Because we will forget. Because it is
important to remember.
Because it can happen here.
Jan 20, 2025 (1/1461)
So here we are bringing the First Felon of the United States
(hereafter FFOTUS) into office. On Martin Luther King Jr Day. OF ALL DAYS?!?! MLK is too gracious a man to
roll in his grave over the indignity, the shear absurdity, the insanity of this
rite of passage occurring on a day that I’m certain The Orange Man (hereafter TOM)
doesn’t even recognize.
We thought we knew all of the things that he was going to
do. Because he promised them to us. He told us the playbook. Annnnnd like a
race horse out of the gates he came.
Day one agenda:
Rename
the Gulf of Mexico…..to what else? The
Gulf of America. My favorite part of this is the Mexican President saying that
she’d like to rename North America to Mexican America. You go sister. Oh, and
the post on IG that he wanted to name it after himself, but Bay of Pigs was
already taken. WELL PLAYED. This has been tried before. In Sept 1943, “The
Pacific Ocean, said Clarence Budington Kelland firmly, must become an American
lake. He didn’t make it clear why it should become an American lake rather
than, say, a Chinese lake or a Russian lake.”
Rename
Denali Mt McKinley. Mc Kinley - Who never lived in Alaska, never served Alaska
(probably not even as President) and never even visited the state. And who was
later assassinated.
Rescind the 14th Amendment,
ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, it stipulates that "All persons born
or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof" are automatically citizens.
Though not an EO, the threat to impose a 25% tariff on
Mexico and Canada beginning Feb 1 was tossed in for good measure as well. Can
you imagine playing Monopoly with this dude?
And while California burned, Florida washed away, and
Asheville flooded, TOM declared his intent to back out of the Paris Agreement.
Buckle up folks, you thought TOM 1.0 was a wild ride.
Disney, Vegas, and Dubai combined couldn’t put together enough glitz,
reverse-loops, and speed to create a more wild ride than TOM 2.0.
Jan 21, 2025 (2/1461)
After an evening flurry of signing EO’s on Jan 20 about
every possible thing one could think of
- most of those that he had promised to us, kiddos, we woke to a golden
nugget.
We’re withdrawing from WHO. Of course we are. Because what a
threat WHO is. Only trying to improve the health of the entire world here,
people. Don’t mind us.
Jan 22, 2025 (3/1461)
“PRESIDENT TRUMP PROMISED AND DELIVERED: President Trump
promised to terminate DEI in the federal government, protect equal opportunity,
and force schools to end discriminatory admissions policies, and he delivered.
Every man and woman should have the opportunity to go as far as their hard
work, individual initiative, and competence can take them. In America,
excellence, grit, and determination is our strength.”
So let’s dump DEI in the gov and find a way to pressure the private
sector so much that they’ll cave on it too. You all wanted to crawl back to
1950 right? Here’s your time travel ticket.
Jan 23, 2025 (4/1461)
Told my bestie who’s in law school in Seattle she needed to
get a clerkship with that judge Coughenour. On day three, TOM decided it was
time to re-write the Constitution. Because, well, its just wrong. Clearly. So
we’re doing away with birthright citizenship. Something that, you know, every
country on the planet has as rule of law. If you drop on our land, you’re one
of us. We’ll take you. But not here in the good ole USofA. You drop here and
your mama is an illegal, get out.
This judge was appointed by REAGAN for god’s sake. And he’s
flabbergasted. Best quote: “I’ve been on the bench for over four decades, I
can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this
one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
It is just a pesky amendment afterall. He’ll just fire the
judge and find some nose wiper to say, “Oh, of course, this is completely ok.
Start rounding them up.”
And THEN! Here he came riding out on his great white horse (or
power blue Air Force One) to the West to save the day in LA. Which had been
burning down under his watch for several days at this point. He was gonna make
it all go away. “Gonna turn the water on.” Yah, cause we idiots here in
California couldn’t find that switch. I mean we looked everywhere. Is that what
he meant when TOM said, “Burn baby, burn.”?
Jan 24, 2025 (5/1461)
All foreign assistance was frozen. Without warning. Stopped.
Sorry Ukraine and Taiwan. (Oh but we like Israel and Egypt better than you, so
they got a waiver).
Then that Hegseth vote. McConnell finally got a spine and didn’t
side with TOM. Day late and a vote short cuz there he is. Sec Def Hegseth.
NIH labwork ground to a screeching halt due to an immediate
pause on all government purchasing. Investigators are going to be brought to
the level of public school teachers who regularly purchase supplies for their
classrooms. I can see the lab roundtable: ‘Who’s making the Petco run for animal
food this week? Did we find a local test tube supplier because I can run out at
lunch.”
Jan 25, 2025 (6/1461)
Finally, a truly pressing matter. What color should Air
Force One be? Well obviously, “power blue, not baby blue. We’ll be changing
that.”
And if you’re a fan of coal, listen up. TOM addressed the
World Economic Forum virtually and said “We’re going to make it so that the
plants will have their own electric generating facilities attached right to
their plant. They don’t have to worry about a utility.” In reference to powering
AI capabilities. And maybe a little crypto TRUMP meme coin production on the
side? Let’s do it. It’ll be amazing.
Jan 26, 2025 (7/1461)
And while we’re cleaning house, might as well clean our
neighbors’ as well. TOM’s brilliant plan for rectifying the damage done in the
Gaza Strip is to move more than one million Palestinians from Gaza to Jordan
and Egypt. Easy peasy. You people just go over there and we’ll “clean out” the
Gaza Strip. Make it all nice and new for you. Great big, HUUUUGE skyscrapers.
Trump Towers on every block. It’ll be beautiful. No one will have ever seen
anything like it. It’ll be the best Settlement in the history of the world.
They’ll be crawling over the gates into Gaza to get a place here.
Jan 27, 2025 (8/1461)
Returning to that Paris Agreement withdrawal. All 50 states
in the Union had snow today. All. Of. Them. But there’s definitely no climate
change going on.
He is thinking ahead though. We’ll be able to buy snowplows
for every city in every state because today TOM froze ALL federal funding for
grants and loans. Meals on Wheels? Sorry grandma, chew on your cane for a few
days. Head Start? Only in the US could you go to Head Start and end up in last
place because it’s closed. Medicare, Social Security. You get the drift. But
you can take care of that drift with all those new snowplows. There’s probably
some bullsh** you can catch along the way as well.
Jan 28, 2025 (9/1461)
The Fork in the Road.
Excuse me, did we just fly back to 2022 and Musk’s takeover of Twitter?
I’m all about not reinventing the wheel, but actually stealing the wheel and
attaching it to another ship? Ummm not so much. I can just see how it went
down….”Hey Elon, bruh, can you send me that quit now email you sent to those
pansies at Twitter when you took over? It’s genius. We’ve never seen anything
that amazing and so perfect ever before. But I’m going to make it just a little
bit better. Because, you know, I’m amazing and I can.”
And yet one more corporate giant cowers under the glare of
TOM. Google announced it would kowtow to him and change the names of the Gulf
of Mexico and Denali on its official maps. Sound like anyone else to you? Like
I don’t know, maybe Adolf Hitler? He “systematically changed the names of many
places, particularly in regions annexed by Nazi Germany, to Germanize them and
erase local identities, with a large-scale renaming campaign occurring in East
Prussia where many names of Polish and Lithuanian origin were replaced with
German ones; this was part of his broader propaganda strategy to promote a
unified Germanic identity.”
Jan 29, 2025 (10/1461)
Cuba is hip again. And TOM is going use it to house 30,000 deported
immigrants.
“This memorandum is issued in order to halt the border
invasion, dismantle criminal cartels, and restore national sovereignty.”
Guantanamo, a notorious torture facility
where the US has carried out “black ops” is going to be come the Hotel
Havana and “host” up to 30,000 deported immigrants. Current capacity at the
Havana Hilton is 30. As recently as October 2024, Guantanamo was cited by the
UN Human Rights Committee with violations of “four articles of the ICCPR that
prohibit torture and arbitrary detention without charge and require humane
treatment and a fair and timely trial.” I guess that really won’t matter for
long, because we’re likely to drop out of the UN and kick it out of our country
anyway. Maybe Canada has a nice little spot of land for they can move to. TOM
is a big real estate guy, maybe he can help out with that relo.
Jan 30, 2025 (11/1461)
Wow. We’ve hit new lows (or is it highs?) of insanity and unhinged-ness.
That horrible plane v helicopter crash over the Potomac. Apparently TOM has
become an aviation expert at some point. The rambling, nonsensical garbage that
trailed out of his mouth for the presser he threw out at the country left even
me gobsmacked. First he said BULLSHIT! On live TV! Then he proceeded to say the
accident was the result of DEI hiring in the prior administration. That because
ATC’s couldn’t be disqualified if they were missing a limb, or partially
paralyzed, or a dwarf; that meant that idiots were hired. And that’s how this crash
happened. REALLY? DEI plane crash. I. Just. Can’t. Not one word of sympathy or coming
together (I thought he was going to unite us and be a president for ALL?) in
the worst US aviation disaster in nearly 25 years.
Jan 31, 2025 (12/1461)
Lest I forget about the sideshow to the main circus,
confirmation hearings! Over the past 12 days these have also played out. Some
like B Hollywood movies. Some like re-makes of movies that were bad the first
time. Tulsi “I think Syria is a nice vacation spot” Gabbard. Pete “my own
mother called me an abuser of women“ Hegseth. Kash “I have really juicy info
and I want to post about it even if hostages die“ Patel. And the chart topper,
Robert F “a worm is eating my brain so I don’t have to pay child support, but I
can lead HHS just fine” Kennedy Jr.
Cue the Barbra Streisand music…..”Send in The Clowns” folks.
Don’t bother, they’re here.
Feb 1, 2025 (13/1461)
We made it to February folks. Chalk one up for us. Even
though it’s Saturday kids, no rest for the wicked. Might need to go do a
wellness check – first on myself then on any older person who relies on Meals
on Wheels because TOM just gave Musk the keys to the Kingdon. Access to Treasury’s
payment system. “Hmmmm lemme see, let’s take this from Head Start and I don’t
really think all of these people deserve tax refunds, we’ll take that too. And
social security? I never promised you a rose garden.” I have a thought or two
about where they can put all of those dollars they are stealing. But now I’m
stooping to their level.
Onward to the other dirty deeds of the day! Lifesaving
health initiatives around the globe are shutting down today (due to Day 5
above, Jan 24)
“In Uganda, the National Malaria Control Program has
suspended spraying insecticide into village homes and ceased shipments of bed
nets for distribution to pregnant women and young children, said Dr. Jimmy
Opigo, the program’s director.” It’s Malarial Merriment!
“About 500 U.S.-based employees of U.S.A.I.D. were fired. In
countries from India to Zimbabwe, staff members for health projects were
immediately fired. An organization called the International Centre for
Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, which does research on a top killer of
children, laid off more than 1,000 employees this week.”
And even though a federal judge blocked the freeze until Feb
3, most USAID country offices and programs are remaining shuttered, claiming
they are waiting for specific instructions to re-open. So much for law suits.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/health/trump-aid-malaria-tuberculosis-hiv.html
Feb 2, 2025 (14/1461)
Groundhog Day! And
fittingly enough, Phil saw his shadow and crawled back into his hidey hole to
wait out six more weeks of winter. I mean honestly, I might take a page from
his playbook.
But TOM has no fear of shadows. And neither do his
sycophants. TODAY folks, Rep Anna Paulina Luna, R- FL, introduced a bill to
carve TOM into Mount Rushmore! “Let’s get carving!” Is everyone on an ayahuasca
retreat? Because this is next level delusional. But she’s a smart one because
she knows her buddy Elon will shift funding from every needy low-income,
elderly, and disadvantaged child to The Great Orange Face. Wonder if it costs a
lot more to infuse the rock with a permanent orange hue…
And in a note of “sympathy” for the tariffs TOM has imposed
on every country that has commerce with the US, he said they “may cause
"some pain" for Americans.” Really? “Some” pain? You mean like even higher
food and gas prices? Even more unaffordable basic necessities? I guess
if you’re already in pain, heaping on another 25% of it shouldn’t really hurt
that much. Right?
China’s gonna sue us through the World Trade Organization.
That oughta work. NOT. Don’t they know, we no longer recognize any “world”
anything organization? Man, if I were on his security detail, I’d be looking to
exit stage left in any way I could. Like shoot-myself-in-the-foot desperate to
get out of the way of all the even crazier foreign nut jobs who are likely to
band together……. “The enemy of my enemy” and all.
Feb 3, 2025 (15/1461)
Because everything old is new again…..last time we tried the
big bad tariff route, it didn’t end so well. “The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act
raised around 900 import tariffs by an average of 40% to 60%. Also referred to
as the United States Tariff Act of 1930, its purpose was to safeguard U.S. businesses
and farmers. Rather, it added extensive stress to the Great Depression. Other
countries retaliated with their respective tariff hikes, forcing global trade
to decline by 65%. Economists believe that the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act was one
of the principal causes of the economic depression. The legislation highlighted
how dangerous protectionist trade policies are for the world economy.
Afterward, most countries promoted free trade agreements that support fair
trade for all.”
BUT! There’s been a spin. Shock and awe and shock and awe.
Thirty day reprieve from the tariffs on Mexico and Canada. I have to say that
the outside world’s reactions to TOM’s threats and EO’s has had me privately
(or now more publicly) rooting for them. It’s pretty bad when you start to cheer
for the other team, as it were. Over the weekend, in anticipation of the
tariffs, many Canadian liquor stores, pulled US made alcohol and replaced it
with Canadian brands and signs saying, “Ask us about great Canadian brands.”
And my vote for comeback of the week goes to Greenland.
Though it is satirical, it is fantastic:
"After rebuffing Donald J. Trump's hypothetical
proposal to purchase Greenland, the government of Denmark has announced that it
would be interested in buying the United States instead," reads the post.
“We have noted however, that during the Trump regime, pretty much everything in
the United States, including its government, has most definitely been for
sale.”
The post includes a supposed quote from a spokesperson for
Denmark that reads, "We believe that, by giving the U.S. an educational
system and national health care, it could be transformed from a vast land mass
into a great nation."
MAGA Via Greenland!
Feb 4, 2025 (16/1461)
In CA news, due to TOM’s order to open two federal reservoir
dams, 2.2 billion gallons flowed out into the Central Valley, not LA. However, TOM’s boasting on Truth Social
about his actions sending water to LA
were wrong and misguided. “The newly released water will not flow to Los
Angeles, and it is being wasted by being released during the wet winter season.”
Heather Cooley, director of research for California water policy organization
the Pacific Institute. “This puts agriculture at risk of insufficient water
during the summer months.” CA Dept of Water Resources was not consulted when
the mandate came down. Of course they
weren’t.
But water pouring to an unuseful place pales by comparison
to the joint presser with Bibi Netanyahu. While we’re shopping for land,
apparently we – the US – are going to take over the Gaza Strip. Does he not
realize that this is not a jewel in the crown? “The US will take over the Gaza
Strip and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said during a joint press
conference alongside his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu. “We’ll own it
and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and
other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed
buildings.” (you should note that I predicted he would say something similar, see
Jan 26, 2025)
Re-read that kids. The US is going to OWN THE GAZA
STRIP. I think he might actually believe
this is similar to owning a property on the strip in Vegas. Though I didn’t
watch it, as I listened and Bibi started talking, I had to think that he was
sitting on TOM’s lap like a dummy. The ventriloquist act going on was
incredible. The words came out of Bibi’s mouth, but it was TOM’s rhetoric. Pass
the crack pipe this way, please.
Feb 5, 2025 (17/1461)
A swing and a MISS! Ya gotta give TOM minor cred for having
the balls to swing. He is going to be the next Wander Franco. I wonder if the
handlers are issues MAGA fire extinguishers as official side arms. You know so
they can run around and put out all the MAGA fires.
TOM’s people came out blasting their extinguishers “…insisting
that he had not committed to using U.S. troops to clear the territory and that
any relocation of Palestinians would be temporary….”
“In interviews, many Palestinian Americans said the idea of
expelling millions of people from the Gaza Strip and placing it under American
control was horrifying and absurd, and also unsurprising, given the broader
context of Middle Eastern history.”
AH But a glimmer of guts and grit on the horizon. The 50501
protests popped up across the country. https://50501movement.carrd.co/
The grass roots movement’s goal is to reject Project 2025. And to “Fight
Fascism.” (Remember folks, It Can’t Happen Here; oh but it can….) Fifty protests, fifty states,
one day.
Stay tuned for tomorrow everyone, as it’s D-Day for the Big
Resignation. Will people take the (not so very well promised money) and run? Or
will they hunker down, stay put, and bring a shred of sanity to the government?
The great thing about TOM is that he’s like a really good Netflix series. The
end of one episode (day) leaves you on pins and needles about the next. And
makes you come back for more; oddly, even when you really don’t want to do so.
And it’s like Netflix releasing one episode at a time. Though that’s likely
safer in this case because binge-watching this sh$$ would certainly put people
in the hospital (Infinite Jest anyone?).
Feb 6, 2025 (18/1461)
And today began with a bang. TOM shuttered the FBI team
combatting foreign election interference. So I’m confused because he’s
punishing China/XI with tariffs and saying that “He [Putin] should make a deal.
I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal. I think Russia is
going to be in big trouble.” The bromance there is apparently over for now. Yet
he thinks it’s all well and good to allow China and Russia to come right in the
front door and hijack our elections. Again. Riiiiight.
The House Speaker (i.e. Head Lemming) is shuffling over to
TOM’s House today to have a little cawfee tawk about a massive bill of
completely unrelated issues all lumped into one proposal. Hope Mikey Johnson put
his ChapStik on because the amount of a$$-kissing about to happen will be the smack
heard round the world.
And this one still has me scratching me head. So we’re
dismantling Dept of Education. Yet….Linda McMahon is still going through
confirmation hearings to be Sec Ed? Got it. Will she become Secretary of Air
since it appears the Dept will disappear in a big poof.
And tonight, pop the popcorn because the confirmation vote
on Russell Vought to head OMB is scheduled to take place. “Vought is a key
author of the ultra-right wing Project 2025 plan, which Trump sought to
distance himself from during the election. He has advocated for the firings of
career civil servants and an extreme approach to cutting government funding.”
It’s funny (hmm, not haha) that TOM’s playbook is looking shockingly like
Project 2025. Co-inkydink? Me thinks not. And straight along party lines, they
ushered him right in.
And The Golden Pager. This one will definitely get forgotten
so inking it here for posterity and preposterousness. Bibi gave a TOM a GOLD
PAGER. This must be the 2025 equivalent of the 1963-established red phone in
the Oval Office that direct dialed to Russia. In reality it was meant to
symbolize the attack carried out against Hamas that infiltrated their pagers
and blew them to pieces. Along the way they took out innocent civilians as
well. “The blasts killed at least 37 people, including some children, and
injured nearly 3,000, many of them civilian bystanders.”
Feb 7, 2025 (18/1461)
Sometimes the sideshows at the circus hold a hidden gem of
entertainment. TOM’s house is no different. TOM is such a phenomenal ring
leader (the best we’ve ever seen; there’s never been anything like him in the
history of the world; every other ring leader wants to be just like him) that
the man in the corner swallowing swords almost got ignored.
But alas, I have an eye for the absurd and astounding. VP J”
Darth” Vance is giving credence and validity to the immigration policies of his
master by invoking the medieval Catholic theology of “ordo amoris.” “It’s been
translated as “order of love” or “order of charity.” It’s a concept discussed
by St. Augustine, an ancient theologian, who said everyone and everything
should be loved in its own proper way.” As in like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,
there is a proper hierarchy of love. No more “I love all of you the
same” from Mom. She was lying to you. She likes your brother better. And given
the opportunity, she’d chuck you out of the house if the payoff was right. So
by the transitive property, Darth has concluded that “You love your family, and
then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you
love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can
focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”
Excuse me, question over here, Darth…. Then why the actual F
are we sticking our fingers into The New Trump Strip in the Middle East while
you are putting people on the dole in this country through mass gov firings? All
this while calling in the architects to build the next golden escalator. Just
want to get this order of love thing correct in my mind so I can be a good
citizen.
And in this corner of The Big Top, we have Pam “I had my
fingers crossed when I promised no weaponization of DOJ” Bondi.
And because he doesn’t have enough to do, he’s decided to
remove several of the Kennedy Center Board members and appoint himself (the
greatest choice ever) as the new
Chairman. Can you imagine the lineup they’ll get once he takes the reins?
Perhaps we’ll see a return of the play “The Eternal Jew (1940),
directed by Fritz Hippler, (which) portrayed Jews as wandering cultural
parasites, consumed by sex and money.”
Feb 8, 2025 (19/1461)
It Can’t Happen Here. I reference the book often
because it is truly the playbook for the circus acts that are taking place
before us. Though things are moving far more quickly in this reality than they
did in Lewis’ fiction. The US is now feeling really sorry for rich, white landowners
in South Africa. Read that again. TOM “on Friday ordered that all foreign
assistance to South Africa be halted and said his administration would
prioritize the resettling of white (emphasis added), “Afrikaner
refugees” into the United States because of what he called actions by the
country’s government that “racially disfavored landowners.” Additionally, all aid
to the SA government will be removed. Ohhhhh we don’t see anyone’s fingers in
this action do we? Anyone? Musky Boy maybe? The power grab is coming early and
swift. TOM needs to watch his 6, because if he doesn’t read ahead in the book,
he’s going to miss the part where his “right hand man” foments a coup and kicks
the Prez off to Europe (instead of killing him).
For those playing along at home comparing book to reality,
recall: “Lee Sarason is Buzz
Windrip’s campaign manager, Secretary of State, and closest friend. He
writes Windrip’s campaign songs and autobiography, Zero
Hour, and then essentially runs the government from behind the scenes,
since he is the leader of both the Minute
Men and the Corpos.
At the end of Windrip’s first year in office, in December 1937, Sarason works
with Dewey
Haik to overthrow Windrip and install himself as president. He immediately
starts a war with Mexico.”
Topic shift! Providing the alert to let the above settle and
move onto present day USA again. Everyone complains that the weather man never
gets it right. “How hard can it be? They’re always wrong. I’d like a job where
I can be wrong that much and not get fired.” Well maybe TOM has heard you. “The
chapter of the Project 2025 document that includes proposals for NOAA describes
the agency as a “colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of
the climate change alarm industry,” and calls for it to be ‘broken up and
downsized.’ It proposes that the Weather Service focus on its data-gathering
services and ‘fully commercialize’ its forecasting operations.” So we’re going
to contract out weather prediction to the highest (or lowest?) bidder (and
bestest a$$-kisser of TOM and Co) and hope that this serves to provide us with
enough warning and prediction to prepare for ever-stronger hurricanes and
devastating winter storms?
Currently ,“The Weather Service collects over six billion
weather observations a day. To create a forecast, a meteorologist at a local
office may analyze some of those data points, consult weather models and make
judgments based on expertise.” Because TOM doesn’t like data that supports
climate change and its effects, he will simply pay someone to only provide
happy weather data. Rose-colored glasses data. Well kids, we may all need some
sort of rose-colored something to protect us when the warnings stop being given
and our sun burns through our atmosphere and cooks us all like fat little
piggies.
Feb 9, 2025 (20/1461)
I wonder if TOM’s security detail keeps the maximum distance
they can on Sundays? Ya know, you can’t be too sure about where the lightning
bolt is gonna hit when the devil is playing around on God’s day. Though I guess
since TOM’s agenda is very firmly aligned with Project 2025, which at it’s core
claims to be based upon the principles of Christianity, maybe he feels like he
gets a pass for being the instrument of death, poverty, and human suffering
around the world. “The Mandate for Leadership is both specific in
detail and vengeful in tone. Its central agenda is to impose a form of
Christian nationalism on the United States. Christian nationalism believes that
the Christian Bible, as God’s infallible law, should be the basis of government
and have primacy over public and private institutions. Its patriarchal view
does not recognize gender equality or gay rights and sanctions discrimination
based on religious beliefs.”
At first glance it might seem counter-intuitive that Christian
Nationalists support Israel. Right? I mean if the Christian Bible is the law of
the world, those non-Jesus-recognizing filthy Jews should be left to rot in
their beds. AH! But in truth Jews, Palestinians, Muslims and other
non-Christian Middle Eastern peoples are really collateral damage in the war to
end all wars. “For many ‘Christians Zionists,’ and particularly for popular
evangelists with significant clout within the Republican Party, their
support for Israel is rooted in its role in the supposed end times: Jesus’
return to Earth, a bloody final battle at Armageddon, and Jesus ruling the
world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In this scenario, war is not
something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and
celebratory. Christian Zionists are anticipating, and hoping for a war to end
all wars, and a resulting Christian world that they claim will vanquish evil
and bring peace. Only those who accept Jesus as their savior will benefit from
these events that Christian Zionists claim the Bible predicts will happen. Nonbelievers
— including Jews and Muslims — will not survive them (emphasis added).
Buyer beware. Like for reals, kids. “The Trump
administration has ordered the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively
shutting down an agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008
financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal.” You remember the
sh$$show that was 2008, right? Oh, you don’t? Watch Inside Job an account
of “the global financial meltdown that took place in Fall 2008 (that) caused
millions of job and home losses and plunged the United States into a deep
economic recession.”
The CFPB is a creation of Congress. And while it would
require a separate act of Congress to formally eliminate it, the head of the
agency has discretion over what enforcement actions to take, if any.
Without the protections put into place in 2008, we would be
left to fend for ourselves; to decide if financial organizations were following
the laws; to rely on the kindness of (predatory) strangers. “That’s why Wall
Street’s biggest banks and Trump’s billionaire allies hate the bureau: it’s an
effective cop on the finance beat and has stood side-by-side with hundreds of
millions of Americans — Republicans and Democrats — battling financial
predators, scammers, and crooks.”
So now that you’ve been left to fend for yourself in the
financial jungle, remember what your parents always told you, “If it seems to
good to be true, it is.”
