Roundup

Since last week there have been more plan and helicopter crashes, including a near collision in DC. Trump et al have also stepped up their destruction of our government institutions with the Social Security Administration being their latest target.

The SSA website is inaccessible as it keeps crashing, the SSA phone line hours have been reduced, and the Trump administration recently announced the SSA will only be answering question re: services via X.

Yeah, there’s no conflict of interest there at all.

There has been some news in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia: SCOTUS ultimately ruled the Trump administration must return him to the US. However, the deadline for doing so has passed without the administration complying with the court order, and SCOTUS shows no signs of holding them in contempt of court.

And why would they, when the conservative majority on the court ruled Trump has absolutely immunity from prosecution for all “presidential” actions.

As many expected him to, Trump caved on his tariffs, pausing them for 90 days, but this hasn’t stopped China and other countries placing retaliatory tariffs on the US, nor has it stopped the US and global economy from tanking.

Trump’s campaign to erase everything he considers woke continues with his latest target being Navajo Code Talkers and President Obama whose portrait Trump removed from the White House.

The SAVE Act passed the House thanks to 4 democrats voting with the republicans ( Reps. Ed Case of Hawaii; Henry Cuellar of Texas; Jared Golden of Maine; and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington. Shame on them all.

If enacted, the bill would require proof of citizenship for in-person voting, something which laws on the book already do. It would also prevent people from voting whose name on their ID doesn’t match the one on their birth certificate (trans folks, and people who took their partner’s last name).

This is a naked attempt by the GOP to disenfranchise millions of people, who either can’t afford the fees for changing their name on their birth certificate. Or those who don’t have access to them, such as older Americans born before birth records were computerized or whose births were never reported due to being born at home.

The fact is the GOP can’t win on their ideas so they must ensure the least amount of people can vote to maintain their vise grip on power.

Good news

Following Trump’s game of red light green light re: tariffs, many Congress members, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene made thousands, or a million dollars in Greene’s case, buying stocks ahead of trump’s tariffs taking effect. This has resulted in calls to investigate this legal insider trading and a bill to ban such activity by congress members, their spouses, and other family members.

Sens. Warren and Schumer are leading the charge when it comes to pushing for a probe into this insider trading. That such activity isn’t already banned is a disgrace. While millions saw their 401 (k)’s decimated, a handful of people abused their positions of power to further enrich themselves.

Time and time again, our elected officials have revealed they care more about their donors and making money than carrying out the will of We the People. They are tools of the oligarchs and under their stewardship, the US has become an oligarchy.

This brings me to this week’s topic.

The Mediocrity of The Oligarchy

The deification of businessmen has been a longstanding tradition in the US; be they Rockefeller, Morgan, or Vanderbilt at one end; or tech bros like Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Musk at the other. But when you investigate these men and their businesses you often find luck and timing had more to do with their success than them being titans of industry. And in the case of the former examples there was a whole lot of exploitation and dirty dealing going on.

Since its inception, the US has mythologized rich, often white males, and it’s no difference now with Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg.

Musk

Musk, like Trump, inherited most of his wealth, and then failed upward. Musk’s pattern has been to buy his way into companies, take credit for their successes and none of their failures, before leaving or being forced out as CEO.

Musk and his fanboys proclaim he’s a genius, yet he hasn’t invented or created anything, and couldn’t even be bothered to get good at video games. Instead, he paid someone to play them for him to make it look like he’s a pro player.

And when it comes to his role at DOGE, he has no idea what he’s doing as multiple times he and his employees have fired experts only to realize later how they’re vital for things like keeping our nukes safe or monitoring infectious diseases. They then had to rush and rehire them, only to find they didn’t have any contact information.

What a shitshow.

Bezos

In a similar vein, Jeff Bezos also came from money and reportedly got a loan of $250,000 from his parents to start Amazon. And Amazon was nothing new.

The first e-commerce sites existed as far back as the 1970s, with CompuServe, Minitel and Boston Computer Exchange being some of the first online marketplaces.

Furthermore, the key to Amazon and Bezos’s success has been undercutting other companies by selling cheap goods from China and engaging in dubious business practices. One such practice is making sellers pay to have their products put at the top of search results. Another such practice is forcing writers to either keep their prices low to receive 70% royalties ($0.99-$9.99), or price them above $9.99 and only receive 30% royalties.

I could go on, but the point is Amazon and Bezos are nothing special when it comes e-commerce. Like many businesses, they buy up the competition then don’t bother maintaining them (looking at you goodreads.com), and squeeze as much profit from their workers and sellers as they can. All while getting millions in subsidies, but I digress.

Zuckerberg

I saved Mark Zuckerberg for last as he is the epitome of mediocrity. As chronicled in Social Network Facebook began as a puerile site for college boys to rate girls and from there expanded to the eponymous social network. And once Facebook blew up, Zuckerberg, like Bezos, used his wealth to buy out the competition, adding WhatsApp, Instagram, and Threads to the Meta brand.

He could have ended things there, but Zuckerberg went to Congress to testify about the security risk Tik Tok posed. Mind you, Facebook gathers and sells its users personal data and influenced elections with their algorithm, the same things he and others accused Tik Tok of doing.

As with Amazon, Facebook wasn’t even a novel idea. Myspace and Friendster existed long before it, and Zuckerberg was hired by the Winklevoss twins to help program their social media site Harvard Connection.

And it was during this period he launched thefacebook.com. As such, the Winklevoss twins filed and won a suit against Zuckerberg, wherein they claimed he used their idea and source code to make Facebook. So, not only didn’t he conceive the idea for Facebook himself; he didn’t even use his own source code.

Pathetic.

Whether it be Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, or any other oligarch, they aren’t deserving of praise and shouldn’t be given special treatment just because they have more money than God.

In short, tax the rich and down with the oligarchs.

Roundup 

Since last week ICE has stepped up its deportation efforts, including arresting and detaining a third grader in New York. And in defiance or a court order, the Trump administration has made no move toward returning Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a legal immigrate from Maryland who ICE deported to a prison in El Salvador. Update: as of Tuesday April 8, SCOTUS has temporarily blocked the order to return Abrego Garcia. 

Trump also continued his indiscriminate firing of government employees, decimating our health agencies in the middle of multiple health crises, the most recent being a strain of drug-resistant Gonorrhea that health experts were monitoring until their firing. 

In legal news, while Trump has been dealt more losses, AG Pam Bondi placed Erez Reuveni, an immigration lawyer at the DOJ, on administrative leave after he criticized Trump’s mishandling of Abrego Garcia’s case. Bodi claimed the reason was for not “zealously advocat[ing] on behalf of the United States. . .” A more convenient excuse there has never been.  

Also, reports say Amazon is in talks to buy Tik Tok. 

Good News 

Due to world markets tanking following Trump’s tariffs, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have lost billions, though this is little solace to working class folks who’ve seen their 401k’s value shrink. 

Also, there is an update on Signal Gate: The Pentagon has assigned an inspector general to investigate whether Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared classified information in Signal group chats. 

But the major story since last week was the series of “Hands Off” protests held this past weekend across the country to protest Trump and Musk. An estimated 100,000 people attended the protest in Washington, D.C. alone. Barring a few incidents, the protests were peaceful, and more are schedule for April 19.   

This leads me to the topic of this week’s blog.

A Tale of Two Protests 

Following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police in 2020, protests sprung up around the country under the banner of the Black Lives Matter movement, which sought justice for Floyd and police reform.  

Likewise, following the election of Trump for a second term, and Elon Musk’s role at DOGE and the subsequent chaos that has ensued due to their ham-fisted and often illegal actions, the Hands Off protest movement started.  

But where BLM was a movement by and for Black and Brown people, Hands Off has ostensible been a moment for and by white people. I say this because 92% of Black women and 80% of Black men voters went for Harris in 2024, while the majority of white men and woman went for Trump. 

But the contrast doesn’t end there. 

BLM protesters were met with hostility from police, including being sprayed with tear gas, shot with rubber bullets, and being arrested for stepping a toe outside the designated protest cage. Whereas, Hands Off protesters were allowed free movement, and in some instances the police blocked off the street for them. 

This disparity in treatment has gone unnoticed online, and it raises a good question: why so blatant mistreatment of one group and kid gloves with the other?   

To answer this question, we must first answer another one. 

Is This Who We Really Are?

When Trump was first elected (with the help of Russian interference and James Comey leaking details about Hillary Clinton’s emails days before the election), people asked if this was who we really were. And they asked it again when he was re-elected.  

But it’s not as if Trump came out of nowhere.  

This is who we’ve always been. The core of the US has always been rotten, for the same hand that wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” enslaved hundreds of Africans and also wrote they were only three-fifths a person. 

The land of the free has been anything but for Black Americans. 

We and our ancestors have fought and severed the US since before it was a country, and how were we repaid?  Centuries of enslavement, followed by Jim Crow, red lining, experimenting on us like we were animals.

And when we managed to form thriving communities they were torn apart, flooded, and bombed in some cases by racist whites. Tulsa, Oklahoma; Rosewood, Florida; Wilmington, North Carolina; the list spans centuries and the country, a history writ large in blood and Black bodies.  

The truth is this is always who the US was and continues to be.  

Because instead of addressing the racism at its core and have conversations around race, people like Trump want to pretend none of the above ever happened, such as his latest stunt removing all references to Harriet Tubman from the National Park’s webpage on the Under Ground Railroad.  

Be for fucking real. 

This hatred of Black people and Blackness is baked into America through the concept of American Exceptionalism, and the concept of whiteness is central to American Exceptionalism. From the Founding fathers to Jesus, the dominant image of America from its beginning was as a promised land for whites, and it was Manifest Destiny to exterminate any nonwhite person that stood in their way. 

 Thus, the myth of white supremacy was born to justify these atrocities. 

  White supremacy and whiteness as concepts are predicated on the hatred of Black Americans and Blackness. Italians, Germans, the Irish, they were all not recognized as white at one point and it was only by their assimilating and embracing the hatred of Black folks and Blackness that they got their white pass. 

But white supremacy is so virulent, it has Black folks across the African diaspora looking down their nose at their Black American cousins. 

 So, with this context, it’s no surprise when white bodies are the ones protesting, police leave them be. As the late great Paul Mooney said, “They have the complexion for the protection.” 

In summation, yes this is who America always was and is. 

I leave you with this quotation from Maya Angelou: 

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” 

Roundup 

Several things have happened since last week, starting with Trump withdrawing his nomination of Elise Stefanik for UN Ambassador fearing they may lose control of Congress due to upcoming special elections. Trump has also threatened more tariffs slated to begin today on what he’s dubbing “Liberation Day.”  

JD and Usha Vance visited an American military base in Greenland, where he gave a speech threatening Denmark as Trump continues pushing the idea of annexing the former. 

This past week judges have dealt Trump more legal losses, but this hasn’t stopped his administration from disappearing people, as happened to Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish international student at Tufts University who was detained by ICE. Her crime was supporting Palestine, which Trump equated to supporting terrorists and terminated her student visa.  

In related news, university professors in the USA are fleeing the country due to concerns about Trump and creeping Fascism.   

But the thing that has most of the legacy media’s attention this week was Signal Gate. 

Signal Gate

Several members of the Trump Administration were caught discussing war plans in a group chat on the unsecured messaging platform Signal using their personal phones, when Mike Waltz accidentally added The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeff Goldberg on March 11. Goldberg then left the chat and broke the story in The Atlantic on March 24. 

Timeline via Wikipedia 

March 11, 2025: 

 Goldberg received a connection request from someone named Michael Waltz. 

March 13: 

 Goldberg is added to a private Signal group chat of 18 people, labeled “Houthi PC small group”. Officials allegedly shared sensitive operational details regarding the planned military strikes in Yemen. 

March 14: 

 Discussion in the group turned to prospective military action against Houthi targets. 

March 15, 11:44am (EDT): 

 The Hegseth-associated account shared what Goldberg described as detailed operational information regarding imminent strikes. 

March 15, 1:55pm (EDT): 

 Goldberg verified through social media reports that explosions were occurring in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital. 

March 16: 

 Goldberg left the chat. 

March 24: 

 Goldberg published an article accounting the group chat in The Atlantic, revealing the security breach. 

 March 26:  

A government watchdog group, American Oversight, filed suit in the DC District Court against White House officials, alleging that they failed to abide by the Federal Records Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. 

This raises serious questions not only about national security, but the competency of every Trump official involved. It’s also the height of hypocrisy as for years Trump and the GOP railed against Hilary Clinton for using a private server for official public communications while Secretary of State.  

Calls for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s resignation have rolled in from democrats and some republicans, but as of this writing Hegseth shows no signs of leaving his post. 

Good News

In a bit of a good news, democrats picked up a seat in the Pennsylvania senate in a district that went for Trump by 15%, won control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and came close to winning the two seats in Florida’s special elections Tuesday.  

And Elon Musk claimed his last day in the Trump administration will be May 31. Which is funny because Trump has repeatedly said he is and isn’t a cabinet member, whichever suits him best.  

Regardless, the damage Musk and DOGE have inflicted on our government won’t be so easily fixed, if at all. Especially if democrats continue voting for Trump’s agenda like they did on the last Continuing Resolution.   

Which brings me to my next topic. 

Cory Booker’s Shiny spine

Beginning Monday March 31, at 7:00 pm EST, Senator Cory Booker took the Senate floor to protest the Trump administration’s recent actions and the GOP’s cowardice for not holding town halls for their constituents. He’s vowed to hold the floor until he passes out or is dragged out. 

 Ultimately Booker held the senate floor for over 25 hours, breaking the previous record of 24 hours and 18 minutes held by Storm Thurmond. 

More of this please. 

While it’s still too early to tell if Booker’s actions will spur other democrats to get off their ass and do something of substance, it’s a move in the right direction. Enough of sternly worded letters and tweets (looking at you Schumer and Jeffries). We need real leadership not whatever brand of diet republican bullshit the DNC has been giving us. 

We need more dems willing to put their bodies on the line for us and show some spine when it comes to Trump and his MAGA agenda, and the corporation-owned dems in the House and Senate. So, House and Senate dems, rise up and be leaders, or fail to meet the challenge before you and it’s game over for our democracy. 

I leave you with this quote from The American President: 

“People want leadership, Mr. President. And in the absence of genuine leadership, they will listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.” 

Rundown

A lot has happened since last week.

Bernie Sanders and AOC held a rally in Colorado that drew over 30,000 people, AG Pam Bondi threatened Jasmine Crockett for exercising her constitutional right to criticize Elon Musk; people have set Tesla cars on fire at some dealerships have been vandalized, prompting Trump to beat his chest about classifying them as terrorists.

And speaking of Tesla, the backlash to CEO Musk’s supervillain antics has resulted in record returns of Tesla cars and the stock tanking. Trump also revealed he will be giving Musk access to his security briefings without his having any security clearance.

Transportation Secretary Shawn Duffy visited NYC and complained about the subway system while offering zero solutions to improve it or the US’s overall infrastructure. Neither did he addressed the continuing crisis with the FAA re: plans crashing and colliding.

Trump also signed an executive order abolishing the Department of Education, and when Secretary of Education Linda McMahon was asked how this would affect funding for special education students, she floundered before giving a noncommittal answer that the sates would decide the issue.

Trump also gained access to the IRS’s database and is using it to ramp up his efforts to deport undocumented people. And speaking of deportations, news broke this weekend that Trump has been sending legal green card holders to El Salvadoran prisons based on their having certain tattoos and without due process.

Footage of detainee conditions and treatment at these prisons leaked, raising questions about human rights violations and whether Trump will turn his sights next on to disappearing his political enemies.

Trump has also bullied Columbia University into accepting his demands re: DEI and woke subjects with promises of reversing his planned funding cuts. They are foolish to believe given Trump’s countless lies and his above noted executive order dissolving the department of Education.

In related news, Trump signed an executive order targeting law firm Paul, Weiss et al., which he then rescinded after they pledged $40 million in legal aid to him and his various projects.
Tension between the US and other countries have risen, prompting Canada to issue a travel advisory that its citizens aren’t safe traveling to the US.

And following the recent elections in Germany, many Germans no longer see the US is a trustworthy partner, citing Trump’s policies re: Ukraine and NATO.

When Germany is side eyeing you, you’re down bad.

And while we’re on the subject of Germany, historians and other experts across the spectrum have been raising the alarm about how much the current state of things in the US mirror pre–Nazi Germany 1933.
This leads me to this week’s theme.

Sunk Cost Fallacy and Full Steam Ahead Toward Fascism

While trump has suffered many legals losses, he and his cadre of loyalists continue their dismantling of government at every level, often in content of said legal ruling. Because no one seems to have the spine to jail his ass.

Instead, our democratic leadership sits on their hands, telling us to hold tight until the midterms. Then if we have enough seats, they can give Trump his comeuppance. And in the meantime, let the legal system handle him.

There are several issues with this approach, the biggest one being the assumption the US as we know it will still exist then. At the rate Trump et al are going and the rage people are feeling right now, the cold civil war that started on January 6, 2021 could turn hot. If so, this would give Trump the excuse he’s been waiting for to institute Martial Law and suspend the constitution.

Second, even if the courts can keep him in check, the damage he does to our government and the world in the meanwhile might not be fixable, and if it can it’ll take generations.

This is why we need to act now, not next year, because by then Trump might not even allow elections beyond the political theater his buddy Putin allows. We need to take inspiration from South Korea’s action against its dictator. They had him out of office in mere hours, while we’re 3 months and counting into Trump’s regime.

Our leaders are too invested in the current system to realize doing things the old ways aren’t going to cut it. They believe following the rules will save them despite proof otherwise. They continue acting as if we aren’t in the middle of an ongoing coup. They keep doing the same thing they’ve always done, hoping if they keep at it a bit longer everything will turn out okay.

This is the definition of sunk cost fallacy: continuing to do something because you believe you have more to lose than gain in spite of mounting losses.

But keeping their heads down and hoping things will get better if they give it enough time won’t work for the reasons I listed above. Once the Trump cabal gains total power it’s game over.

Screw business as usual and fuck the rules. Do whatever needs to be done. Remove Trump now.

The Rundown

Since last week there have been more plane crashes, including the latest—as of this writing—this past Sunday morning in Georgia. Meanwhile Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been mum on the spat of crashes, save blaming the Biden administration, since Trump slashed the budget for the FAA.

Trump also gave a presser in which he sat like the empty suit he is, while Elon Musk blathered on for over thirty minutes. Musk’s son X Æ A-Xii even got in the act, reportedly telling Trump to shut up at one point.

 In other news, VP JD Vance, who had been AWOL, went to Germany and met with the far right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which the magazine Der Spiegel reports has associations with far right and neo-Nazi extremist groups. Vance did so in lieu of meeting with German Chancelor Olaf Scholz.

The heads at Fox News and those at other corporate media outlets would have exploded if a democratic VP had gone to Gaza and met with Hamas. Yet not one peep from them on this. They’ll do anything to prop up Trump et al and keep their access to them.   

As it stands world leaders are meeting to discuss how they will deal with Trump as he continues tilting at windmills and ramping up tariffs against them.

Meanwhile, more cases of bird flu (H5N1) have sprang up across the country, resulting in the culling of chickens, cattle, and other infected livestock. There are also growing concerns about mutual transmission of the virus between cats and humans.

The US is also experiencing outbreaks of measles and tuberculosis, and polio is making a comeback; all while Trump’s communications ban on the CDC and state and county health department remains in place. And to make matters worse, anti-vax and conspiracy theorist RFK Jr. was confirmed as Head of Health and Human Services.

But the cherry on the shit sundae was the Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard being confirmed by unanimous consent as the Director of National Intelligence as Putin watched and laughed at us. Not a single democrat objected to Gabbard’s nomination. And that, among other reasons, is why I’m no longer voting “blue no matter who.”

Why I’m Done Voting Blue No Matter Who

Since Trump retook the oval office, democratic voters have been screaming for our elected officials to do something, anything to stop Trump. And what has been their response? They wring their hands and say they can’t do nothing because they don’t have the votes, which is a lie since whenever republicans are in the minority they do everything in their power to obstruct the dems (see Clinton, Obama, and Biden).

And when Musk and his DOGE boys breached the US Treasure, and security officers blocked democratic officials from entering the USAID headquarters and other government building, they rolled over. At every step democratic leadership has failed to meet the challenge these times require. Instead, they do nothing or give piss poor pressers, when they aren’t sending out a billion texts and emails begging for money.

Nope.

The Democratic party won’t get one cent from me until there are major changes. First, it’s way past time Nancy Pelosi and the old guard of the House and Senate retire. They are too old and out of touch with their constituents and clearly not up to the fight before them. So, until people like AOC, Maxwell Frost, and Jasmine Crockett take the reins, I want nothing to do with the party.

And, if democratic leadership is set on continuing their drift rightward and villainizing the progressive element of the party, then I have no qualms leaving the party. Why stay where I’m not wanted, why stay when the leadership refuses to grow a spine and take the fight to Trump et al.

Why invest my time and money in a party that only pretends to care about progressive issues come election time, then governs like republican-lite once they get into office. If the party isn’t willing to push progressive policies, then why stay.

If things don’t change, I’ll switch my affiliation to independent and support candidates on a case-by-case basis and not blindly vote blue no matter who. And if ever a viable progressive third party comes along, I’ll support it. But until then, the DNC and democrats in the House and Senate are on notice.

Until next week, stay safe and don’t let the tangerine tyrant grind ya down.

A lot has happened since last week.

More planes crashed/collided, Trump blew up the Gaza hostage deal by asserting he has control over the Gaza Strip and wants to expel all Palestinians and build luxury apartments there, and he signed executive orders to send immigrants convicted of crimes to Guantanamo and to sentence those guilty of capital offences to death.

J D Vance came out of hiding to lay the groundwork for eliminating the separation of church and state and establishing Christian Nationalism as the state religion.

Elon Musk and his cadre of zygote DOGE henchmen lost access to The Treasury database—for now.

 And while Trump has seen several of his executive orders challenged in court and blocked, he and his administration have largely ignored these rulings. The truth is there is nothing to enforce these rulings since the DOJ’s policy not to prosecute a sitting president is still in effect. Worse, Trump’s appointees at the DOJ have begun leaning on prosecutors to drop cases against those who’ve kissed Trump’s greasy rump.

It’s becoming more apparent that we can’t depend on the systems of checks and balances and democratic leadership to save us. As I wrote last week, we must save ourselves. And while some protests have taken place across the country, with more planned, the larger issue is we can’t count on social media and the internet to organize the coming revolution needed to fight Trump et al.

The shenanigans TikTok puled by going dark in the US before the 2024 election results were in, then coming back and thanking Trump proves that it and other social media platforms aren’t reliable. This goes double for all Meta platforms as Zuckerberg was one of the first tech bros to bend the knee to Trump.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if ISPs and telecoms were the next to fall in line. And if so, the resistance will need to go old school if it’s to survive. Walkie-talkies, ham and CB radios, and community networks like the Underground Railroad will be key. And we will need to form militias, so if Trump declares Martial Law, we are able to defend ourselves.  

This might sound crazy, but intelligence experts like Malcolm Nance have been warning we are heading toward a constitutional crisis that may lead to a second Civil War. So, we need to be prepared for the worst.

Get with your friends, family, or neighbors and pool your resources. Start a neighborhood watch if you don’t already have one, network with others in person, and stay aware while staying sane.  

The takeaway here is we need to get offline and touch grass.

Cue the “Keep Calm and Carry On” meme.

If it’s any solace, this past weekend at The Super Bowl, fans booed Trump who was in attendance.

Till next week, stay safe and don’t let the tangerine tyrant grind ya down.   

Over the last week a lot has happened. A plane collided with a Blackhawk helicopter over DC and trump blamed DEI for it after his administration fired hundreds of air traffic controllers and Trump’s Secretary of Transportation, former reality TV star Sean Duffy, floundered to explain how such a thing happened.

Trump’s pick for HHS, RFK, Jr., had his confirmation hearing and it went as well as you’d expect for a conspiracy-theory pushing antivaxxer. And in related health news, cases of Tuberculosis have sprung up in Illinois, along with more outbreaks of Bird Flu in humans.

And if that weren’t scary enough, Elon Musk and his oligarch friends gained access to the information of millions of Americans and took control of billions of dollars from the Treasury, all while democratic leadership did nothing.

Well, I shouldn’t say, “nothing.” Chuck Schumer and Jammie Raskin have given a few milquetoast pressers and posted strongly worded posts on social media. Shoutout to AOC, Jasmine Crockett, and the former social media manager for Wendy’s who have been giving masterclasses in messaging and taking the fight to MAGA.

The truth is we can’t depend on the DNC or democratic leadership to save us. They eat from the same trough as the republicans and have no incentive to fight back as their seats are safe thanks to gerrymandering, no term limits, and our defacto two-party system. Neither can we wait for some mythical Superman to swoop in and fix everything.

Right now, people are angry at our leadership for allowing this farce to continue, but the fact is we allowed this to happen by tuning out politics, by not holding our politicians’ feet to fire on things like term limits and enacting laws against using information gained from their positions to engage in what would be insider trading if a civilian did what they did.

We are at fault for allowing oligarchs to buy up the legacy media and for allowing history to repeat itself re: tech bros and social media. We are at fault for standing by, waiting for someone to do something, to lead us when we can act ourselves.

You don’t need permission from anyone to start a neighborhood food pantry or mutual aid group. You can build information networks and start local newspapers or zines to spread news to others without the propaganda of the legacy media. You can also get with friends and family to help with groceries and other costs by having a weekly potluck or pooling your money to pay for gasoline and bills.

If you have a skill or talent, share it with others and have them share theirs. And if you don’t have any skills, learn one. Libraries and Google are still free, and they can be great places to rally your community around a specific goal like learning to knit or crochet and making blankets to drive down heating costs.

You don’t need anyone to pick you. Step up and stop being a bystander. Because Superman ain’t coming, so save yourself.

This has been the longest week ever. The tangerine tyrant has wasted no time rolling back Obama- and Bidden-era policies. He removed the cap on prescription drug prices, so now people will go back to paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for the critical medications they need.

He also pulled the US out of the World Health Organization, froze federal spending for everything except defense and ICE, and barred health officials from communicating with the public. All as Bird Flu (H5N1) has spread to humans in the US.

What could possibly go wrong.

Don the con has also begun purging “woke” and DEI items from whitehouse.gov and other government sites. References to the Tuskegee Airmen were removed along with mentions of The Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), a group of civilian woman pilots who flew noncombatant flights during WW 2.

More is sure to follow in the next 100 days.

Given the scope of everything that Trump has done in just a week, it’s overwhelming. But it needn’t be.

I haven’t been doom scrolling but have kept informed by following Aaron Parnas, Joy Reid, and others on BlueSky and Substack. But I refuse to turn on the corporate news or my local news affiliates as they helped create this mess by normalizing Trump.

This reminds me of a lecture I watched as part of a series on the nature of evil from The Great Courses.

It was entitled, “The Banality of Evil” and focused on a Nazi official who continued sending trains of Jewish people to the death camps even after it was clear the war was lost. When asked why, he responded, “He was just doing his job.” Not in the sense of the Nuremberg defense, but that he was so desensitized to what he was doing it was his default.

Much like the above Nazi official, the legacy media has become numb to Trump’s corruption, and worse has attempted to gas light us into believing what he and his administration are doing is normal.

It’s not.

In the lead up to the 2024 election, there was a lot of talk about the frog in the pot analogy for fascism and how by incrementally raising the temperature, the frog won’t notice it’s boiling until it’s too late.

But the insidious part about the banality is evil is it won’t matter how much they raise the temperature once we’ve become desensitized to things.

Be it reporters Joe Scarborough and Mike Brzezinski or tech bros going to Mar-A-Lago to kiss trump’s greasy ass, Target rolling back DEI initiatives, or Tik Tok pushing pro Trump propaganda, the rush to obey Trump in advance only shows signs of increasing. And more than ever we need to speak truth to power and call out the lies and utter bullshit of Trump et al.

The only way we’re going to get through the next four years is by not becoming numb to the daily chaos. So, stay informed, but don’t let it consume your life, find joy in the little things, and be there for those in need. Do what you can to make your corner of the world brighter.

To this end, I bought a crafting machine bundle that was on sale, and plan to make vinyl stickers and other goodies with it. First for myself and maybe later as a side hustle. I don’t know yet.

I also have a silkscreen T-shirt press that I bought years ago but never learned to use. Well, I plan to change that. I’ll let you know how that goes.
What are you doing to stay sane?

Till next week, stay safe and don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Long time no read.

Yeah, these last few months have been hell on me, with the cherry on the shit sundae being the election results. I’ve been doom scrolling, gaming, and binge-watching shows on Hulu. And as January 20^th approached, my nerves mounted to the point I got little to no sleep most nights, crashing for a few hours whenever my body finally gave out from exhaustion.

But I have been using this extra time and energy to do much-needed cleaning.

As I’ve decluttered my house, I’ve found my mood and sleep improving. This time since the election results has also given me the opportunity to reflect on some things.

First, neglecting my mental and physical help will do me no good. So I’m going to be doing more of the things I like and less of those I don’t. This means tuning out the 24-hour news cycle and getting back to the basics, starting with hitting the gym and cutting way back on takeout, and cooking more at home.

Second, in the days and years going forward, the only way we’re going to get through these Trump years is by defining what resistance looks like for us and not becoming numb to the everyday malfeasance. For me resistance is using my words and other mediums to call the BS that coming and staying sane by creating things. So, that’s what the blog is going be: a chronicle of my attempts to get through this craziness.

What does this mean? The occasional rant re: Trump and his matryoshka doll of corruption, reviews of games and other media, bookish think pieces, and posts chronicling my misadventures in crafting and DIY.

If this isn’t your jam, the door’s that way.

See ya’ll next week. Till then, stay safe, and don’t let the tangerine tyrant steal your joy.

Viva la resistance.   

As I wrote last week, I recently turned forty and this has me re-evaluating things, like the meaning of life and the nature of good an evil.
The Biblical god never made sense to sense to me as how can an omniscient being not foresee The Fall, or how can an omni-benevolent god send his creations to hell for finite crime, where they are tormented forever?

More importantly, how can this omnipotent being not snap its fingers and get rid of pain, illness, and evil?

The more I read the Bible, less sense it made to me, and I stopped believing altogether in my teens.

But now I’m thinking my conception of God may have been immature.

In college I was a physics major, and one of the things that crops up repeatedly is the concept of balance. Mass and energy are conserved in every chemical reaction or interaction. “What you start with is what you end with,” one of my chemistry professors told me. Thus, all chemical equations must be balanced. Also, the number of an atom’s protons and electrons must be equal, or they are unstable, i.e. radioactive. (Note: chemistry is physics on the atomic level).

Likewise, systems tend toward equilibrium, e.g. Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, maybe God and Satan, then, are equal and opposite forces. And the reason there are so many religions is because they’re all describing the same thing, but in different dimensions.

What I mean by this is to a 4-dimensional being, we’d look flat, just like a 2-dimensional object looks flat to us. So perhaps then each religion is describing a different aspect to God and Satan. So, God and Satan are just the positive and negative aspects of energy.

Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (e=mc^2) says energy and matter are equal to each other, and from thermodynamics we know energy can never be created or destroyed. So maybe this creative energy is God and maybe, just maybe as the Gnostic believed, God is inside us, and as the Buddhists believe we are all connected.

And maybe then Satan represents the negative destructive energy inside us all, the death drive as Freud called it, and maybe God and Satan are projections of the internal war we all fight between hope and despair, between our ego and shadow self, between love and hate. And religion then is a psychodrama humans created as a defense mechanism to reconcile these diametrically opposed urges in us.

Perhaps, then as Carl Jung posits, the way to find balance is by accepting the God and Satan inside us all.

Hey, long time no post. Ya’ll probably thought I abandoned this blog.

Nope.

Life just got in the way, as it tends to do. Between my day job and the tire fire that is our current timeline, I haven’t had the time or energy to do much of anything but eat, sleep, shit, work, repeat.

But last month, I turned forty and have come to some epiphanies.

First, I’m not a kid anymore, so I need to take better care of my physical and emotional health, especially after the lab results from my last doctor’s appointment. My blood sugar is high and if I don’t get it under control, it’ll tank my kidneys and other organs. So, beginning today, I’m eating healthier and will start hitting the gym too.

Second, I’m not as far along with my writing as I’d hoped I’d be, and if I’m being honest, it’s been weeks since I wrote a blog and months since I even thought about working on my WIP’s. So, I’ll write for at least 30 minutes every day. And I’ll set hard deadlines for completing my WIP’s.
Third, I’ll resume therapy and work on my issues, because if I’m gonna be around for another forty years I want to be the best version of myself I can be.

Honestly, I didn’t expect to live this long; and now that I have, I don’t know what to do. Maybe therapy will help me figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. I’ll probably always write, but as for my day job, I’m thinking about using my company’s tuition reimbursement program to get a degree in either communications or business management and apply for a better paying job.

But with the uncertainty of this year’s presidential election, I don’t know if I’ll even still be in the US come this time next year.
It feels like we’re all waiting to exhale, wondering what will happen next, wondering if there’ll even be a USA after this election.
It just feels like the whole world has gone insane and no one is doing anything about it because we’re all just trying to get by the best we can.

And I’m sick of it!

I don’t want to live another four years, let alone another forty, worrying if my rights as a person will be taken away, my existence politicized, based on which party is in power. This is no way to live: constantly on edge and stressed out, because no matter how much we turn out the vote, we’re always one election from the next Trump, always one election from it being the last election. All because America refuses to address its racist past and present.

I’ll still vote for Harris this November, but I’m not naïve enough to believe her election will fundamentally change anything (I learned my lesson with Obama).

The system is broken, and nothing will change until we fix it. So, yeah, vote blue no matter who, then once Trump and Trumpism is no longer a threat we need to do some self-reflecting as a nation.

Hello,

As this is the beginning of a new year, I thought I’d try something different with this blog. So starting today, I’ll be posting a microblog of 200 to 500 words every day in addition to the standard Wednesday posts, which I’ve been neglecting to post for the last several months.

I want these drabbles, as I’m calling them, to be more conversational and not have a fixed topic so I can explore whatever’s on my mind that day.
Without further ado, I’ll get into today’s drabble.

A few months back I posted chapters of my debut novel Palingenesis, its sequel, and another novel I’m working on to a website geared toward my target audience. And while the comments have been helpful, I’ve noticed myself obsessing over the number of views and comments each chapter got.

As writers, we often don’t know if a project will succeed or fail till many months or years after we start, and often we seek validation from others as an ego boost.

However I’ve realized some things while revising my current WIP.

First, that I live for those moments when I get lost in my own stories and forget I’m the one writing it.

Second, I don’t need validation for my work;as long as I’m proud of it that’s enough.

Third, that while it would be nice to become famous and wealthy from my books, if that never happens I’ll still write because it gives me joy.

Despite what we’ve been conditioned to believe, not everything should be turned into a side hustle. Some things should be done for fun.

So while I’ll still promote my work and self publish it, I’m okay with not ever make any money from it as long as it continues bringing me joy.

I realize this isn’t everyone’s mindset, and I’m not knocking you,but I’m done chasing likes and views. I don’t have the time or energy to do so anymore and would rather focus my efforts on, ya know, writing and other things that bring me joy.

Well, that’s it for today’s drabble. Happy New Year!

This couldn’t have oversold itself more if it tried.

Since Halloween was coming up, I thought I’d check out this collection horror stories. However, to my horror many of the stories in this collection weren’t horror stories, and those that were, I found boringly tame.

Of the bunch I found, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein my favorite. My biggest complaint is that most of this collection consisted of short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe, whose work I discovered I loathed. The other issue with this collection is it lacks any works by modern works or writers of color.

Overall, I was sorely disappointed in this audiobook set that touted itself as the ultimate horror collection. Don’t waste your money on this. I give The Ultimate Horror Collection 2.0 out of 5.0 stars.

Witch vs. Witch by A.C. Merkel

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


An interesting premise marred by subpar writing and stale tropes

Witch vs Witch by A C Merkel is a female/female paranormal romance centering on witches Farrah and Sirena who fall instantly in love at first sight only to later discover they are on opposite sides an apocalyptic battle.

I wanted to love this story , but it was sorely lack in plot, characterization, and the prose.

First, due to this being a novella, there wasn’t enough time to develop the plot beyond save Adrick, save Sirena, save the world. And because of this the relationship between Sirena and Farrah wasn’t developed at all. They literally go from strangers to hooking up and being being madly in love with each other after only seeing each other three times.

Moreover, the world building was lackluster and not fleshed out at all, and the story dragged towards the end.

This was made worse by the utter lack of variety in syntax or any detailed descriptions.

And when I finally got to the end it was beyond cheesy.

While this was a quick read, I only finished it because it was so short. Otherwise, I would have DNF’d it were it 300-plus pages.

Honestly, this read more like a first or second draft than a finished manuscript and could use a ton of editing/rewriting.

While I did enjoy Farrah’s sense of humor and thought her plant magic was a cool concept; it, like the novella in general, lacked in execution.

Overall, I didn’t like this novella much and only give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Maybe this story will resonate with you but it’s a pass for me. Rent it or sang it when it’s on sale.




View all my reviews