Weather, Tariffs and War: The Felon is Acting Out
Listen to this articleIt’s been cold AF lately.
“AF” is the hip new way of dropping an F-bomb without actually using the dirty word!
So, it’s cold AF today, as well. Right now at about noon, as I tap away here, it is 55°f and if we’re lucky, it will shoot up to 56°f.
It’s been like this now for a couple weeks, with a brief couple of days when the temps got up into the 70’s in the mid day. Call it what you will — global warming or climate change — the weather is shifting and what were once infrequent anomalies are now the standard conditions.
It’s cold AF outside …
Somewhere in my collection of Facebook pictures is a photo of me (above) with my Trusty Trek down by the south end of Mission Beach, next to the jetty that forms the bank of the channel that connects Mission Bay to the Pacific Ocean. On a good morning you can watch dolphins heading out from the bay into the ocean for a day of macking down on some fish. I’ve forgotten what kind of fish they like, probably mackerel. Some marine biologists can set me straight on that if they like.
Below is a video of a dolphin stampede off the coast of Newport Beach.
Back to the photo of me and the Trusty Trek. That was taken almost 20 years ago — February 2005 — when the air temperature was in the 70s and the water temp was … err … cold. Anyway, I was sweating that day because it was so hot. A police officer graciously snapped the photo using my Trusty Canon camera. Back in those days I would ride nearly every day, in comfortable or hot weather. Year ’round with a few interruptions for inclement weather. The temps hit 60°f maybe two days out of the past couple of weeks. Like I said, Cold AF.
Dare we bring up the climate crisis? It’s cold AF outside …
Well, it’s Groundhog Day and it feels like February 2017 all over again, repeating and repeating and repeating in an endless loop that gets worse by the minute. The convicted felon in the Oval Office blamed the Washington, D.C. helicopter/airliner crash on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — i.e., giving Black and Brown folks an unfair advantage in the work place. Someone on Instagram spelled it out perfectly using the term “DEI Hire” gives the racist fascists the advantage, but what we should do is call it what it is: re-segregation, separating non-whites from the very privileged white oligarchy. “Keep the Black and Brown folks in their places.”
And let’s dispel the ludicrous notion that there is such a thing as “reverse racism,” in which white folks are some how discriminated against by, you guessed it, the Woke Deep State.
That stupid AF convicted felon, with his like-minded fascist pals, sent letters out to all federal employees saying they could opt-in for a resignation/retirement “buy-out” and get paid lickety split to leave their federal jobs right away.
Apparently the felon and his buddies didn’t know Congress has to approve all spending by the government — they hold the purse strings, by design — and Congress would have to approve the hundreds of billions it would take to buy out the millions of people that hold federal jobs.
It begs the question: How stupid is the felon and his cabal of billionaires? Who holds the purse strings in Washington, D.C. is something I learned in junior high school Civics.
The oligarchs are in charge and looking to rob the American working class blind. Elon Musk and his minions in the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) have taken control of the Treasury Department and the highly sensitive payment system that makes payments to everything for which Congress has approved funding. Everything, including my Social Security and Veterans disability payments, not to mention all the funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Medicare and Medicaid. All the funding for every program created to help Americans live; funding for school meal programs, SNAP, WIC and other nutritional programs. Money for farmers, education, NASA, the entire military — everything which millions and millions of Americans depend on to get by from month-to-month, day-to-day.
We’re talking about funding for transportation, air travel infrastructure, including the air traffic controllers. And money for disasters — FEMA, for which the felon has declared war. The MAGA officials want to make California beg for emergency aid to fight the fires and rebuild those communities.
Are we to let this Nazi-saluting billionaire control our nation’s treasury? Let’s hope not, but there aren’t any Republicans willing to say “no” to daddy, so they let the felon create a new department, without congressional approval, then appoint a billionaire campaign donor to be the secretary, without Senate approval. And the billionaire fascist has the means to screw with our tax dollars.
Dare we bring up the climate crisis? It’s still cold AF outside …
The felon has started the tariff wars with our two closest partners, Mexico and Canada, plus China and several South and Central American countries that supply us with lots of our produce. Don’t expect the many square miles of farmland in the U.S. to keep us fed while the felon and his cronies control the federal government and several states.
Costco was out of eggs this weekend … I wanted to make an omelet with smoked ham, sharp cheddar cheese, mushrooms and onions — oh, and spicy salsa! But we don’t have any eggs.
The felon just admitted his tariff wars are going to hurt the American middle class — but it will be worth the price!
The felonious administration has stopped USAID, Musk is bragging about stopping it. Better to have China and Russia providing financial aid to all the countries that used to get it from the United States.
Oh, and President Trump (I’ll use his name once) wants to start a war with Panama to steal the canal away from that sovereign nation. Are there any Republicans in Congress willing to stop the orange felon from going to war? Technically — constitutionally — it’s up to Congress to declare war, but since Vietnam our government leaders have found ways to circumvent the Constitution.
Once again the felon is making America a pariah around the world.
Dare we bring up the climate crisis? It’s still cold AF outside … and we’re out of eggs. A nice omelet would be delicious right now.
Tim Forkes started as a writer on a small alternative newspaper in Milwaukee called the Crazy Shepherd. Writing about entertainment, he had the opportunity to speak with many people in show business, from the very famous to the people struggling to find an audience. In 1992 Tim moved to San Diego, CA and pursued other interests, but remained a freelance writer. Upon arrival in Southern California he was struck by how the elected government officials and business were so intertwined, far more so than he had witnessed in Wisconsin. His interest in entertainment began to wane and the business of politics took its place. He had always been interested in politics, his mother had been a Democratic Party official in Milwaukee, WI, so he sat down to dinner with many of Wisconsin’s greatest political names of the 20th Century: William Proxmire and Clem Zablocki chief among them. As a Marine Corps veteran, Tim has a great interest in veteran affairs, primarily as they relate to the men and women serving and their families. As far as Tim is concerned, the military-industrial complex has enough support. How the men and women who serve are treated is reprehensible, while in the military and especially once they become veterans. Tim would like to help change that.