Rick Kinnaird

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Last night there was an article that we, The United States of America, had 550 tons of food that was to go to starving children and families all over the world. Instead, it sat in a warehouse where it expired and now “we” were going to pay $180,000 to have it burned up.

It’s not like the administration didn’t know about it. A reporter had been to South Sudan months ago and had told of the desperate need for food, and medicine that would keep clinics open and people from starving. He made the point of saying that he knew where this food was stored and begged Secretary of State Rubio to release it. He made the talk show circuit and identified two warehouses where food for these people was being held – rotting.

So why? What’s the point? Is it cruelty? 

Do you remember the book The Ugly American?

It was first published in 1958 and was a fictionalized account of U.S. blunders in SE Asia. The one that stuck with me was a story about the U.S. shipping bags of food and as they were being off loaded a fellow came up to each bag with a stencil and spray painted each bag with what the stencil said. It was in a language the people couldn’t read. What it said was “Gift from the people of North Vietnam” or the equivalent.

Wherever there is conflict there is starving and cruelty. And there is incompetence, greed, and stupidity.

We, Americans, use to push through all that and try to help. Now? This administration? I don’t know what to say. It is shameful. What happened to Marco Rubio? I watched him go from pretty rationale – although I disagreed on many of his stances – to some kind of robot who repeats cruel policies, and does so with a certain arrogance. US aid had been dispensed around the world through the aptly named USAID. It did a great job. Were there problems? Well, yeah. When you are shipping food and supplies to starving sick people who are in the middle of a war zone there are problems. People steal the supplies and sell them on the black market. That happens. But more often than not, the right people get the food and supplies.

This administration under the direction of Elon Musk and aided by Donald Trump repeated Russian propaganda points saying USAID was a Ponzi scheme. This is also the call of the far right and people like Stephen Miller. A guy whose life work seems to be to inflict as much pain and suffering as cruelly as possible.

So they shut down USAID and its functions were supposed to be taken over by The State Department. You can make the argument that aid is a function of diplomacy and therefore State should handle it. Okay, I get that, but they didn’t. As 550 tons of food rotting can attest to. 

I read my alumni magazine today and there was a small article announcing how the university was having to scale back its global health efforts that it did through its nonprofit affiliate. This work had been going on for fifty years. Improving health and saving lives around the world cut back 80% due to the termination of $800 million in USAID grants. This has resulted in the loss of 2,200 jobs and 1,975 positions in 44 countries and 247 positions in the U.S. Yeah. Tell me, how does this make America great?

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

It’s hard to know where to begin, because this is a screed about false illusions and broken dreams. I was under the illusion that beneath it all we were working for the same goal – to make our country better. I might have disagreed with the way to do that, but I thought we, and by we I mean everybody in the United States, were interested in such basic things as making life better for everyone. After years of seeing “I got mine” and then the super charging of conspiracies and false narratives I have to conclude that my underlying premise no longer holds.

So now we are seeing the fruits of these labors come to fruition. False narratives typically give way to the truth and people operating on incorrect assumptions are replaced by people who know what they are doing. But this is not happening anymore.

We have seen, read, heard about the 27 little girls swept away in the flood waters in Texas. It seems this was worse flooding than they had had before, but it was not unprecedented. There are videos of the same kind of flooding from a few years before. What changed? Why were these girls and some 170 killed and another 160 unaccounted for?

Reading the accounts of what happened at the camp where the girls were, they were used to rain and the river rising. This was not unusual. What was different was these folks were counting on being warned if it was going to get worse. The warning never came. Why not? The person at the Weather Service whose job it was to take the Weather Service warnings and tell local officials had left because of the DOGE cuts. Or was it harassment? I don’t know. Does it matter? He left and he wasn’t replaced.

The local officials were counting on getting warnings from the Weather Service. The Weather Service issued them, but no one was there to let people know. This area had had various warning systems in the past, but they had been shut off. Apparently, they had asked for a new warning system. It would cost one million dollars. Their governor offered to pay 5% of the cost. Nice fifty grand for a system that cost a million.

There was a system that would alert cell phones in the area. It never went off. Why? I don’t recall the excuse, but it might not have helped the campers because part of the charm of the camp was a no cell phone policy, and service was spotty anyway. This was no slouch camp. Jenna Bush reminisced about going there.

Then there was the FEMA response effort. Typically, when a disaster such as this strikes there’s an order to get rescue boats in the water immediately. We are talking middle of the night, no matter what, wake people up and go. Didn’t happen. It took 72 hours, three days for the order to be signed by Kristi Noem, head of Homeland Security. She has a policy that anything costing more than 100 grand has to come to her. And it took her three days to get around to it. As a former disaster head in Florida said three days made them useless. 

Now it’s coming out that calls to FEMA went unanswered, like 80% of them. Why? Kristi hadn’t signed off on the contractors that do that job. So on July 5th there contracts terminated. 16,419 calls went unanswered, 2,613 did get answered.

Now I’ve learned that the head of FEMA wasn’t seen until nine days after those children were swept away in the flood waters. And, you’ll be surprised (NOT!) to learn he has not disaster management or emergency preparedness experience. This is the guy who told the FEMA staff he didn’t know there was a hurricane season.

His boss, Kristi Noem, has said that they wanted to cut back on FEMA and push the money out to the states, because the states are closer to the action and know better how to handle such things. This is a typical Republican response – push it out to the states. This allows them, the Republicans in Congress, to cut back on the total amount of money they give a state. In this case what old killer puppy Kristi doesn’t seem to know, care(?), or understand is that the states local response organizations get their money from FEMA already. If she shuts off Federal money the states emergency response is no longer there. 

And it didn’t take long, like a few hours, for a governor to point out that the reason we have a Federal response is that not every state gets hit with a disaster every year. So it makes sense to centralize the response and have people there who know what they are doing. Huh? Who knew? Certainly, not Kristi.

Now in some cases, like say a river warning system in an area that people know floods would be a good idea and either the local communities, or the state, or the Federal government could provide it. But in this case they didn’t. They had in the past, but the river hadn’t flooded badly in a few years and so they let it go.

Oh well. 

The head of the House what’s his name issued a “thoughts and prayers” statement that was met immediately with a “we aren’t paying you to pray. We are paying you to fix the problems.”

But fixing problems is boring and drudgery. It’s what the deep state is all about. Cogs in the wheels of government doing things you don’t understand, but boy howdy are you glad they are there when disaster strikes. Or you can take the other tact: “I don’t understand it and I don’t care, let’s get rid of it.” which was Elon’s way of cutting nothing in government costs. Make America Shittier and More Expensive.

Moving on. We see another hilarious attempt by certain Kool-Aide drunk officials to enact policies based on their mistaken beliefs that has been reinforced by decades of being lied to or lying about it. In this case it is the Secretary of Agriculture. She wants all those able bodied people who are not working that are on Medicare to get in the fields and start picking. Okay, here are a few facts that get in the way of that idea: 1) most people on Medicare (or Medicaid) that can, are working. 2) many people are disabled and that’s why they are on those programs. Oh, and here’s a little tidbit for ya Brooke (that’s her name Brooke Rollins) they tried this before. Yeah. Turns out back in the 60s a similar theme was bubbling in the same sort of circles – get rid of the migrant pickers and – get this – put high school kids to work! Great idea, right? 

They lasted two weeks. The problem(s): the pay was crappy, the hours long, and the work hard. The students either left, or went on strike. Well, this won’t happen this time. We’ll have someone in a wheel chair sucking oxygen doing the picking. Yeah. That’ll work.

So we are seeing, on multiple fronts, reality hitting BS repeated echoes of propaganda. 

Lemme just go off on waste, fraud, corruption , and abuse for a sec… That’s what Elon said he was after. Yet, he never ventured into areas where it was really going on. I mean there’s Rick Scott who faced how many charges of defrauding the government over Medicare abuse? Or the couple Trump pardoned who stole millions in the largest Medicare fraud in history. The price to get off was $16 mill I think. Then there’s the documented international gangs that are ripping off the government and defrauding us to the tune of millions even billions. What to do about it? Why eliminate the group looking into all that.

But then we get to Pam Bondi. I always wondered why Pam sold out so cheaply to Trump. It only took a $20,000 donation to her campaign for her to stop her investigation into Trump University and all those Florida folks who signed up were left holding the bag, but then I’ve learned that it wasn’t just Trump. She was open for bizness. Yup, make a contribution and your troubles go away. A recent article outlined how time after time she took the money and dropped the investigation. She’s the perfect AG for Trump. She’s his AG, not ours.

And finally, Jeffery, ah yes. This is the most hysterical one of all. After years of right wing Republican podcasters and the like going on about Epstein and how it was all Democrats who were on his plane, going to an island where they were “entertained” by young girls now they were eager for the list of “clients” of Epstein to be released. They seemed to have forgotten that at that time Trump was a Democrat. And shockingly he was shown in pictures and video to be right beside old Jeff, at a party with 15 year olds. (Okay, maybe they were older like 16 or 17.) And now after being promised over and over by Trump and then Bondi that the list would be released it vanished. Wait? What? Turns out there was no list. Well, there had been a list because Pammi Poh had said it was on her desk. Then – poof! – it was gone.

This raises the question: if there was no list what is Jeffery’s assistant, Gizelle Maxwell, doing in jail? Wasn’t her whole case based on helping him procure girls and clients? Now there aren’t any? So, people are asking, “Why is she in jail?” Reality and illusion – funny stuff.

One last thing, I saw a picture of David Richardson. He’s the head of FEMA that was famous before the drownings in Texas of saying he didn’t know there was a hurricane season. That and having no experience in emergency preparedness or disaster management. As soon as I saw the picture I thought, “He looks like the guy in the Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue.” How do I know this? As a yud (that’s youth) I remember my aunt getting the Frederick’s catalogue and I would steal glances at the bras with the holes cut out so the nipples could poke through and the crotchless panties. But what got me most was the drawing of the founder, named Frederick – who could have guessed? – He was featured on the upper corner of each left hand page. His hair was slicked back, his shirt was open and he seemed to be slobbering over the photos on the page. I always thought it was weird. Who wants to buy sexy stuff from a pervert? 

In searching for that iconic image I learned a lot about Frederick Mellinger. WWII he was in a barracks and the most popular pin-up was Betty Grable. This gave him the idea to start a lingerie business. Starting in New York, he moved to California and had a mail order business out of a PO box in Hollywood. He started selling bikinis when they were outlawed in some places. A photo of a young lady being given a ticket on a beach in California helped sell out his inventory. 

He mainly sold to women in the mid-west. He photographed stars in fashionable attire and put them in his catalog. Oftentimes the photospread of items for sale included a picture of him. Kind of bland. But he was selling lingerie women couldn’t get at the downtown department stores. His stuff was sexy. He invented the padded bra and the push up bra. Also the blow-up bra, filled with air or water – not very successful. He morphed into more risqué stuff and crossed the line into raunchy. Not a good move as the Women’s Movement was taking off, and Victoria’s Secret was starting up. They stumbled along, tried to move back to more sophisticated looks. He died. Business went bankrupt. Yadda yadda yadda. It survives today as a kind of Victoria’s Secret type place. 

Unsurprisingly Megan Fox has partial ownership. It’s perfect. There was a hot for a season women who crossed over into weird, slightly raunchy looks. I mean what was all that with the fully tattooed Machine Gun Kelly?

Surprisingly Brooke Burke got her start as a model for Frederick’s. And unsurprisingly, Madonna got her leather gun sticking out bra from Frederick’s (okay maybe they weren’t guns. But something was sticking out and they weren’t nipples.)

But after endless searching – I’ll probably pay for that with lots of ads for, I dunno, push up bras? – I could not find one image of Frederick Mellinger slobbering from the corner of his catalog. 

So, you’ll just have to settle for the head of FEMA David Richardson.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Here’s David!

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

The people of Hungary were warned by their Dear Leader, Victor Orban, not to show up to the Gay Pride Parade this past weekend. He threatened arrests and incarceration. They heard him loud and clear.

It was the largest gay pride parade in the nation’s history.

Monday, June 30, 2025

NOAA is cutting back on weather data from three satellites that help with hurricane forecasting, and I think that’s a good thing. Why? Because DOGE fired 600 meteorologists so I’m guessing no one is left to read the data. BTW They’ve extended the cutoff deadline by a month.

TACO Tuesday – The BBB (Big Beautiful Bill) is running into a few problems. Lawmakers are “concerned.” Dems say that the bill slashes all this Medicaid funding. Republicans say no. Well, turns out that the funding isn’t cut. What the bill does is to change deadlines, add paperwork, and add more requirements. It is estimated that many people won’t realize they’ve been screwed until it’s too late. Good work guys (and gals)! Two Republican Senators won’t vote for the bill: Rand Paul and Tom Tillis. Tillis is not running again under the threat of being primaried this upcoming election. Sorry, that’s not what he said. He wants to spend more time with his family. Aw – so cute. Murkowski and Collins are both worried (or is it concerned?) about the cuts to health care. That means they’ll vote for the stinkin’ bill but with much hand wringing. The rest of the pusillanimous pack? Oh maybe Hawley will vote no. Should we send him a copy of his book on manhood?

Apparently, Fox News barely mentions the Medicaid cuts. What they do talk about is Biden! Yeah Baby. So people in Red America don’t know how they are getting screwed and as Mitch McConnell predicts, “They’ll get over it.” Yeah. I mean either they’ll get over it or they’ll die so who cares? And by then Fox will be on to blaming someone or something else. 

Mike Johnsons says that there’s waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicaid system. Why, he says, there are 1.4 million illegal immigrants on Medicaid right now. You gotta wonder, how does he know? Especially, because illegal immigrants can’t use Medicaid. Now if he or Elon wanted to go after the WFA – a cool TLA I just made up (Waste Fraud Abuse – WFA, TLA – Three Letter Acronym). They could go after the organized crime syndicates that are stealing peoples’ identities to file false disaster relief claims. In fact there was a group tasked with doing that, just like we had Inspectors General to root out that kind of stuff. But they’ve all been discontinued. But Mike probably found that 1.4 million number when he looked at the states health care programs that cover workers. That’s 1.4 million. He probably just skimmed the report and misplaced who was where.

Tommy Tubberville and Steven Miller made racist nasty comments about the character and people in New York City after a Muslim won the Democratic Primary. Hey, I’ve got an idea – why doesn’t Alabama stand on its own two feet and stop getting all that Federal money that New York is putting into the Federal coffers? And that goes for you too Stevie. In fact, if you look at who puts money into the Federal coffers it’s California and New York. Who takes it out? Why Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and all the red states. I mean the Republicans in those states have been doing a bang up job running those states. What’s Alabama in reading scores? 47th and Mississippi is like 49th? I mean they’ve had years – decades to do better and they haven’t.

Oh BTW our stock market is down compared to the stock markets in the rest of the world. What happened? Under that old dottering man – what’s his name? – Biden! We had the strongest economy in the world. How did Trump manage to ruin it so quickly? But don’t worry – immigrants are the problem. So are children of immigrants. And Trump wants $8B more for ICE to ship people out of here. Where to? I ask. I mean if you are born here where are you going to send them?

I know. Ivanka and Jared have just signed a deal with Albania to build a luxury resort on an island in the Adriatic. It used to be a Russian military base. Ship them there. There is unexploded ordinance on the island. Let them immigrants wander around that island. Maybe, they’ll trip on one of them. I mean better them than us – am I right? Oh but wait, if they were born here they aren’t immigrants, just people we don’t want. Same difference – right? Maybe, Donnie will ship Nancy Pelosi there? Who knows.

I’m guessing that Jared and Ivanka are waiting for Dad and Bebe to open up that beach front in Gaza.

Oh sorry got off track. The BBB will give $8B to ICE. Where did they get that money? I think they took it from NIH and the National Cancer Research Center. They are scheduled to lose $7.2B. Hey so ground breaking work goes a little slower and a few people die. That’s the breaks. Shouldn’t have gotten cancer. Like that legislator who had voted against women’s health care and then needed an emergency something or other and they told her sorry, you aren’t dead enough yet.

And for eight billion I want to see puppy killer Kristi in a whole new fashion line of ICE wear. Maybe with Megan Thee Stallion? Think about that for a second. Oh wait, Ivanka, have you started up your jewelry line again? Or how about the DOGE spokesperson who was doing her side hustle in her office? Showing off clothes while they were firing people left and right. Is she available? I mean things have slowed down there now right?

And why is ICE going after people at construction sites and Home Depot? Aren’t you supposed to be finding people scamming Medicaid? Or why bring 7,000 troops into LA and not go into the place where the gangs are? Oh. Right. You might get shot. And out gunned. Hey, go fight forest fires. Oh wait. You might get shot.

In the latest twist of hypocrisy, it is being reported that Trump will try and withhold money from Harvard because they aren’t doing enough to curb anti-semitism. Hey, turn slightly in your chair at the newly refurbished Resolution Desk (after Elon’s kid put a buggar on it) and see that bald headed F*ck? That’s Stephen Miller. He not only anti-semitic, he’s anti-muslim, anti-black, anti-woman etc. etc. etc. (There are bigger words for some of these antis but Trump is reported to have a 5th grade reading level so I didn’t want to appear too intelligentsia.)

And let’s not forget Iran. We obliterated their Nuclear program. That’s done. Let’s move on. Too bad we didn’t have someone who could do the art of a deal with them? Oh wait, we did. Hillary and Barrack and the former Secretary of Energy, who btw is like a nuclear scientist. Maybe, he even is one? I mean a PhD in physics at least. Wow. We could have known exactly what the Iranians had been doing etc. all without firing a shot. Now? Well, they are pretty pissed off – I’m guessing, And they are probably going to go operation warp-speed to build a bomb. Good job Donnie!

So much winning.

Happy 4th! 

Saturday, June 28, 2025

Fascinating. The most unpopular bill anyone can imagine and it might be made into law. Josh Hawley doesn’t like. He’s very worried about it. But he’s going to vote for it. Because that’s what Republicans do. Meanwhile, we hear the Democrats are lost, have no message, and are waffling about. In New York, a young man went up against the Democratic establishment and won. Yet, the establishment Dems wonder what should they do? For months we’ve seen Bernie Sanders and AOC rallying huge crowds. And the Dems wonder what should they do?

Well, I know. You should run the same old tired shit you’ve been running on. It hasn’t worked before. It won’t work now. But it’s what you do.

Great.

There are voices and actions that tell all of us exactly what to do. It’s not that hard. Tax the rich; help the poor; lift up the middle class.

What’s that you say? Oh right. You sent “a strongly worded letter.” Great. You Republicans “are very concerned.” Great.

All of you need to go. None of you are willing to do what needs to be done. 

Here’s a radical idea. Help people. The country is screaming at you.