Category: Trump

Volatilized Radioactive Cloud

photog Current Events, Trump , ,

Reading the reports last night, the United States of America attacked three Iranian nuclear material production facilities with a combination of Tomahawk missiles and GBU-57 series MOP’s (Massive Ordnance Penetrators).  Depending on which side you get your news from either all of the targets were completely destroyed or no damage at all was done.  Okay, that seems to cover the full range of possibilities.

The part I’m unsure of is whether we are now in a state of active war with Iran.  Iran thinks so.  Probably Israel hopes so.  But President Trump doesn’t feel that way.  He says hostilities are limited to the already completed attacks and so we should all just move on.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say there will be “reverberations.”

But maybe Trump knows more about the situation than I do.  I guess I have to hope (fervently) that he knows a whole lot more than I do and that this deeper knowledge led him to approve the attacks without fearing dire retaliation.  Yes, that is the hope at this point.

But I’ve got to say I’m quite worried that this will ramp up terrorist attacks by Iranian and Iranian-proxy groups.  We know that for the last four years foreigners have entered our southern border with impunity.  Would it surprise anyone if this included Iranian sleeper cells whose training would allow them to kill a large number of Americans in terrorist attacks almost anywhere in the United States?

And if there are attacks with large numbers of casualties will this lead to a full-blown war with Iran?  Will our sons be sent to the desert to fight?  Again?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions.  That’s why we hired Donald Trump.  He said no more “forever wars.”  And for better or worse he’s going to be held to that statement.  So, Mr. President, get on with your big beautiful bill and your deportations and your energy agenda and all that but don’t think for a minute we want another George W Bush or even a Joe Biden.  No more body bags, no more lives wasted sitting in tanks in a Mid-East desert for twenty years.  We could get that from the Democrats without even trying.

Well, that’s my two cents.  Maybe some folks want to cut him some slack because Iran has been a thorn in our side since 1979 and blowing up their stuff seems like payback.  Well, if that’s the game then nuke them and be done with it.  Give them both barrels and put an end to it.  But I’m pretty sure that would be just the beginning.  We’d end up with a harvest of mushroom clouds stretching right around the world from Moscow to Beijing and Washington to San Francisco.  And even the Neo-con psychos would probably agree that would be a “suboptimal outcome.”

Alright.  Let’s wait and see.  Back to my chores and summer fun.  Back to my writing and photos.  I have to process a bunch of shots I took at a truck show.  If I’m not a volatilized radioactive cloud by tomorrow I’ll have those pictures ready by next week.

Ramping Up the Trump

photog Current Events, Trump , , ,

Looking around it appears that the Trump administration intends to make an example of Los Angeles.  If we really were living in an analog of the Roman Empire then we could expect all kinds of fun.  All the men would be put to the sword; the women and children would be led away into slavery to the sound of their lamentations and the ground would be sown with salt.  Today the best we could hope for would be a perp walk for the Mayor of LA and the Governor of California.  But that would be a start.  But it appears that Trump is serious about confronting the sanctuary state on its home turf.

What that looks like is ICE lurking around Home Depot and scooping up the illegals looking for work.  As expected, the NGO’s have deployed their permanent college students with bull horns and whistles and assigned street actors to riot.  And we see all the usual theater.  Masked weirdos throwing water bottles, Molotov cocktails, bricks or whatever comes to hand.  But there has been a surprise.  The feds are arresting the guys throwing bricks.  Yesterday I read that the guy throwing fire bombs has been charged with attempted murder.  Now that’s progress!

Following this the Mayor of LA decided to order a curfew.  That’s huge.  In a sense she’s declaring defeat.  She blinked.  Basically, she’s telling the shock troops to go home and wait for a better opportunity.  That’s huge.  Because Trump isn’t going home.  ICE and the FBI are ferreting out the people who organized the violence.  And they are still rounding up illegals.  Now, without a doubt what has been done so far is a drop in the bucket.  Half of LA is made up of illegal aliens and their children and grandchildren.  But unless all of this is public relations it looks very much like Trump is going to make deporting illegal aliens his dominant play.

And he should because it’s extremely popular and it allows him to show his opponents as complicit with illegal immigration and on the side of the foreigners in the street burning cars and throwing firebombs at law enforcement doing their jobs.

As far as the scope of deportation, I’m not worried about how slow it currently is.  Trump learns by doing and as he learns he will get better and more efficient.  By the end of his four years, he’ll probably have it down to a science and there will probably be a bullet train shooting fifty thousand illegals down to Mexico City every day (and he’ll get the Mexicans to pay for it too).

So, looking at Trump’s current strategy, I think he’s making gains on multiple fronts.  He hasn’t ended the Ukraine or the Gaza wars or gotten his “big beautiful bill” signed or annexed Greenland yet but he has gotten the military and the ICE personnel to begin the signature policy of the Trump administration; deporting the millions of illegals that Joe Biden inflicted on us.  And energy prices are coming down and that drives down inflation.

Keep up the good work Mr. Trump.

The Blue States are Hurting

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner, Trump , , , ,

Trump seems to have turned off the faucet that Biden was using to keep the blue states solvent.  A sense of panic is setting in and lots of towns are finding their voters are revolting against the budget increases that followed the end of the COVID gravy train (CARES Act).  All of the unfunded mandates that were paid for with that money now have to be paid for by the state and local governments.  And the local governments are squealing like stuck pigs because the state is hanging them out to dry.

 

In Dunwich it’s reaching a crisis.  There are grumblings against Cthulhu because he took credit for the CARES Act spending.  Now he’s being blamed for the higher taxes and another Great Old One; Azathoth is taking advantage of the outrage to challenge Cthulhu in the coming First Selectman race.  Azathoth’s campaign literature is branding his plan as MAGA (Make Azathoth Govern Again).

He’s handing out red hats and recently he’s started to take on a familiar orange tint.  His boldest campaign promise is that under his administration he would pledge not to eat anyone at public meetings or official town functions.  When asked for public comment by the local radio channel Cthulhu ate the reporter and walked out of the studio vowing to put a stop to all this “fake news” and misinformation.  He was quoted (from a distance) as saying, “This is madness.  If I can’t eat my constituency when they cross the line, then Dunwich would descend into anarchy and no one wants anarchy, except anarchists and I hate anarchists, even thought they taste really good.”

 

Outside of the Dunwich enclave the human (or somewhat human) local governments are probably going to have to tighten their belts a good deal.  Lots of services that everyone has come to think of as critical will be on the chopping block.  One of these is winter road treatment.  Salt, sand and other materials have surged in price this year and depleted supplies will likely bust the budgets of towns and cities if we have another normal winter like we had in 2024/25.  Likewise with neglected infrastructure and school costs.  The state has mandated very expensive special education requirements.  Providing these mandated services may mean that the rest of the students will lose out on curriculum and services like library and arts classes.

It’s believed by the local governments that if these services are curtailed that voters will agree to add them back into the budget.  But from what I’ve heard and seen this isn’t the case.  A revolt is going on and the angry voters in New England may finally have become fed up with the feckless spending that their politicians routinely legislate.  The next few weeks are going to be instructive as these towns and cities struggle to resolve the impasse that has developed.  The budgets are overdue and without a budget they can’t begin signing contracts and paying salaries.

I think I’ll go to Azathoth’s July rally.  I hear he dances a mean YMCA.

Joe Rogan Made Me Think

photog Current Events, Trump , , ,

I know this is old news but I decided to watch this Joe Rogan podcast with Kash Patel that was taped I guess today and just listening at random almost, you hear that the people who were in charge under Obama and Biden were ruthless criminals who had no fear of being caught performing completely illegal operations against their political enemies.  Russia-gate is the supreme example but there is no end to how many crooked acts and operations they performed with complete impunity.

I think the stellar quote is that former FBI director Comey had a room where he stashed his worst documents and data.  When he left, he locked the room and removed all record of what was hidden in the room and from 2017 till 2025 no one outside of Comey’s inner circle knew about it.  Patel says he’s mining those documents and data files for proof of Comey’s crimes.

So other than a reason to be outraged by all of these Deep State criminals what is the take away from all this?  Well, to me, it’s just a reminder that this is government.  Corruption and abuse of power is what happens as soon as people get a taste of power and the money that comes with it.  And this will happen with Republicans in power almost as egregiously as when the Democrats are running things.  This is human nature.

So, from my point of view, we have to look at the present Trump agenda as an extreme anomaly.  Maybe it won’t happen again for a hundred years or maybe never again.  And that is why it must be embraced and ridden as far as it can possibly go.  When it’s time for Trump’s term to end we should select the man who promises to do the most damage to the existing system.  Whatever damage Kash Patel does to the FBI should be considered only a good start.  What is really needed are legislative mandates to eliminate the unconstitutional activities that the 9/11 attacks enabled.  The Patriot Act and the FISA Courts need to be eliminated.  Those instruments strip away our constitutional protections and render the FBI and the other intel agencies the equivalent of the Stasi or the KGB.

I don’t know if it’s Trump’s intention to push for these legal changes.  His Justice Department should right now be in front of SCOTUS with a brief declaring these laws unconstitutional.  And this isn’t even radical.  Even at the time they were enacted it was believed that they were unconstitutional but because of the public’s fear after the 9/11 attacks it was believed that these laws should temporarily exist.  Well, it’s almost a quarter of a century down the road and these laws aren’t keeping Americans safe.  They’re being used to put us in prison.  They need to be struck down as unconstitutional.

People seem pretty sure that JD Vance is going to be Trump’s successor.  Well, maybe Trump will make that decision.  But I want to hear from Vance’s mouth that he is going to continue the process of tearing out the Deep State by the roots.  FBI. CIA, IRS, ATF; all of these agencies are pointed like weapons at the American people.  Destroying them now will not make us permanently safe.  But it will buy us a respite from the worst of the surveillance state that has been built by the people who run our government.

That’s what that Joe Rogan podcast made me think.

Guest Contributor – Chemist – 05JUN2025 – The BBB

photog Chemist, Current Events, Guest Contributors, Trump , ,

Actually, based on the title, I thought this would be a political post.
I’m referring to Elon’s opposition to the BBB.
Is it perfect? No.
Will we get a better package with a razor thin majority in the house and the RINOs and squishes we currently have in the GOP?
Also no.
The BBB is just a stepping stone and will give team MAGA breathing room to win the midterms and, maybe, get rid of a few RINOs. Here in Texas, we are going to primary John Cornyn and replace him with a real conservative.
Trump needs time to show his economic policies are working and to get the right people in congress.
Baby steps, Elon. Baby steps.

And, yes. I would love to see a moon base. But its Elon’s money and if he wants to spend it on a symbolic trip to Mars, I won’t stop him.

The Trump Respite

photog Current Events, Trump ,

The Trump phenomenon has moved into the next phase.  The shock of the November election has washed over the Democrats and for better or worse they’ve moved on to actively spinning tales of resistance and regeneration.  Whatever else goes on we can expect the Trump administration will have its hands full battling with partisan lower-level federal judges writing injunctions of everything he does including coughs and sneezes.  Fine.  That’s the nature of our bizarre system of government.

But looking at the Trump presidency from a personal perspective what it means to me is that for the next three plus years I can relax and live my life more or less as I want to.  With the worst of the leftist psychos being held at bay by the federal government I can say what I want and do what I want more or less with impunity.  And if you think about it that’s about as much as we can ever expect.

The way I look at it I need to get done everything I ever hope to accomplish during this presidency.  In three years, I’ll be three years older and much less energetic so it’s now or never.  And that suits me fine.  I’ll do my writing and have my say to my heart’s content.  What happens after that I’ll leave for the next generation to sort out.  And that’s not a hopeless take.  The zoomers seem to be coming around to breaking with the matriarchy and finding their gonads.  And younger guys like JD Vance and even not so young guys like Marco Rubio have been showing some backbone and talking like men instead of eunuchs.  So, there is indeed a path forward for the next generation if they have the guts to take it.

I don’t intend this to sound like a death knell or anything but I want to be realistic about where I stand in the culture war.  Anyone born before 1960 is reaching the end of his energetic prime for sure.  We can help out and give advice and even take some roles in the fight.  But the changing of the guard has to happen or you end up like Joe Biden absurdly claiming that only you can get things done.  The young guys have to be moved into the on-deck circle.  And the older guys have to become mentors and coaches.  That’s how it works.

As I said, I’m good with that.  I intend to enjoy every bit of the Trump administration and hope that the Vance administration is there to shelter my time as I head for the exits.  But if it doesn’t happen and I end up with President AOC and Vice President Buttigieg in 2029 I won’t cry.  We all have to be realistic about just how many evil and stupid people live in this here United States of ours.

In conclusion my hat is off to Donald Trump; a man who proved that speaking the plain and insulting truth is the best policy against lying leftists.  May the remainder of his term be productive for us and painful for our enemies.  Long may he troll.

How About a Sanity Check?

photog Current Events, Trump ,

The Saga of Donald Trump and his effect on the Uniparty is the most important story of the last fifty years.  His ability to stage a political comeback in the face of ferocious assaults by every component of the Deep State and the Left is almost beyond imagining.

And I must confess it has in the last few months led to, for me, a case of unbridled enthusiasm.  I begin to believe that he’s cracked the code and has figured out a way to grind down the Left and their minions in the government, institutions and business.

Now I’m not blind to how fiercely the Left is fighting back.  Not a day goes by that a leftist judge doesn’t declare some part of Trump’s agenda unconstitutional.  And that is going to mean that he won’t have things all his own way.  But I also notice that a certain percentage of these judicial decrees are getting overruled by SCOTUS.  So, on balance, it seems that Trump is making a dent in these bastards.  And I imagine what could be racked up in four years.  And this has led as I say to runaway optimism.

But luckily for me. I have you folks to use as a sounding board.  You all can rein me in if I’m unrealistically hopeful.  So, I’d like to get a sanity check.  Read through the choices and see which one seems closest to reality.  And if none of them describe your opinion leave a comment that does.  And leave a comment even if the choice is close.  I’d love to hear what people think.

What Will Donald Trump Achieve?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Trump and Rubio Are Gutting the Deep State

photog Current Events, Trump , ,

Trump administration places dozens of National Security Council officials on leave.

Now that’s the way to do it.  Wholesale.

“The moves will cut the agency’s 350-member staff roughly in half. “The NSC is the ultimate Deep State. It’s Marco vs. the Deep State. We’re gutting the Deep State,” a White House official said in an Axios report, which the Washington Examiner confirmed with the White House.”

Think of all these Harvard graduates suddenly cut loose from their lucrative, powerful sinecures.  No fat salary, no clout with defense contractors, no free lunches as four star restaurants!

“Politico reported that committees and their meetings will be reduced and that the White House reinterviewed a large number of NSC staff members to see whether they should keep their jobs. The outlet also reported that notices went out to staffers late Friday afternoon after a staff meeting, with many out of town for the holiday weekend.”

I’d love to be a fly on the wall during those interviews.  “What would you say…you do here??”

 

Waiting for Friday

photog Current Events, OCF, Trump , , , ,

Five down, two to go.  And tomorrow is the killer.  Well, here goes nothing.

I was gonna review, “The Fifth Element.”  I hadn’t seen it in a long time so I couldn’t remember my overall impression.  Well, I rewatched and remembered.  It’s a movie that has a few “elements” that are interesting or fun but there are enough factors that are awful to make the sum negative.  Gary Oldman has a small but pivotal part as a villain and as always, he is great fun.  Bruce Willis plays Bruce Willis as he always does and he has a few fun moments but it’s a very silly movie so he can only succeed at moments.  The movie itself is a live action fairy tale/cartoon with very broad humor and very wooden characters.  Chris Tucker’s character was among the most bizarre.  But in fairness he was also one of the funnier aspects of this comedy(?).

I’m sure some folks will enjoy this exercise in science fiction fairy tale but I have to give it a thumbs down.  There were just too many annoying factors to allow me to wholeheartedly embrace it.

So, President Trump is really playing up the international agenda this month.  Even his enemies are intrigued by his efforts to talk to the Iranians and normalize our situation with the Arabs.  Of course, the pundits on the Left were horrified by Trump’s speech where he said he is backing away from nation-building and demanding the Middle East adhere to Western mores and customs.  But from my way of looking at it, that’s exactly the message we should be putting forward.  “You live your way in your country and we’ll live ours over here.”  Seems reasonable to me.  But Capon and Books got the vapors hearing it.

As for his efforts to get a ceasefire in Ukraine, I tend to doubt it will come to anything.  The Russians don’t want to give the Ukrainians a breather.  Apparently, they’ve calculated that they will finish off enough Ukrainians before the Ukrainians finish off enough Russians so that Kiev’s defense will collapse this year.  The question is whether Trump has the sense to just walk away from the whole thing and let it end sooner than later.  But looking at the tiny geographic gains that account for thousands of deaths a week on both sides is gut-churning.  Well, I don’t see any change before the fall.

As for the fact that Joe Biden has some kind of cancer; well, he’s eighty-two.  Is it surprising at that age that cancer has come on the scene?  I think as we get older that possibility becomes more real every day.  The only question I have is when did he actually get the diagnosis?  Three, four years ago?  Well, I don’t celebrate his ill-health but I consider him an evil man and maybe this is a good time for him to think about his finish and maybe consider making amends.

I saw that James Comey was trying to get his name back in the news by acting like a moron.  In my youth in Brooklyn, we would have described someone like that as a lousy scumbag.  And that would be playing it down.  I think having the IRS audit him a few times just for fun would be very appropriate.  Just a thought.

Well, that’s enough for today.  Waiting for Friday.

In Pursuit of the Pursuit of Happiness

photog Current Events, Trump ,

People say that one of the unique components of the American experiment was the explicit enumeration of “the pursuit of happiness” in the founding document of the country.  And that’s true but I think the more important situation is that to a much greater degree than elsewhere it actually was captured.  I’d say that the capture of happiness is the much discussed “American Dream.”

And I’ll go further; I’ll say that without the happiness there isn’t anything worth discussing about America.  The essence of this country is that it delivered on the dream.  People who came here and put in the effort found actual happiness.  And what was that happiness?  In the last hundred and fifty years it was middle class status which means the wherewithal to raise a family above the poverty line.  The definition of poverty has shifted over the centuries.  Of late it means being able to afford shelter, food, clothes, education, communication, entertainment and transportation costs for a family of four.  And nowadays that’s quite a bit.

But the general idea is that you make enough money to bring up your kids to be able to walk among equals in the town you live in.  And that is the definition of happiness for normal human beings.  And except for economic catastrophes like the Great Depression that expectation was within reach of even penniless immigrants who arrived here without even a command of the English language.  But that situation is no longer the case.  The younger generation are of the opinion that a middle-class lifestyle for them is an impossibility.  And I contend that is why Donald Trump has twice been elected president.

It’s not as if Gen Z likes his looks or rhetoric.  He’s the ultimate example of the man to whom they’d say, “Okay boomer.”  His views on women and foreigners are considered uncouth by the young.  But he’s promised to fix the economy so that they can afford to be grown-ups and move out of their parents’ basements.  So, the real question is; can he do it?

Boy, I wish I knew the answer to this one.  Sure, I want the answer to be yes.  But it’s a lot easier to move an industrial base to a new country when labor costs are effectively zero than it is to rebuild it in a place where labor costs and environmental regulations are huge negatives.  It may be that he won’t get enough time to rebuild it.  But that is the bet.  Donald Trump says he can restore the American Dream; restore the chance for a middle-class lifestyle for the majority of Americans.

I find it an amazing thing.  A man that everyone claims is just a flim-flam man and an opportunist has recognized that our present disastrous state is the result of the failure of the most fundamental characteristic of America; happiness.  And diagnosed its remedy as restoring the means of a middle-class lifestyle to the common man.  I think a case could be made that he’s the only one in politics who isn’t an opportunist.