Happy No Kings Day!

Happy No Kings Day! 

Trump Could End This All Yesterday, If He Wanted To

Make no mistake, the riots in Los Angeles had started out as peaceful protests against ICE arbitrarily rounding up perceived undocumented migrants without due process, in schools, workplaces, and even day laborers in front of Home Depot.  That was before ICE agents got violent with the protestors, and then Trump further inflamed the situation by federalizing the National Guard and even sending in the Marines.  This is what dictators do, not democracies!

Trump could end all of this yesterday by ordering ICE and any troops to stand down immediately, and halting the raids and deportations at once.  But he won't unless his hand is forced by either the courts (unlikely since they are in his pocket) or, more likely, the court of public opinion, particularly from his own base.  That is literally the primary purpose of protest, after all--to sway enough people, ultimately including those in power and their enforcers, to join the right side of history.

To any police, agents, or troops reading this, now is the time to ask yourselves:  which side are you on?  The United States of America, or the Benighted Snakes of Amerikkka?  Then choose wisely.  History will NOT be kind to those on the wrong side of it!

This Is NOT Normal!

Make no mistake:  Trump federalizing the California National Guard to quash mostly peaceful protests in Los Angeles is NOT normal!  This is NOT something one would even remotely expect to see in an established democratic nation at all.  Rather this is the stuff of totalitarian and authoritarian states and banana republics.  Especially since the protests are against ICE carrying out raids and mass deportations, rounding people up without any semblance of due process.  Again, this is NOT normal and NOT acceptable!

The Bromance Is Over

Well, well, well....it looks like the Musk-Trump Bromance is now over, and MAGA is becoming a circular firing squad as we speak.  Get your popcorn 🍿 🍿 🍿 🍿 🍿 😁 😁 😁 😁 😁 

All while Putin laughs all the way to the bank.  But truly Zelenskyy, the new de facto leader of the free world, will have the last laugh.

(Mic drop)

The "Big, Beautiful Bill" (NOT) Is MUCH Worse Than We Thought

Read this and weep.  Then call and email your senators, yesterday!  And the senators of other states as well.  It's still not too late to stop this from becoming the new law of the land, but that window is closing very, very fast!

Here is an example of a letter and talking points:

Dear Senator, 

The "Big, Beautiful Bill" touted by President Trump and MAGA is MUCH worse than we thought. The fact that it cuts Medicaid, SNAP, and other vital programs to essentially rob from the poor and give to the ultra-rich is already bad enough. But buried deep in the bill is some even scarier stuff that allows Trump to cancel elections at will, ignore Supreme Court rulings for a year or more, criminalize protests, fire government workers for "disloyalty", invade everyone's privacy, and essentially assume arbitrary dictatorial powers. This bill cannot be allowed to pass. I have faith that you will vote a HARD NO on this abomination of a bill, and hope that you will convince other Senators on both sides of the aisle to reject it as well.

Thank you very much,

Your Name

JUNE UPDATE:  Apparently Musk hates this bill so much, it caused him to have a falling out with Trump.  The Bromance is effectively over now, and MAGA is becoming a circular firing squad.  Get your popcorn, this will get interesting....

Eliminate Income Taxes Without Debt Or Inflation? Easy-Peasy.

The ever-insightful Ellen Brown has an excellent article about how to eliminate the income tax (at least on the non-rich) without exploding debt and inflation, and without cutting any services.  But unlike Trump's plan which will replace the lost revenue with questionable tariffs like McKinley did, she proposes something like Abraham Lincoln did instead.  That is, just print the money via the Treasury, no FERAL Reserve needed.  That's similar to what Dr. Joseph M. Firestone calls "Overton Congressional Financing" and what Rodger Malcolm Mitchell calls "Monetary Sovereignty".  It is an idea that is LONG overdue!

Not only could we eliminate the debt and non-rich income tax, but we could also finance so many things like fixing and upgrading our crumbling and outdated infrastructure, world-class education for all, state of the art technology, single-payer Medicare For All, and Universal Basic Income.

What better time than now?

Don't Say We Didn't Warn You!

Seriously.

(Mic drop)

Happy Easter!

  

Happy Easter!  Fuzzy Kitty and Fuzzy Bunny!

The Trump Crash And Recession (Or Depression Perhaps) Has Begun

Well, it happened.  The stock market had its worst day since....March 2020 when the pandemic began in earnest.  Today will go down in his as the beginning of the Trump Crash and Recession (or Depression perhaps), which is already baked into the cake now.  Between the Trump Tariffs and the Musk/DOGE firings and chaos manufacture, and let's not forget all of the mass deportations thus far, the economy is taking a major hit, and it's just getting started.  

So brace yourselves.  Don't say we didn't warn you!

To anyone who was foolish enough to actually vote for Trump the second time, how's that 401(k) of yours doing?  I hate to say, "I told you so", but.....I TOLD YOU SO!

(Mic drop)

UPDATE:  The following day, April 4, 2025, the stock market again saw an even bigger drop. In fact, the eight worst days for the Dow Jones ever have all occurred under Trump.  Six of them occurred during the pandemic, and the other two were the past two days in a row.  Res ipsa loquitur.

Chesterton's Fence Revisited

One very important philosophical principle is that of Chesterton's Fence, by author G.K. Chesterton.  

Per Wikipedia:

"Chesterton's fence" is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood. The quotation is from Chesterton's 1929 book, The Thing: Why I Am a Catholic, in the chapter, "The Drift from Domesticity":

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

In other words, before you remove or destroy a fence (or policy), make sure you know why it was put up in the first place.  That's just common sense.

(Hey DOGE, are you listening?  Seriously!)

Of course, the apocryphal "Five Monkeys Experiment" is a good foil to counterbalance that principle.  That is, sometimes various policies really have outlived their usefulness, were rotten from the start, and/or do far more harm than good.  And wisdom is to know the difference between the two cases.

(The latter pitfall is sometimes called "status quo bias".)

Today's "conservatives", especially Trump, Musk, and MAGA Republicans, are really not conservatives at all, since they really aren't conserving anything.  Rather, they are reactionaries and regressives who want to "turn back the clock" to a bygone golden age that never really existed, and are essentially the mirror image of radicals, as they seek to make truly drastic changes.  The rash, arbitrary, and wholesale gutting of long-standing government agencies and programs by DOGE under Musk and Trump is but one of many glaring examples of such regressive radicalism, and is thus a willingness to tear down every fence in Chesterton just to manufacture chaos.  Or "move fast and break things", as Zuckerberg would call it.  And it needs to stop.  NOW.

Seriously, Elon, lay off the ketamine and SLOW DOWN!  Better yet, STEP DOWN, as NO ONE ever elected you.

Where are the real conservatives when you need them?  Because we know THEY would respect Chesterton's Fence.

Why Trade Wars Are A Dumb Idea

One, two, three, four, let's start a trade war!

Or, how about we DON'T!  Seriously.  Imposing punitive or even so-called "protective" tariffs on goods imported from other countries, which then provokes them into imposing retaliatory tariffs on goods exported from our own country, is a negative-sum game.  In other words, it's a lose-lose proposition all around, shrinking GDP on all sides.  And who actually pays for it all?  Ultimately, we all do, as the higher costs inevitably get passed onto consumers.

A few seconds of Googling "Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act" should be enough to make even the numbest of numbskulls reconsider their appetite for tariffs and similar beggar-thy-neighbor policies.  If this trade war continues, the best we can hope for is a bad case of stagflation, and it goes downhill from there.  All the way down to full-blown depression.

Just like a few seconds of Googling "Recession of 1937" should be enough to make even the numbest of numbskulls reconsider whether fiscal austerity (*cough* DOGE *cough*) or monetary tightening from the FERAL Reserve is really such a wise idea.  Spoiler alert:  it really isn't.

No wonder Trump's two harshest critics lately have been......Chuck Dow and Edward Jones.  And that's just a leading indicator.

P.S.  It is entirely possible to have protectionism without tariffs or any other trade barriers, by the way.

Stranger Than Fiction

It is truly stranger than fiction what has happened to our country.  Mass deportations, mass firings, chaos manufacturing, tariffs and trade wars, alienating our allies, selling Ukraine down the river to Putin, and so on.  And so many Americans are still apparently cool with it, cheering it on, or are callously indifferent to it.

Seriously, WTF is wrong with you?  Even President Ronald Reagan is likely spinning in his grave right now.