It's interesting that the overwhelming majority of the world's UFO siting's are from the US.
Same for cyptids.
It's almost like we; 1) got money, 2) got bored, 3) got stupid, and 4) elected Trump. He'll probably result in all of those things getting beat out of us.
Everyone has always wondered what would happen if a society got super flush. Well, apparently we entertain wacky conspiracy theories, become fascinated with our reproductive organs, and listen to batshit crazy hucksters.
During the Revolutionary War, George Washington ordered his troops inoculated against Small Pox.
This week Pete Hegseth lifted the requirement that troops be inoculated for influenza for "religious" reasons.
The current GOP is heavily anti scientific.
Opposition to vaccinations has been in American history largely a thing of smaller Christian and non Christian sects which are fairly anti scientific, as opposed to the majority of Christians who have no objection to vaccination. However, when the far right of the country started to turn weird, listening to such medical lights as boob model Jenny McCarthy, that began to change a bit. Covid really made it worse as a significant portion of the country turned anti vax under the leadership of Donald Trump, who got the vaccine, but who recommended some really lethal approaches to the crisis as well.
Troops who don't get inoculated ought to just be given dishonorable or less than honorable discharges. That's what should have occurred to those who refused the Covid vaccine.
April 24, 2026
The war department stands ready for what comes next. Locked and loaded. May God continue to breast—bless our warriors each and every day and on each and every mission.
Hegseth.
Breast?
Okay, I get that it's a slip of the tongue, um, well, but it's an odd one.
May 12, 2026
The Aryan Nation, the Nazis, and the KKK are not far-right organizations. Those are far-left organizations, and they always have been. The KKK was created and started by the Democrats in the United States to prevent blacks from being able to participate in the political arena, if you will. So, I'm going to say they've never been associated with the right, they've always been associated with the left.
Harriet Hageman.
Hageman's no dummy and she knows this is crap, or has drank so much of the Kool Aide she'll spout stuff that's absurd.
Every one of these organizations is from the far right and any claim to the contrary is patently absurd. The claim about the Nazis, which I've seen before, comes from the party's very early, and frankly pre Hitler, days and its name, the National Socialist Party. The absurdity of that claim fails to realize that "socialism" in the context of nationalist parties doesn't necessarily mean Marxism, but "for society". In the case of the Nazis, way early on their did espouse Socialism but by the time they'd come to power they'd abandoned it in favor of autarky and the early socialist in the party were sidelined or expelled.
And the claim about the KKK being founded by the Democrats and therefore left wing completely ignores that originally the Republican Party was the left wing party, and the Democrats were a right wing party. The Democrats didn't evolve into the political left until the 20th Century and in the American South remained the conservative party into the 1980s. Hageman herself is old enough to have voted in Reagan's first run for the Oval Office and therefore should be well aware of that.
This is totally reprehensible.
Cont:
Reporter: What extent are Americans’ financial situation motivating you to make a deal?
Trump: Not even a little bit. I don't think about Americans’ financial situation.
May 13, 2026
So it turns out that Trump's advisors uniformly told him not to launch the war against Iran, but he did anyway, and the advisors, not wanting to be blamed for his stupidity, leaked. He wants them prosecuted for treason, and sycophant Todd Blanche is looking to to it.
The real crime here is Trump's, who launched an illegal war. With no declaration of war, every single Iranian killed in it has been the victim of some sort of crime, and every American who has died has been the victim of some sort of crime ultimately attributable to Trump as well.
Blanche is pathetic. When this is over, and it will be, his careers should be flushed down the toilet.
And then there's this:
PabloReports: Ted Cruz called you a parasite and disparaged your work as a bartender.
AOC: I think it’s funny that he’s been taking a government paycheck for 23 years but has the audacity to criticize someone who has come from a family that had to work their way up and earn their place here.
This is really becoming a Republican specialty around here. We get retired servicemen who come in after sucking on the government tit for 30 years, retire, and then start sucking on the other government tit, and then run for office on the "I hate the government" ticket.
In that sense, the Democrat running against Collins in Maine is really refreshing. He's given a speech about his combat service and then noted how he can't figure out how that's relevant to being a Senator. It isn't.
Recently I saw somebody post something in favor of Brent Bien here in Wyoming, noting that he's served in combat or dangerous conditions all over the world, and how that will make him ready to lead. Yeah, lead troops, not a state government.
We have a whole host of candidates from the He Man Government Haters Club running locally. They have a right to run, but while they're doing it, they shouldn't be draining their mommy. It's hypcritical.
King Donny before he was a national embarrassment, and just working on being a family one.
April 30, 2026
Secretary of Defense Hegseth testified the war had cost the US $25B so far.
We clearly have absolutely no idea how to get out of it or win it.
May 1, 2026
Iran responded to King Donny's threats to ramp up the war on Iran, now in a ceasefire, with threats of their own.
They seemed rather unimpressed by Donny.
Donny's administration says it doesn't have to comply with the sixty day provision of the War Powers Act due to the ceasefire.
May 3, 2026
Iran sent the US a fourteen point peace plan.
May 4, 2026
The U.S. rejected Iranian peace proposals and is now going to escort ships through the Straits of Hormoz. Iran threatened to strike the ships and has already claimed to have hit a U.S. Navy craft with missiles, which the U.S. denies.
cont:
Iran attacked ships in the straits today with small surface vehicles and it resumed drone strikes on the UAE.
May 6, 2026
Yesterday was Taco Tuesday, and so we have this headline from the Tribune.
Well of course we do. Trump's an ignorant man with extremely limited world experience with a cabinet of sycophants. This was a war run by ignoramuses.
Trump paused his latest version of the illegal war with his escort program in the Straits of Hormuz. We have no way out of the war that anyone in D.C. grasps.
The US has clearly and absolutely lost this war, not succeeding in a single one of its objectives. At this point, absent ground operations, this is humiliating US defeat, worse than the loss in Vietnam.
May 7, 2026
Taco's flip on the most recent operation is because Saudi Arabia denied the US use of its airspace.
It seems to be the case that Taco didn't inform the kingdom of the operation before coming up with it.
cont:
So, now we're hitting targets in Iran again, the war we won several weeks ago, and which was definitely over before we started blockading Iran.
Compared to this, the Allied landings at Gallipoli in World War One were an absolutely stunning success.
May 10, 2026
Headline from the CST:
Let's be honest, the Administration is incompetent. Governed by flaky theories, linked to a romantic image of the past in more ways than one, and headed by a person with dementia. Of course it's no closer to an end.
The US sent a counter proposal to Iran. They haven't replied.
What is new is that the UK and France are deploying ships to the region in anticipation of using them to keep shipping lanes open.
We'll remind everyone once again that this war is completely illegal, and Trump should be impeached and removed from office for the illegality.
For the first time in US history, more Americans are moving to Europe than the other way around.
Indeed, European immigration to the US is at historic lows. US emigration is at historic highs.
Why?
Simple, the US has become a dumpster fire. It's no longer really a democracy but a semi democracy presently ruled by an insane (if we don't assume worst) megalomaniac who is destroying the economy. We look like uneducated morons, which a lot of us actually seem to be. There are absolutely no positive indicators which the US tops the charts at. We are the 23d happiest country on the planet. Finland, Iceland, and Denmark are the first three. We cling to obsolete signs of greatness, such as refusing to have a national health care system and having a tax system that grossly under taxes Americans and funds a government that benefits us little, while people like Reid Rasner campaign for even lower taxes. We've gone from being a country that had nearly no military to having one that has a bloated military that serves an insane President.
What's not to love?
Well, there is the country, but that involves being realistic, which will get you accused of being a left winger (which should not in and of itself be regarded as an insult) by insufferable twat waffles like Chuck Gray.
We are really due for an overhaul.
Ironically, the orange buffoon destroying the White House probably helps show us the way on this. He's shown us where we have massive institutional defects. And he's taken us off the global map as a great power and made us a second rate one. Part of our descent into ignorance was a legacy of what was then a noble Cold War response to things, including a big military and governments that meddled bigly.
Now we are going to have to dance to the tune of others, but the good thing is that the others are adults.
To progress at all, which doesn't mean a return to high immigration or anything of that sort, we're really going to have to get back into education, which people like the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and other right wing zealots hate. Better to be dumb is their default position.
Better to be smart, and educated, and face our problems honestly.
This is so insane, it's not clear which category of trailing thread to put this in, so we'll give it its own post of dishonor.
It appears pretty clear that Trump himself penned part of this pleading that's being filed as a motion over the ballroom. The lawyers who signed the pleading should be ashamed.
Trump is nuts. Anyone supporting him, is supporting a madman.
BASH: Is this measles outbreak a consequence of the administration undermining support for vaccines?
DR OZ: I don't believe so. Secretary Kennedy has been advocating for measles vaccines
BASH: Oh, come on
From a CNN Interview of Mehmet Oz, a prime example of the Oprah Effect.1
In fairness to Dr. Oz, who in fairness should not be a government official, he does want people to get the measles vaccine.
Also in fairness, the dissing of vaccines isn't really a Trump thing in and of itself, but he gave it some boosted unneeded assistance by taking the political step of promising Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. a job as the HHS Secretary if he'd drop out of the last Presidential race. Kennedy is a quack, and an opponent of vaccines in varying degrees (it seems to change day by day). The rise of this movement, however, started with people like Jenny McCarthy who sadly has a son with autism. McCarthy herself was a Playboy model and her only real expertise is in showing her naked visage, something that really doesn't qualify a person for anything serious, and in fact may achieve much the opposite.
Oh, and by the way, Jenny McCarthy appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show multiple times in the 2000s to discuss her erroneous theories on autism and vaccines, and to promote a book she wrote.
Much of this story has to do with the inability to understand the difference between present conditions and past ones. People tend to assume that negative developments in a population mean a negative present condition. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they also represent a positive one. I'll give a personal example.
In 1982 I had pneumonia while at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. I was extremely ill, literally on death's door.
Before the advent of antibiotics the fatality rates for bacterial pneumonia were between 60% and 70%.
Not good.
Now, the survivability rate is pretty good.
I've had a colon surgery for a developing condition that would have killed me even thirty years ago.
The point? Well, if I go on to develop Alzheimer's, which I pray I do not, it'll mostly be because I didn't die at age 19 of pneumonia.
Also, fwiw, Meet The Press this weekend had a physician on who noted that diseases we can now vaccinate for are associated with cancer, which is a developing field of medicine. I.e., you get some disease that's not big deal when young, and then you get cancer when older. You don't want cancer.
A fellow I know who suffered a heart attack, and who was otherwise very healthy, may have developed his heart condition this way as well.
The Trump Interregnum is threatening to pull broadcasting licenses of those who do not give a happy spin to the war against Iran.
March 21, 2026
Waging a war against American airports must be easier than waging a war against a real country that fights back:
cont:
Absolutely reprehensible.
At this point, support of Trump is indecent.
March 31, 2026
We were horrible in Vietnam until we did Rolling Thunder One and Rolling Thunder Two, and then we won. As soon as we do half-measures, we lose. The faster we get this over the better. If we seize Kharg Island, it's technically boots on the ground. It could be done almost flawlessly. If we have enough firepower, it would be very easy to defend.
Rep. Rich McCormick, whom apparently is unaware that the US lost the Vietnam War.
April 10, 2026
Melania Trump made a rare and awkward televised appearance to deny ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
The appearance was so rare, and the rumors regarding her association with Epstein so long lasting, that there's lots of open speculation as to why, although the release of a book in the UK asserting she was an Epstein bedmate a year prior to her association with Trump may be the reason. Or it may just be that she's tired of her reputation being dragged through the mud.
Note, I'm not asserting the book is correct. I don't know, and I'm not going to read it. She's asserting that at least some of what's being said are lies, and no doubt some of them are lies. I'll note the repeated claims that she was a prostitute is a lie. Her claims that Epstein did not introduce the couple are mostly likely correct.
I'm surprised by how surprised people are that she speaks English poorly. Frankly, it just sounds heavily accented to me.
I'm not a Melania fan, but I don't envy her position.
Marrying Trump made her rich and we don't know why she married him, and her marriage no doubt now looks like a pretty poor choice to people who do not adore Trump. Maybe she adores Trump. It's certainly made her a target, and she can hardly defend herself due to her poor speaking abilities.
Democrats like high gas prices because of their radical climate agenda. So people understand what the president is doing and agree with him.
Sen. Dr. John Barrasso.
So, Trump causing higher prices. . . Democrats want higher prices. . . so Trump's a Democrat?
Yeah. . . Wyoming's really getting its money worth out of this public servant. . .
Frankly, I don't believe that Barrasso believes a word he's saying a lot of the time. If Trump announced tomorrow he was a member of the Socialist Party, Dr. John would appear with a copy of the Greatest Hits of Karl Marx.
April 16, 2026
Kennedy was just put in this position by Trump to get him out of the way in the election. No more proof than that is needed to establish that Trump really doesn't give a rats ass about the health of the American public. Kennedy is a complete nut.
Of course, Trump also elevated Dr. Oz to power as well, putting the sort of dimwitted pop crap from the Oprah Show into power.
While we're at it, Pete Hegseth, who has tattooed himself with the symbols of Catholic Crusaders while being a member of some Protestant sect that Crusaders would regard as being weird heretics, but who is trying to Christianize, in the far right Evangelical sense, the Department of Defense quoted to a gathering at one of his prayer functions the famous speech from Pulp Fiction, that being:
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
This is good script writing, but it's not actually what's in the Bible.
A snippet of what's actually found in Ezekiel in this area, which is supposed to be what the assassin character is quoting, is here:
Thus says the Lord GOD: Because the Philistines acted vengefully and exacted vengeance with intentional malice, destroying with undying hostility, therefore thus says the Lord GOD: See! I am stretching out my hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites and wipe out the remnant on the seacoast.
Thus I will execute great acts of vengeance on them, punishing them furiously. Then they shall know that I am the LORD, when I wreak my vengeance on them.
A bit different. I'd have expected Hegseth to know that. Part of what's noted in the actual text is a warning against vengeance.
The larger text states:
The word of the LORD came to me: Son of man, turn toward the Ammonites and prophesy against them.
Say to the Ammonites: Hear the word of the LORD! Thus says the Lord GOD: Because you jeered at my sanctuary when it was desecrated, at the land of Israel when it was destroyed, and at the house of Judah when they went into exile, therefore I am giving you to people from the east* as a possession. They shall set up their encampments among you and pitch their tents in your midst; they shall eat your produce and drink your milk. And I will turn Rabbah into a pasture for camels and all of Ammon into a grazing place for flocks. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.
For thus says the Lord GOD: Because you rejoiced over the land of Israel with scorn in your heart, clapping your hands and stamping your feet, therefore, see, I am stretching out my hand against you and giving you up as plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples and wipe you out of the lands. I will destroy you, and you shall know that I am the LORD.c
Against Moab.
Thus says the Lord GOD: Because Moab said, “See! the house of Judah is like all the other nations,” therefore, I am exposing the whole flank of Moab* with its cities, the jewels of its land: Beth-jesimoth, Baalmeon, and Kiriathaim. I will hand it over, along with the Ammonites, to the people from the east that it may not be remembered among the nations. I will execute judgment upon Moab that they may know that I am the LORD.
Against Edom.
Thus says the Lord GOD: Because Edom took vengeance on the house of Judah and incurred terrible guilt by taking vengeance on them, therefore thus says the Lord GOD: I will stretch out my hand against Edom and cut off from it human being and beast alike. I will turn it into ruins from Teman to Dedan; they shall fall by the sword.
I will put my vengeance against Edom into the hands of my people Israel; they will deal with Edom in accord with my furious anger. Thus they shall know my vengeance!—oracle of the Lord GOD.h
Against the Philistines.
Thus says the Lord GOD: Because the Philistines acted vengefully and exacted vengeance with intentional malice, destroying with undying hostility, therefore thus says the Lord GOD: See! I am stretching out my hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites and wipe out the remnant on the seacoast.
Thus I will execute great acts of vengeance on them, punishing them furiously. Then they shall know that I am the LORD, when I wreak my vengeance on them.
One of the things that's slightly interesting here, as a random observation, is that generally Catholics use a lot more of the Old Testament as a rule than Protestants. Protestants are often shocked how "Jewish" Catholic services are, and well given as the Apostolic Faiths date back to the Apostles, that makes sense. Maybe Hegseth can be somewhat excused therefore for quoting Quentin Tarantino's script.
It does make me wonder, however, if Hegseth has seen the movie. In the film Jules Winnfield, the assassin in question, has a Road to Damascus moment and decides to give up being a hit man. Vincent Vega, who continues on in that role after Winnfield has a Crisis de Coeur, is gunned down by one of his intended targets, who himself is excused as a target by the mob boss after he intervenes to save his life. Tarantino is not noted to be religiously observant at all, but he may have accidentally have written some moral lessons into the film.
If so, Hegseth missed them.
We might close out this issue of this thread here, as with Donald Trump's mental health rocketing towards the completely unhinged, the ignorance level of the Trump administration is accelerating. RFK Jr., for example, is starting a podcast. Markwayne Mullin is in the cabinet. Things are occurring back scene. The administration, the most ignorant one in American history, promises to get weirder.
Footnotes:
1. The Oprah Effect is so named here to explain the phenomenon of Oprah Winfrey putting some flaming bogosity on to her popular daytime television show and thereby having millions of people give it credence. There are a fair number of examples, including the rise of Dr. Oz.
BASH: Is this measles outbreak a consequence of the administration undermining support for vaccines?
DR OZ: I don't believe so. Secretary Kennedy has been advocating for measles vaccines
BASH: Oh, come on
From a CNN Interview of Mehmet Oz, a prime example of the Oprah Effect.1
In fairness to Dr. Oz, who in fairness should not be a government official, he does want people to get the measles vaccine.
Also in fairness, the dissing of vaccines isn't really a Trump thing in and of itself, but he gave it some boosted unneeded assistance by taking the political step of promising Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. a job as the HHS Secretary if he'd drop out of the last Presidential race. Kennedy is a quack, and an opponent of vaccines in varying degrees (it seems to change day by day). The rise of this movement, however, started with people like Jenny McCarthy who sadly has a son with autism. McCarthy herself was a Playboy model and her only real expertise is in showing her naked visage, something that really doesn't qualify a person for anything serious, and in fact may achieve much the opposite.
Oh, and by the way, Jenny McCarthy appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show multiple times in the 2000s to discuss her erroneous theories on autism and vaccines, and to promote a book she wrote.
Much of this story has to do with the inability to understand the difference between present conditions and past ones. People tend to assume that negative developments in a population mean a negative present condition. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they also represent a positive one. I'll give a personal example.
In 1982 I had pneumonia while at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. I was extremely ill, literally on death's door.
Before the advent of antibiotics the fatality rates for bacterial pneumonia were between 60% and 70%.
Not good.
Now, the survivability rate is pretty good.
I've had a colon surgery for a developing condition that would have killed me even thirty years ago.
The point? Well, if I go on to develop Alzheimer's, which I pray I do not, it'll mostly be because I didn't die at age 19 of pneumonia.
Also, fwiw, Meet The Press this weekend had a physician on who noted that diseases we can now vaccinate for are associated with cancer, which is a developing field of medicine. I.e., you get some disease that's not big deal when young, and then you get cancer when older. You don't want cancer.
A fellow I know who suffered a heart attack, and who was otherwise very healthy, may have developed his heart condition this way as well.
The Trump Interregnum is threatening to pull broadcasting licenses of those who do not give a happy spin to the war against Iran.
March 21, 2026
Waging a war against American airports must be easier than waging a war against a real country that fights back:
March 27, 2026.
In celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, President Donald J. Trump’s signature alongside @SecScottBessent's will soon appear on U.S. currency, marking a first in history, and symbolizes @POTUS ' leadership and dedication to our great nation will carry a lasting impact
U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach.
And hence, the era of defacement of U.S. currency began.
Seriously, my prediction will be for those dealing in cash, the number of "F***" next to Donny's signature, or replicas of his public Epstein birthday card's, or any number of defacements, will be epic.
The sycophantic sucking up this this demented twit is beyond all understanding. When this is all over, and it will be soon, Bessant ought to spend every day for the rest of his life apologizing.
Footnotes:
1. The Oprah Effect is so named here to explain the phenomenon of Oprah Winfrey putting some flaming bogosity on to her popular daytime television show and thereby having millions of people give it credence. There are a fair number of examples, including the rise of Dr. Oz.
