And he took us on a wild mountain ride to get there. So 100 days in, really about average, just with a few more dents and dings. Welcome to another FFS Friday.
I try to stay off the internet because the craziness out there is enough to drive me crazy! I have enough issues at home without watching the world fall apart! I still say Trump was better than Kalamity and I will stand by that but he better clean it up and realize who voted for him and stop pandering to the elites or he is gonna find his party ousted in the next election! As for our military~~~it is the biggest oxymoron in the world....military intelligence doesn't exist and I don't care what any body says...DEI hiring for jobs instead of merit based has gotten us where we are, even in the military!
I think the DEI hiring is really what was behind the DC crash. If you read the article, you start thinking that she didn't listen because she got it in her head that no man was going to tell her what to do. And she killed a bunch of people.
Trump warned there would be pain in the process to set things right so just hold on. It takes a while. In the meantime I refer you to Coffee & Covid substack. Or perhaps read The Art of the Deal to better understand the strategy upon us.
There's pain for sure, but I'm not too sure it's tied to the process. It would be like if you went to the hospital for a dislocated shoulder and the doctor comes out with a 20 gauge needle saying it's time for a spinal tap. It's hard to see how the dots of deporting permanent residents for exercising their civil liberties connects to the deportation of the the 11+ million illegal immigrants.
Certainly if he ran on his current pattern of behavior in some areas it would've reduced his electability.
Completely agree on minimizing infringements on freedom of speech. We especially shouldn’t have greater censorship criticizing foreign countries(eg Israel, Palestine) than our own country. And that goes for immigrants and citizens. Censorship of protest is how you arrive at an authoritarian regime.
Pretty clearly I'm more optimistic about Trump than you, at least so far.
But the situation with our military is one of his big weak points. It looks to me like Trump went in thinking we still had a world-class military, and then found out that we have a bunch of wildly overpriced dinky bullshit. So he's flailing around on Ukraine and Yemen, trying to act like we're not just bringing a busted-ass BB gun to a modern war.
Also, I saw this on Coffee & Covid:
"'We have ended HHS as the role, as the vector, the principal vector in this country for child trafficking,' Kennedy said."
I tend to be of a more pessimistic nature than most, and I'll be glad to apologize for doubting Trump if it comes down to it. That's the best case scenario.
I had to go looking for the trafficking claim. It seems what RFK is claiming is that HHS in specific was somehow responsible for the unaccompanied minors or the minors that were separated from their parents at the border that "got lost," meaning the government lost track of them. That part I remember being true, though I recall "only" about 150,000. Now what percentage of these minors were actually "trafficked," meaning exploited for labor or darker purposes, and what percentage the government simply lost track of (because the government is big and incompetent) but they are fine, who knows. So I think this is RFK being political or passionate, depending on how you're predisposed to him.
In fairness to The New York Times, it is an op-ed, though they obviously have a clear preference for the op-eds that they are willing to run. Op-eds like those are commonplace gruel, but let Tom Cotton write an op-ed and suddenly the sky is falling.
I'm a bit undecided on whether op-ed curation says more about the paper or more about its readers.
Because I didn't want to take up the space, Matt Taibbi pointed out that the author of the op-ed actually wrote a book about the DHS and surveillance state in 2015, so she knows she's lying.
Actually what is most concerning about op-ed curation is what it says about the relationship of newspapers to their audience. The NYT audience desperately wants to believe that they're facing something new and the NYTs pretends rewrites history to keep their dwindling readership. And people become increasingly disconnected from reality.
Definitely feels like there is a feedback loop between the publishers and the readers. That readers complain when the paper of record publishes an opinion piece (that you don’t have to read) from someone across the aisle is mind-boggling. And maybe she does know she’s lying and is just full of it, but I feel like she could just as easily be in the “it’s not bad when my side does it” camp.
I think if I'm being more generous (because otherwise I'm really going to turn into a misanthrope), it's more of the "their side does X, which is bad, and our side does Y, but even though Y looks an awful lot like X, it's not really X, because of these tiny little details but even if it is pretty much X, our side's hearts are in the right place so X is okay" camp.
The weekday of 100% of demand being met by renewable power was less so a weekday and more so just daytime considering that's when solar production occurs. When the sun isn't out Spain dips more into wind and as well as non-renewables. They're not in a position where they can cover the evening spike in power usage solely on renewables. That being said, the government has already slated all nuclear plants for decommission, so they are committing to this path.
The problem with these truths* is that the * is the first to get dropped in the game of telephone even though the truth is being held up the caveats surrounding it.
So, what's your problem with Poughkeepsie? Have you ever visited there? What do you know about the community, and the people?
I'm not sure the faux hypersensitivity is coming across in text, hoping you're adding it in as you read...
***
My $ is on we, the little people, being told our expectations are too high/unreasonable...
***
Well, that's only to be expected. As the "paper" of record for the lunatic militant left, it couldn't have cared less about due process, nullification & states' rights, et al. until it could use each in grievance against Trump.
***
"The mainstream media however were having orgasms of joy. They’re back in business, baby."
Yes, they are — with their oversampled populations of dyed-in-the-wool Democrats and known NeverTrump Republicans so that they can report to their base.
***
I think Trump is crazy like a fox, and it's to his advantage to make people think he's capable of anything destructive — nothing is off the table. That's a page out of Reagan's playbook.
Trump's aversion to war in general, and protracted war in particular, is a powerful conviction keeping his temptations in check.
Contrary to popular narrative, don't think for a minute that Trump, Vance, Hegseth, or anyone else in the administration or the Pentagon wants any kind of war with Iran. Vance, ans Hegseth have been in forward areas and both know the horror (the horror...the horror) of live combat. Neither is spoiling for it.
***
"It’s chaos, all of it."
Yep — strategic.
It's like a pitcher that is wild on purpose — the batter is frozen, unable to really swing with confidence.
It's a most enjoyable film in spite of Kevin Costner's acting.
A friend of mine who spent a little more than three years in the NY Mets' farm system once told me it is by far THE most authentic, genuine depiction of life in minor league baseball.
I pop up your Friday Funday and what should my eyes take in. Why it’s my old buddy Norm Coleman. His wife was a consultant for a company I worked for in downtown Mpls in the IDS Center. He would be around the offices and I used to see him in the building workout facility when I would do my lunch treadmill. We’d talk business and music.
Trying to figure out what Trump is doing is not for the faint of heart. Your sister gave the answer I always hear now…”he’s not Kamala”. True I guess. I’ll wait and see how this tariff stuff goes. I got a notification yesterday that an order I placed for an anime doll from Japan was cancelled pending me reordering it because of the price increase. It went up $40. I guess my granddaughter will need to understand she has to do with less now. Isn’t that the new Trump credo…unless I can come up with that 500k to join Don Jr’s club for access. I think 10% for “the big guy” was a bargain.
You've led a most interesting life, but then I've told you that before.
I voted less for Trump than for the people around him, like Vance, Gabbard, and RFK. I'll let you know later how that works out for me. Are we really better off with Trump than with the Harris blob (because let's face it, she wouldn't be running things anymore than Biden was--the Democrats are heading to "rule by committee")? I think the only way to answer that question will be in hindsight and it will come down less to anything Trump does and more to how people react to what he does or doesn't do. Trump was a backlash to Obama, who promised to be different rather than (D)iffe(R)ent. Trump promised to be different rather than (D)iffe(R)ent. So far both of them have lied. So what will the backlash to Trump be? How much frustration can people take before they break? And when they do break, what form will it take?
Norm wasn’t telling me Jews were running the Universe then I can assure you. He was a pretty nondescript guy really. He kept a pretty low profile. We just happened to be in the gym at the same time every day. I never treated him like I thought he was anything special. Everyone else always sort of skirted him.
I never really had any ideas about what Vance would be like. I knew Trump wouldn’t really let him get out too far and that’s what is going to bring Vance down unless he can escape that somehow. He lives or dies with Trump. It’s hard to see how anyone can make much of a difference. Trump always has to be front and center. I never had the love of RFK Jr that a lot of people have. I always thought of him as a sort of shitlib who just happened to hold some of my views on Covid. I’m not really a hard core anti vaxxer across the board though. I got flu shots up until a few years ago. When I got disgusted with my Sarcoidosis treatments and finally found a Dr. who would work with me to get off the meds and found that I could and actually felt better and went into a remission of sorts, I stopped getting flu shots.
Overall I agree with your assessment of the Bush to Obama to Trump. I never paid much attention to politics before Clinton really. I always voted but never knew more than just what I saw on the news. To be fair the news wasn’t slanted quite so much then. I think there will be a backlash to Trump. You can already see it coming. I don’t know how it will happen though. There aren’t many great choices on either side. The Ds are in their fight for the party that the Rs started a few years ago. The Rs are still in a battle. I’ve been trying to understand this “new right” stuff that Pedro is always talking about. It must be a generational thing because they look to me like a bunch of anonymous keyboard warriors carrying on the feud that started with the RDS/Trump primary. A lot of talk and no action towards anything meaningful. And to finish, NO I don’t think my own life is any different now than it would have been if Harris would have won.
I try to stay off the internet because the craziness out there is enough to drive me crazy! I have enough issues at home without watching the world fall apart! I still say Trump was better than Kalamity and I will stand by that but he better clean it up and realize who voted for him and stop pandering to the elites or he is gonna find his party ousted in the next election! As for our military~~~it is the biggest oxymoron in the world....military intelligence doesn't exist and I don't care what any body says...DEI hiring for jobs instead of merit based has gotten us where we are, even in the military!
I think the DEI hiring is really what was behind the DC crash. If you read the article, you start thinking that she didn't listen because she got it in her head that no man was going to tell her what to do. And she killed a bunch of people.
"We can have a long conversation about how much people depend on electricity and technology..."
So we need power. Lots of it.
I was trying to come up with something silly and realized the best response is 'Drill Baby Drill.'
"Woman on Southwest Flight Strips Naked, Defecates on Seat"
She's probably pissed SW is going away from Open Seating next year and just laying claim to the one she likes.
Trump warned there would be pain in the process to set things right so just hold on. It takes a while. In the meantime I refer you to Coffee & Covid substack. Or perhaps read The Art of the Deal to better understand the strategy upon us.
I hope you are right.
O ye of little faith.
There's pain for sure, but I'm not too sure it's tied to the process. It would be like if you went to the hospital for a dislocated shoulder and the doctor comes out with a 20 gauge needle saying it's time for a spinal tap. It's hard to see how the dots of deporting permanent residents for exercising their civil liberties connects to the deportation of the the 11+ million illegal immigrants.
Certainly if he ran on his current pattern of behavior in some areas it would've reduced his electability.
Completely agree on minimizing infringements on freedom of speech. We especially shouldn’t have greater censorship criticizing foreign countries(eg Israel, Palestine) than our own country. And that goes for immigrants and citizens. Censorship of protest is how you arrive at an authoritarian regime.
Good advice.
Pretty clearly I'm more optimistic about Trump than you, at least so far.
But the situation with our military is one of his big weak points. It looks to me like Trump went in thinking we still had a world-class military, and then found out that we have a bunch of wildly overpriced dinky bullshit. So he's flailing around on Ukraine and Yemen, trying to act like we're not just bringing a busted-ass BB gun to a modern war.
Also, I saw this on Coffee & Covid:
"'We have ended HHS as the role, as the vector, the principal vector in this country for child trafficking,' Kennedy said."
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/anomalous-thursday-may-1-2025-c-and
What the fuck? Why am I not seeing anything about this? Is RFK off his meds, or was HHS really engaged in one of the most horrific possible crimes?
Obviously the NYT will never touch this story, but why isn't conservative media going ape shit about it?
I tend to be of a more pessimistic nature than most, and I'll be glad to apologize for doubting Trump if it comes down to it. That's the best case scenario.
I had to go looking for the trafficking claim. It seems what RFK is claiming is that HHS in specific was somehow responsible for the unaccompanied minors or the minors that were separated from their parents at the border that "got lost," meaning the government lost track of them. That part I remember being true, though I recall "only" about 150,000. Now what percentage of these minors were actually "trafficked," meaning exploited for labor or darker purposes, and what percentage the government simply lost track of (because the government is big and incompetent) but they are fine, who knows. So I think this is RFK being political or passionate, depending on how you're predisposed to him.
In fairness to The New York Times, it is an op-ed, though they obviously have a clear preference for the op-eds that they are willing to run. Op-eds like those are commonplace gruel, but let Tom Cotton write an op-ed and suddenly the sky is falling.
I'm a bit undecided on whether op-ed curation says more about the paper or more about its readers.
Because I didn't want to take up the space, Matt Taibbi pointed out that the author of the op-ed actually wrote a book about the DHS and surveillance state in 2015, so she knows she's lying.
Actually what is most concerning about op-ed curation is what it says about the relationship of newspapers to their audience. The NYT audience desperately wants to believe that they're facing something new and the NYTs pretends rewrites history to keep their dwindling readership. And people become increasingly disconnected from reality.
Definitely feels like there is a feedback loop between the publishers and the readers. That readers complain when the paper of record publishes an opinion piece (that you don’t have to read) from someone across the aisle is mind-boggling. And maybe she does know she’s lying and is just full of it, but I feel like she could just as easily be in the “it’s not bad when my side does it” camp.
I think if I'm being more generous (because otherwise I'm really going to turn into a misanthrope), it's more of the "their side does X, which is bad, and our side does Y, but even though Y looks an awful lot like X, it's not really X, because of these tiny little details but even if it is pretty much X, our side's hearts are in the right place so X is okay" camp.
FYI Spain is not 100% on renewable energy, they still use gas and a bit of carbon (they import ~$5.85 billion in oil from the US) as well as nuclear.
https://demanda.ree.es/visiona/peninsula/demandaau/acumulada/2025-04-28
The weekday of 100% of demand being met by renewable power was less so a weekday and more so just daytime considering that's when solar production occurs. When the sun isn't out Spain dips more into wind and as well as non-renewables. They're not in a position where they can cover the evening spike in power usage solely on renewables. That being said, the government has already slated all nuclear plants for decommission, so they are committing to this path.
I read that before, that the 100% renewable wasn't really true, which actually makes the situation more horrifying.
The problem with these truths* is that the * is the first to get dropped in the game of telephone even though the truth is being held up the caveats surrounding it.
How are you not on Trump’s leadership team?
Pretty sure that “an semitrailer” should be “a semitrailer”. Just sayin.
Thank you. That’s what rewriting on the fly does.
So, what's your problem with Poughkeepsie? Have you ever visited there? What do you know about the community, and the people?
I'm not sure the faux hypersensitivity is coming across in text, hoping you're adding it in as you read...
***
My $ is on we, the little people, being told our expectations are too high/unreasonable...
***
Well, that's only to be expected. As the "paper" of record for the lunatic militant left, it couldn't have cared less about due process, nullification & states' rights, et al. until it could use each in grievance against Trump.
***
"The mainstream media however were having orgasms of joy. They’re back in business, baby."
Yes, they are — with their oversampled populations of dyed-in-the-wool Democrats and known NeverTrump Republicans so that they can report to their base.
***
I think Trump is crazy like a fox, and it's to his advantage to make people think he's capable of anything destructive — nothing is off the table. That's a page out of Reagan's playbook.
Trump's aversion to war in general, and protracted war in particular, is a powerful conviction keeping his temptations in check.
Contrary to popular narrative, don't think for a minute that Trump, Vance, Hegseth, or anyone else in the administration or the Pentagon wants any kind of war with Iran. Vance, ans Hegseth have been in forward areas and both know the horror (the horror...the horror) of live combat. Neither is spoiling for it.
***
"It’s chaos, all of it."
Yep — strategic.
It's like a pitcher that is wild on purpose — the batter is frozen, unable to really swing with confidence.
https://youtu.be/euHfP6X_axY?si=j2sUd17w4xC1dnVh
***
With any luck, there will never be any reason for your niece to have to run for office.
And I hope too she never has to run for office.
One of these days I'm going to have to watch Bull Durham.
It's a most enjoyable film in spite of Kevin Costner's acting.
A friend of mine who spent a little more than three years in the NY Mets' farm system once told me it is by far THE most authentic, genuine depiction of life in minor league baseball.
I thought I saw a young Tim Robbins in there. He's one I like as well. I'm not much of a baseball fan, but if it's that authentic, it's worth a look.
And I was going to say I only used Poughkipsee because I love the name.
"Norm Coleman"
*WOW The Protocols of the Elders of Zion have done run roughshod all over this chat*
I pop up your Friday Funday and what should my eyes take in. Why it’s my old buddy Norm Coleman. His wife was a consultant for a company I worked for in downtown Mpls in the IDS Center. He would be around the offices and I used to see him in the building workout facility when I would do my lunch treadmill. We’d talk business and music.
Trying to figure out what Trump is doing is not for the faint of heart. Your sister gave the answer I always hear now…”he’s not Kamala”. True I guess. I’ll wait and see how this tariff stuff goes. I got a notification yesterday that an order I placed for an anime doll from Japan was cancelled pending me reordering it because of the price increase. It went up $40. I guess my granddaughter will need to understand she has to do with less now. Isn’t that the new Trump credo…unless I can come up with that 500k to join Don Jr’s club for access. I think 10% for “the big guy” was a bargain.
You've led a most interesting life, but then I've told you that before.
I voted less for Trump than for the people around him, like Vance, Gabbard, and RFK. I'll let you know later how that works out for me. Are we really better off with Trump than with the Harris blob (because let's face it, she wouldn't be running things anymore than Biden was--the Democrats are heading to "rule by committee")? I think the only way to answer that question will be in hindsight and it will come down less to anything Trump does and more to how people react to what he does or doesn't do. Trump was a backlash to Obama, who promised to be different rather than (D)iffe(R)ent. Trump promised to be different rather than (D)iffe(R)ent. So far both of them have lied. So what will the backlash to Trump be? How much frustration can people take before they break? And when they do break, what form will it take?
Norm wasn’t telling me Jews were running the Universe then I can assure you. He was a pretty nondescript guy really. He kept a pretty low profile. We just happened to be in the gym at the same time every day. I never treated him like I thought he was anything special. Everyone else always sort of skirted him.
I never really had any ideas about what Vance would be like. I knew Trump wouldn’t really let him get out too far and that’s what is going to bring Vance down unless he can escape that somehow. He lives or dies with Trump. It’s hard to see how anyone can make much of a difference. Trump always has to be front and center. I never had the love of RFK Jr that a lot of people have. I always thought of him as a sort of shitlib who just happened to hold some of my views on Covid. I’m not really a hard core anti vaxxer across the board though. I got flu shots up until a few years ago. When I got disgusted with my Sarcoidosis treatments and finally found a Dr. who would work with me to get off the meds and found that I could and actually felt better and went into a remission of sorts, I stopped getting flu shots.
Overall I agree with your assessment of the Bush to Obama to Trump. I never paid much attention to politics before Clinton really. I always voted but never knew more than just what I saw on the news. To be fair the news wasn’t slanted quite so much then. I think there will be a backlash to Trump. You can already see it coming. I don’t know how it will happen though. There aren’t many great choices on either side. The Ds are in their fight for the party that the Rs started a few years ago. The Rs are still in a battle. I’ve been trying to understand this “new right” stuff that Pedro is always talking about. It must be a generational thing because they look to me like a bunch of anonymous keyboard warriors carrying on the feud that started with the RDS/Trump primary. A lot of talk and no action towards anything meaningful. And to finish, NO I don’t think my own life is any different now than it would have been if Harris would have won.
If memory serves, he was was a DFL Democrat for most of his time in politics - certainly when he was mayor of St. Paul...
DFL as mayor. Switched to R and was the last R Mn Senator
"Democrats singing on the steps of the Capital to protest Trump"
https://photos.app.goo.gl/JChMPGzsVEyor54k8