taxes is by not selling their appreciating assets, thus not "realizing" an income event.

• Buy Assets: They invest in assets like stocks and real estate that grow significantly in value over time.

• Borrow Against Assets: Instead of selling, they use their appreciated assets as collateral for personal loans to fund their lifestyles or new investments. Since loan proceeds are not considered income by the IRS, the cash they access is tax-free.

• Die and Pass Assets: When the individual dies, their heirs inherit the assets with a "stepped-up" cost basis, meaning the asset's value is reset to its current market value at the time of death. This legally erases any capital gains tax that would have been owed on the appreciation during the original owner's lifetime.

2. Structuring Income as Capital Gains

Wealthy business owners often take minimal or no salary and receive compensation through stock options or profit distributions, which are generally taxed at a lower long-term capital gains rate (0% to 25% for long-term gains) rather than the higher ordinary income tax rates (up to 37% for top earners).

3. Strategic Real Estate Investments

The real estate market offers numerous tax advantages:

• Depreciation: Property owners can deduct a building's cost over time through depreciation, even if the property is actually increasing in value, which can offset other taxable income.

• 1031 Exchanges: This allows an investor to defer capital gains taxes indefinitely on the sale of a property by reinvesting the proceeds into a "like-kind" property.

• Deductions: Significant expenses like mortgage interest, property taxes, and maintenance costs can be deducted.

4. Charitable Donations

Donations to qualified charities and private foundations provide large, immediate tax deductions that can significantly lower a wealthy person's taxable income. Donating appreciated stock or real estate allows them to avoid capital gains tax on the asset and still receive a deduction for its full market value.

5. Converting Personal Assets to Business Expenses

The ultra-rich often place luxury items like private jets and vacation homes under a corporate structure. This allows them to deduct operational costs, maintenance, and depreciation as legitimate business expenses, even with some personal use within IRS guidelines.

6. Utilizing Trusts and Offshore Holdings

Complex trust structures can be used for estate planning and wealth preservation, helping to shield assets from gift and estate taxes when passed to heirs. Offshore accounts and holding companies can also be used to defer or reduce tax exposure in high-tax jurisdictions.

Summary

These strategies, while legal, demonstrate how the wealthy can accumulate vast fortunes and live off their wealth without generating the type of traditional "income" (like wages) that is heavily taxed for most Americans. This results in the richest Americans often paying a lower effective tax rate than average taxpayers.

Good Boy, Good Boy

Do the Chinese, Russians, Qataris, South Koreans, and other foreign governments have Trump’s number? It would seem so. He is like a large cartoon dog. You know, like Scooby Doo, Pluto, or Goofy. Just scratch him behind his ears, give him a treat, and say, “Good boy, good boy.”

South Korea’s Lee Jae Myung gave Trump an ornate crown. The Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, gave Trump a 747 “flying palace.” The former Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe gave Trump a set of gold-plated golf clubs that included a gold driver valued at $250K. An eight-foot tall painting of Trump was a gift from the president of El Salvador and it went “missing” until its discovery in an electrical room at a Trump Doral hotel.

Yes, give him something shiny, preferably gold, stroke his ego, and Trump will give you what you want. Anything, just ask. As long as what you ask for doesn’t cost Trump anything, even national secrets are up for grabs.

Groceries and Affordability

The two main words in the title are new to some as they seemingly didn’t exist before they were “discovered” by Donald Trump. He declared them to be beautiful words and thus they became part of the lexicon of American life. These words were certainly unfamiliar to King Trump as it is doubtful he ever set foot in a grocery store before he needed to pose in one for a photo op. Trump even explained his newfound word to the United Arab Emirates president saying, "We have a term 'groceries.' It's an old term but it means basically what you're buying, food, it's a pretty accurate term but it's an old-fashioned sound but groceries are down, costs are down, eggs are down..."

After finding his new beautiful word “groceries” and getting the desired interested but incredulous stares from his audience, he later mused, "Likewise, an old-fashioned term that we use -- groceries. I used it on the campaign— It's such an old-fashioned term, but a beautiful term. Groceries. It sort of says 'a bag with different things in it.' Groceries went through the roof and I campaigned on that, I talked about the word groceries for a lot." Like a kid with a new toy, his new word got much attention.

Trump’s musing about “groceries” was like he had just triggered a sensory perception of something from his childhood. It would be like Marcel Proust’s novel, In Search of Time, where the taste of a madeleine cake dipped in tea triggers a powerful memory. Groceries in this moment were his Proust madeleine. Perhaps he envisioned one of his father’s servants returning from one of those “grocery places” with paper sacks filled with treats for him.

Oh, to be a “fantastic voyager” like those in the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage who were miniaturized and traveled inside a scientist’s bloodstream. Oh, if only we could see what is happening inside that self-described big, beautiful brain of his. Words like “groceries” and “affordability” would be floating around like ghosts waiting to be discovered by their master.

Another of his discoveries is the word affordability. This too would be a foreign term for a billionaire born with a gold spoon in his mouth who eats off the finest china and defecates in a gold toilet. He recently said of his fellow Republicans, “You know, they have this new word called ‘affordability’ and they don’t talk about it enough.”

The term affordable is foreign because, to him, everything is affordable. Take his new White House ballroom. It is especially affordable when you don’t pay your contractors. Trump learned this early on in his days in New York real estate. Don’t pay and everything is affordable.

Hearing that people are complaining that things aren’t as “affordable” as he has been claiming, he tells them on November 6, “Every price is down.” He brings up the example of a Thanksgiving dinner at Walmart being less expensive while failing to point out that it is only less expensive because the dinner is smaller than the previous year and now uses generic Walmart items instead of name brands. He claims that gas prices are down to $3 a gallon now. That may be true, but gas was at $3.08 in January when he took office, hardly cause for celebration.

Don’t tell Trump, but utility costs have jumped 12% in the past year. Grocery prices have risen 3% with meat prices up 8% and coffee is up 19%. If you are a CEO billionaire whose income who has seen triple digit percentage increases, this is not a problem. If you are a full-time worker living paycheck to paycheck on wages that haven’t had a raise since 2009, problem.

Affordable is a relative term. If you and your relatives have always been wealthy, the word affordable is not in your vocabulary. Likewise, if you are poor, the term affordable has an entirely different meaning with consequences.

In a typo-ridden social media post during the recent November election Trump stated, “If affordability is you issue, VOTE REPUBLICAN! Energy costs, as and example, are plummeting - Getting close to 2 Dollar a gallon gasoline. When energy goes down, everything else follows, and it has!!!”

When all else fails, lie. As stated earlier, the national average cost of gas per gallon is $3.08. A month ago it was $3.13. A year ago at this time it was nearly $3.11. If you spend your earthbound travel time in the backseat of a limo, the price of gas is as affordable as a bag of groceries. Remember, the word groceries means, 'a bag with different things in it.' So says our "very stable genius" who claims to have aced his cognitive test for dementia.

Technology Challenges for Seniors

Even with a tech background and more skills in this area than many people my age, I still find it increasingly difficult to navigate our changing tech world. Yesterday, after a phone update “improved” things, I could no longer access the Amazon app on my phone. They wanted to verify it was me through Google.

I followed the instructions on screen and it went to my Google account where it asked me for my pin. I don’t remember ever using a Google pin. I have a password, but no 6-digit pin. I use Google for a prime password manager and it regularly fills in requests for those damned passwords from other accounts that demand them. It quite logically wouldn’t give me my Google pin.

I have a second password manager and I asked it if I had a Google pin. Nope. I did a quick lookup, and the instructions told me step by step what to do. The problem being that those instructions were written before several software changes revamped the menus. I was left to try to figure out where they moved things.

Eventually, I got to where to get a new pin I had to enter my pin. It was a Catch-22 and Groundhog Day double feature. I went round and round and kept waiting to hear, "OK, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cold out there today!"

Somehow, don’t ask me how, I managed to create a six-digit pin for Google. I was then asked if I wanted to add two step verification, I declined. Two-step is for dancing, not computers. I will use two-step verification for bank accounts but not for passwords and stuff for things like access to my Fitbit readings.

Now I can get back to my online shopping. I just hope I can remember where I parked my car.

I can only imagine what other seniors encounter in this age of lightspeed “progress” where I daily travel through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Twilight Zone!"

Trump Provides New Tax Breaks for Lower Income Americans

While the headline topic above is just a joke (most of you would know that), what really happened will come as no surprise. Donald Trump and the Trump family have been in real estate for three generations. That same family group has recently invested heavily in the crypto market.

[insert drumroll here]

Which two industries just received hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks awarded by the Trump-controlled Treasury Department and IRS. If you just blurted out real estate and crypto, give yourself a kewpie doll. Yes, using a loophole, the Treasury has enacted unlegislated tax cuts that reward these two industries. This recent cut to the Alternative Minimum Tax (designed to keep large corporations and the uber-wealthy paying at least some tax) is in addition to the $4 trillion package of cuts signed into law in July.

Those earlier cuts allowed multinationals to avoid taxes by, among other things, claiming duplicate losses in multiple countries at once. These recent actions will contribute hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal deficit and will be in addition to the trillions of dollars from the July billionaire bonanza.

As the New York Times reported recently, “A holy grail of tax planning is figuring out a deduction that businesses can claim on their tax return — but one that they don’t report to investors, which would dent their profits, potentially hurt their stock price and thus depress compensation paid to executives.” The minimum tax also hit the crypto market who sought a special “carve out”. Trump to the rescue. As a new crypto industry participant, he has been kind to crypto.

How does any of this impact the “little guy”? To quote Tennessee Earnie Ford, “Another day older and deeper in debt.”

Convenient Christianity; Jesus 12.0

As head-scratchers go, the appeal of Donald Trump to a large segment of the Christian faith is truly puzzling. While it shouldn’t surprise me, I still find it fascinating. That there is some hypocrisy in religion is perhaps understandable, but Donald Trump? I mean if ever there was an anti-Christ, he checks all the boxes. While we can’t see horns (he has them filed daily when they attach his hair), and he keeps his pointy tail wrapped up in his Depends, the rest of his satanic persona is in full view. His brimstone scented after shave is also a clue.

First, it is my observation that there are “true believers” who follow and practice what they preach in terms of their chosen flavor of Christianity. These are mostly well intentioned folks who may be swayed by deception and false prophets.

Secondly, there are many “Convenient Christians” who only use the pretense of religious piety when it suits them. For many in this latter category, Christianity is their Trump card (pardon the association) when logic and facts are running against what they want to believe. The thing I can’t explain, however, is that there are MAGA-Trump diehards in both groups.

I am restricting my comments to Christianity here as it is the religion with which I have the most experience. I can assume other faiths will have their hypocrites as well. One of the more useful tools within the Christian arsenal is the simple test, WWJD, or What Would Jesus Do. When faced with a decision of consequence, Christians can ask that simple question to find guidance. It is here that I use the Jesus 12.0 analogy. This is like Windows 11 or Mac OS 26 as a reference to the most current version. I will assume here that there have been at least eleven previous versions of Jesus where the answer to the WWJD question would get different responses. The number assignment is figurative and has no other meaning.

If you back a Convenient Christian into an ethical corner where facts and logic, no matter how twisted, don’t support their position, you will likely hear some iteration of, “Well, I’m a Christian and that’s what I believe.” It is the end of all discussion. It is like when your mother said, “Because I said so.” It is here that Christian nationalism rears its political head as something other than a religious concept.

For Christians, to align themselves with the patently amoral Donald Trump, is to twist and tie their core beliefs into a Gordian Knot. If I had said he was immoral it would have inferred that he knowingly acts against moral principles, but Trump is amoral as he is without morals or any sense of right and wrong.

Examples of his deviancy and acceptance abound. It was that deeply evangelical Christian and widely acclaimed champion of moral virtue, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who chose to attend the New York city trial of Donald Trump the day of Stormy Daniels’ testimony. Donald Trump was before the court charged with 34 felonies related to hush money payments made to keep secret the porn star Ms. Daniels’ tryst with Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel room. Mike Johnson told the press, “President Trump has done nothing wrong.”

Given the proximity of the hush money trial one can assume Mike Johnson was referencing that case and not the previous one where Trump was convicted of sexual abuse and defamation of E. Jean Carroll. I would imagine his proclamation would fit either example of depravity.

“We love you, Jesus, and we also love our country. And we thank you that you have raised up a man, Donald J. Trump, to be a warrior for the word of God and the wisdom that comes from God"--Jack Graham, Baptist minister.

The above quote is typical of the hypocrisy of the religious Right. I would say it betrays Christian morality, but this assumes there is such a thing anymore. I’m sure they can find justification somewhere within the malleable sacred text of a $60 Trump Bible. The interpretation depends on the interpreter so, let the cherry picking begin. It’s time to ride the enthusiastic wave of Trump’s new morality to advance personal agendas and to secure power and position at any cost.

The MAGA faithful are self-proclaimed champions of moral virtue and will tell all within earshot how they despise pornography, marriage equality, and reproductive freedom. They will, however, provide all sorts of latitude to explain away the sins of their new Messiah. It would seem even pedophilia is worthy of a free pass. I would imagine that the Epstein files are being moved to an undisclosed warehouse alongside Jimmy Hoffa’s body and the Ark of the Covenant. While there has been no release of proof of active participation by the chosen one in the rape of minors, his association with and open support of individuals who have been tried and convicted of such acts, should be condemned.

That he continues to support Ghislaine Maxwell, even suggesting a full pardon, should be a “bridge too far.” What does she know that has the man out on a limb with a saw? Why would he risk even the perception of supporting a convicted pedophile? He certainly won’t be able to claim that he doesn’t know her. He has already used that one with the pardon of Changpeng Zhao, the convicted money launderer with significant Trump family business ties.

No, I will forever find conflict with the evangelical adoration of Donald Trump. The Christian brand will be forever tainted with the moral dirt cloud emanating from this Pigpen-like character. While Jesus 1.0 promoted love of fellow man, this new Messiah spews hate. He mocks the disabled. He is prejudiced against immigrants of all kind calling them animals and vermin. He will, however, grant exceptions for beautiful immigrant females or any immigrant who is wealthy and willing to “spread the wealth” in his direction. He has committed sexual assaults without remorse. He seeks revenge and retribution on his proclaimed enemies and virtually anyone who disagrees with him or gets in his way.

I, for one, like the old Jesus 1.0 and wouldn’t mind having a beer or glass of wine with him. This new Messiah that many of the Religious Right now follow, should take a walk due east from Mar a Lago. I assume he can still walk on water.

It’s Always Nazi Week

In the sitcom, Two and a Half Men, Alan tells Charlie that Jake will be spending more time living with them. When Charlie balks, Alan tells him to just give it a chance. Charlie replies, “That’s what Poland said about the Germans.” Alan then asks, “Been watching the History Channel again?” Charlie responds, “It’s Nazi week.” Alan, “It’s always Nazi week.”

I recently wrote about my confessed confusion with the evangelical religious right and the MAGA faithful’s alignment with Donald Trump given his personal history and current actions. Another conundrum for me is this group’s proclaimed support of Israel and concurrent affinity for American Nazis. I know, the enemy of my enemies is my friend, but Nazis? I can’t philosophically wrap my head around how a group can support Jews and Nazis. I seem to remember that, not long ago, there was some conflict between those groups.

Recently, avid MAGA champion Tucker Carlson, provided an extended platform for Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist commentator, Holocaust denier, and antisemitic firebrand. Not only did Fuentes underscore his usual criticism of Israel and its leaders, but Carlson also never challenged him on his praise for Adolph Hitler and his regular calls to execute “perfidious Jews.”

Another MAGA stalwart, The Heritage Foundation, after limited commentary regarding Carlson and the Fuentes interview disappeared from their website, some conjectured that the Foundation might try to break ties with him. On the contrary, Foundation president Kevin Roberts reaffirmed his support for Carlson. He argued that, while he condemns antisemitism, Carlson should not be “cancelled” for allowing an antisemite a platform. The Heritage Foundation was willing to walk the tightrope of being pro-Israel while still allowing an antisemite, holocaust denier, and pro-Hitler fanatic, a megaphone with which to promote “another view.”

This stance caused almost spontaneous projectile vomiting from the MAGA elite in Washington. Ted Cruz used the moment to condemn Roberts’ position and question why conservatives weren’t actively denouncing Fuentes. Mitch McConnell jumped on the flaming honey wagon and expressed his dissatisfaction with Roberts. Only then did Roberts break out his fiddle to attempt his rendition of the Potomac two-step with a long explanatory post on X. Carlson then joined in and expressed surprise that Roberts’ position drew such a heated reaction. Yadda, yadda, free speech, yadda, yadda.

This all comes at a time when the MAGA right was already reeling from the pro-Hitler and “gassing their opponents” remarks made in private group chats by leaders of the Young Republicans. The shift away from Reagan neoconservatism toward a more Trumpian attitude of allowing anyone into the MAGA house of mirrors who hates the left, is now complete. Apparently the MAGA red hats don’t clash with the red of the Nazi flag as long as the left is their common enemy.