Politics Sucks

The State of Florida removed a rainbow painted crosswalk that honored 49 people who died in the Pulse nightclub shooting.  It did so in the middle of the night.  NBC News reported Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' response:

"We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes."

Who commandeered that crosswalk in 2017?  The State of Florida. 

Politics is an insufficient way to explain our world, given its ever shifting sands, serial mistruths and mind numbing double standards.  Governor Ron DeSantis' comment should be viewed in that context. 

I hope the 27 Camp Mystic girls who died in the tragic July 4th flash floods don't want to be honored with a "political" rainbow.  Surely. Texas Governor Greg Abbott can come up with an appropriate football image on behalf of those young girls.  

There are good reasons the majority of the country wants nothing to do with either political party.  Most of us have lives to live, money to earn and believe U.S. values enshrined in the Constitution are for everybody.  

When people gunned down can't be remembered in a way that honors them, then we are in a sorry state.  Politics sucks.

Him-icaine Trump Draws Resources

Trump II, the digital Caligula, filled the streets of Washington, D.C. with National Guard members to fight crime and eliminate the blight of slums and homelessness.  His logic was to make D.C. a better place for commerce for locals and tourists.  That has not translated into restaurant business, which has fallen substantially:

Research by Open Table found that restaurant attendance was down every day last week compared with 2024, with the number of diners dipping by 31% on Wednesday, two days after Trump ordered the national guard to patrol Washington.

Trump is after "violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people."  The National Guard may be the wrong tool given their limitations on arresting, processing and prosecuting local crime.  Police and social workers with access to programs are a more appropriate and targeted solution.  That matters not to Trump, the Savage Whimmer.

Red Team Governors are sending National Guard troops to D.C. as we begin the height of the hurricane season.  NOAA predicted 3-5 major hurricanes which surely will need National Guard support if they strike the continental U.S.  

Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina have all suffered greatly in the aftermath of major hurricanes.  Their governors may earn Trump points but the public might not be so forgiving if critical assets are not available in a hurricane's aftermath.

Trump is a vortex in himself, subsuming all in his path, taking anything he deems valuable, denigrating the fleeced, then crowing about all he did to achieve an outcome only he can see.  Reality is a completely separate world.  Unfortunately, the U.S. Presidency gives him significant power to mow down anything blocking his path.  

The "Just Us" Department, Congress and the Supremes were subsumed some time ago and are of no help in dealing with Himicaine Trump.  The sad part is those guys live there and can see with their two eyes what is happening.

Update:  NYT reported:

Army officials appear to be trying to keep the troops on the sidelines of the mission, despite the tough-on-crime image that Mr. Trump has sought to project

Wingman!

Trump II, the digital Caligula, has a new partner in raping and pillaging countries for their land and natural resources.  Poo-ty takes land while the Donarch appropriates mineral resources.  All these are earthly things for the taking by the powerful.

Think of the Donald's new wingman as Jeffery Epstein with a whole country, army, and currency.  Add China's Xi and the world is a Risk game board for the dividing.  

The little people matter not to Global Dividers of Spoil.  It's "theirs" to carve up as they wish.  Bring on the summits!

Trump II is Stage 4 Cancer to Society

Trump II is nonstop in his mendacity and malevolence, turning simple government functions into "LIV loud" level irreality, complete with a White House chock full of "mirrors, mirrors on the wall" and cascade of compliment babbling buffoons.  Trump's Cancer's Court is:

Government, but meaner.  Trump II usurps and usurps and usurps that which is rightfully his, pulling it from society's poor and disadvantaged.  

Revenue, but off budget.  Trump II got himself a luxury jet for life on the taxpayer dime.  Surely, some of his export fee $ billions and sovereign wealth fund investments will leave office with him.

Religion, but no Gospel.  Trump II displays none of the teachings of Jesus and his behavior would have one discern that he worships power and money while prioritizing earthly things.  

Crime fighter, but on behalf of criminals.  Trump II steered every government police function away from fraud and other financial crimes.  He advances cryptocurrencies, the currency of criminals, and does so with monstrous conflicts of interest.

The U.S. had already gone down a steep ethical slide with both political parties choosing to serve the moneyed interest over common folk.  Elected officials sided with billionaire private equity underwriters (PEU), TechGods and Cryptobros, giving them carte blanche to prey on citizens.  Officials did nothing to reign in harmful social media and are sitting on their hands while predatory AI and nonsense cryptocurrencies stand to destroy what's left of societal fabric.

Trump II, a 79 year old taker of the first order, is the perfect partner for a predatory tech future.  Along the way he will spend all our money to achieve his never ending scroll of savage whims.  There is nothing conservative about the man.  He is plain and simple, a fraud, a charlatan, a Stage 4 cancer on society and deep down inside Donald knows it.

Crossroads

Jesse wrote yesterday evening:

We stand silent and complicit in the face of a genocide that matches the viciousness of the worst of the last century.

We stand silent, and therefore complicit, as the structure of our Constitution is slowly being dismantled, clause by clause, amendment by amendment.

We stand silent, as our Congress disgraces itself a bit more every day in the service to greed and power.

There is only one time to speak, the present.  Your voice is yours until it is silenced by natural events or malevolence, which is rapidly rising under Trump II, the digital Caligula.  

Texas stands silent regarding leaders abject failures to protect our most vulnerable.

It's been three years and Texas DPS is yet to release records regarding the Uvalde School Shooting.  Elected officials would rather carve up the state into new voting districts to entrench their status and power.

The three Kerr County officials responsible for warning residents/visitors of dangerous flash flooding and setting up an incident command remain in their positions.  They were sheltered by state officials for 27 days and deserved far worse than they got from the House panels, whose members seemed to want to focus on the future.  The most basic thing done in disaster response is assessing what went right, what failed and what to do in the future.

Basic protections are shown to citizens in plans and through officials with titles.  They are taught to us in schools via the Constitution, Bill of Rights and the checks and balances of our three branches of government.  Thus we have an expectation of our leaders.  Repeated and accelerating failures point to mendacity and malevolence.  

No one took control....they were all asleep....

That wasn't good enough then and it's sure not good enough now.

Update 8-15-25:  This is what Congress protected in the Big Beautiful Bill (shirk & jerk) with its ten year federal AI moratorium on state regulations.

They (elected officials) did not protect the children and they sure are not going to protect your ability to earn a livelihood.  It's all usurpable.

Update 8-16-25:  Business Insider reported researchers gave AI bots their own social media site and it turned toxic under three different AI models, OpenAI, Llama and Deepseek.

Update 8-21-25:  Parents of Mystic Camp children who died in the July 4th flash flood spoke before the Texas Legislature.  Their stories are far worse than Governor Abbott's "team loss."

Politics is an insufficient way to explain our world, given its ever shifting sands, serial mistruths and mind numbing double standards. Governor Abbott's analogy should be taken in that context.

Smile Metro D.C. Police

Trump II, the digital Caligula, nationalized the D.C. Metro Police for thirty days to address an "emergency" that sounds more like a developer's request to a local governmental body.

"Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people"

Oddly, he will temporarily head the police department that rendered aid to the Capital Police on Jan. 6th during Donald Trump's wild insurrection event.  Be there...be wild.

Trump couldn't order the National Guard for assistance that day.  Four and a half years late may not be better than never.

Trump consistently skates outside the lines of the U.S. Presidency, following savage whim after savage whim, fully enabled by his clown car cabinet of yes-men toadies, a spineless Congress and an enabling  non-entity of a Supreme Court.

Democracy has been infected by the Trump Smile movie monster.  It distorts reality before completely subsuming past transgressors and anyone standing in the Donarch's way.

Lord, wake us from this nightmare.  Please let this horror flick end.

Pablum Filled Press Conference on DC Police Takeover

Trump II, the digital Caligula, announced his plans to micromanage Washington, D.C. by evicting the homeless, getting rid of the slums and flooding public areas with National Guard troops.  Fox News cut away from Trump's press conference after about an hour, I assume, due to his self-aggrandizing rambling.  

The move came after a DOUGEBAG (Department of Ungodly Greedy Executives Biased Against Government) staffer known as Big Balls was beaten by black teens at 3:00 am in an attempted car jacking.  He must be an important staffer to warrant bringing out the National Guard at considerable federal expense.  Wasn't DOUGEBAG supposed to save money?  

A new report found that in just six months, Elon Musk's cost-cutting agency wasted more than $21 billion.

It's not clear how much of that waste was due to Big Balls.  That said, the price tag for Trump's D.C. takeover should be added to DOUGEBAG's running total cost to the American people.

There was a precipitating event that produced an impulsive response, but no actual emergency.  

As for taking care of the homeless and emptying the slums, Americans should recall Trump's promise to feed Gazans through the new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.  Both Israel and the U.S. are behind woeful efforts to feed innocent women and children in a war zone they cannot escape.

Trump now has control of the police department that came to the aid of the Capital Police on January 6, 2021.  That, in itself, feels like a crime.   

Update:  Trump (who I nicknamed Pablum) said he would get rids of the slums, graffiti and potholes.  Wow, those DC Metro Police do a lot.  Sounds a bit like mission creep for a creep mission, led by the Insurrectionist in Chief.  

Pablum's drive from the White House to his golf course cannot be marred by the homeless.  I'm sure Trump knows the Bible passage regarding the Rich Man and Lazarus.

Update 8-13-25:  Trump II may jail the homeless if they don't leave the rich man's gate.  They also face being moved given Trump is "exploring strategies to relocate homeless individuals 'far from the capital.'"  The man loves to rendition people.

Trump Team Taking Control of Epstein Narrative

It's been decades since the federal government did this quality a scrub in a "investigation.  Trump II's name has been redacted in the Jeffrey Epstein files.  Trump will not give testimony regarding his interactions with Epstein and his child sex abuse victims.  

I imagine the Trump "Just Us" Department shopped the list of predators for Blue Team members and any never Trumpers of the Red version.  

The last time an investigation was so purposely hapless was the White House Lessons Learned Report after Hurricane Katrina.  The report omitted the hospital with the highest number of patient deaths, the LifeCare floor within Memorial Medical Center (owned by Tenet Healthcare).  The Carlyle Group, a politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU) bought (closed on) LifeCare weeks before Katrina made landfall.  

25 deaths LifeCare. 10 deaths Tenet's MMC = 35 total deaths

A year later Jeb Bush was appointed to the board of Tenet Healthcare.  

Time will reveal the rewards bestowed upon those keeping Trump's lying, cheating and philandering name out of the Epstein theater of the grossly absurd.

Carlyle reported stellar earnings from private credit and secondary PEU offerings.  Elon could put his money behind Epstein victims with NDA's.  Trump's inappropriate behavior with women is a biblical scroll.  Surely, some of them want to tell the truth about their perpetrator and need big money to violate any NDA.  

Carlyle was founded on political insider secrecy, so they know that game very, very well.

A new name for the "Just Us" Department?  Daddyshack.  Pam Bondi and James Comer know how to drop Trump's ball on the green and kick Bill Clinton's ball deep into the Arkansas back woods.

The irony is Trump's predatory behavior is Clintonesque.  PEU Birds of a feather should rot together.

Update 8-8-25:  The White House held secret meetings on the Epstein crisis.  Trump instructed JD Vance to deny the meeting occurred.

Ghislaine Gets Upgrade

The Trump Justice Department appears to be catering to a convicted child predator.  Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a less restrictive federal prison in Bryan, Texas.  Did Epstein's right hand woman get a hand from his former wing-man, Donald J. Trump? 

Trump II is all image, all of the time.  So, cue the release of Blue politicians and their supporters names, I.e. a subset of the bipartisan abusers of over 1,000 Epstein victims.  Then bring on the pardons.  

But one can't hide the level of privilege that the Maxwell's and Trump's of the world enjoy.  It involves silence, favors, and an unwritten code for wealthy insiders.  As usual, victims and common people lose.

Update 8-3-25:  A scroll of Trump sexual abuse victims has many names.  Trump II had to break the rules to "transfer Ghislaine Maxwell to Club Fed Camp" per Daily Beast