Distractions and Dissent: Resisting Fascism

Every day I get angry,  pissed off  bordering on rage … Then I turn the news off and put on something less controversial. Thank the spirits of the Universe for smart TVs and YouTube.

You can view our videos, mainly sports reports by Claudia Gestro. Below are her reports from the 2025 MLB All-Star Game and Home Run Derby.

We have 250 videos as of now, dating back to 2013. This is one of our most popular, from 2016: Former NBA coaches Byron Scott and Gregg Popovich talking about the removal of David Blatt from the helm of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Popovich was especially animated, something we came to love about the former coach. Health issues have forced him to retire, but he is one of the greatest sports coaches — any sport — of all time.

Go ahead and get lost on our channel for a while, as I just did, looking at the stats and analytics. It can be a “way back machine,” catching videos from nine years ago, like the Popovich and Scott video.

Then there is Lauren Landers. I’m hooked on her solo sailing adventures, She recently completed a solo journey from Panama to the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. Interesting fact: the continent closest to the Marquesas is Mexico, bordering on Central and North America … How remote is that?

The islands are almost directly in the center of the South Pacific Ocean. Honolulu, HI is, at the least distance, 2,300 miles. Landers sailed alone, well, with her cat Mako, just over 4.699 miles. Let’s be magnanimous and say 4,700 miles. I could coarsely explain what it takes — what it took — to navigate that distance, alone with her cat, over a 28 day sailing trip that required course adjustments to account for the wind currents and storms; the oceans have their own rhythms and schedules, their own “moods” — in other words, sailors, people who travel using sails, have to live by the oceans’ dictates, or die.

That means a sailor going solo has to be prepared for anything, most especially for the unexpected.

Lest I get bogged down in my own ignorance, I suggest watching the video below and then subscribe to her YouTube channel.

My distractions are different the the orange felon’s. Eventually I’m drawn back into the rest of the world, most directly what’s happening here in the U.S., which now has a convicted felon (and adjudicated rapist) for president — who has picked a coterie of fellow grifters and creeps to fill out his cabinet — talk show and podcast a-holes. A former Fox (not ) News drunkard is the Secretary of Defense. Another Fox (not) News person is the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and podcasters have become the Director and Deputy Director of the FBI … Let that sink in as we find out the Deputy Director is openly hating on the grifter who is the Attorney General of the U.S., who is returning the hate.

The most talked about news has been the Jeffrey Epstein imbroglio. Ignoring the victims of Epstein and his co-abuser Ghislaine Maxwell — the only person convicted of anything in the sex slavery ring — the schemers in the convicted felon’s administration are figuring out how to protect the guilty from public scrutiny, rather than how to take care of the victims. Maxwell claims to be a victim … wait, what?

Epstein, Maxwell claims, did all the dirty deeds, she was a victim of Epstein’s manipulation — just like the girls Maxwell abused with Epstein.

So Maxwell is in the process of getting the same type of sweetheart deal Epstein received from former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alex Acosta, who showed up in the felon’s first cabinet. Maxwell has been moved to a federal minimum security camp — where no other sex offenders are allowed — where she will serve out her term, which mostly likely will be significantly shortened.

What do Maxwell’s victims get out of the deal? A kick in the teeth.

This is where the convicted felon and his cult are at — a new debauchery comes at us at least once a day, sometimes two in the same 24-hour period.

A few weeks ago the felon told his GOP puppets in Texas to re-draw the congressional line so the MAGA Cult could get five more seats in the House of Representatives and therefore possible retain control of the House. The felon’s Texas minkies said “Yessir!” Que in the Frank Zappa song, “Keep It Greasy.”

Look at that Ray White and Ike Willis in Zappa’s band.

To slow down the inevitable the Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives walked out and headed for Illinois and New York, where both governors steadfastly stood with their fellow Democrats.

The redistricting is most like going to happen because the absent Texans will need to go home eventually. At the very least they will want to return to their loved ones.

Meanwhile the felon’s chief toady in Texas, Governor Gregg Abbott, keeps threatening all kinds of harm, including fines, which he never follows through on because he knows — and the Democrats on the run know — breaking quorum is perfectly legal under the Texas Constitution.

The senior senator from the Lone Star State John Cornyn, who, it is said, is more moderate than Senator Ted Cruz … like that’s a high bar to leap over. Getting back on track Cornyn has asked — told?— FBI Director Kash Patel to send FBI agents to find the absent Democrats. What federal crime did the Texans commit? Taking a protest across state lines? That’s not really a crime. Look at how many J-6ers crossed state lines to first protest and then storm the capitol to engage in acts of insurrection and treason. Crossing state lines wasn’t the crime, it was the insurrection and treason.

So there’s really nothing for which the G-men and women can arrest the Texas Democrats.

Governors JB Pritzker (D-IL) and Kathy Hochul (D-NY) have dared the Texas Rangers and feds to try and kidnap the Texas Dems in their states.

In fact Hochul said we are at war with the convicted felon and his acolytes in Texas. That’s very severe language. The felon’s Texas butt-buddy Governor Abbott and his fellow MAGA Cult members are out of moves, but not out of bombast, until the Dems return of their own accord.

The corrupt Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is looking to kick the absent Dems out of their elected offices … by asking the Texas Supreme Court to do it. Good luck.

Our great Governor Gavin Newsom has hosted some Texas Dems as well. They gathered in the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento Friday to speak about the felon’s and Texas GOP plans to steal the election. The Democrats in the state government will take up redistricting right away, with the approval of California’s voters. Newsom said, “I think the voters will approve it. I think the voters understand what’s at stake,” adding,“ We live in the most un-Trump state in America.”

That last sentence makes me feel so proud. One of the first things I saw when I got off the train at Union Station in Downtown L.A. was this bit of graffiti:

Maybe I’ll go back in a week or two so let’s see if it’s still there.

Every day there’s a new story of debauchery from the felon’s administration. I don’t know if this qualifies as debauchery, but it is ghastly. The felon invited Vladimir Putin to visit the U.S. in Alaska … and the Russian dictator didn’t have to give up anything, or even promise to give away anything. The foreign criminal, who has a warrant out for his arrest, gets a state visit for nothing.

Another win for Putin, another zero for the felon.

The felon and his cronies don’t even try to hide the corruption, it’s out there, up front for all to see. He’s using the Department of Justice and the FBI to go after his political rivals.

We are just seven months into this train wreck — I just read that, since the felon’s inauguration thousands of people have died of AIDS and other curable or treatable diseases, all because the felon, through his old butt buddy Elon Musk and DOGE, ended USAID. Researchers  believe more than 14 million will be dead  before January 2029 – all because of the felon and Musk.

And this, as I wrap up writing while listening (watching) Morning Joe on MSNBC. They’re talking about the war in Ukraine and the coming meeting of the felon and Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Putin is considered a war criminal and blocked from traveling just about everywhere on the planet — but not the U.S. of A.

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the (alleged) war criminal, for wholesale kidnapping of Ukrainian children. Hard to believe there isn’t a warrant for his indiscriminate bombing of hospitals and residential areas. The carnage is just as gruesome as that in Gaza.

That genocide is a whole 2,000-word topic by itself.

Anyway. Putin does not merit a meeting with an American president on American soil. Someone should tell the orange tangerine Alaska has been one of the United States since January 3, 1959 and a U.S. territory since October 18, 1867 when the  U.S. bought the land and islands from Russia. The convicted felon is the dumbest person to ever be a president so it would not be surprised if he doesn’t know the history of our Arctic state, the Last Frontier. The guy is an under-educated idiot — and draft dodger (Private Bone Spurs).

I was going to quibble about Alaska’s nickname, considering the oceans could be the last frontier — but then there is the rest of the Milky Way and beyond. The James Webb telescope is just beginning to give us a clear and sharp view beyond our galaxy. Click Here to see an image of space beyond the Milky Way.

What makes this worse, we don’t know if Ukraine will be represented. The felon thinks he can make a deal with the (alleged) war criminal without any participation from Ukraine or its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The felon is already giving Russia some of Ukraine’s territory. To his credit Zelenskyy hasn’t agreed to appease the aggressor/occupier that is Russia.

Why should he? Pundits are reminding us that a great example of appeasement not working is the 1938 Munich Agreement, in which former U.K. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waved the document that was signed by the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany in the air proclaiming peace was at hand. Less than a year later Europe was at war. Can you imagine sitting in a room with Hitler and Mussolini, expecting something good could come from it?

Anyone that listened to the felon in his Monday Morning press conference (August 11, 2025) would not have been surprised by the never-ending stream of consciousness bullshit. There, standing to his left is the (hard to say or type it) Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi with that stupid fucking half smile on her face, nodding in agreement with the felon’s lies … Makes one wonder: Does she truly believe the BS her master is dishing out, or is she just going along with the shitshow because she now has a job that gives her free reign to hurt millions of people?

 

There on the orange tangerine’s right side was the drunken SecDef Pete Hegseth. So the press conference took place around noon D.C. time setting up the obvious questions: How many drinks did Hegseth have during the day, leading to the press conference? Is there a pool on that anywhere? What are the bookies in Las Vegas saying? Was there a morning line?

Which reminds me: There are the same people who decided that, in the name of “anti-woke” and “anti-DEI,” women and people of color who achieved great accomplishments or earned service medals for bravery, often giving their lives before getting those medals,  were all the result of wokeness and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and scrubbed any mention of those heroes from the books, halls and websites.

There are the same people who decided to change the names of the military installations back to the names of traitors who took up arms against this nation in the Civil War. All so we can, in their weak explanations, preserve our history. We can preserve our history just fine in educational text books, non-fiction histories and biographies, essays and documentaries. We don’t need to honor these dead criminals by naming military bases, postal offices and schools in their honor —  or erect statues in their honor. Robert E. Lee was a brutal, murderous slave owner who doesn’t deserve to have his picture on a urinal cake. Well, yeah, Lee deserves that. Pissing on his face would feel good!

That’s what we can expect from a lawless regime, a fascist dictatorship

In the felon’s press conference Monday Afternoon, morning over here on the Left Coast, he announced his decision to occupy Washington, D.C. in much the same way he’s trying to do in Los Angeles. Except in the nation’s capital, the city is only granted limited autonomy due to the District of Columbia Home Rule Act which gave the citizens of the nation’s capital the ability to vote for its own mayor and other leaders , but gave the U.S. Congress oversight of the city. On top of that the president controls the city’s National Guard and if he declares a national emergency, in the felon’s case, the crime rate is out of control — which it isn’t — he can nationalize the city police force and add a bunch of federal officers, from a variety of agencies, to bolster up his control.

Crime in the District of Columbia is at a 30-year low.

The felon wants to take control of other cities, those with elected officials from the Democratic Party, like D.C. and L.A. Like Karen Bass, mayor of Los Angeles. Muriel Bowser told he constituents — and the rest of America — she and the city officials were doing everything in their power to resist the felon’s acts of authoritarianism.

If there is a “No Kings” rally in your area, please attend and lend your voice to the millions of Americans resisting the convicted felon and his collection of felons and other grifters. Look for a National Day of Action in your area and participate. Let the Liar-in-Chief know we will not let him turn the U.S.A. into a fascist dictatorship.

This is just the latest in a long list of distractions that the felon hopes will have you forgetting about how and he and Jeffrey Epstein had a 15 year long friendship so the felon is in the Epstein files — a lot. We are nor forgetting.