“There are things that we need beyond tariffs. We need open borders.”
Donald Trump, April 7, 2025.
Of note, Elon Musk said the same thing, as to Europe and North America, within the past 24 hours.
Showing posts with label Zeitgeist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zeitgeist. Show all posts
Monday, April 7, 2025
That was a sudden switch . . .
Sunday, April 6, 2025
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 81st Edition. Protests and Golfing.
Lex Anteinternet: Protests spread to Wyoming.: The "Hands Off" protest is a nationwide movement. And it's showing up even in Casper, in central Wyoming.
Protests spread to Wyoming.
The "Hands Off" protest is a nationwide movement. And it's showing up even in Casper, in central Wyoming.
Protests did occur yesterday in Casper, and apparently in a host of other cities, including Rock Springs. Based upon the article in the Tribune, the Casper protests suffered from the common problem all left of center protests in Wyoming tend to, which is rather than be focused on the immediate topic, they featured every left wing cause going, which is exactly why the left has no pull here.
Apparently there were large protests across the country, showing widespread discontent with Trump. Even some Republicans who have backed Trump all along, like Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro are calling his tariff policy into question. Some of them are being surprisingly blunt, calling the tariffs basically dumb.
Here's the thing, however. Trump, born into wealth to the degree that he can repeatedly fail and not feel the effects, doesn't care. He has the supreme confidence of a man who is not introspective, and frankly, by all evidence, not very smart. He's believed in tariffs for over 40 years, having a shallow understanding of the economy, and not even grasping that the economy 40 years ago had real problems.
The US has lost its manufacturing base, but not to the degree people like Trump believe. Quite a bit of it fully remains. Many of the "lost" industrial jobs in heavy manufacturing were lost to automation. Those behind Trump understand that, and they don't seem to care that their concept of "returning" jobs to the US means taking jobs from real human beings overseas.
The ultimate irony of all of this is that the tariffs real goal, for those who aren't as dense as Trump seemingly is, was happening anyway. As world trade increasingly globalized roboticization was occurring anyhow, and as that occurs other factors, such as transportation, begin to factor heavily. So the tariffs simply disrupt the economy, destroy wealth, and probably actually slow that evolution.
Meanwhile Trump goes golfing, seemingly not caring what he's doing to real people, and not needing too, as he lacks the empathy, understanding, and financial exposure that would require him to. His wealthy backers and racial rearward looking functionaries continue on in their destructive march.
It's more than a year away until the mid terms. Ted Cruz predicted a bloodbath at the pools in 2026 if things go badly. And that's the ultimate irony. Trump was elected, basically, as people didn't like the social views of the left and didn't believe that he believed the rest of the nonsense he spouted. People tend to vote with their wallets.
Trump isn't going to change direction. Like many old people, his ideas are fixed in the distant path, when they actually might have made some sense. It's a common failing of the old. The nation is going to go into a heavy duty recession, the Republicans are going to get slammed in the 2026 election, and the left will be resurgent. A weary nation will, at that point, not care much about men wearing dresses and the like, and for that matter, the left may have made a slight course correction.
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 80th Edition. The Tetas, Milk (but not from a cow), Coffee and Whiskey edition.
Okay, I don't know if this blog is "family friendly". After all, it covers all sorts of topics including some that are pretty adult, if we take the word "adult" to mean what it is supposed to mean, rather than x-rated. Normally it's fairly serious.
This Zeitgeist addition might not be.
But it is a bit off color. So, off color warning.
As I think I posted awhile back, the Texas Rangers made a goof on this years special baseball hat edition, in which the first letter of the team's city is appears over the logo, so that the hat spelled out "TETAS", or, in Spanish "tits".
Oops.
They quickly clawed it out, but not before some quick fans ordered them. So, this year, at Texas Rangers games, some bold, probably all men (my wife actually stated to me that she wished she'd ordered one) Rangers fans will go to the game wearing "TITS" hats.
Now, I get some feeds on the first page that comes up when I log on that are food related. This is probably as I'll look up wild game recopies. Anyhow, yesterday, there was a story that came up on the front page of Google or Bing or whatever that somebody had introduced breast milk ice-cream. That was so weird that I hit on the news to be confronted with an ice-cream tub depicting a cartoon lactating breast dropping milk and, yes, it's human milk ice-cream.
That's really weird.
I'm not even quite sure how that would be legal. Milk is normally inspected by the USDA if its sold in stores, save for "raw milk" that some people like as they apparently want to risk deadly infections. Added to that, given that I have a somewhat agricultural mind, my immediate thought was "how do you get a sufficient number of lactating women to . . . " at which point you need to quit thinking about such t hings. Still, being familiar with production agriculture, you need a lot of cows . . . and then again, you need to stop thinking about it.
Maybe this is what Trump meant by making America great again. 2025 in the weird Trumpverse is the year of the boob or something.
Or the year of tariffs.
On food:
Trump’s Reciprocal Trade Act spells bad news for coffee
Coffee was already getting pretty expensive.
Trump, of course, doesn't drink coffee.
Trump is apparently a huge Diet Coke fan. He has a real affinity for junk food, particularly Big Macs. He apparently also likes steaks, but according to one of his cooks, extremely well done, which is an infamnia.
Scotland is apparently pretty concerned on the 10% tariff dumped on the UK as it might impact whiskey consumption.
Scotch is, in my view (I don't like Scotch) expensive anyway. I'm more concerned about Irish whiskey, which will be hit with a 20% tariff by the Mango Mussolini's misguided economic policy.
Last edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 79th Edition. The Move along, nothing to see here addition.
Monday, March 31, 2025
Blog Mirror: Trump Says He’s ‘Not Joking’ About Seeking a Third Term in Defiance of Constitution, by Erica L. Green
The worst President in American history, and the worst human being to occupy the office, seemingly has no bounds in his love of himself.
Trump Says He’s ‘Not Joking’ About Seeking a Third Term in Defiance of Constitution, by Erica L. Green
White House spokesmen immediately went into spin mode, but if we've learned anything about Trump is that we should take him at his word on his plans, no matter how illegal they may be. He's going to try this, there's virtually no doubt. And the GOP will support it.
One of the ways Trump thinks he can do this, which won't work, is to have J. D. Vance run for office, with Trump on the VP ticket, and then resign. That is against the Constitution but it also assumes that Vance is willing to be a giant patsy. Maybe he is, but. . .
By the way, Julius Caesar used the elephant as a symbol. . .
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 79th Edition. The Move along, nothing to see here addition.
March 24, 2025
The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.
I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.
This is going to require some explaining.
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic.
Predictably, the Administration denied this occurred, and rushed to discredit Jeffrey Goldberg. However, then the government confirmed it happened, thereby making Pete Hegseth a liar, and making Karoline Leavitt look like a bigger hack than she already does.
Embarrassing.
This same administration has been threatening to prosecute "leakers".
Well. . . go right at it.
Last edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 78th Edition. We'd like to inform you that terrible things are being done in your name, edition.
Monday, March 24, 2025
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 78th Edition. We'd like to inform you that terrible things are being done in your name, edition.
The caption comes this week from a letter the publishers of The New Republic wrote to Stalin, when one of their reporters wrote back on atrocities being committed in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s.
Crowd jeers Hageman at tense Laramie town hall. She calls them ‘hysterical.’: Wyoming’s lone congresswoman faced tough questions and angry constituents Wednesday night.
Not just Laramie, but also solidly Republican Rock Springs and Evanston.
Indeed, all over the country, when Republicans show up in their home districts.
Indeed, the event in Evanston was so notable that a populist apologist felt compelled to write an Op Ed for the Cowboy State Daily.
Jonathan Lange: Barbuto’s Miscalculation Released The Flying Monkeys
Lange you may, but probably don't, recognize as Rev. Lange of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, who has his own blog, Only Human. He's reliably pro Trump and Pro Populist, which brings up one of the real ironies of populism, which is deeply religious people supporting a movement lead by some wildly irreligious people, as we've discussed elsewhere, so we'll only note that Trump is, in Christian terms, an adulterer living in an adulterous irregular relationship as well as being a serial liar, and Musk is an atheist. Lange came to the attention of some in the state by opposing the successful bill to make child marriage illegal.
But we digress.
What's really notable, is that even here in deep Trump country people are really reacting to DOGE and aren't happy about it.
And that's not all they aren't happy about.
A coal mine near Kemmerer is laying off 28 workers.
Tesla chargers have been vandalized with swastikas in Rock Springs.
In far Western Wyoming coal continues to fail, as it will, as coal's days are over, but that hasn't caused deeply Republican Kemmerer to say "yes, we'll sign up for the deportation frenzy" and take an immigrant concentration camp.
Interesting.
Anyhow, I'll give Hageman credit for simply going to Laramie, where she must have known that she'd encounter real hostility. But her response to a LGBTQ was really wrong headed in a city that's sought to overcome the murder of Matthew Shepard for decades.
She called the crowd "hysterical". They weren't hysterical, they were angry.
So far Hageman hasn't toured north of the Union Pacific, which is interesting. I wonder why, sincerely?
Someone else who is touring is Bernie Sanders, and AoC.
AoC is obviously considering running against the pathetic Chuck Schumer.
Also, in Colorado:
Walking the fine line of ‘all of the above’: Two Republicans from #Colorado add names to letter calling for restraint in gutting of #climate legislation — Allen Best (BigPivots.com) #ActOnClimate
One of the really interesting things that's starting to happen in the Trump world is the same thing that happened in the Socialist left world during the 20s and 30s, that being the belief that the dear leader doesn't know about what the Party is doing. I saw this on Facebook, which is just about as far to the left as Wyomingite's normally go, from somebody who is about as far to the right as possible.
So again, in our home State of Wyoming, the left wing lunacy continues to try to rob Wyoming of more original beauty. My understanding is that the Duncan Ranch was to be used for Agriculture and ag based education only. How is it that these are even being considered?!?! Anyone that knows this area can attest to its beauty yet now, that is threatened. I warned people that the State Lands and BLM would be the next spots for these to be in the crosshairs. Those who have allowed these on their private property have opened the door for them to continue to push for this failed technology. So here it is, they want to build on public ground like it's no big deal. There are already whispers of eminent domain coming into play for the future of these cancers as well. It must stop! There is absolutely nothing green about the agenda they push. Wyoming is Oil, Gas, Coal Agriculture, and Tourism. We are not some waistland where you can just stand your turbines up and collect a check. Our Natural Resources are the reason our State isn't bankrupt like the liberals who surround us. Why are we so worried about pandering to these other states that don't follow or respect our way of life? At one time a few years ago, the Natrona County Commissioners agreed 4 to 1 to allowing all of these turbines just North of Casper at 20 Mile Hill. They did so even tho there was standing room only in the courthouse in opposition. So now, there are windturbines in our back yard. It's sickening. Blinking lights at night as far as you can see. The beautiful sunrise that generations of my family has enjoyed for years is now ruined by towering monstrocies. However, when it came time to vote on those commissioners who's term was up, WE THE PEOPLE replaced them. Now, we have a commission who is strong for the people. The most recent green deal that came before these new commissioners for approval got shot down 3 to 2. They understand Wyoming doesn't want this crap in our back yard.
My point is, whoever is not standing for Wyoming, needs voted out and if we want to protect our Wyoming and our tax dollars, these projects need to be met with lots of opposition by, "We The People".
The Duncan Ranch, which this individual is worried about, justifiably, is not in Natrona County. It's in Converse County, which never saw any kind of industrial project of any kind it didn't like. And the rancher, and that's what he is, who is upset, is justifiably upset, but he's being about as green and distributist as can be, and doesn't know it.
Anyhow, these projects weren't backed by a bunch of raving environmentalist here.
Hydrogen project major wind farm at & near Duncan Ranch, seeks state approval this week
They were backed by major heavy industry. And by the county its in, which has supported every single one of these projects without question. Indeed, the only County Commission which didn't support one was the Natrona County Commission, which actually was largely made up of the same people who had supported the prior ones in the county, in spite of what the Facebook fellow says. I think there's only one new Commissioner.
Trump seems backed by billionaires.
People don't really seem happy with what's actually occurring.
By the way, one of the things that's occurring is that the Trump Administration is going to require you appear in person to apply for Social Security. . . while they're also closing Social Security offices. Rock Spring's office is being closed. Casper's isn't listed, but the entire building is suggested to be sold, which could mean that Casperites would have to probably drive three hours to Cheyenne, or five to Denver.
Not to worry, no billionaire will be harmed by this decision.
Postscript:
From Rep Hageman's newsletter:
Rock Springs Social Security Office Update
Late last week, we began receiving calls from constituents concerned by a media article reporting that the Rock Springs Social Security Office was closing. I immediately reached out to the agency and was able to confirm that the allegation was inaccurate. The agency has canceled the lease for an ancillary hearing room it no longer uses, and those hearings will now be held at an alternative location, but the office itself will remain open. You can read more about the new SSA efficiencies here.
Last edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 77th Edition. A bridge too far?
Thursday, March 13, 2025
RFK, Jr. opines that the best protection against measles is the breast milk from an unvaccinated woman. . .
presumably with the recipient being an infant, of course.
This is seriously weird.
At this point in time, the United States is being run by dimwit weirdos.
Monday, March 3, 2025
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 77th Edition. A bridge too far?
March 3, 2025
Just watching the reaction, even in the Trumpified GOP, to J. D. Bowman (Vance) berate Ukrainian President Zelensky to be followed by buffoonish Donald Trump do the same, leads me to suspect that this may have been their bridge too far.
Bowman is no doubt waiting for his next transitional opportunity so that he can replace Trump in 2026, which he has a good chance of doing, but if he doesn't pull that off, his political career appears to be shot. Marco Rubio's has been flushed down the toilet. And people are now wondering why Donny let his pet attack the sitting President of another nation.
And more than ever before, there's a lot of commentary regarding Trump being an outright Russian asset.
An amusing item, I'd note, occurred on Face the Nation when the moderator asked a Republican Senator why Hegseth ordered cyber operations to stand down. FWIW, the question didn't make it clear that it was offensive cyber operations against Russia, but the Senator outright said "not so".
Again, it was offensive operations, but, in the words of the sage Bart Simpson, au contraire mon frère.
The 40 year old Bowman took off for Vermont after berating Zelensky and accompanied protesters lining the streets, so now he really gets to enjoy the big time, with that meaning he'll draw protesters on an increasing basis, the way LBJ did in the 60s. Bowman is used a great deal as a mouthpiece by Donny, whose usual oral utterings verge on babble.
Of course, Trump went on to his nexts brain fart, a strategic crypto reserve for the United States that will include bitcoin and other cyber currencies.
Then he went golfing in Florida, burning up thousands of U.S. tax dollars to do so.
The eclipse of the Mango Sun has been predicted many times, but something shifted over the weekend. A lot of people don't really want to live in the real estate development world where a spoiled not very smart brat born with a silver spoon in his mouth bases the entire economy on transactions. And some are beginning to wonder why it is that we're bending over for Putin.
Bowman is probably contemplating his next chameleon like change. I frankly wouldn't be too surprised to see him routinely denouncing Trump with in a few months.
Last edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 77th Edition. Inside Trump's very tiny window on the world.
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 77th Edition. Inside Trump's very tiny window on the world.
We’re going to be selling a gold card. You have a green card. This is a gold card. We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million and that’s going to give you green card privileges, plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship. Wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card. They’ll be wealthy, and they’ll be successful, and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think it’s going to be extremely successful.
Trump, who frankly gives no signs of being smart, but who is wealthy, simply sees everything in monetary terms.
That's it.
It really raises questions about what his personal life and the lives of those around him must be like.
How pathetic.
Last edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 76th Edition. Keeping them in the sky, with measles, and down on the metaphorical farm.
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 76th Edition. Keeping them in the sky, with measles, and down on the metaphorical farm.
KEEP CALM AND FLY ON Experts say despite recent incidents, commercial flights are safe
No, Trump isn't responsible for this, but it is oddly synchronicitous that at the same time the Trump regime is attacking the government, aircraft keep crashing.
Again, it isn't his fault.
But if Biden was President, you can be sure that Trump would blame him.
Update:
And a scary near miss incident today.
Measles outbreak surfaces in Texas Infection can lead to serious complications including pneumonia and blindness
Almost everyone was unvaccinated.
Gee, what a surprise.
Elsewhere, there's a claim, and its pretty unverified, that a FBI whistleblower has revealed that the Epstein files are being purged at the FBI. MAGAs immediately leaped to the conclusion that this must be because they hold all sorts of dirty secrets about the Democrats and now the Q files will at last be revealed.
Funny, if that's happening, and I have no reason to believe it is, my assumption would be that after Patel taking over the FBI, if that's happening, it wouldn't be files about the Democrats they were seeking to hide. . .
Trump, of course, was a frequent flyer on the Lolita Express and that brings up something that occured to me today while reading what the WFC is up to. As noted in another thread, they've passed the "keep 'em ignorant bill" in the legislature, as they fear that the requirement to report to school districts with curriculum might reveal that some people's home school program is limited to a children's edition of the King James Bible. This seems set to pass, and some must be lamenting that the WFC wasn't as strong in 2023, when the legislature had the temerity to outlaw child marriages. Gosh, now that we're in the golden age we could have kept the children uneducated and pregnant, or at least the girl ones.
Who voted against outlawing child brides. Here's who: Dockstader, Baldwin, Kinsky, Hicks, Steinmetz, Biteman, Salazar, Ide, French, Kolb, Hutchings, McKeown, Allemand, Allred, Angelos, Banks, Bear, Davis, Haroldson, Heiner, Hornok, Jennings, Knapp, Locke, Neiman, Ottman, Pendergraft, Penn, Rodriguez-Williams, Singh, Slagle, Smith, Strock, Styvar, Tarver, Ward, Winter.
Some usual WFC suspects there.
Cont
Funny how quickly things develop. Now both Democrats and Republicans are lobbying Pam Bondi to release the Epstein files, which she had stated were "on her desk".
And yet, they haven't been.
She had said she was waiting on a directive from King Donny, a buddy of the late procuror.
Come on Pam. Release the info.
Last edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 75th Edition. Dim Wit.
Friday, February 21, 2025
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 75th Edition. Dim Wit.
Finnish journalist Mikko Marttinen after listening to Donald Trump's recent speeches:
Trump, 78, is the most dim-witted president of modern US history, and old age has made him even dumber.
Of interest, from the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick was peppered with boos and catcalls throughout a town hall meeting in Roswell late Thursday, as hundreds of critics jeered the Republican for backing President Donald Trump’s agenda during his first month in office.
Last edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 74th Edition. Surgery by butchers, MAGA Concubines, the Gualieter of Ohio, Portents, and the blind and deaf.
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Federal MAGA voters getting the axe.
I was skeptical that there would be very many of these, but in fact there are. I should have known it.
Not firings. No, Federal (and State) employees who voted for Trump, or in Wyoming for members of the Freedom Caucus.
They were always voting to fire themselves. Did they not realize it?
Well, The naiveite would be amusing, but for it being so tragic and short sighted. Somehow these people believed that the merits of their work would save them from this fate.
Why?
It's not about the quality of their work. They're MAGA cannon fodder.
GoldieSk8s @GoldieSk8sReplying to @realdogeusaTrump voter here. Mass firing probationary employees makes no sense. Forest Service, 26 yr old exemplary 2-year veteran 'probationary' employee GIS tech let go with no warning today. Along with a timber cutter, the lowest paid, most profitable employee they have. This is stupid.GoldieSk8s@GoldieSk8s·Feb 13@realDonaldTrumpseriously, why the low hanging fruit? An EXEMPLARY 26 yr old GIS tech with the Forest Service for 2 years, intern converted to full time, one month shy of being off probation, fired on a Zoom call no warning, sent home in tears. Now I'm questioning my vote.GoldieSk8s@GoldieSk8s·Replying to @elonmusk and @DOGEYou are losing some of your strongest supporters by attacking the low-hanging fruit (me, my family). 26 yo hardworking 2 yr employee of USFS let go with no warning on Zoom. My hard-working son witnessed this, and is disgusted & I am embarrassed. This is NOT how you save America.GoldieSk8s@GoldieSk8s·Feb 13@elonmuskgoing after the low hanging fruit? An exemplary 26 yr old GIS tech with the Forest Service for 2 years as an intern converted to full time, only one month shy of being off probation, fired on a Zoom call no warning, sent home in tears. Now I'm questioning my vote.GoldieSk8s@GoldieSk8s·Feb 13@DOGEgoing after the low hanging fruit? An exemplary 26 yr old GIS tech with the Forest Service for 2 years as an intern converted to full time, only one month shy of being off probation, fired on a Zoom call no warning, sent home in tears. Now I'm questioning my vote.GoldieSk8s@GoldieSk8s·Feb 13Replying to @Bwahahahafunny and @adgirlMMSon told me of a 26 yr old exemplary GIS tech at FS who was 2 yra into 'probationary' let go on a Zoom call. He was very depressed about it. This is not the way, taking out people regardless of performance. I don't understand why it has to be one extreme or the other.GoldieSk8s@GoldieSk8s·Feb 13Replying to @MarioNawfalSeriously, low hanging fruit? EXEMPLARY 26 yr old GIS tech with the Forest Service for 2 years, intern to full time, one month shy of being off probation, fired on Zoom, no warning, sent home in tears. Not classy. Now I'm questioning MY vote.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 74th Edition. Surgery by butchers, MAGA Concubines, the Gualieter of Ohio, Portents, and the blind and deaf.
It's been a weird and horrific week for the Republic.
Surgery with a cleaver.
They should have unionized in the meantime and asked for employment contracts, with one being that if they were terminated without cause for the next four years Elon Musk has to surrender his cash, along with Trump, assuming Trump has much.
Trump supporters, I'd note, are cheering on his actions, or rather Elon's, while the disaster looms. The Forest Service, which only had about 34,000 employees to start with, is losing 10% of them. That's going to hit Wyoming like a ton of bricks as campgrounds close and the like this summer, and the State has to learn to fight fires with its own money and resources, none of which we're doing the slightest thing about.
That ain't conservative
Regarding Musk, Ashley St. Clair, whom I was previously unaware of, announced herself as another one of Musk's concubines who has produced a child.
St. Clair is supposedly a "conservative influencer", but whelping children out of wedlock isn't conservative. This lays bear the whole hypocrisy of contemporary American conservatism. . . there isn't any in the US. Spreading your legs for Elon doesn't boost your street cred with real conservatism and it certainly doesn't make you Eva Vlaardingerbroek. It just makes you gross.
It does interestingly cast back to an earlier era, however, when men of royalty engaged in concubinage, because they could. Both Trump and Must exhibit that trait. They're not moral men at all, and yet somehow the peasantry attributes nobility to them.
It's interesting that the super genius Musk doesn't chose plain jane girls for his concubines. They're all not bad looking. Courtesans were often chosen for their looks and wits. Maybe these were too.
Of course, this assumes that St. Clair is telling the truth. She might not be.
It also show the weird Calvinism that prevails in the American Civil Religion, as well as, interestingly, the Boers. Musk is from a Canadian family that moved to South Africa. Calvinist, in their pure form, believe that God foreordained who goes to Heaven or Hell and there's nothing you can do about it. They were heavily represented in the Roundheads who fought the crown in the English Civil War. Anyhow, I recall reading a letter from one imprisoned Roundhead figure who asked if the Crown could send his mistress to him. His mistress, not his wife.
Calvinism, we might note, is also responsible for the warped "Protestant Work Ethic", but more on that in some other post.
Anyhow, it's funny how the Evangelical Protestants who find Trump "Godly" don't mind his sexual behavior, or that of Elon Musk's, neither of whom behave particularly Christian. Indeed, Musk has claimed in the past to be an atheist.
I'd like Evangelicals to explain this.
Vance lecturing the lumpenproletariat
J. D. Vance lectured Europeans, Germans in particular, on how neo Nazis really ain't that bad.
Telling.
Pete Hegseth tried to lecture people on something, but it was so spastic its hard to know what he was saying, if he knows. That he's a small man in a big job is pretty evident. He's not going to last in this position.
The Pentagon is bracing for defense cuts, fwiw. They ought to be bracing for women to be removed from combat MOS's, which is one of the few things this interregnum could do at this point which I'd support. What I don't support, however, is the elimination of education on sexual assault in the military, which the Navy and Marine Corps have done, following what they believe to be orders from up the hill. The Service has a huge problem with sexual assault, and it'll get worse.
In some ways, I wonder if the current leadership doesn't care about that. It'd drive women from the service, which they may be wishing for.
Portents
It's easy to see signs that aren't there, but since Trump came into office there have been a pile of local and national oddities.
One thing has been the number of airplane crashes. There's been a lot. A small private plane went down in Sweetwater County a couple of weeks ago, and one went down on the highway near Rawlins last week.
Yesterday there was a massive accident in one of the Interstate Highway tunnels near Green River that killed at least two.
Wyoming can't afford its highways, fwiw, which is one of the things that it is seemingly unaware of. Starting this year, probably, we're going to have to figure out how to. My guess is that we just will let them decay. There's remnants all over the state of old state highways before there was Federal money, and they're, well, bad roads and were pretty much from day one.
There's been a lot of shootings in Wyoming over the past year, not all of which hit the news. This past week two did, one in which a mother killed three of her four children and herself. Another occurred when a teenager playing with a handgun killed another teenager. I"m pretty convinced, as I'll post in another thread, that gun control is coming, and Trump will be the one who brings it in.
The Gulf of Mexico and the Press
Trump has excluded the AP from press briefs as they continue to call the Gulf of Mexico the the Gulf of Mexico.
Everyone on earth except for the Trump besotted calls the Gulf of Mexico by that name, and the second Trump leaves office by any means, it's going back to that name and he'll be derided for thinking he could change it.
Time, I might note, is apparently not afraid of Trump. Their current cover:
Good for them.
You can't save everyone
I had a friend I went to grade school with who was in real personal trouble by the time we were high school. It got worse afterword. He died in his 30s down in Louisiana at work, of a massive heart attack, but in actually from a lifetime of booze and alcohol.
There was no saving him.
I note that as it was obvious where his life was headed, just as its obvious where the country is headed. We're headed for a real disaster, but you can't tell the MAGA people that. They're incapable of believing it.
Last edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 73d Edition. Long outages and Donny wasting the taxpayers money.
Monday, February 10, 2025
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 73d Edition. Long outages and Donny wasting the taxpayers money.
The Tribune has been out for an extended period of time due to "Cyber Security issues".
Hmmm. . .
Donald Trump just has to ruin everything.
What a child.
Trump may well wish to remember that Americans notoriously turn on those they fawn over. They can and often have done it virtually overnight. There's a real chance that many of the same people who slavishly love Trump today, will hate him tomorrow.
On Trump, the occupant of the Oval Office flew on Air Force One to Mara Lago, and then flew to California for the game, all on the taxpayers dime. While there, he was of course protected by the Secrete Service.
How much do we suppose all that cost?
While Elon Musk runs the doggy agency, why doesn't he cut this crap out. Trump doesn't need a government airplane for weekend getaways. That's not official business. He can buy an airplane ticket like everyone else. And as for his protection, if they attended the Super Bowl, and they did, he should pick up the tab for it. And as he was just on a frolic and detour, he can pick up the costs for all of his security for all of this, including the local costs which there no doubt were.
I'm sure that will occur to Musk . . .
Indeed, one of the things that has caused Presidents in general to mistake themselves for kings is all the security and infrastructure that goes into maintaining them. This would be a good time to cut that out. An airplane to go to something official? Well okay. A Marine Corps helicopter on the front lawn, forget it. Just drive.
And for that matter, there's no real reason for much of the White House staff. Melania isn't working, she can cook dinner. And that's just a starter.
Last edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 72nd Edition. Carbon Comparison and Contrast.
Saturday, January 25, 2025
If Trump isn't demented, what is he?
I've consistently advocated the theory that Donald Trump has a rapidly progressing case of dementia, and I'll stand by it, even though I have no qualifications to maintain that at all.
But what if he isn't demented. How do you explain his behavior?
We'll take a look.
He's just stupid
This is a real possibility.
There's no real reason to believe that Trump is intelligent. His success in business, which is often cited is pretty much based on his having inherited a vast amount of wealth. As studies have shown, people who inherit a lot of money are likely remain wealthy no matter what. It actually takes real effort for them to fall down into a lower economic class.
There's plenty of evidence that Trump is simply dumb. He appears to say whatever floats through his head he adopts the views of people around him without thought, he asks questions of his aid that are really, well, dumb.
And really stupid people often tend to be either profoundly kind, or profoundly mean. Trump seems to fit in to the latter category. The nuances of morality that most people have require some degree of intelligence. Trump simply lacks that, perhaps, so being really mean just comes naturally to him.
How then did he get to be President?
Well one thing is that people tend to assume that wealth equals smarts. He has a lot of money, so he must be smart, right?
Nope.
But as people tend to believe that, they tend also to fill in the blanks for the stupid person so that their support of him is rationalized.
In the past, we saw that a lot with sports. Some sports figure may be as dumb as a box of rock, but as people want to idolize him, they make excuses for everything the person says or does.
And the entire celebrity worship thing in American culture is part of that. People take seriously things celebrities say, as they must be smart, or they wouldn't be celebrities, right?
To add to it, the dumb int he public eye tend, normally to be protected by handlers, which Trump was up until very recently. Now that he's not the stupidity of much of what he says and does is really coming to the forefront.
Finally, intelligence is complicated. There are polymaths who are sort of universally intelligent, but there are also people who can excel at one thing without really being smart at anything else. Trump clearly has skills as a salesman. That frankly seems to be the only talent he has.
On that, I've known a few salesmen really well and often been surprised by how little interest they have in the topic of what they sell, or anything else. An extremely successful real estate broker I know, for example surprised me when he revealed he had once been a car salesman. They are, however, both sales.
A car salesman that I knew once surprised me in a conversation by revealing he really knew nothing about automobiles at all, and wasn't interested in them. Cars bored him pretty clearly, but he was really good at selling them. Selling is what interested him.
Trump may very well be like that. He has good sales skills, which doesn't mean he's really very interested in anything he's selling.
A problem with the stupid is that they won't acknowledge it. I don't think its true that most stupid people don't have an inkling they're dumb, but how they react to it is different. Some simply accept it. Others reject it. Some seek constant affirmation that they aren't dumb. Trump seems to fit into that category.
Aiding that, we'd note, is that he's been surrounded by people who have been telling him that he's really smart his entire life. Everyone has witnessed something like that personally, where somebody is protected from reality until they simply don't know what it is.
There's sort of a Chauncey Gardiner element to this, we'd note. In the film Being There, a simple minded man is mistake for a genius and becomes an advisor to the President simply because of his appearance and apparent station in life. It's very difficult for most people to accept that somebody who has achieved apparent success isn't extremely smart. I recall my mother, for instance, being of the view that Barrack Obama must be a genius (I'm not saying that he wasn't) because he was a lawyer. It doesn't take smarts to become a lawyer, and one of the most successful ones I ever met with not a smart man at all. He was just lucky.
Added to this, people, once they latch on to a figure, tend to attribute their own values to him. We've seen this in spades with Trump. He's not a religious man, but people believe he is. There's no reason to believe he cares about most of the populist agenda, unless doing so aids him personally, but people believe he does.
The scary thing here is, unlike the first time when Trump had people to real him back in, he doesn't now. If he's not demented, and therefore not capable of being removed, he can do pretty much any dumb thing he wants to over the next four years.
He's simply narcissistic and amoral.
Full bore narcissism and complete amorality is really rare. Even people that most other people accuse of narcissism are capable of at least some empathy.
Likewise, complete amorality is very rare as well. Even people with loose morals usually have some.
But not always, in either case.
Indeed, it's well know that psychopaths have no empathy for other people. And some of them, we'd note, are pretty smart. According to some, Julius Rosenberg, the Communist spy, was an example of all we've mentioned here. He was really smart and only cared about himself.
Trump was raised in an environment in which only success mattered and only money determined what was success. That was the Trump culture, and by all available evidence, Trump took to it and thrived in it.
Nothing other than Trump matters to Trump. That's pretty much it. And given that, cheating on spouses, dumping associates, switching positions, lying, and screwing the entire nation are okay if it benefits his view of himself.
And that explains why he completely baffles his opponents and why his admirers admire him. Those opposed to him cannot grasp how anyone can't see through Trump. Those who admirer him can't bring themselves to believe that he doesn't care about them whatsoever, or the country, or anything other than himself.
Normal people don't behave like Trump to that degree. Trump's an example of what the world would really be like if John Lennon's Imagine ruled the day.
Trump sees a world in which there are no values, no religion, and nothing, other than Trump getting all he can get.
I'd note, however, that in a way, Trump, if viewed this way, is the ultimate expression of his generation, the "Me Generation". Not everyone, or even most, in it, but the generational ethos as a whole. What matter was "me", not much else. Trump expresses an extreme form of that, even if he acquired it at home from a father who was definitely not part of that generation. That also makes it easier for his acolytes to vote for him, as some of them growing up sort of viewing the world that way themselves. Other, however, likely most, really believe that Trump cares about their cost of living, their pocketbooks, and making "American Great."
Well, as we know, Leopards won't eat my face.
He's a Goodfella
Not literally, but rather by association.
Trump developed his real estate business in New York at a time at which if you were going to get by, you were going to deal with the mob. If he has just as big of "big brain" as he claims, then he would have picked up how mobsters work, which to some extent is on bluff and threat.
The best example is from the movie The Godfather, which was closely based on the real behavior of the New York mafia. When they wanted Jack Wolz to do something, they put a severed horse's head, from a beloved horse, in his bed. Wolz, who wasn't harmed himself, caved to their demands.
Trump constantly makes bluffs and threats, and in fact quite often his adversaries give him what he wants. That may be his undignified and reprehensible negotiation style. If a person is immoral enough, and unprincipled enough, that works. . . right up until it doesn't.
There's no "art" to this deal. It's brutish.
And, of course, sooner or later, it doesn't work.
And when that day comes, you have no friends.
Indeed, somebody ought to give Trump the test now. When he says "I need this" somebody ought to say, come and get it.
Harold Hardrada asked Harold Godwinson "How much of England will you give me?". Godwinson replied "six feet, because you are bigger than other men". In this administration, and soon, somebody is going to tell Trump "fuck you, and the horse that you rode in on", and the whole bluff thing just goes down the tubes. Once you can't back a bluff up, it's implodes really quickly.
And then, you have no friends at all.
Here, for example, Denmark ought to tell the US to get its Space Farce base out within a few days. We'd have to. And if I governed Panama, the Canal would actually be run by the Chinese within a few days.
Whatcha Gonna About It?
Not much.
And his supporters?
They'll just all claim they were never actually for him.
That's not the only possibility.
The Kremlin Candidate
Trump is a Russian asset. The only question is, is he knowingly one, or not, and why.
It's worth noting that it would truly be a master stroke politically if you could get your man into the Oval Office, if you were one of our enemies. And then he could go about wrecking things on your behalf, destroying alliances, the economy and even simply our place in the world.
Nobody has every proven that Trump is a knowing Russian asset. He's definitely a Russian asset, to be sure, but it may simply be because of his view of the world and his childish admiration of strong men, and maybe his wanting to be one. Maybe its because on the eve of his own death, he wants to be remembered for something, and the only think he can think of is to be remembered as an American Napoleon.
But his relationship with the Russians has never been explained. Do they have something on him, and if so what?
Many have wondered about this very question, but nothing has been proven.
Still, he's successfully taken a page out of the Nazi Party's book and broad cast lies so consistently that large sections of the US population believe them. And now he's threatening our allies, and has to be taken seriously.
If Trump is a bought and paid for Russian asset, and largely only cares for himself, he's in an ideal position to simply bring the United States down. He can alienate our relationship with our allies, destroy our economy, leave us a wreck, and turn us against each other.
And that's the best evidence that he's a Russian asset. That's exactly what he's doing.
Soviet literacy poster.
Related threads:
Hubris and Strange Coincidence.
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