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Tuesday, February 17, 2026

It always amazes me. No mater how low we have sunk we can always go lower. 

James Burke did two series for the BBC back in the 90s. One was called Connections and looked at how what appear to be disparate discoveries helped one or the other to achieve something greater. How the Jacquard Loom cards helped bring about the punch cards of the modern computers for instance. The other show was about America, specifically the United States. At the end of the series he quoted from de Tocqueville, who wrote that America was in a race between its greatness and its decadence. Not much has changed since the two hundred years that de Tocqueville wrote that.

I think about the cautionary tales about republics and how they give way to authoritarian regimes. Historians give democracies about two hundred years then something happens. It appears that powerful interests figure out how to rig the system. That and the common folk think the system of government will stay around because, well, it’s always been there. And what they mean by that is they grew up with it and don’t expect it to change. Tell that to the people of the Roman Republic.

Or there’s technology and complacency. Constantinople had withstood many attacks from without and within. It had always withstood them so there was no reason to believe they wouldn’t withstand this one, right? The one they couldn’t withstand came in the form of a 1200 pound ball of rock hurled at their walls via a new weapon called a cannon. 

Our forefathers never envisioned political parties. They envisioned men of good character guiding the country. If someone got out of line these good fellows would throw the rascal out. How wrong they were. Or in more modern times it was said that it takes a carpenter to build a barn but a jackass to knock it down. No one envisioned a whole party of jackasses.

Tuesday, February 12, 2026

I’ve been writing a bit and then forgetting to post, or not completing the post.

But here goes with another one.

Bad Bunny – seems the MAGA folks don’t know Puerto Rico is populated by Americans. They know they speak Spanish (Bad) and not English (Good). I wonder what they’d say if they discovered the last time it was suggested to have another language as part of the official U.S. language and it was German? 

The Jobs Report – It came out and the explanations and the figures are fascinating. The jobs number for the month is 130,000 for the month, which is strong, but noisy. What does that mean? It means the actual number is somewhere between 7,700 and 152,000 and the 130,000 is splitting the difference or so they say. If I do (152,000-7,700) / 2 I get 72,150. Whatever.

That jobs number of 130,000 is considered strong. However, remember it is “noisy” and will get adjusted as more data comes in, provided of course there is someone competent left to handle the data.

However, if one looks at the number of jobs added since January 2025 it is 359,000. this number is a lot less subject to fluctuation (ie noise) and covers the first year of Trump. How’s he doing? Well, that number under Biden for his last year in office was 900,000 jobs added. You don’t have to be an economist to realize things are slowing down.

What explains this? Ah well you see according to the economic dynamos that Trump has ie Peter Navarro and Kevin Hassett the problem is that millions of workers have been deported.

Now if this makes you stop and wonder WTF? you’d be right to wonder. ICE has arrested 393,000 people, not millions. And weren’t they arresting and deporting criminals not workers? Is someone lying? I’ll be kind here. You are lying if you know the truth. If you are totally friggin’ clueless and pulling stuff out of your rear end that’s well – on snap – lying. Nevermind.

The picture gets worse. Manufacturing jobs, the manly jobs Trump wanted to bring back, they’ve declined too.

There is one thing that supports the Trumper analysis. Native born jobs taken rose last year. It was a temporary spike for a year and then fell.

This could be used to say that illegals were taking jobs from native born. But is that true? Probably not. In fact, taking away the immigrants’ jobs has hurt native born jobs. What? How? And it has set us on a path of decline in population just like Japan and China are experiencing. 

It turns out immigrants, illegal or otherwise, take jobs in specific pockets of the economy. Notably construction, agriculture, food processing especially meat packing. So it is better to say immigrants complement what native born do, not take away from those opportunities.

And, as has been pointed out many times, immigrants commit far fewer crimes than native born or for that matter ICE agents.

Then there’s the population problem. It’s declining. So where are the new workers going to come from? Who’s going to pay for Medicare and Social Security or the enormous debt Trump has racked up? (Imagine if he hadn’t been elected? $7.8 Trillion in his first term and $2.25 trillion in this term so far.) Or as Jerry Reed sang in When You’re Hot You’re Hot (and when you’re not, you’re not) “Who’s going to pay for my Cadillac?”

Sunday, January 4, 2026

Okay. Okay. Calm down. You don’t understand. Viceroy for Venezuela, little Marco Rubio, explained. See there’s a boat full of oil off the coast and the people of Venezula aren’t getting any of it. Not the oil or the money from selling that oil. So we invaded their country. OKAY? GOT IT? No? What’s wrong with you?

Epstein files!

Where did that come from? I dunno.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out Paul Krugman’s latest. China has a problem. They have a huge trade imbalance. This is good up to a point but they are way past that point, and the people in the country aren’t spending enough and saving too much. This sounds anti-intuitive, but here’s the thinking: 1-China is making lots of stuff and selling it overseas. This creates a huge trade surplus. 2-The Chinese officials try to hide how big their surplus is by manipulating their currency. They make it lower than it should really be making it easier (ie cheaper) to sell stuff overseas. 3-The problem China now has is they don’t have any good investments left. They buy U.S. treauries and stuff like that to stuff their money somewhere. The other problen is they are running out of workers so they can’t keep making stuff forever at the rate they have been doing. 5-They could start to get out of this situation by helping their population have some confidence that there will be a way for them to have heath care and retirement care. Because the Chinese people don’t have these protections they hoard money “just in case.”

Epstein.

Oh and Press Secretary what’s her name? Blondie? Lying Blondie? Lying pregnant Blondie? Doesn’t matter. She said anyone with dual citizenship – U.S. and another. – isn’t a real American and should be deported. Melania and Baron have dual citizenship. When will they be deported?

Jeffrey.

Oh speaking of Epstein ya know who was an Epstein girl? Melania! Maybe, before she gets deported we should ask her a few questions?

And speaking of Venezuela, we were told about this. Back in 2019, Fiona Hill testified that this might be a deal Trump was cutting with Putin. (We get Venezuela. You get Ukraine. And China gets Taiwan.)

Epstein!

Ya know. Do you really think someone who was best buds with someone for ten or more years, who went cruising for chicks together, who took women from each other, who traded dodgy little birthday cards with nod-nod wink-wink inuendos, who was photographed numerous times with girls (like 14 years old) would know that one of them was a pedophile? My answer is “Yes!” Do you want proof? He says he didn’t know. Have you ever heard him tell the truth? Or to put it another way, “Have you ever heard him say anything that wasn’t a lie?”

Epstein.

One last question. Is there any business that Donnie has been involved in that didn’t fail? Given his track record what’s the likelihood that Venezuela will be a success?

Pedophile.

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

As most of you have heard The Kennedy Center has been renamed and the decision was unanimous by the board. A few notes, the rules were changed as to who on the board can vote, and only people appointed by the President could vote, so, amazingly, the vote was unanimous. This is the kind of leadership we have come to expect from this guy.

According to his flunky in charge of the Kennedy Center, they are glad that lots of artists have cancelled because they were from the old administration and apparently were left wing and no one was watching their stuff and now the Kennedy Center will put on plays and entertainment for the masses and stuff in line with the President’s vision and no more of that gay commie crap.

Accordingly the chief has learned from her boss and she has taken to his favorite way of reporting. The technique is called lying. And as far as I know they haven’t scheduled anything to replace what has been cancelled. Trump said he was surprised and honored by the name change. The fact that he’s been pining for this and to say it was a shock to him is not a lie it’s a bold faced lie.

Some of his old buds have shown up, among them Lee Greenwood. The miniature (5’ 3” 83 year old is known for the song “God Bless the U S A,” which is played at citizen induction ceremonies. Well, it used to be, I doubt we are holding them anymore. There was a time when they couldn’t play the song because Lee wasn’t getting enough money from them. He’s such a patriot. He’s got another song, “God Bless Canada,” which you’ll be surprised to learn sounds a lot like his other hit.  He’s such a patriot.

Now the Kennedy Center is playing stuff for the masses ticket sales are down. Not by a little but by a lot. Typically the Center had a 93% sell rate. Now? 53% That’s what winning looks like.

But we don’t have any of that left wing propaganda. You know like “Hamilton,” which pulled. And then there was a cabaret show that was still going on, that is until the artist was told she’d have to change some parts that had drag scenes. She refused and they cancelled her, and publicized that it was cancelled by the artist. This despite her explicitly saying she did not cancel.

Ah well, what did we expect? So to summarize: lying, lying, and more lying.

Any questions?

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

That Donald Trump and Jeffery Epstein who were pals for at least ten years, swapped inuendo cards, and that Trump who traveled on Jeff’s airplane and Trump who was photographed with young girls multiple times while around Epstein and from whom Trump got his most recent wife did not know a thing about olde Jeffie schlepping young women?

That Albrego Garcia who was deported illegally and when he got back is now accused to human trafficking is being so accused completely independently of making the Trumpo admin look like the louts they are? I mean it’s just a coincidence right? The charging attorney did it all on his own and had nothing to do with word from The white House or Pam Bondi? Right?

BTW the Human Trafficking charge is for being stopped for speeding and he had a bunch of guys in his car that he drove to work. So, I guess that means anyone who carpools is really human trafficking? Am I right?