At this stage of the game if you still have Trump bumper stickers on your vehicle you're a cultist

 I know at least two people like this.  One at my workplace and the other one a neighbor.  After only a few months into Trump's second term any reasonable person left right or middle would have concerns.  I get the denialism up to a point but something has to give.  Trump sending illegals to places other than their home countries how is this even legal?  Trump now suing the WSJ over its factual reporting on his long-standing friendship with Jeffrey Epstein he's trying to chill a free press and the list goes on.  I'm not big on political bumper stickers but sometimes there comes a time you have to scrape them off.  The Trump cult scene at this point it kind of has the feel of the acid scene in the cemetery in Easy Rider.  I just long for the days when we can get a mature adult of whatever political persuasion in the WH again.  You ever notice Rubio's face?  Every once in a while you get that WTF's going on look.

Chronic moral insufficiency

 Homan bankrupting small farmers in CA through the ongoing ICE raids.  The majority of the field workforce gone in many cases.  The migrant farm workers have either been arrested or are afraid to report to work.  Skilled laborers.  Fruit rotting on the vines.  You I'll be paying more for produce in the near future.  Agriculture Sec'y promises automation and putting Medicaid workers to work in the fields or something like that it's confusing.  As ICE is obviously afraid to go after the criminal aliens we might soon be left with some sort of imbalance.  After Homan's work is finally done they might be the only ones left after all the hard-working law-abiding ones have been deported.  Hannity and Charlie Kirk will be able to afford a bag of cherries.  You won't. 

Welcome to Trump's dystopia.

Mass deportations, mass amnesty or mass amnesia?

 So I can't make heads or tails out of this now.  Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk says the push is on for Trump to pull a Reagan and grant amnesty to 25 million illegal aliens or whatever the number is.  Pressure from the business community.  Trump is working on the legislation now or else it's somewhere in the big beautiful bill.  The calculus is it would help the midterms which don't bode well for Republicans.  In MAGAville even such talk is considered A Bad Thing.  Meanwhile Homan continues to bother the livestock in CA.  Maybe Homan's real purpose is to create a shitshow thus the need for amnesty.  Is Trump at heart an ideologue or a pragmatist?  Will he betray MAGA?  All I know is that in 10, 15 years we won't remember a damn thing.

Not sure Netanyahu knows what a ceasefire is

 Someone should crack open a dictionary for him.  The news it's hard to keep pace anymore.  Musk forming his own political party.  Fringe activist Laura Loomer now an unofficial national security advisor.  God help us!  Flooding in TX.  They're saying the Trump cuts didn't help they made things worse.  Dunno are we still working on cancer?  Homan is out of control but he goes to church every week.  Wreak social havoc and then take your soul to the cleaners every Sunday.  A president being mediocre is not the issue for me it's the sheer weirdness of this Administration.   All you can do is take up a hobby in the meantime and hope it passes quickly.  Not sure why he still has fans.

The DOGE cuts make no sense in light of the big beautiful bill just signed into law

 It's like all those federal workers lost their jobs for nothing.  No rhyme or reason.  It's a philosophical contradiction and politically incoherent.  It'd be like a household with a strict budget scrimping and saving and cutting barely able to pay the mortgage and property tax but then decides to subscribe to cable or satellite TV and add five new credit cards.  I know there are actually households like that.  Big difference is we don't have a government printing press.

Trumpism is not conservatism.  It's just a bunch of mad fantasies.  The weird Right is already selling Alligator Alcatraz merch.  Ron DeSantis is the creepy flavor of the month.  Hello big blue wave come next year.  Cults always fail in the end.

The Home Depot - how Tom Homan gets more done

 Trump now says we have to use lots of common sense about the illegals.  The migrant farm workers and those in the hospitality and leisure industries are essential workers hard to replace they're telling him.  Will we see a change in direction, of tone? So Trump is still lagging behind Biden's deportation numbers this is not a sports contest.  Homan and crew should be helping them pick the vegetables and ask them how their day is going not loading them into paddy wagons.  Homan laying down the law at a press briefing.  There's no grayscale with him just be a hardass.  Watched some NYC ICE footage last night on the news.  The always masked ICE agents lack simple basic professionalism and seem to have an apelike intelligence.  Dr. Phil has sure taken a hard turn to the Right but he's from Texas.  As they used to say in the Old West f#@k you and the horse you rode in on.

Are we EVER gonna get to the cost-of-living?

Trump is at war with his own country

 It might be any day now Marines come up the Hudson River to land at the Yonkers City Pier.  As I said in my last post the majority of today's conservatives ain't that freedom loving to begin with.  Yes I'm looking at you Hannity.  They have no issues with the Trump Administration censoring pro-Palestinian speech on campus.  They're ok with the Administration monitoring the social media posts of foreign students.  They're down with the possible militarization of major US cities in response to the growing ICE protests.  No libertarian concerns whatsoever.

One of the first things any would be dictator/fascist does is go after freedom of speech.  MAGA is just a bunch of gutless wonders, a cult at this point.  In my view Trump is a hater and a joyless prick no matter how FOX News and Dr. Phil try to spin it.

Gen. Trump wants to send more troops into American cities

 I guess the National Guard isn't good enough.  I thought they were troops.  Trump wants to militarize more US cities in response to the growing ICE protests coast to coast.  ICE is actually a kind of rogue agency created in the wake of 9/11, an offshoot of DHS.  Basically what Trump wants to do is set up a police, a military state with a vast ai surveillance system, an Orwellian database of every single living American courtesy of Palantir Tech.  Laura Loomer is down with this.  So why do the vast majority of conservatives still support Trump despite these existential threats to freedom and privacy?  They're not really that libertarian to begin with.  This is not to say they need to be full-blown libertarian but they should be more libertarian than they are.  More stuff should bother them but it doesn't.  Instead they constantly fall back on blaming the media and the Democrats.  So what happens if Trump gives the go-ahead for Marines to shoot rioters in US cities?  Will Charlie Kirk cheer?

Dark days ahead.  I hope I'm wrong.

Trump - the social unrest president

 He just loves to agitate the population doesn't he.  Bypassing CA state and local government he sends in the National Guard to quell the LA riots/protests.  On top of that he sends in a few hundred Marines - the few the proud.  Folks are rightly upset over Homan's goon squads and their operations in LA and ICE protests have now gone coast to coast.  Trump wants American citizens to get used to a military presence in American cities.  He wants to set up a police, a military state that's what this is about.  An AI advanced surveillance system to go along with that and too many Americans are already willing to give up their rights and freedoms for added security and safety.  Govern me harder Daddy!

Maybe one of these days Trump will get around to tackling the cost-of-living but I doubt it.

The Orange Man loves the drama

 Trump has made it a cornerstone of his presidency that he hates the immigrants.  Biden deported his fair share of illegals to be sure, Obama even more but they never talked about it much or made a show of it.  Now the ICE Capades in LA and the accompanying protests some of them violent Trump has sent in the Nat'l Guard (w/the Marines as backup?).  Trump lives for these moments and they help define his presidency.  ICE has become a kind of rogue agency something you see in a bad action flick. No name badges.  Masks.  Kidnapped people in broad daylight at times.  Where's Jason Statham?  What are we a Third World country?  Trump and Homan - alpha males without the sex appeal.

Here's hoping the next presidency is a calmer administration.  We don't need the drama.

Political bunker mentalities

 The majority of people have not cultivated the political ability to criticize their own side.  They are either down with everything their preferred political side does or if they do have some issues from time to time they simply keep quiet about it and look the other way I'm guessing for what they see as the greater political good after all the other side is worse.  A very binary view of things.  BOTH sides do this btw it's not just a MAGA thing although it may be particularly politically pronounced there.  Basically it's why we never have any real political progress in this country.  So how's your bunker doing today?

On a dryer note Trump's big beautiful bill for the rich

 They'd be getting the bulk of the proposed tax cuts according to the CBO.  The bill would also explode the deficit and national debt.  Proposed millions or billions to build ICE infrastructure read detention facilities for illegals.  Also making it harder for folks to access Medicaid and food stamps thereby amounting to cuts without technically calling them cuts.  More Republican opposition in the Senate where the bill may not pass or stall.  Musk is against the bill saying it would undermine the whole work of DOGE.  He's not wrong.  Democrats have no power at the moment and can't seem to get back on track.  Still hard for me to process that a cognitively impaired old guy with cancer was in the WH for 4 years.  Budget bills are usually boring topics but merits some discussion.  So that's it for today.

Ever have a conversation with a Trump cultist?

 It's spooky.  I personally know at least three of them.  Now we all have our political leanings.  I'm not talking about those who are supportive of Trump but the true believers out there.  When you gingerly and politely bring up even a mildly negative point about Trump they rationalize it.  There's no hesitation about it either as if they've imbibed the talking points. They agree with and defend EVERYTHING the man does and says.  For me personally Trump is not positive.  He doesn't inspire and unite and has no real gravitas for the most important position in the land but for them it's always the Democrats and the media's fault.  The Trump cultists it's a phenomenon. 

Less executive orders mean less tangles with judges

 As a practical matter.  A wise young manager I had once said you have to choose your battles.  This does NOT mean the judges are right on all the issues.  They're not but many see themselves as gods, the most powerful branch of the government but that's a separate post and I've blogged about it.  Trump started his second term like gangbusters with a swagger and a new sheriff in town kind of 'tude.  Practical advice lose the 'tude!  You can't govern for four years on executive orders alone.  You're not a monarch.  If the issue is important enough yes have at it with a judge but you don't have to right every wrong or every perceived wrong in four years.  Leave that to the next guy or gal.  Trans soldiers there can't be that many of them let it go.  DEI I had to google what this meant but it seems to be taking up a huge chunk of the President's time and on and on it goes.  What does it all matter if most people are going to sucky jobs in the morning?

I don't know what the guy's doing.

Fighting Harvard doesn't help people put food on the table

 Or pay the rent or manage the mortgage or take the animals to the vet.  Most of us wouldn't be able to get into Harvard.  Most of us wouldn't be able to afford Harvard hence I hardly ever think of Harvard.  Much of what Trump is doing in his first 100 days, I mean the executive order stuff aimed at socio/cultural issues like DEI I would describe these actions as low-impact meaning they don't positively affect the average person.  Many of the Trump obsessions he's trying to codify into law don't help the bulk of Americans afford basic living.  Trump has so much on his plate it's just leading to political diarrhea and nothing substantive in his second term.  Harvard doesn't need the federal funding but that's besides the point.

Everything but the cost-of-living.

Trumpian economics is a lot like quantum physics

 

You can't understand it.  Looks like we're in a bear market now.  U.S. futures are way down and last few days Wall Street and the global markets have been tanking.  Sen. Ted Cruz is starting to get pissed and Elon Musk has been taking potshots at Trump's trade advisor Peter Navarro.  Trump says it's all medicine to make it all better.  Just a spoonful of bullshit I guess.  The UAW likes the tariffs though.  Some House Repubs are worried and have put stuff on the table.  CA is looking to still do business despite the tariffs.  New cars sales are up all of a sudden.  Folks buying wheels now before the tariffs drive the prices up.  Pop a prozac?  Maybe stock up on the Christian Brothers.

We got enough on our plate.  My thing is Trump didn't campaign on bring the pain.

I can't be wrong

 Trump has a complex personality type.  Not sure of the exact clinical diagnosis but besides narcissism a key element is the attitude I Can't Be Wrong.  This is not uncommon.  You see it in the business world a lot.  Companies and corporations might do things that seem stupid to the average employee but they never reevaluate as they go along but just forge ahead anyway even if they eventually drive the company into the ground.  I've seen it firsthand.  Will never take corporate responsibility.  They can't be wrong.  It's a funny way to go through Life though with that attitude.  At the root of many problems.  Maybe this goes a way explaining Trump's popularity in a way he mirrors us.  It's frightening in a leader though.  He's not the cerebral type but the GeeeZers will always sing his praises.  

I see Dr. Phil has made a hard turn to the Right going on ICE campouts with Homan.  Do they roast marshmallows together?  BTW who the hell is this Laura Loomer chick some unofficial advisor to the president?

Warehouse cat. Union job.

 

Yonkers has a bit of a rat problem.  Messy neighbors.  Yards that look like Sanford and Son's.  A cat will wait patiently for over one hour to catch one rat.  He's on vacation btw.

I'll have an LGBTQ hold the mayo

 So far Five Guys haven't changed their name to Five Gays but we do have or had DEI sprinkled throughout society until Trump outlawed them.  He's issued executive orders on everything that annoys him and has even given orders on statues and monuments.  He's taken over the Smithsonian and Kennedy Center why I don't know.  Maybe he wants to hold an awards ceremony for himself.  He's issued tariffs on cars but has said to car makers don't pass the added cost onto prospective car buyers.  Ok no prob DUH.  Nothing yet about the price of eggs or Fancy Feast.  No real bread and butter issues to date just side issues and strange personal obsessions.  BTW can we still honor the memory of Sidney Poitier?

The richest man on the planet is coming for your retirement savings

 When is the Right going to wake up and smell the coffee?  That's the kind of woke I'd like to see.  MAGA let in the Trojan horse.