Rows and rows of barren desks bereft of any sign of meaningful labor, save for monitors and keyboards. Somewhere, somehow, it was one of those superstars-in-their-own-minds types who person such desks who “accidentally” hit the “kill switch” that among other things blanked out millions of Amazon orders off those monitor screens this past week. Amazon’s version of a disposable streaming service—its AWS cloud “service” that it tries to claim isn’t participating as badly as other AI and cloud servicers in environmental destruction in the use of those gigantic data centers which themselves provide a relative handful of jobs to “monitor” once they are completed.
But this is what happens when you allow yourself to be dependent on other people or entities to store data or entertainment instead of on your own computer or on video disc: when they are “down,” it is you who is “out.”
Anyways, I would like to say that my life has been “normal,” but that is only in comparison to some of the people we might call “vagrants” who seem to have no “life” beyond that of simply “surviving.” How this is done is a matter of “work ethic”; for example. “finding” objects that have no apparent owner at the moment—like, say, a child’s bicycle, or a cell phone or even a laptop computer. Heck, look at an ethical and moral vagrant like Texas AG Ken Paxton, “finding” a one-thousand dollar pen at the metal detector in the same courthouse he was being charged with securities fraud and bribery (but not apparently, common, ordinary theft):
Such people may hang about and scope out an apartment complex where the residents are unfamiliar with their “neighbors” on their own floors or even in the room next door or across the hall, and take little interest in who slips through when they enter or leave entrances that are supposed to be secure. Subsequent “found” items may be traced to, say, a shelter run by Catholic Community Services, where the employees apparently would prefer to overlook the fact that they are sheltering thieves, because, you know, it is the “Christian” thing to do.
Of course for police, even being informed of where to find “found” items to aid them in following up on police reports is pointless, because such reports (even when the value of the stolen items is “felony” level) is just another number on their quota sheet; “solving” a crime is less important than simply adding it to a list when it comes time to ask for budget increases.
Of course sometimes people forget the lessons they learned from past mistakes (I’m implying something from the above commentary)—and most of the time they don’t learn from other people’s mistakes. Still, sometimes when we speak of “mistakes” it has more to do with “regret” about “possibilities” than anything that could be actually “changed,” since “foresight” is usually only recognized in “hindsight.” Furthermore, what at the time may seem a horrible thing actually prevented something even worse from happening (I’m not implying that is the case today, of course).
For example, I spent the first four years of my adult life in the U.S. Army, and having never taken leave in all that time I was owed what back then was a considerable sum of back pay when my enlistment was over. And so after spending two years in West Germany and then sent to the desert wastes of Fort Hood, Texas I headed out to the bright new climes of Los Angeles to find fame and fortune. Well, actually I didn’t believe anything like that was going to happen, but I thought LA was as cool a place to go as any, with all that sunshine, the ocean, the “stars.”
To make a short story no longer than it needs to be, I met a new “friend” on a Greyhound bus who told me he was headed to LA too. This individual (who was white) also told me that he was leaving Texas in a hurry because he and another man had left behind a pickup truck at an unoccupied house they were in the process of removing items from when the police arrived. He didn’t know what happened to his accomplice, but he managed to make like a jackrabbit and wind-up on the same bus as I. I told him my story and that I had some money, and he told me that he could “help me out.” Fast forward a few days later and I was out on the streets of LA, walking anywhere in a daze, looking for a place I could just lay down and contemplate how I was going to kill myself.
I eventually found an abandoned school house to just lay down inside and drift off into the next world. “Unfortunately” I awoke the next morning to the sound of birds chirping and with a new plan—or rather the old plan, the one that gave me my first taste of “normal” life to begin with: I found the nearest Army recruitment office, told them my story, and the recruiters were only too happy to help me out of my present problem if it filled their quota of recruits. So instead of killing myself, I eventually somehow moved on enough to earn a college degree and even reach retirement age without spending any time in jail. Of course I still make mistakes of trusting the wrong people, but at least I was motivated to purchase a new laptop which always “excites” me enough to get off my fundament and start writing again.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, however, that people keep making mistakes when they should have known better, such as electing Trump in 2024. Yet there they are, insisting on convincing themselves it is merely “naïve” for Mike Johnson to claim that he believes that Trump only wants the DOJ to hand him $230 million as a “refund” in order to give it to “charity”? Don’t we know that Trump sees himself as the only “charity” worth giving to? Gimme, gimme, gimme. That’s what this overblown baby wants from you and your tax money. And he has the nerve to deny healthcare and food assistance to people who he and his billionaire friends have cheated for their own oligarchic benefit?
So maybe this money is in fact to be a “refund” on his legal bills? The results of his legal representation suggest that (besides being guilty as hell) he employed the “cheapest” but hottest-looking legal help he could find, and as they say, you get what you pay for (at least he could jack-off at night for free imagining how “hot” those Barbie lawyers like Halligan and Habba—to him anyways—are).
But it is suspected here…
… that Trump has something else in mind to do with this personal boondoggle: to force the American taxpayer to pay what he repeatedly claimed that he is "personally" paying for: the complete destruction of the East Wing of the White House to make way for a massive, pointless “ballroom” whose only purpose is to massage Trump’s equally pointless egomania. Trump has always engaged in destruction, cruelty and violence for the pure enjoyment of it, and in this case purely because he only wants what he can call “his” own “White House”—which according to Steve Bannon (who is a convicted felon himself) there is a “plan” to insure that in 2028 Trump has a chance to brag that he died in his “own house.” Of course by then Trump will likely be seen as a future subject of a documentary of a man whose mind is decaying into dementia in real time on national television.
So what’s in this for working people in need? The September jobs figures have still not come out yet, but are expected to be sluggish. Yet Trump gleefully points to new numbers that claim that in the last quarter the economy saw "explosive" growth. But for whom? For those people who received trillions in tax cuts? For the rich who we are told accounted for a shocking 50 percent of consumer spending? For an economy built on the continuing growth in income inequality? When inflation is rising and jobs are uncertain?
So it shouldn't indicate a "disconnect" when in a new poll The Hill reports that “Just 38 percent of respondents said they approve of the president’s handling of the economy, while 57 percent disapproved and 5 percent did not provide an opinion.” Yet 88 percent of Republicans “approve” of it. It begs the question if they even know what they are “approving” of. Doesn’t Trump “hear” those “other” people? No, he only hears that 88 percent of Republicans who believe if we get rid of all the “illegals” and cut imports to nothing from tariffs everything will be just as “great” as Trump claims, or at least “someday” maybe.
Trump of course does have his “priorities” that we might at first glance view as “necessary,” before we realize what his true motivations are. Certainly he wants to insure that the military personnel who are invading American cities and engaging in war crimes are “compensated,” legally or not. CNN is reporting that during the current government shutdown, which Trump seeks to use for his own purposes since “negotiation” on equal terms has never been his “style,” an unidentified “donor” or donors is “giving away” $130 million to pay military personnel.
Now, Newsweek is listing the names of Democrats who voted against paying the military, like that is supposed to “shame” them? The U.S. military in literal murder on the high seas, thrust into American cities to intimidate and threaten U.S. citizens. I don’t give a damn if they get paid or not to do that—better that they not get paid at all if they don’t have a problem with committing crimes against the Constitution or international law.
But this “donation” to continue to fund potentially criminal acts against civilians is in violation (what else is “new” with this administration) of the Antideficiency Act, which states “that private donations cannot be used to offset a lapse in appropriations” or to be used to increase already approved funding for programs without Congressional approval. Of course Trump has been busy breaking the law with the help of the OMB director Russell Vought to illegally transfer funding from the needy to those they decide are “needy” at the moment, like Trump’s ICE storm troopers.
Of course the Trump House and the federal budget are not the only things of personal use. The crypto currency bubble has been gassed up by the Trump clan to inflate its own wealth without any need for business acumen, since easily conned people are willing to believe that Trump isn’t as dumb as he looks or talks, because the power of the presidency can be abused to change reality. But here in another story 2 that seems to have escaped the corporate-controlled media’s attention, the crypto bubble may be about to burst into a lot more faces than those who bet the farm on it.
Again, what is Trump doing for the American people that people “forgot” he didn’t do during his first term? Absolutely nothing—unless of course there are those who like the “free” entertainment of watching people being beaten on the streets by masked thugs, as if this were some kind of Sylvester Stallone “action” movie. When Trump posts that AI generated video of him in a fighter jet dumping excrement on “No Kings” rally protesters, we know that his mental state has long dispensed any shred of human dignity.
There are a couple of videos I found fascinating by a political philosopher named Vlad Vexler. Here he discusses the level of fascism and monarchism in the political ideology of Trump and Putin...
...and here
...he discusses the danger to the world posed by a man of Trump's severe mental health issues and narcissism. Vexler points out that Trump appeals to people who do not want to see the world as it is, how they have a need for a "leader" to tell them what the "problem" is even if it is an exaggerated or false version of it, and just let him "fix" it as he wishes. Unfortunately, he notes, a society that is "sick" tends to elevate "sick" people as leaders--i.e. Trump.
The office of the presidency under Trump has become nothing more than the abode of—well let’s have an expert in psychological analysis tell us:
We are told here that Trump shares the severe psychological disorder of the likes of Hitler and Putin, “malignant narcissism.” The definition of this includes the concept of egosyntonicity, in which the “patient” is incurable since they view their cruel, sadistic behavior through the prism of lies, fail to accept or perceive wrong, and see their actions are “reasonable” and “appropriate.” We of course are seeing this in the savage killings of people on boats that Trump and his fellow future war criminals have yet to provide evidence for—that they justify the strikes that the increasingly unhinged and paranoid Pete Hegseth proclaims “will continue, day after day. These are not simply drug runners - these are narco-terrorists bringing death and destruction to our cities.”
Now it is being suggested by some observers that this isn't really about "narco-terrorists" at all, but being used as a cover for Trump's real objective: regime change in Venezuela that will create a puppet government that will allow the U.S. to control Venezuela's vast oil reserves.
But even if we accept Hegseth's claim as "sincere," we can only view it as self-serving and inflammatory in the extreme; in justifying banning books in children's military schools, the racist and sexist Hegseth claimed in an interview that he had once come home from school and asked his father why being white was "bad." It reminded me when I was in the Army a white soldier wondered aloud in response to hearing that it was Black History Month why there wasn't a "White History Month." I told him that was because every other month was "white" history month.
Again to set aside the suspicion that Trump's attacks on the boats is just a sideshow (which only makes the murder of the men on those boats even more horrifying in their criminality), Trump claiming this is a "war on drugs" is further evidence that he has a very limited grasp on the issue. Like those who promoted Prohibition failed to stop the "manufacture" of liquor in this country and people from consuming it like they do "recreational" drugs today, Trump and Hegseth choose to absolve Americans of any responsibility for their own behavior in regard to illegal drugs.
Nor, like the cowardly bullies they are, they will not take the "drug war" to China even though it is the source of nearly all illegal fentanyl and its ingredients. In fact, this new "framework" of a trade deal between the U.S. and China doesn't mention it at all, despite the fact the fentanyl trade (which is technically mostly "legal" in China) is probably the most "profitable" trade for Chinese producers at the moment.
Thus it isn't a particularly "relevant" fact that in 2023, 12,500 people died directly from the effects of impaired driving while intoxicated on alcohol, and who knows how many homicides were at least influenced by alcohol consumption. That is quite different than people who knowingly put their own lives at risk by consuming drugs they know are illegal; Hegseth, we are told, has a difficult time controlling his alcohol consumption, but it is merely "fake news" if it is about a social disease that inflicts a henchperson whose services Trump finds useful.
Anyways, note that Trump only ever "confirms" that attacks were made on the boats, not showing what was actually in them. Why is he afraid of simply seizing one of the boats and showing us the evidence? Because there is none, like that one fishing boat the U.S. military decided to board and spent 8 hours searching—and found “nothing”? It would seem a very simple thing to do to seize just one of the boats he claims is "loaded" with drugs to quell any doubts.
But apparently Trump gets his jollies off violence, and he wants to know what is like to be a war criminal like his friend Putin. When Trump “jokes” about fishermen too afraid to go out on the water, are we supposed to “laugh”—or realize we are dealing a shockingly sick man for whom it is immaterial to him if those boats are carrying drugs, “terrorist gang members”—or simple fisherman or those engaged in local trade. Trump and Hegseth (and lets not leave out Miller and Noem) just love destruction and killings for its own sake.
Thus we may rightly ask why those two survivors on that alleged drug-running “semi” submersibles were released to their home countries, Colombia and Ecuador. A woman in Colombia claimed one of the men killed was her husband who worked as a fisherman. Ecuador released its citizen, claiming there was no evidence he had committed a crime. Why were they not held in U.S. custody to be tried in a U.S. court as the first “evidence” that the rationalization for extrajudicial murder is “justified”? Because during their initial “interrogation” their story didn’t support Trump’s claims? Because these men would have been supplied attorneys who would in speaking for their clients expose to the world that Trump is a liar, that he and his henchpersons are indeed engage in de facto murder and war crimes?
Why is the mainstream media not questioning the Trump administration about their bizarre actions related to the detained men? Were they “rescued” at all because Trump hoped to parade them before the media to say “See, I told you so.” We are now told that the Trump administration does not want to reveal its “sources” and “methods” in civilian courts if it put the men on the trial, but that still begs the question of the legality of extrajudicial murder and the fact of why the administration seems so keen on “disappearing” the evidence as well as the men on those boats without “due process.” Oh, wait, you mean “due process” for U.S. citizens and those who are otherwise in the country legally?
Jen Psaki tells us Trump has become a “parody” of himself…
…but it isn’t enough to “laugh” at the “joke” he has become, because he still has the power to do terrible things to this country, because he has difficultly in conceptualizing "right" and "wrong" as anything but "transactional." How is it possible that he can still do this? Who can stop such an evil man unless voters actually realize, finally, that there is something terribly wrong with this man--and maybe with themselves as well.
According to Dr. Gartner in the video above, the acceptance of what is de facto mass murder (46 deaths and counting in those boat strikes) by this administration by (let’s face it) the generality of American society today through either willingness or apathy has produced its own psychology disease—“malignant normality”; what was once seen as abhorrent and "abnormal" is now simply viewed as the new "normal." We saw this in the mainstream media's "normal" treatment of Trump’s recent pointless press conference with NATO Secretary General Rutte. Trump sounded “normal,” yet what he said was insane, and no one in the room thought to challenge him on his bizarre lies and claims.
Trump's new story about why he isn’t sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine is because it would take a “year” to train soldiers to use them. Who told him that? Certainly not the military brass, who know very well that high school-level recruits might take a month or two to learn to employ them, but experienced Ukrainian soldiers are just idiots who haven’t already employed drone weapons for the same purpose causing havoc on Russian oil refineries?
So we know that the Budapest “summit” was canceled because there was no need for it. During their phone call, Putin no doubt played to Trump’s egomania and sense of being “unfairly” treated, but mainly to secure Trump’s promise not to send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. After that blow-up between Trump and Zelensky over yet another of Trump’s mind screws, Rubio had a “productive” phone call with the Russian foreign minister who obviously thanked Trump for caving in to Russian demands, since Trump had stupidly taken the only bargaining chip he had off the table that could have “persuaded” Putin to offer any kind of “concession” that Trump could then use to proclaim his prowess as a “peacemaker,” as the mainstream media has been slow to report that his “peace plan” in Gaza is already falling to pieces.
Let’s face it: Trump fears anything close to “even” because he fears being made to look like one of those “losers” he like to degrade; yet we see him losing almost every time. Trump pretends that if he just walks away from his failures, like he did after his failed “peace” with Kim Jong Un during his first term, people will just “forget” like he did. Trump certainly likes at least to put on a “show,” but even then we wonder what is motivating him. Like Trump’s wasteful personal Army “parade” in Washington D.C. that was sparsely attended, the Marine Corps' recent event was likewise a wasteful display during the government shutdown, only presented to massage the violent needs of Trump, Hegseth and JD Vance (and I'm sure Miller and Noem are hiding in there somewhere).
The Meidas Touch reported that the Marines were planning on launching missiles over the skies of California over the I-5 corridor; that this did not happen doesn’t mean it wasn’t “planned”—Trump and Hegseth apparently decided to “downgrade” the display to artillery rounds, one of which “accidentally” exploded and rained down shrapnel over I-5 and hit a CHP vehicle on a section of the highway that was closed. The point isn’t that it was “only” minor and caused no injuries; the point is that it was allowed to happen at all.
Of course some people don’t realize they have made mistakes and thus don’t have a chance to “learn” from them. Take for instance the Venezuelan winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, María Corina Machado, who seems to be under the strange belief that Trump is the one who deserved the prize, apparently because she doesn’t seem to realize that blowing people up in their residences isn’t that different from blowing up people in little boats.
While Putin has killed over 14,000 Ukrainian civilians, Trump's seems to be "envious" of his "skill" in mass murder and war criminality--and wants to "prove" that he is equally "adept" at it in Venezuela and Colombia (and perhaps Mexico as well, where the "irony" is that tens of thousands of Mexicans have been murdered in order to feed the U.S.' voracious appetite for illegal drugs).
Trump wants to make war on her country not because he wants "peace" or opposes dictators (unless they are "socialists"), but because (like Hegseth) he loves violence and killing, and he believes that her country is one that Americans will "back" him in its engagement. In fact, Venezuela is simply his stand-in for Gaza--or the start of something much bigger, perhaps as his Poland in 1939.
Note that CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in her interview with Machado just towed the corporate media line, refusing to tell Machado the truth about Trump. Machado obviously lives in a bubble world where there isn't much outside news coming in, and Amanpour chose not to “enlighten” her. Machado was allowed to remain ignorant of the truth about Trump, that he is just as much a dictator making war on political opponents and pro-democracy protesters in this country, that he can't be trusted, and this is all a political stunt because Trump gets his rocks off from ogling his Barbies and inflicting violence, as well as propping up his fellow fascist dictators, as he sends now $40 billion to prop-up Argentina’s dictator (and mostly because Trump's friends are losing money there), even as we learn that that Agriculture Department will not use any of its $6 billion in contingency funds to help feed hungry children in this country--no doubt on Trump's personal order.
As we should all know by now, Trump doesn’t care for or do anything for anyone unless there is some personal benefit for himself, particularly monetarily:
Remember when Trump promised to “drain the swamp” in 2016? He lives in a far more putrid swamp of his own making. We see Trump and his family using Trump’s position to enrich themselves, and foreign governments ignoring U.S. ethics laws, who see Trump ignoring them himself, and setting up foreign policy to the highest bidder—and not for the benefit of this country, but only to massage Trump’s ego or giving him “gifts,” or making promises they have no intention of keeping.
Oh, and the swamp is only getting deeper and murkier: we are learning that Trump’s version of DEI hires also includes outright criminals; while Pam Bondi and company’s cases against Comey, James and Schiff are crashing down not in flames but in a mere gentle blow, while the incompetent FBI "director," Kash Patel, claims that there is no "safe haven" for criminals under his "watch"--unless, of course you are Trump administration official, like Tom Homan who still has a job despite being caught on camera taking a bribe from undercover FBI agents.
Not hardly surprisingly, we are learning that in the desperate effort to hire new ICE “recruits” even with $50,000 "enticements," an unknown number with criminal backgrounds have apparently slipped through the cracks to continue their “trade” on the streets, perhaps like this ICE thug pointing his gun at a pregnant woman and her 10-month-old son...
...or arresting a security guard at a Discount Mall in Chicago because he was "impeding" ICE thugs by asking them to show him their warrant.
What could possibly be in the minds of people who think this is all “OK”? Politico reported that a “Young Republicans” chat room was a cesspool of “countless outrageous examples of racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and homophobia.” Conversations like this were common:
I’m going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man. If they vote for us why would they be gassed? We only want true believers. Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic. I’m ready to watch people burn now. We gotta pretend that we like them. “Hey, come on in. Take a nice shower and relax”. Boom - they’re dead.
And what about Trump's so-called “Christian” supporters? They are not that much different, more like Satan’s helpers in disguise to convince their “flock” that the vilest of sinfulness (as epitomized by Trump and his goons) is “godly,” let alone "Christlike":
In this report 1 by The Steady State entitled Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessment of Democratic Decline we are told that
The analysis identifies five interrelated trends driving this process. Executive overreach is being consolidated through governance by decree and weaponization of the state, combining sweeping executive orders and expansive emergency claims with politicized control of the civil service and oversight bodies, the targeting of perceived opponents via justice and intelligence functions, and preferential protection of allies. Erosion of judicial independence has advanced not only through partisan appointments, but through strategic reliance on the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket,” efforts to curtail judicial remedies and intimidate the legal profession, and selective compliance with court rulings. Legislative weakness and abdication have diminished Congress’s capacity to serve as a coequal branch, as delegation, obstruction, and polarization undermine effective oversight. The electoral system is being reshaped not only through structural biases like gerrymandering and voting restrictions, but through partisan control of administration, intimidation of election officials, and efforts to contest certified results—undermining the expectation that elections will be fairly run and their outcomes accepted. Finally, the undermining of public trust, knowledge, and civil society through attacks on the press, academia, watchdog institutions, and dissenting voices has weakened democratic culture and civic resilience.
Where is this leading us toward? Civil war, as suggested here?:
Trump certainly wants "civil war" because he is completely power mad, and we see him and his Nazi henchpersons becoming increasingly emboldened to ignore court orders, expecting the fascist majority on the U.S. Supreme Court to eventually give him all the power this madman craves.
Oh, so Fox News' Gutfeld and company are spilling their fascist bile all over themselves because Illinois Gov. Pritzker is setting-up a commission to compile acts of lawlessness and abuse by ICE thugs? Note that no one at Fox News stops to ask why state and local governments must step in to enforce the same laws and codes of conduct that local and state law enforcement must abide by: because what's left of the Trump DHS and DOJ offices of accountability and oversight are walking around naked covering up their little gonads, so who else is going to enforce the law and Constitutional protections but state and local governments?
But unfortunately too many people in this country still have the lesson to learn of how the Nazi's destroyed constitutional law, democracy and first the civil rights of the "others" before taking them from everyone else with the acquiesence of most Germans:
As we will soon see in another film on the Nuremberg trial (starring Russell Crowe as Hermann Goering), the most vital failure of the Nazi regime and its "leader" is the same as what we are seeing in the Trump regime: the total absence of empathy. As many have pointed out, inhuman cruelty and a seeming hatred for fellow humans who do not behave or think like mere feral animals acting on "instinct" (i.e. ICE thugs), justified by the same fabrications and lies on an endless repeat cycle, is its life blood--and the more blood spilled without any sense of moral or ethical restraint, the seemingly more voracious is its appetite to see what more they can get away with. That no one serving Trump in this will survive the judgment of history must wait for another day, when the country returns to its collective senses.
That is where we are at now because many voters “forgot” the lessons of the past and repeated the mistake they made in 2016, which perhaps even worst of all was allowing Trump then to install three more fascist justices (oh, my “bad”—“Christian” justices) on the Supreme Court who are allowing him to virtually carte blanche and with immunity to take a sledgehammer to democracy as if any of them actually understand what the Constitution says.
Foolish voters followed this up in 2024 by not only electing Trump again despite his even more vile, madman rhetoric, but insuring that he had both Houses of Congress to be his groveling fundament-lickers. Anti-MAGA can try to “comfort” themselves by saying that they deserve what they get, but it is all of us who are paying for their mistake.
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