When I read the article regarding the horrible, crass treatment by the President and Vice President towards the President of Ukraine, I was mortally ashamed of this nation and what we have become in just the first few days of the Trump Regime. If one were to ever wonder about the relationship of Trump’s regime and the regime of Putin’s Russia, the events of the past few days have given credence to any and every idea of such a relationship.

Trump and his ChristoFascist administration have shown themselves to be hellbent on turning this once proud American democracy into an authoritarian oligarchy. The actions of his ill qualified cabinet ministers, and his co-president, that bigot scumbag from South Africa, Elon Musk, prove unequivocally that their intent is to eradicate the democratic republic established by the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence they wrote and the Constitution that was established by these early founders. From gutting the Department of Education, to their invasion and theft of private data of all US Citizens using their invasion of the Treasury, the Social Security and other department’s computer/data systems these Trump fascist BrownShirts, led by Musk are compromising the integrity of our nation’s private information!

Trump’s relationship with Putin is placing our nation, and our security at a horrible level of risk. Russia is NOT our friend, but this everyone with an ounce of intelligence knows this totally. Trump with his backstabbing the nation of Ukraine, to the helping hand for Russia and the war mongering, Putin, is one more piece of evidence that he has no desire to be the President of the United States of America! And frankly neither does any of the current Republican Party politicians.

The nations who once counted themselves as allies and friends of the USA, no longer has that mindset nor do they trust this nation’s integrity, honor, or honesty. They all now consider us a pariah among nations and deal with us from a perspective of that they hold with nations like North Korea, China, Iran, Russia, and several others whose national integrity is severely lacking.

I have had several queries yesterday and this morning, about whether I will be watching the State of the Union rant by Trump. My response was a loud, vehement NO. I would rather someone put sharp needles in my ears than to pollute my hearing with more lies and bullshit from this fat incoherent traitor! Cannot imagine the mind damage that those will actually do attend or watch this dictator wannabe spew his disconnected sentences, his total lies, his Hitlerian accusations toward anyone not in his sphere of rabid right wing fascist theocracy dictatorship. Of course I have no doubt that the unelected co-president Musk will be at his right hand, grinning his bigoted smirk and stealing more billions of taxpayer dollars at the same time. No thank you.

Several of my friends have already departed these shores for places where freedom is still active, four left last week for British Columbia, one of the most beautiful spots on this continent. Two friends left the middle of February for residency in Costa Rica, where the climate is wonderful, the beaches are fabulous and the cost of living is such that a senior on retirement pension can live just fine and not have to put up with the Trump ChristoFascist regime’s Blackshirt Gestapo (not yet organized but coming), invading their homes and dragging them off to the concentration camps (still in planning stage). And lastly another couple of friends have taken and passed the test for citizenship as Britain citizens with an eye of migrating to Great Britain in the near future. They will sell their house, attempt to sell their two Tesla cars (but that will be difficult because people are no longer wanting those Musk mobile crap cars), then hie themselves off to the British Isles. Wish we could join them, but our financial situation is nowhere near as strong as theirs.

As some of you may know, I spent my younger years as a military kid, my dad was in the US Air Force. It was said that I was born with khaki diapers. I was able to tour and witness the horror that pervaded the concentration camps where millions were murdered by the Hitler regime, in those early days following the War’s ending when several of us kids grabbed tour tickets for those WWII sites. Our dads and moms were heavily involved in ridding the world of these truly evil scum.

I truly hope that such horrors do not come about in our country, but I most assuredly do not hold a blind eye and thought that “it would never happen here”. I know that the regular German citizen felt the same way, when Hitler took over the German legislative organization, burned the Reichstag (blamed it on “those people”) and initiated violence such as the Kristallnacht where thousands of Jewish businesses and homes were attacked by the Brownshirts, Jews were beaten, some killed, and their homes raided with valuables stolen. All in one night initiated by Hitler’s best buddy Hermann Goering. Goering was the architect of the SS, the Concentration Camps, the Gas Chambers and the mass graves.

None of Hitler’s inner circle were at all to be considered blameless. They were all complicit in the damage to the world and Europe for certainty. The damage and deaths that occured that night was propagandized as a result of the violations of law and public security and the average citizen believed the lies. As the NAZI mantras went, tell the lie big, tell it often and even the most doubtful will begin to believe.

As so it went, the German government was suborned by Hitler and his unelected thugs, their legislature was destroyed and rebuilt as Hitler’s rubber stampers. Of course once he made himself Chancellor, he no longer consulted with those men ever again, becoming in fact a full dictator. If one were to carefully look at the actions being taken by the current Trump regime, his Hermann Goebbels (Musk) and the evolving Brownshirts/Gestapo groups, the complacency of the Congress and the Supreme Court, one can envision the potential for an evolutionary process into a Hitlerian style autocratic regime with Trump as the dictator for life.

But hey, what the hell, surely that couldn’t happen here. No way could we have a government that uses force on the citizens (especially those of color), and to fulfill the dreams of total partnering with Putin and his Russian government. Nah, can’t be happening here.

Yeah? Tell that to the Ukrainians, to the Kurds, they have seen the dangers of Trump’s alliance with fascist and theocratic states up close. Remember the Kurds who were our staunch allies in the Middle East dangers? Remember how the Turkish Government and Trump’s first regime allowed the slaughter of these men, women, children, and elderly? I do! Ukraine is probably even now considering that evidence of Trump’s kowtowing to the governments that is determined to eradicate their nation!

This old Vietnam Vet worries and is saddened at the lack of honor that is about in our nation. Where once we had neighbor working with neighbor to the betterment of our country, our states, cities, and neighborhoods, today we have a full on we/them attitude that rips our nation asunder, and allowing full on anti-democracy autocrats to gain authority positions and begin the dismantling of our once honorable nation. I am old enough to remember when our country, the United States of America was looked upon by the world as a integrity based, honorable and honest nation. When our people were counted on to give our word, extend our hand, and stand by our honor. No longer, the European nations now look at how our President and Vice President bullied the President of Ukraine. How the next act by these two faces of America then stopped the flow of support from our country to the Ukrainian people who are fighting for their very nation and it freedoms. Support that has been given in an honorable pact by one administration and then dishonorably stopped the next administration’s dishonest leadership.

One has to simply look upon the hillside at Arlington House/National Cemetery and feel the sadness as the lives given to protect our democracy, our personal freedoms and our very way of life, only to have that be placed in severe harm by political ideologues’ who have but one goal, destroy the very foundation of our democracy. We veterans weep in our hearts and minds at the dangers facing us, our families and our future family.

Lord Help Us, we face unforeseeable dangers ahead.

Today marks the supposed formation of the new Congress, both House and Senate will be majority Republican, extremely narrow in the House and somewhat better in the Senate. These new status levels in both sections of our Congress does not bode well for any realistic legislative activity. Expect conflicts beginning today when the House is supposed to elect the Speaker and Johnson of Louisiana hopes he will continue in that job. From all indicators, he probably will not keep the position. Rumors abound from the right side of the Houses of several Republicans saying they will not vote to keep Johnson. He can really only lose two votes and since Massie has already stated that he will not support a vote for Johnson, only one vote left to lose for Johnson. Speakers in the past have been saved by votes from the opposing party, but all indications today are that not a single Democrat is willing to cast a vote in favor of Johnson, so he lives or dies by the members of his party.

As for realistic legislation, there is a very slight chance that over the coming two years that anything of value for Americans will be forthcoming. Oh there will be many attempts at slash and burn actions coming from the Trump Administration. Especially from his rabid right wing and fascist advisors and department heads. The Co-President, the fascist rich boy from South Africa, Elon, will take mighty swings at our government institutions, especially at things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and of course anything to do with immigration, unless it is the increase in the number of H1B visas.

Also, look for more looting of the American Treasury by the Trump as he pushes his rich buddies into large government contracts with huge profit margins for those CEO pals. Of course, the fat boy Prez will claim his skim for all those government pig trough millions.

I also expect that Trump, Musk and the rest of the Fascist Regime to make strong moves to privatize our US Mail Service. Trump’s appointed scumbag Postmaster General will continue his actions in gutting the Post Office, preparing it for purchase by companies like FedEx, UPS, etc. Expect that they will try mightily to eliminate domestic mail routes, and force people to subscribe for MailBox access in their facilities if folks want to continue receiving mail. Also watch the cost of mailing a letter to rise astronomically.

Now understand, I don’t wish to position myself as an all knowing seer about the coming years, but these are my thoughts, based on the previous Trump Regime actions and the words and deeds of those he is surrounding himself with this time around. Also, back in the 80s, when the microcomputer (PC) rage started, I was privileged to make a presentation at a computer conference in Nevada. In this presentation, I stated that it was my belief that if we continue the move toward microcomputers at the expense of our mainframe and mini computers, we would see the loss of our individual security, our personal and financial information would be at risk and the cost of computing would not be that better off. Today, I sadly see that my fears for the computer/information world are coming true.

I do hope that my fears for our nation and its people, our freedoms and our rights as citizens, will be unfounded, but sadly I do not think so!

Onward

The current state of political discourse in our nation is one of chaos with a refusal to be adults by meeting and discussing what is BEST for the Nation and it’s citizenry. We have dismissed the true political mission of developing legislative actions that is of BENEFIT to the American public, replacing it with singular focus on what is best for the large dollar donors, and people who provide strong supportive capability for your ideological ideas or your political party persuasion.

For clarity sake, I consider myself a yellow dog Democrat, meaning I would vote for a yellow dog before I would vote for a Republican of any stripe. Having said that, I came to this ideological stance over the years. My first political allegiance was that I was an Eisenhower Republican, but then the Republicans became something else entirely. So, I truly didn’t leave the Party, the Republican Party left me, and frankly their actions as a party have done absolutely nothing to cause me to readdress my departure. For a time I wandered in the forest of the independent voter, and finally became a Democrat during the Carter and Clinton terms. That decision was cemented completely when Barack Obama was elected. Of course followed by the nightmare of the rise of the ChristoFascist Trump Regime. Nothing cemented my personal political belief than the entry of Trump and his anti-democracy political hacks. His regime caused our nation to lose face among the world nations.

Why would I and thousands of folks just like me, make this political change? Quite frankly, I believe that we all became tired of seeing our nation become a corporatocracy bordering on Nationalism/Fascism. And as we students of history compared the 1930s Germany to what we were seeing in our nation following the rise of political bomb throwers across the Republican Party, clarified by the GOP’s “Contract with America” which was nothing that related to the majority in this nation. Over the years following the end of Eisenhower’s Administration (and frankly the end of the GOP as a true party of the people), the Republican political class threw out the planks of that GOP under Eisenhower and began to forge the Nationalistic/ChistoFascist regime like party we see before us today.

But the Democrats also dropped the ball regarding their stand and construct as a political party. Where the Republican Party has moved consistently to the far right, sadly the Democratic Party seems to be every moving toward that far left. Almost unrecognizable as the political party both the Republican and Democratic as what they once were lauded for by the American Public.

In the recent past, I worked for a company in a position that required my travel between New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. AMTRAK was my transport of choice and during those trips, I came to be introduced to a gentleman who boarded the train in Delaware. His name was Senator Joe Biden and a more grounded train mate I have ever met. We chatted in short stands during that train ride, but didn’t get into great depth of political discussion. However, I found him to appear to be a friendly, astute, and all around decent human. I was pleased to have the opportunity of meeting a true Democratic politician, in fact an actual working Senator. Of course that was several decades ago, prior to his election as Vice President with Obama and then as President in 2020. I also was privileged to have met Republican Congressional Representatives who were representing my residential districts. In personal contact, each of them appeared to be personable and interested in my opinions. Sadly in the majority of instances their posture when in the House and during TV interviews was quite different. I found that to be true also with some of my Democrat representatives, so I do believe that the political class from either party is simply attentive to the loudest and strongest voice.

So, boys and girls what does that say to us about our political class and our major political parties, Republican and Democrat? Frankly, in my humble opinion, the powers that be in these political parties have no reason to listen to the general public. Why do you suppose that might be? Well, the old curmudgeon believes it is mainly because we have gotten to the stage of apathy where we are views as simply not giving two shits what those in political power do. So they do whatever the hell they want!

Well, hell, folks, this old man believes that is it time we got off our collective asses and started making these political dipshits to pay attention to the American folks again. It is our taxes that allow them to line their pockets, live the high life, drive fancy cars, and eat nightly meals in the Old Ebbits Grill. We need to form action groups who are loud and proud, who make the kind of noise that the Party bosses are going to be forced to listen to.

Onward!

As of today, Wednesday, December 18th, 2024 we have exactly 33 days until our national nightmare begins. Planning and set up for this period of horrible times has already begun and we will face at least 4 years of the attempted decimation of our social structure, our individual rights and our over 200 years of democracy.

On January 20th, 2025 the Chief Justice of the once actual but no longer, Supreme Court, will administer the oath of office to Donald John Trump and at that point, will usher in our times of ongoing nightmares. One has to simply pay attention to what he and his merry band of clown car occupants have to say to understand that this Heritage Foundation manifesto for the Republic Fascist Party will truly be utilized in the decimation of our once proud and compassionate nation.

Now I am not attempting to do a Chicken little “the sky is falling” routine, trust in the actions and attempted actions from the convicted Felon Trump and his then government flukies were involved with during that previous nightmare of Der Fuhrer’s regime. Frankly, back in the early part of this final year of democracy, when i obtained a soft copy of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 manifesto for the destruction of liberty and justice for all in the good old United States, I was highly concerned, but nothing like what happened this past November when people lost their damn minds, or sat their fat ass on the couch rather than go vote and a declared national danger was elected by one of the smallest margins in the history of presidential elections.

Then I noted that several of my friends, seniors and other retiree folk were making plans to embark to other countries to spend the next four years with head down escapism. One couple I know were already shipping out to Costa Rica and planning to spend the next four years on their motor yacht cruising the Gulf and living in San Jose and Quepos. Others have indicated their preference for Great Britain, and Canada. But the old Captain is not going anywhere, both he and the Admiral are going to stay in our little retirement community with our heads down and pray that that fat slob and his fascist minions don’t screw us over too badly.

So, dear friends and not so dear friends, readers and not so actual readers, until 2029, may we all survive with at least a modicum of our humanity, our democracy, and of course our pension/social security.

As my favorite former SIL says “Onward”

The recent (October 3, 2023) ouster of the House Speaker, was a clear departure from the history of our legislative house membership. Never in our history has a Speaker of the House been removed from his position. NEVER! Yes, the rogue rabid right wing fascists, headed up by Matt Gaetz (of course from the fascist Florida cabal), voted to remove Kevin McCarthy from his role as Speaker of the House. His Crime? Simply working in a bipartisan way to conduct business of the United States Congressional House. Oh Horrors.

Understand, folks, I am not defending McCarthy, I have always believed that he was a lying, morally deficient, anti-democracy slug that for some reason the folks in his district continued to hold their noses since 2006 and put that scum sucking pig back into office. BUT, and I stress this strongly, removing the Speaker of the House in this manner is totally opposite from the operational environment of our House in all of our history as the oldest continuing democracy. Yet with morality and decency in the Republican Party at such a low state it is not surprising, disappointing and shameful, but not surprising.

To compound the horror of this idiotic action by the far right members of the GQP, the forerunner candidates for the next Speaker are two of the most undeserving of such a role of authority. Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise are the primary candidates identified so far. And supposedly they are going to be establishing the slate of candidates then having the actual vote for a new Speaker on Tuesday October 10, and Wednesday October 11 for the actual vote. To point out just how horrible this current Republican group is, there is even talk of letting that corrupt, criminal, multiple indicted thug Trump compete for Speaker.

Supposedly the Speaker doesn’t even have to be an elected Representative. I find that difficult to comprehend, that an unelected man or woman could actually be installed as the most important official of the majority party of the House.

But, stupider things have been showing up in our government, especially the House and the Supreme Court.

Jim Jordan has done nothing in his tenure as a House Representative in the entire time from his first election in 2006. He has posted no legislation, contributed no legislative support and has only participated in the House deliberations by being an antagonistic, witness harassing and insulting, bomb throwing, roadblock for the House and the national legislative process. He has been a caustic, insulting, insufferable jerk in the entire time he has been drawing that six figure congressional salary having been returned by those people in Ohio who must have held their nose each election. Otherwise, I cannot imagine why any thinking person would consider this ass as a representative of our people and our rule of legislative actions and financial responsibility.

Steve Scalise is another right winger hoping for enough votes to sully the Speaker position again. I have no detail information to cause my animosity for Scalise, other than his membership in the multiple rabid right wing groups whose sole focus it to keep the Republicans from doing any damn thing to benefit the American Citizenry. Nothing. Having been born and partly raised in Louisiana, and who still has some family members in that state, I have been aware of the machinations of the Right Wing Louisiana Corrupt Politicians and Scalise is right there among that group. I still communicate with some of my relatives in Louisiana (admittedly not many of them, due to strong political and theological differences), but those I do continue to communicate with are not pleased with their right wing political hacks with Scalise at the top of that bunch. His actions in the Congress, while not as bombastic as Jordan, Green, Boebert, and the others in that group of idiots, he still shows his rabid right wing credentials every time he speaks to the press or news media. Of course, he is in the majority of instances, simply parroting the bull shit lies and anti-individual rights put forth by the fascist propaganda mill of the Republican party and their publicity mediums, like Fox and NewsMax.

The last thing this congress needs is another knuckle dragging right wing fascist in the Speaker’s office. But that is what we will more than likely see coming out of this proceedings on Wednesday October 11th.

Simply put folks, just another example of the total destruction of a once honorable political party. I would imagine that the likes of Dwight Eisenhower and that honorable group of former Republicans are turning over in their respective burial plots. Obviously this group of thugs, especially those such as Gaetz, Buck, Biggs, Mace, Good, etc. have no intention or even the capability of governing for this nation. They are among the most vicious of the rabid right wing fascists who were elected to the office of Congressional Representative. And elected for their local election districts by voters who evidently were not practicing situational awareness, or were of the same mindset as those vicious dishonorable cretins they sent to congress and are paid by national taxpayers.

While I strongly suspected that the ouster of McCarthy would likely happen, and Gaetz made no attempt to hide intentions, considering his lack of honor and integrity during his entire time of squatting in the People’s House. And his years of suckling off the taxpayer teats for publicity and money he doesn’t deserve. It was certainly assumed by this old curmudgeon that he would be the asshole who would file the documentation to call for the ouster. This is the same dishonorable scum who has been described as a sexual predator but has, as our multi-tiered judicial system and our corporate news media often does, escaped proper arrest, trial, sentencing and incarceration. Yet this vile creature continues to sit in the once honorable House of Representatives, drawing his six figure salary and doing not a single damn thing for the United States and it’s citizens. And it should be noted that those “honorable, moderate Republicans” haven’t done a damn thing about censoring or even expelling these insulting, vile and vicious people from the people’s Congress. But such is the posture of a significant majority of the Republican Party political cult. While the media continues to mention a group of Republicans who are moderate and not bomb throwers like Jordan and the Gaetz schoolyard bullies, I have yet to witness a single action by these so called moderates that would blunt the fascist degradation of the once decent Republican Party. It is now more representative of historical autocracies, fascist dictatorships, or theocratic inhuman regimes. Sadly so.

Those members of the current Republican fascist group, who countenance violence, vicious verbal assaults, and supporting of the lies and propaganda, are very similar to the Brownshirts and para’s active during the beginnings of the Hitlerian dictatorship of 1930s Germany. And in that comparison, the multitudes of German citizens, who continued to turn a blind eye to the destruction of their country and the subjugation of certain types of citizens! Just like our present right wing American citizens who are also turning a blind eye, OR are actively promoting the destruction of the United States of America and the democracy fostered by the founding citizens at our earliest beginnings. The movement of the Republican Party since the end of the Eisenhower administration has been enhanced by the likes of several of the follow-on Republican presidents who allowed, encouraged and enacted the rise of the current Republican Fascist Cult. One of the key decisions by a president to foster this current right wing environment, was Ronald Reagan who gutted the Fairness Doctrine. This action led to the rabid rabble rousing, lying propaganda spewing likes of Rush Limbaugh, Fox News Channel, NewsMax, and the rest of those propaganda mills. See, Donald Trump, as vile a human as he is, was simply the personification of the destruction of the Party by the right wing Christo-Fascist individuals who preached the violence, and ant-democracy actions evolving into the current political abomination.

Can we survive the growing trend toward a ChristoFascist autocratic regimes? Yes, we can! We are stronger than this, folks. We have had tens of thousands of our young men and women who stood up and suffered injury and death, fighting against the Fascist Regimes in the 40s and to defend the American way of life. We have also seen countless millions who have stood strong with political actions and voting to defend the U.S. citizens for the long life of our American individual rights and our society based on the ideals of democracy. We, the People, will hopefully continue to act for our protection from the fascist, theocratic horrors that the right wing Republicans would have us be exposed to. All at the behest of the uber-wealthy and the mega corporate titans.

We Are Better Than This, People. Stop with the head in the sand crap, get off your couch, and stand up for America, for democracy, for individual freedom from the theocratic fascist dictatorships the Republicans and the wealthy want to impose on our country.

Otherwise, we will see a rise of a Fifth Reich in our nation, and there will be no Allied Forces around to save us from our stupidity!