Day: August 27, 2025

Dems Have A Plan (Sort Of)

AS the midterms approach and the country is plunged into chaos the Dems are gearing up for the battle coming with the 2026 midterms.

But will all my criticism of the Dems I like hearing that they may have a plan….truth be told I am not holding my breath as how successful this plan will be….

The first six months of Donald Trump’s second presidency have been a master class in what he truly excels at: wanton misrule. With an absence of adult minders and a determination to run roughshod over all of the democratic guardrails that have historically only been propped up by a fealty to norms and the waning spirit of fair play in Washington, Trump has moved fast and broken the government, put the economy into trauma with his constantly shifting tariff demands, perpetrated the deaths of HIV-infected children abroad, and cut the ribbon on a spanking new concentration camp in Florida.

These first six months have also featured a Democratic Party that has done what it does best: kept its stockpile of powder nice and dry. While some Democratic electeds have broken from the herd (often to the disdain of Democratic leadership) to confront Trump and his Republican minions, the party’s age-old theory of how political change happens—wait for the GOP to screw up—has remained in effect. Though now, with the passage of Trump’s big new “kick people off health care and funnel the money into an American Gestapo Act of 2025,” it looks like Democrats finally have their quarry right where they want them.

Or … almost? As it turns out, Democrats are planning to take on the GOP—in a few weeks, anyway. “House Democrats are plotting to turn the August recess into the opening salvo of the midterms, including through town halls and organizing programs,” reports Politico, as the party is experiencing “renewed bravado after months in the political wilderness.” And to think that all it took for Democrats to exit this self-imposed exile was Trump getting everything he wanted.

But come on, feel the bravado, folks. Maine’s centrist weirdo Representative Jared Golden, who is part of a group of Democrats who’ve lately decided that swearing more often makes them look edgy, shows up in the same Politico piece, bragging, “There’s almost nothing about this bill that I’m going [to] have a hard time explaining to the district. This is a giant tax giveaway to wealthy people. Everyone fucking knows it.” Can confirm! The New Republic has been covering this bill rather relentlessly over the past few months, which raises an uncomfortable question: What was stopping Golden from explaining this to his district at any point during the legislative meanderings of this bill? (Perhaps Golden, the most Trump-curious member of the Democratic caucus, was weighing whether to vote with the Republicans, as he has in the past.)

https://newrepublic.com/post/197816/trump-gop-bill-democrats-attack

Like I have said many times….the Dems have great ideas they just cannot seem to find a way to sell them to the American people.

So will this plan be more successful or just another fart in the political wind?

Any ideas?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Gilded Age–Second Coming

We know how much I like history and what it can teach us about our future…..so without further ado….

Before we jump into today’s economics we need to step back and take a look at the first Gilded Age….

The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth and industrialization that lasted from the late 1870s until the early 1900s. It was characterized by extreme inequality; the wealthy, including the famous robber barons, experienced high levels of prosperity, while the working classes experienced extreme poverty and labor exploitation.

Key Takeaways

  • The Gilded Age was an era of American history that lasted from the late 1870s until the early 1900s. It was characterized by extreme wealth inequality and industrialization.
  • Major changes during the Gilded Age included the movement from agriculture to industry, shifts from rural to urban living, women’s entry into the labor force, and westward migration.
  • Immigration increased during the Gilded Age, while Black populations migrated north and west in pursuit of economic opportunity and land ownership.
  • The life-threatening working conditions and economic devastation of the working classes partly fueled the rapid industrialization and innovation of the Gilded Age.
  • The rise of investigative journalism, progressive ideologies, and organized labor eventually undermined the Gilded Age’s rigid class structures and exploitation.

https://www.investopedia.com/gilded-age-7692919

Does any of that sound familiar….the inequality, the working class suffers, the ‘Robber Barons’…..any of it?

“Trump’s golden age looks an awful lot like a new Gilded Age,” wrote Politico this month, reflecting on the second inauguration of the United States’ president, prominently attended by tech billionaires. The day after that inauguration, historian Beverly Gage “couldn’t stop thinking about the Gilded Age” and its “rapid technological change as well as stark inequality, corporate graft and violent clashes between workers and bosses”.

But what was the Gilded Age – and does the comparison hold up?

The term, which spans the 1870s–1890s, came from an 1873 novel by celebrated satirist Mark Twain, The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day, co-written with journalist and neighbour Charles Dudley Warner. It meant a nation that glittered from its growth and the accumulation of economic power by the extremely wealthy. The title referenced Shakespeare’s King John, in which the Earl of Salisbury states, “To gild refined gold, to paint the lily […] is wasteful and ridiculous excess” (Act IV, scene 2).

Trump himself has cited this era as an aspiration. “We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That’s when we were a tariff country. And then they went to an income tax concept,” Trump said, days after taking office. “It’s fine. It’s OK. But it would have been very much better.”

Experts on the era, however, say he is idealising “a time rife with government and business corruption, social turmoil and inequality”, and “dramatically overestimating” the role of tariffs.

“The most astonishing thing for historians is that nobody in the Gilded Age economy – except for the very rich – wanted to live in the Gilded Age economy,” said Richard White, emeritus professor of history at Stanford University.

early 1870s was full of gilded lilies – a period of wasteful excess, shady dealing in business, and political corruption.

The year 1872 saw a massive scandal over the railroads’ influence in politics, after “a sham construction company”, Crédit Mobilier, had been chartered to build the Union Pacific Railroad “by financing it with unmarketable bonds”.

Representative Oakes Ames of Massachusetts sold the shares at bargain rates to high-ranking House colleagues to secure political clout for the company. While most sold them quickly, representative James Brooks of New York (also a government director for Union Pacific Railroad) profited from a large block of shares.

Ames and Brooks were censured by the House in 1873 for using their political position for financial gain. The Crédit Mobilier Scandal, as it was called, became nationwide news.

The Gilded Age satirised such blatant pursuit of wealth. Its story centred around the members of the fictional Hawkins family, trying to get rich by selling their essentially worthless land in Tennessee under false pretences that misrepresented its value. The novel employs pathos as well as satire. An adopted daughter, Laura Hawkins, kills her married lover. She is tried and acquitted, but before her death, she feels guilty about her past behaviour.

https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2010/03/Trump-presidency-compared-gilded-age

Our first Gilded Age was so bad it brought on the Progressive era…..we should be so lucky this time around.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is FEMA doomed?

I live in a hurricane zone and we have had many but a couple of real devastating storms, Camille and Katrina, and we got a lot of aid and help from FEMA…..and we are not alone anywhere that there was a major disaster whether it be hurricanes, floods, etc FEMA was there to lend a helping hand….but thanx to your clueless leader that type of help may be ending…..

A few folks have taken it upon themselves to try and let the country know what danger are lurking in the Trump Administration….

Days before the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA employees have issued a stark warning to Congress: the Trump administration’s cuts could leave the nation dangerously unprepared for the next major disaster. In a letter dubbed the “Katrina Declaration,” 182 current FEMA staffers criticized White House plans to shrink the agency and shift disaster response duties—and costs—to the states. The employees argue that such moves risk not only FEMA’s future, but also the readiness of the nation to handle large-scale emergencies, per the New York Times. “Decisions made by the current administration,” they wrote, could lead to “the effective dissolution of FEMA itself and the abandonment of the American people.”

Among the grievances: the Trump administration’s appointment of two acting FEMA chiefs lacking emergency management experience, new spending rules that have slowed FEMA’s disaster response, and the elimination of billions of dollars in grants aimed at disaster preparedness. Additionally, survivors now must provide email addresses to access FEMA aid, a hurdle for those with limited internet. The letter’s signatories argue the Trump administration is blatantly ignoring requirements of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, including a provision preventing the Homeland Security secretary from interfering with FEMA. Most signed anonymously, fearing retaliation. Nearly 140 EPA employees were put on leave following a similar letter of dissent last month, per the Washington Post.

Trump is the kiss of death for FEMA and in return the kiss of death for people affected by a disaster……and transferring the cost to the states is a stupid idea for most of those effected are dirt poor and cannot afford the programs they have now.

So the heart-less SOB in DC will make damn sure that people suffering continues and will buy another gold ornament for his fireplace.

Side note:  i heard that 30+ employees of FEMA have been put on leave for criticizing the agency.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”