Gay presidential porn

 Could be a new sub-genre on PornHub next to midgets and dwarves and granny porn.  I LONG for the days when politics was boring.  You'd be watching the PBS Newshour and experts would be on discussing the deficit, your eyes would glaze over and you'd change the channel.  You finally got your big political science degree at a college or university, you finally got a seat on an important TV roundtable and you have to discuss THIS?  What is this Ancient Rome?  You have to get the kids out of the room now before you flip on the news?  Oh yeah to hear the WH tell it this is just a massive distraction from Trump's many accomplishments.  Like what?

I can't believe I'm living;)

Charlie Kirk

Conspiracy theorists are already saying Netanyahu and the Mossad had right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk assassinated.  For the record I do not subscribe to this but the thought occurred Bibi is out of control at the moment and it's not entirely out of the realm.  Many people even experts are describing yesterday's events at Utah Valley University as a professional hit.  One precise shot from a rooftop at least 200 yards away and the bullet hit Kirk's jugular.  Cops recovered a high-powered bolt-action rifle from the scene.  The FBI describe the shooter as college age and are said to have recovered palm and forearm prints.  Image released of person of interest.  Broad condemnation of the act from both the Left and the Right.  I'll save further thoughts for the Comments section.

You have now entered the political Twilight Zone

 The weird Trump cult continues.  No special requirements.  No need to graduate from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.  Homan will train you.  Just a willingness for a patriotic 14-year old boy to beat up his neighbor.

You Can't Make This Shit Up.  An ongoing series. 

Strawberry Fields Forever

 ICE agents continue to chase migrants through the fields of farms in CA.  Don't know if this causes cancer but the whole thing gives off a Monty Python/Benny Hill kind of vibe.  No reports of the raping of cattle but the thought occurred maybe ICE is afraid to go after the real criminals.  Better to go after some Tufts University Muslim woman who wrote an op-ed critical of Israel for the student newspaper.  Maybe Charlie Kirk can afford $40 for a head of lettuce.  I can't. 

Continuing fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein Non-Files.  The Justice Department would have you believe they were the Snapchat of sex trafficking.  Data just vanished after 10 seconds or so.  User profiles all gone.  Nada zilch zippo. Deputy Director of the FBI Dan Bongino is thinking of resigning and Kash Patel might join him.  Homan is still going strong however.  It's clear the man enjoys his work.

You can't make this shit up;)

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.

Trump's First 100 Days in Office - Take a walk on the wild Right

 Arresting judges.  We don't need no Education Dept.  Bomb the Houthis.  Hey hey ho ho DEI has got to go.  You're fired then rehired.  Deporting the wrong people.  DOGE it baby!  Tariffs.  Trade wars.  Funding freezes.  Bibi.  Gaza.  Zelensky.  Putin.  Harvard.  You wanna protest on campus?  STFU.  Have you checked your cat for anti-semitism lately?  Executive orders.  Homan.  Cap'n Crunch.  Food dyes.  Measles.  Gulf of Trump.  Greenland.  Have you caught up on your texts today for maybe secret Yemeni war plans?  Closing USAID.  Who needs to eat?  Scale back the medical research grants already.  Cancer shmancer.  Low polls blame FOX News.  Tell the judges to go fuck off.  Bondi.  Patel.  Lawfare.  Trump vs. trans soldiers.  Canada as the 51st state?

Can Fall Out Boy make a song out of all of this?

The media made me do it

 Yes the left-wing media doesn't like Trump.   Never did.  This was really obvious during the campaign.  My daily newsfeeds were saturated with anti-Trump stuff.  If the media could have gone with Trump ate somebody's dog they would have gone with Trump ate somebody's dog.  Having said that Trump has tracked a nuttier course than I would have expected but conservatives are still blaming the msm.  Trump lost me after Gulf of America and Greenland.  The media didn't make him almost trigger a worldwide recession.  Not speedily correcting deportation mistakes.  Squelching free speech on campus etc. etc.  To paraphrase Flip Wilson's Geraldine the media made me do it.  Not good enough.  Doesn't wash anymore. 

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.

Oy vey! - Team Trump giving off those creepy Orwellian vibes

 Fresh on the heels of almost ruining millions of Americans 401k plans (90 day tariff pause) Team Trump has announced they are going to be monitoring the social media accounts of immigrants seeking permanent legal status as well as the online musings of foreign students.  They're going to be looking for antisemitic posts.  Watch them conflate legitimate criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza with support for Hamas and Hezbollah and other terror groups.  No wonder Bibi was grinning on his recent trip to the WH.  I say this if the Trump Administration is going to get all pervy about people's privacy at least include a middle finger emoji at the end of the post.  The Peeps Administration:)

He's not wrong

 Obama on Trump

Okay I guess I'm not a team player but I agree with some of this.  It's not that I'm turning more liberal it's Trump doesn't understand the Constitution or appreciate American values like free speech.  Anti-Trump protests planned across the country today.  Conservative media will most likely downplay it but you don't have to be a liberal to have concerns about Trump.  Also on the Greenland front  the Danish PM reminded Trump you can't just annex a country.

100 Days of Chaos.

Anti-semitism on campus and Trump's Gestapo

 "Anti-semitism" being rather loosely defined these days to include legitimate criticism of the State of Israel.  Trump Administration now going after perfectly legal people who have all the right paperwork.  Pro-Palestinian foreign students on visas now being detained and actively deported for protesting Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.  Over 50,000 Gazans already dead including scores of women and children.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio in charge of revoking the student visas over 300 at last count.  Homan's goon squads.  Tufts U. student arrested or should we say kidnapped by masked ICE agents in the middle of the street in broad daylight.  Her crime?  Simply writing an op-ed piece in the university newspaper calling on Tufts to divest itself from companies that do business with Israel.  The horror stories go on.  The banality of evil.

We tend to forget that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Gaza.  On at least two occasions Netanyahu has cut off all water and electricity into Gaza most recently even well after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for him.  He's doing what he wants regardless and is now singing the praises of Trump's crackdown on campus speech and says other governments should follow his example.

This is quite possibly the most shocking episode of our government censoring perfectly valid speech in modern times.  Unless Trump fires some people (e.g. Rubio, Homan) it means the downfall of the Trump Administration imo and the end of MAGA.  A blot on the history books.

There is nothing inspiring about the Trump presidency

 The dismal 2nd term continues.  I honestly thought Marco Rubio was a decent choice for Secretary of State but he's turned into a dick.  He's boasting he revoked 300 Visas of foreign students who have engaged in pro-Palestinian protests on campus.  Actually it may be more he lost count.  He says those coming here from abroad to colleges and universities are here to study and learn and to earn a degree.  Has he never heard of intercollegiate sports?  The Vietnam War protests?  Thou Shalt Not Criticize Israel.  Rubio somehow conflates condemning the ongoing genocide in Gaza with support for Hamas.  Expect more judicial spanking.  Meanwhile RFK Jr. in his mission to make America healthy again has cut about 10,000 jobs from his own agency.  So where are all the Fruit Loops cops gonna come from?  On the Greenland front Trump is now making almost daily veiled threats against the island nation.  Denmark is not amused.

You can't make this shit up.

Maybe next time add a Houthi to a group chat?

 Maybe someday you'll be able to get Yemen war plans on your Smart TV.  If I was new to blogging struggling to come up with a name during the early days of the 2nd Trump Administration it would have just hit me in the shower,

You Can't Make This Shit Up

Meanwhile JD Vance is going to join his wife Usha in Greenland for a creepy visit upcoming. See the sights dine on whatever Greenlanders eat and exert some pressure.  A kind of friendly Mafioso sitdown.  Is  Musk going to abolish the DMV?  The dismantled DOE workers where do they wind up slicing deli meats?  I get the OAN channel crystal clear in these parts and some nights host Riley Lewis looks like he's going to uncork one.  The erstwhile sensible National Review is all MAGA now.  Lonely.  Maybe I'll go smoke a pipe with Mitch McConnell. 

You know it would all make sense if I was involved in a horrible car accident and wound up in a comatose state and this was all a bad dream.  The Orange Man is real though.  It'll all be over in 3 years and 10 months if we have a country left.

Will probably go down as the weirdest Administration in U.S. history

 At the risk of making a low-effort post scanning the newsfeeds this morning and it's hard to make a coherent post about Trump because his actions are incoherent.  Do you want to spend an extra 12K for a new car?  Would Kamala Harris have pushed us into a recession?  Meanwhile Bibi has cut off all food, supplies and electricity into Gaza (again) but Trump wants to crack down on pro-Palestinian speech on campus instead.

If Biden truly was the worst president in U.S. history as Trump says Trump seems to be vying for the #2 spot.

Government by executive order

 Trump's executive orders continue at a dizzying pace.  Covers all situations and issues great and small.  Might issue an order stating SNL should go off the air.  Trump operating in this make-believe monarchical framework of his.

Reading A LOT about ICE raids.  One news item said they went into some Chicago elementary school later amended to oh no that was the Secret Service.  What would either of them be doing at a grade school?  Is Trump planning a visit?  Did some student write an anti-Trump essay?

Not getting the TikTok ban temporarily on hold.  Has to do with data mining by the Chinese government.   So the Chinese government peers into my boring life and today learns I plan on cleaning the attic.  Not sure how this violates the national security though but I'm not as bright as the smarty-pants over at the National Review.  YouTube is funny.  Watched some attic ladder installation videos last night.  One said so easy a 10-year old could do it all you need is a drill a saw and a couple of other things then you'll see some false comment like "thanks Frank the Handyman I did it."

I'm just a rambling man;)

Don't know if this is a false issue or not

 I wasn't actually going to say anything about Jimmy Carter.  Am I required to?  So the latest Trump controversy is the President-Elect is upset that the Dems want to fly the flag at half-staff on the day of his inauguration to honor the recent passing of Jimmy Carter.  So my thing is today is January the 4th.  The inauguration is still slightly more than two weeks away.  HOW LONG are the flags supposed to fly at half-staff anyway?  What's the rule on this?  Sure when a former head-of-state dies there'll be three funerals and the whole thing will go on for a month so I guess the funereal feelings can well wash up against Jan. 20 but again if anyone knows the rule on the flag thing let me know.

There's always been a kind of rough consensus that Jimmy Carter wasn't a great president but a decent human being.  There were the long gas lines and the Iranian hostage crisis but he also negotiated the Panama Canal Treaties and of course is well known for the Middle East peace accords.  He did better work post-presidency.  Took up a hammer and nail for Habitat for Humanity and put his work pants on.  A devout Christian also taught Sunday school.  Made it to the 100 Club with Kirk Douglas.  Must've been all the peanuts.

Thoughts?

A Room With A Liberal View

 Lots of people wondering how "The View" has been on the air for 30 years.  Basically a bunch of liberal chicks sitting around a table with one token conservative.   Sometimes they start yelling.  I thought "The View" was supposed to be a light and frothy show.  Instead you get Whoopi Goldberg's anti-Trump meltdowns.  The other one Sunny Hostin who I never heard of before says uneducated women voted for Trump meaning they never went to college.  So wait a minute your WHOLE education up to but not including college doesn't count?  Then she says racism and misogyny also were big factors that got Trump in.  The price of pet food had nothing to do with it?

Word on the street is "The View" might be on the chopping block along with Morning Joe.  Elon Musk might buy everything that's not nailed down.  Maybe buy Yonkers who knows?

The existential meltdown continues

 I have actually read in some online forums about people who have broken down emotionally and mentally over the Trump victory and have to be counseled.  I kid you not.  Now let's remember Trump also won the popular vote and his victory was big enough you could call it a mandate.  The legacy media is pretty much dead at this point as they're not as influential as they thought they'd be.  People are gravitating more towards alternative independent media like Joe Rogan and not even giving a passing thought to what the New York Times has to say these days.  Ole Gray Lady hubris.

Whither this blog?  Start any post even mildly favorable to Trump and there's threadshitting.   I don't plan on this place becoming a dumping ground or landfill for Trump hatred over the next four years.  Criticism yes but there's a fine line between that and unhinged, valid takes and deranged rhetoric.  I'm also seeing a lack of critical thinking skills like Trump wants every Latino person who voted for him to leave the country.  That's just low-effort shitposting.  Another one people who haven't gone to college don't know how to vote that's just plain intellectual snobbery.  You know some calculus and some Nietzsche that makes you special?  Saw a bumper sticker once that said "Without Truckers America Stops."

Word of advice to the Democrats:  Next time leave Taylor Swift out of it.

Does your vet need to know Shakespeare?

 Does your gastroenterologist need to know calculus?  How many existentialists does it take to change a light bulb?  You do not need to be a well-rounded individual unless you're Chris Christie.  Many conservatives like Charlie Kirk are now making the case that you do not need a liberal arts college education to get ahead in life.  Worked under a young and talented chef back in the day.  He had a little higher education under his belt but he preferred to dive into the labor market at an early age.  You learn by doing.  Teach kids how to make money.  I vastly recommend trade schools over college unless college is your thing.  I'll never forget the tour our chef friend took us on at the famed Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park New York.  Young people zeroing in on their passion that's what it's all about.  In France our chef friend said chefs are practically revered.  He also said if you're a chef you'll never be out of a job.  College graduates on the other hand often have trouble landing their dream job right away.  Paying back student loans another current issue although the CIA costs a pretty penny too.

College.  What a racket.

What a fracking interview

 The CNN Interview of Kamala Harris/ Tim Walz with Dana Bash asking the questions:

Walz reminded me of a contestant on Jeopardy who just stands there and hardly rings the buzzer.  Moral support for Harris clearly although he did dodge the question about his military service and said something about his wife correcting his grammar and he was proud to be a public school teacher.  Harris basically answered Bash's questions vaguely but got poetic towards the end when she said the true strength of a leader is lifting people up.  We'll just leave everything else for the chat.  I do try to be fair here at Stranded but imo it was a weak interview, inadvertently funny in spots and probably says to most thinking people anyway she shouldn't be the leader of the free world.

What. The. Actual. Frack.