Thoughts on Lowering the Voting Age

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The government of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) announced this week that it will lower the voting age to sixteen by the time of the next general election which will be held on or before August 15, 2029.  The change in the minimum voting age will be for all elections.  Scotland and Wales already have an established minimum voting age of  sixteen for their devolved country and council elections.  The new measure will standardize the minimum voting age requirement in each of the four countries of the UK and spread it to all elections.

There is no established voting age for the European Union, and member nations are free to set their own voting requirements.  Some of those voting age requirements currently are:  age 16 in Germany, Austria, and Malta;  age 17 in Greece;  and, age 18 in the remaining member nations of the EU, with citizens of Belgium being allowed to vote at 16 in European elections.

The times appear to be changing.  Young people in Australia are already clamoring for the 16-year-old vote.  Can the US be far behind?

When I was growing up in rural America in the 1950's and 60's, the minimum voting age was twenty-one, but there was always talk of lowering it to eighteen.  That hadn't happened by the time my eighteenth birthday came and went in the spring of 1966.  

There was a presidential election in 1968, Nixon versus Humphrey, in which I was only twenty and not old enough to vote, and I resented that bitterly - as did many young people of the time.  That was a time of social and political upheaval, and many protests were occurring, protests that often featured young people expressing strong opinions about things like the on-going Vietnam War, the draft, segregation, poverty, gay rights, free love, and even the voting age.

Congress passed a resolution to amend the US Constitution and lower the voting age in the US to eighteen on March 23, 1971, my 23rd birthday, and a few months later the states ratified the Amendment.  I cast my first presidential vote in November of 1972 - for George McGovern - at the age of twenty-four, along with a sea of newly enfranchised Americans, some as young as eighteen.

Back in 1968 when the protests were still going strong, some friends and I went to the drive-in one evening and watched a new movie called "Wild in the Streets" which went on to become a cult classic.  The movie was so good that we went back to see it again a few nights later, and today I still have a copy of "Wild in the Streets" on DVD.

The main character in the movie is Max Frost, a young radical who is busy making a bomb in his parents' basement, a bomb which he uses to blow up his father's new car before leaving home for good and later emerging as a rock star.  Max has political aspirations and manages to get an LSD-dropping friend of his elected to Congress, and she introduces a resolution to lower the voting age to fourteen.   After pouring acid (LSD) into the water supply of Washington, DC, they lead each drugged out congressman into the Capitol and help them to vote for the proposed change to the Constitution.   When 14-year-olds have the right to vote, Max gets himself elected President, but he is soon beset by angry 10-year-olds who feel they should be running things.

It's a real family-friendly film with lots to ponder!

I'm not sure how I feel about 16-year-olds voting,  so I think I will just sit down and shut up and let the young people chart their own future - and I wish Nancy Pelosi, Chuckles Schumer and Grassley, and Donald John Trump would all do the same!

Peace out!

Redskins? No, the Subject Is Still Epstein, Epstein, EPSTEIN!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

When Donald Trump finds himself trapped in a political minefield, as he currently seems to be with the Jeffrey Epstein matter, one of his standard means of escape is to begin lobbing distractions to draw the public's attention elsewhere.

Several days ago he reached into his bag of ready distractions and pulled out "Rosie O'Donnell," an old nemesis of his, and threatened to revoke her citizenship.  (The comedian - Rosie, not Trump - was born in the United States to American parents, but Trump seems to think he has some sort of Divine authority which supersedes the Constitution, and he can do whatever outrageous thing that happens to flit across his aging and easily distractible mind.

But, whatever.  All that the desperate shot at O'Donnell accomplished was to earn him an hilarious burn over social media from The Rose herself who bragged about living "rent free" in Trump's "collapsing brain."

A few days on and there are even more stories circulating about Trump's relationship to Epstein, the pedophile pimp, and Trump was looking more and more like he was a key player in the "deep state" that MAGA conspiracy theorists believe is  actively keeping the Epstein files away from the public view.  So Trump again reaches into his bag of ready distractions and this time pulls out a racist gem, one tied to the effort several years ago to strip certain US military bases of their Confederate names, and certain sports teams of their racist names - and replace all of them with names more neutral and politically correct.  

Trump chose the NFL Washington Commanders as his target de jour.  He said today that he wants them to change their name back to the Washington "Redskins."   The team changed its name to "Commanders" in 2020.    If the Commanders fail to go along with the presidential dictate,  Trump has indicated that he will block federal funding for their proposed new stadium.

(The team moved out of Washington, DC, in 1997 and relocated to Landover, Maryland.  Now the nation's capital is trying to lure them back into DC with a new stadium, but the city council has been balking at the expense.  Trump had said the federal government would help build the stadium, but he is now using that possible funding as a political wedge.)

The important thing for the people of the United States to remember and focus on is this.  Trump's latest brouhaha has nothing at all to do with football, commanders, redskins, or even public money.  It's all about focusing on something other than Epstein, Epstein, EPSTEIN!

Tweet that!

Only Time Will Tell

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

This is July 20th.   It was on this date in 1969 that American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon.  That same day, Richard Nixon, one of America's most inherently dishonest Presidents, was completing his first six months in office.    Today, on the 56th anniversary of the original moon walk,  Donald Trump, another politician whose honesty is often a matter of intense discourse across social media, is completing the first six months of his second term in office.

Nixon entered his second term in office under the long, cold shadow of the Watergate scandal and was forced to resign in shame before that term was complete.  The more he lied and tried to muddy the waters, the deeper he was sucked into the mud.

Trump entered his second term in office under the long, cold shadow of a pedophile pimp named Jeffrey Epstein.  The more he tries to pull himself loose from the public record of his years-long friendship with Epstein, the more hopelessly Trump seems to be stuck in his own political mud.

Will history repeat itself and the United States get to witness its second presidential resignation?  Only time will tell, but it's something fun to think about on these dog days of summer when it's too damned hot to get outside and mow!

The Windbag and the Yellow Journalist

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Donald Trump, America biggest and most constant victim,  and a man who files lawsuits more frequently than most people do laundry, is at it again - and this time he has gone really, really big as he tries desperately to kill a story that has been eating away at his presidency over the last several news cycles.

For the past week Trump has been almost frantic in his attempts to change the national topic of conversation away from his administration's lack of transparency and possibly even subterfuge in the matter of its promise to release the files on Jeffrey Epstein, an alleged pedophile who also allegedly supplied the rich and famous with underage girls for sex.  Epstein died by supposed suicide while in federal custody during Trump's first administration.   Epstein and Trump were at least acquaintances, and there are quite a few pictures of the two men together at various sites on the internet indicating they were friends.

A certain very influential and noisy subset of Trump's MAGA base as well as many internet "influencers" have been vocal for years in their demands that the government's files on Jeffry Epstein be released so that they (the MAGA influencers and others) will be able to determine the extent of Epstein's criminality and trace it down into the ranks of Democratic politicians and Hollywood elites who supposedly wallowed in the depravity provided by the very rich pedophile pimp.  At times, Donald Trump, as a candidate for office, even  stirred the demands for the release of some of these records himself as he constantly worked at keeping his base fired up.

This year, now that he is safely back in office and no longer in danger of going to jail over his criminal conviction last year that contained 34 felony counts, Trump seems to have noticeably cooled on his desire to make an issue of the Epstein files.  If February of this year his US Attorney General, Pam Bondi, told Fox News, that she had the Epstein files on her desk awaiting her personal review, and that they would then be released to the press.    Minimal files were later released that contained little more than records which were already in the public domain.   Recently Bondi's Justice Department announced that Epstein died by suicide, there was no secret "client list," and that no further files would be released - and that set the Epstein conspiracy nuts on fire - and their white-hot rage continues.

On Thursday of this week, the day before yesterday, there was a report in the Wall Street Journal that focused on a birthday book that Epstein's personal assistant, Ghislaine Maxwell, put together for his fiftieth birthday in 2003.  It reportedly contained notes from fifty notable people that were suggestive in nature.   The journalists who covered the story chose to focus on what some publications referred to as a "bawdy" note supposedly written by Donald Trump.  They quoted the text of the note and said that it was typed within a drawing of a naked woman.

Trump erupted right on cue, and the following day - yesterday -  he filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the two reporters, the newspaper's publisher, the DOW Company which is the owner-of-record of the paper, and Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch, the ultimate owner of News Corps which owns the DOW, which owns the Wall Street Journal.

Trump denied writing the note to Epstein.  Part of his denial was that he "never wrote a naked woman in my life."

Murdoch, a man who made his fortune off tabloids and yellow journalism, has dealt with bigger nuisances and does not, at this point anyway, appear too concerned.

That's where it stands as of this morning.  If threatening Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship and showcasing the cruelty of Alligator Alcatraz didn't pull the public attention away from Epstein, perhaps a story about an obscenely large and likely frivolous lawsuit will.  Trump can only hope!

Constitutional Trickery, Reproductive Rights, and How to Vote for Sanity

 

by Bob Randall

(Editor's Note:  Today the Ramble is featuring another submission by my good friend, Ranger Bob.  The politicians Bob is referring to in this piece are members of the Missouri State Legislature, primarily the close-minded Republicans who control the legislature.  Part of his essay takes aim at some ballot trickery which enabled the legislature to pass a state constitutional amendment that prohibits ranked choice voting in Missouri, probably due in no small measure to the fact that our esteemed legislators aren't smart enough to understand it.  The other part deals with the state legislature's attempt  to get Missouri voters to overturn a constitutional amendment that they passed last year which returned the right to have an abortion to the women of Missouri.  What Ranger Bob has to say is, as always, important.  Read it and feel free to get good and mad - like I am!  -  Pa Rock)

Damn the politicians!  Full speed ahead!

Nothing new here, but plenty to see.  Our politicians are at it again.  Once they realized that the devil was in the details, they've been making deviled eggs look like legislation, or maybe the other way around.  Last year they deceptively wrote a proposal for a state constitutional amendment (legislatively referred amendment) with two issues.  Knowing that most of the electorate won't read the details or get past the first issue, they put the uncontroversial first.  It was uncontroversial as it was already the law, it solved nothing but sounded agreeable to most people.   It was a throwaway issue about voting rights that was there just to trick the slackers who won't bother to understand the proposal before they vote.   It was the metaphorical large print.  The important part was in the metaphorical small print listed next.  The issue was to prohibit ranked choice voting.  Most of us didn't read that, we just marked the yes oval.   Most of us don't even know what ranked choice voting is and don't even know that we were manipulated.  Let me cover that later.

Well, if they can get away with tricky wording, why not do it again, but this time with a different issue?  It's abortion this time.   In 2024 the Missouri electorate through an initiative process passed a constitutional amendment reinstating and protecting reproductive rights.   Now, the legislature is saying that the amendment was poorly worded and the electorate didn't understand what they voted for.  They have rewritten it so that the wording is clear and we can all vote again.   They say this clear wording will "protect the health of mothers and babies."   Who wouldn't vote for that?   If they lead with wording like that and can get it on the ballot, most people will read no further and mark yes.  It will override what we voted on last year and it will be in the constitution.  Of course, they will leave out the part about rights to reproductive freedom.  Before I leave this paragraph, let me try to put it all together.  It's description.  The legislature is using the legislatively referred amendment process (which they initiate) to overturn an amendment which was brought forward through the public initiative amendment process.   It doesn't stop there, because their next task will be to change the public initiative amendment process.   That's their plan.  Rewrite the constitution, deceive the electorate, fix it so we can't change it back.

I started this post months ago.  Now it is July and here is the update.  It will be on the ballot November 2026, or sooner if there is a special election.

So what is ranked choice voting (RCV)?  The ranked choice voting system would eliminate the primary system which requires (or encourages) the candidates to out-radical each other.  The dems go further left while the repubs go further right of their rivals.  We end up with radicals as candidates and ultimately get extreme incumbents.

Ranked choice voting has some moving parts, so follow this closely.   The Campaign Legal Center says:  

"RCV is a process that allows voters to rank candidates for a particular office in order of preference.  Consider a race where four candidates - A,B,C, and D - are running for a single seat such as Governor.  In an election utilizing RCV, voters simply rank the candidates 1-4, with the candidate ranked as "1" being the voter's highest preference for Governor.   If a candidate is the first choice of more than half the voters, that candidate wins the election.   But if no candidate gets the majority of the vote, the candidate with the least amount of the vote is eliminated, the second choice support for that candidate is redistributed, and the process continues until a candidate wins more than half the vote."

This is me talking again.  RCV allows a moderate to have a shot at winning.  What chance does a moderate have of winning a primary in either of our political parties?   Almost none.  Maybe you don't want a moderate?  OK, the radicals of the other party want to run against your radical.  They sure don't want to run against your moderate.   The Missouri Republicans who wrote and promoted the amendment that this started with didn't want to run against moderates because they were afraid they would lose some of their power.   It really works that way on both sides.  Moderates lose the primaries and we end up with the choice of voting for a flaming progressive or a flaming MAGA candidate.  I would like to vote for candidates without holding my nose when I mark my ballot.  For those who want their candidates to go further left or right, I add eventually you will go too far.   I ask if you would prefer to hold your nose while voting for a moderate and win, or take a chance of having the kookie extremist win.

Epstein Conspiracy Nuts No Longer Welcome in MAGA

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Welp, it's finally happened.  Don Trump has begun to turn on his faithful, starting with the poor slobs who insist in keeping Trump's former close friend, child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, in the news. At first it was kind of fun, Trump egging them on with tantalizing hints of secret government files on Epstein that would expose the depravity and criminality of some of America's richest and most powerful - and especially powerful Democrats like the Clintons - and if you elected Trump he would make those records public.

Yeah, right.

With all those elusive hints and promises, however, there was also an underlying current of doubt because of the long history of social ties between Trump and Epstein.

But on June 5th of this year former Trump buddy Elon Musk, who had fallen out of favor with the Sultan of Mar-a-Lago, pulled the curtain back on the whole Epstein mess and showed America why Trump was not releasing the Epstein files as he had said he would during the campaign.  In a tweet on Musk's "X" social media platform, the petulant little billionaire said:

"Time to drop the really big bomb:

@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files.  That is the real reason that they have not been made public.  

Have a nice day, DJT!"

The feud between Musk and Trump has heated and cooled multiple times during the intervening six weeks, but public interest in the Epstein files began escalating last week when the Justice Department announced that Epstein had no "client List" and that nothing further would be released from the elusive and hallowed files on the pedophile who had taken his own life wbile in federal custody in 2019 while Trump was President. US Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Trump appointee and the head of the Justice Department, had told Fox News (her former employer) in February that the Epstein files, including a client list, was on her desk awaiting her personal review before it would ultimately be released to the public.

That promise went unfulfilled , and many MAGA loyalists and influencers were angered at the government's change of heart on sharing Epstein information with the curious public.

Trump tried several distractions to move attention away from Epstein during the past week, but the furor over the broken promise began to escalate.  Elon Musks, smelling blood in the water, went back to tweeting about it, and Trump became angrier and angrier that he was at the center of a narrative which he could not control.

Yesterday Don Trump had had enough!  Here is the crap post that Trump coughed up onto his social media platform, Truth Social.  (Warning:  the mental health symptomatology in the post is staggering!):

"The Radical Left Democrats have his pay dirt, again!  Just like with the FAKE and fully discredited Steele Dossier, the lying 51 "Intelligence" Agents, the Laptop from Hell which the Dems swore had come from Russia (No, it came from Hunter Biden's bathroom!), and even the Russia, Russia, Russia Scam itself, a totally fake and made up story used to hide Crooked Hillary Clinton's big loss in the 2016 Presidential Election, these Scams and Hoaxes are all the Democrats are good at - It's all they have - They are no good at governing, no good at policy, and no good at picking winning candidates.  Also, unlike Republicans they stick together like glue.  Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this "bullshit," hook, line, and sinker.  They haven't learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.  I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country's history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.  Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don't even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don't want their support anymore.  Thank you for your attention to this matter.  MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

So there you have it, MAGAts.   You can wallow forever in Epstein conspiracies or you can spend eternity in adoration of Donald Trump - but you can't have it both ways.   You either forget about Epstein, or you are out of the club!

The good news is that you are apparently still welcome to spend your money on Trump merchandise!

Elder Dems Continue to Resist Change

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

When the Democratic National Committee elected its new leadership at the beginning of this past February,  one commonly held assumption was that the party was finally preparing to pull itself into the 21st century, to step out of the long, cold shadows of the old party giants, people like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Chuck Schumer, and the Clintons, and to avail themselves and the American public in general of younger people and with fresher ideas.  That's what they were saying, but real change comes hard.

In an effort to reinvent itself, the party chose 51-year-old Ken Martin, the head of Minnesota's Democratic Party  to be the chair of the national party.  He defeated 43-year-old Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, for the position.  Notably, the out-going national Democratic Party Chair, Jaime Harrison, was even young than the new chair.

Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic Speaker of the House and Steny Hoyer, the former House Majority Leader had both resigned their leadership positions within the party a couple of years earlier during the Biden administration, but like the wizened old barnacles that they are, both Pelosi and Hoyer clung to their seats in Congress where they both, now in their mid-80's - remain today.

So while they talk a good game about putting a younger face on the party, that sort of thing does not come easy to Democrats.

One of the few bright spots in the party "shake-up" of 2025 was the emergence and election of 24-year-old David Hogg of Florida to one of the Party's three vice-chair positions.  Mr. Hogg, a survivor of one of the most horrific high school shootings in America and a recent graduate of Harvard University, had already earned a name for himself as both a gun control activist and as a Democratic Party organizer and fundraiser.  One of his projects before being elected to a leadership position in the DNC was to form a national group called "Leaders We Deserve" whose aim was to raise money for - and promote - young Democratic candidates for office.  It was that activity which almost immediately got him crossways with Ken Martin, the new party chair.

Hogg's group, "Leaders We Deserve," was endorsing and helping to fund younger Democratic candidates in primaries against older and more established incumbent Democratic officeholders.    Some within the party saw that as not only an attack on the seniority system, the lifeblood of advancement for Democrats in Congress, but also a betrayal by the party political apparatus because one of the party's national leaders was heading the movement to oust (especially elderly) incumbents.  After four months of increasingly bitter feuding which was becoming more and more public, Hogg resigned his position in June.

But many believe he had made his point, regardless.

In late May, just a few weeks before David Hogg was forced out of his position in the Democratic Party, a story was released in the national press which pointed out that the last eight members of Congress to have died in office were all Democrats, a clear, physical manifestation of what Hogg and his group had been raging about.  America, and especially young Americans, should not be saddled with political leaders who were using Congress as little more than a retirement home - and a supplement to their Social Security.  They deserved better.

David Hogg did not enter the political realm just to make a comfortable living while not rocking the boat.  He had his sleeves rolled up and was focused on making a difference.  One of his strongest allies in Congress is Democratic Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida who became the first Generation Z member of Congress when he was elected to his first term in the House at age 25 in 2022.  Rep. Frost and David Hogg had both worked together on issues regarding the politics of guns in Florida.

A few weeks ago another ally of David Hogg shook things up on the national political scene when he was elected in a primary to be the Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York City in the November election.  Zohran Mandami, age 33, an Indian American who was born in Uganda, was elected as a "Democratic Socialist" to be the Democratic candidate for mayor, and he is currently leading in the November general election race.  David Hogg's group, "Leaders We Deserve," helped to fund Mandami's primary campaign, and the two men have become close political allies and friends.

Donald Trump has declared Mandami to be a "communist" and is threatening to have his citizenship revoked, and shamefully several Democratic politicians and office holders in and from New York have failed to yet endorse Mandami's candidacy.   Some of those include Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.   Former President Bill Clinton, now a New York resident, congratulated Mandami on his primary win, but still has not endorsed him in the November election - and neither has New York resident Hillary Clinton.  

Once again, when a door to the future opens, Democratic leadership balks at stepping through.  They fear change and they danged sure don't want to be seen as supporting someone  who might be called a "radical."

Should they ever pull their heads out of the sand (or their butts) and look around, they would see that the Republican Party reached out beyond the status quo ten years ago and came up with their own radical - and now they control all three branches of government.

Americans are desperate for change - new blood and new ideas - and the Democrats are either going to have to start embracing and celebrating change, or they can drag their lawn chairs off into the sunset and regale each other with stories about the good old days of the New Deal.

It's time to deal again!

Rosie O'Donnell Lives Rent-Free in Collapsing Brain

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

When Donald Trump finds himself in a tough spot, especially one that impacts him legally or politically, he often turns to distraction as a way to handle the uncomfortable situation.  He knows that both the public and the press have short attention spans, and the quicker he can change the topic of conversation, the better.   It's a standard con that Trump has used successfully for years - and years.

But now Trump gotten himself stuck on political flypaper, and every attempt that he makes to extricate himself just seems to make matters worse.  The former television reality show personality was a friend and associate of accused pedophile and sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, yet somehow Trump managed to remove himself from Epstein's shadow while earning political points by stirring conspiracy theories among his followers by depicting Epstein as some nefarious agent of the "deep state" whose sexual exploits involving under-age girls would eventually, when exposed, bring down many prominent Democratic politicians including the the much hated (by MAGA) Bill and Hillary Clinton.  

Epstein died, supposedly by suicide, while in federal custody in 2019 during Trump's first term in office.  Circumstances of his death have tantalized conspiracy theorists during the interim years.  By the time Trump took office for the second time earlier this year there was a pent-up expectations on the political right about finally getting to the truth of the Epstein conspiracies.  Donald Trump was back in the White House and he had promised to release all the secret government files on the infamous pedophile and sex villain - and to expose once and for all, the sinister manipulations of the deep state.  Finally all would be revealed about teen-sex-trafficking, cannibalism, general depravity, and all the other things that the Democrats had kept so well hidden.

Praise white Jesus!

In February Trump's very inexperienced attorney general and former Fox News personality, Pam Bondi (a.k.s Pam Blondi) said that she had the Epstein client list on her desk waiting for her personal review before it would be released.  Some documents were released,  most of which had been published earlier, but no client list was ever produced.  Last week Bondi's Justice Department issued a memo stating that there was no evidence to indicate that Epstein's death was anything but a suicide, and that there was no "client" list.

Not only was much of the MAGA base disappointed in that fizzle, but the MAGA "influencers," the people who give the movement its teeth, were royally pissed.   Over the ensuing week their noise has gotten louder and more vitriolic.

Trump is used to his  scandals and problems blowing over in one or two days, and that didn't happen in this case, so Trump reached into his bag of distractions and pulled out an oldie but a goodie, comedian Rosie O'Donnell.

O'Donnell, an American citizen who was born in the United States and had spent her whole life living here, has had an open feud going with Donald Trump that has lasted almost twenty years.  When Trump was inaugurated earlier this year, O'Donnell  decided that she did not want her family to be further exposed to the policies and tantrums of Trump, so she packed up and moved her family to Ireland where they reside today.

A few days ago, in a desperate attempt to push Jeffrey Epstein off America's front pages, Trump resurrected his feud with O'Donnell and posted that he was considering revoking her US citizenship.  Two things quickly happened.  The first was that Rosie O'Donnell laughed him down with a rebuttal posting saying that she seemed to still be living "rent-free" in Trump's "collapsing brain" and essentially challenged him to try and revoke her citizenship (which he cannot legally do).  The second thing that happened was that MAGA influencers failed to take the bait.  Today, eight days after the Justice Department told America that the flap over Jeffery Epstein was essentially fake news, the people whose news and views feed the MAGA movement are still focused on the deepening Epstein "cover-up," and beginning to openly question Trump's reasons to maintaining the government secrecy.

The distraction isn't working, at least yet.  

Maybe America is finally waking up to Trump's modus operandi - but probably not.

(And then there's Elon cheerleading on the sidelines and saying that the reason Trump hasn't produced the secret Epstein files is that he is mentioned in those files.  That collapsing brain must be getting awfully crowded!)

Ratioed!

by Pa Rock

Word Collector

I heard a factoid on National Public Radio (NPR) the other day which said that the average English-speaker knows around 42,000 words.  Today I cross-checked that information with Google's Artificial Intelligence (AI) and received more detailed information.  Google says that:

"The average English-speaker is estimated to know between 20,000 and 35,000 words.  However, this can vary depending on factors like age, education, and exposure to different types of language.  Some studies suggest that adults, particularly those with higher education, may know close to 42,000 words."  (The AI listed the magazine "Science" as its source.)

Don Trump probably knows hundreds of words. 

I am unsure as to how many words I know, but when the kids finally lock me away in Shady Pines, I will try to smuggle in a stack of Big Chief tablets and a fist full of pens and spend my final days making a list of all the words I know, some of which will be quite impolite!

But I digress.  Regardless of how many words I actually know, today I can add a big 'plus one' to that number because  there has been a new entry in my aging vocabulary!

I probably became familiar with the word "ratio" in a junior high or high school math class.  In simple terms it is a way of comparing two or more quantities.  For instance, three of every four desserts brought to the picnic were cakes.  The cake ratio to all desserts was 3:4.

This morning I was reading a piece by pollster Dan Pfeiffer on Substack in which he was chronicling the growing displeasure in MAGA world at the Trump administration's secrecy over whatever materials it may or may not have regarding the life and death of child sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.  Pfeiffer referenced one of Trump's most recent posts on Truth Social platform in which Trump, who had once campaigned on releasing the Epstein files, was now downplaying the matter and saying whatever files there actually were had been written by Trump's long list of political enemies, and that the public should quit obsessing over them and let Attorney General Pam Bondi do her job.  

Pfeiffer then noted that Trump had been "ratioed" over that long and rambling post.  At that point I was shuffled off of the post by a "paywall" (another recent addition to my vocabulary) and was left wondering just what the hell it meant to be "ratioed."

However, my ignorance on the subject was destined to be short-lived.  Minutes later I was reading a Substack post by journalist Heather Cox Richardson in which she was also talking about the resurgence of the Epstein story and the MAGA world's extreme unhappiness that the Trump administration seems to be trying to bury it.  She, too, noted Trump's meandering and surreal post about the Epstein materials actually having been written by his (Trump's) enemies and being an unimportant distraction from the important business of him (Trump) using the government to exact revenge on those same enemies.

Heather Cox Richardson also said in her Substack column that Trump had been "ratioed," and she went on to explain the term for dummies like me.  Regarding Trump's crazy post, Ms. Cox Richardson had this to say:

"For the first time ever, Trump got ratioed on his own platform, meaning that there were more comments on his post than likes or shares, showing disapproval of his message.  According to Jordan King of Newsweek, by 10:45 this morning (Eastern Time) it had more than 36,000 replies, but only 11,000 reposts, and 32,000 likes."

So there you have it.  Trump got his butt "ratioed."  That's obviously not as painful as having it caned, but it's gotta hurt, nonetheless.

(And for the very few people out there who are older than me, a "paywall" is where an internet site blocks people who have not paid a subscription fee to access the site.)

(I grew up in a time when news was limited to just a very few sources, was generally about the same from channel to channel, and was paid for by toothpaste and cigarette companies.    Today it is more like a grocery store where you take the news sources that appeal to you personally from the shelf and pay for them at the checkout counter.  But that is grist for a whole other blog posting.)

(My deposits from the barnyard remain free!)

Ignorance is a Part of the War on Immigration

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I asserted in this space yesterday that Trump's war on immigrants is fueled by fascism and racism, but there is another factor at play in this rapidly evolving social horror story - and that is simple ignorance.    The MAGA architects and enforcers of this human relocation program decline to take into account the positive contributions that immigrants make to to American society, culture, and the economy.   Trump's minions are bitterly opposed to the poorest among us receiving any benefits from the government, a feeling that is easily manipulated into to a false assumption that it is the immigrant population who is consuming our national wealth without putting anything back into the economy.

But that is, in fact, false.  In many ways the immigrant population does more to prop-up and sustain the economy than the legions of unemployed who were actually born in this country.  Immigrants will take the sub-minimum wage crap jobs at which unemployed whites routinely thumb their noses.  The brown people being chased through the crop fields by masked ICE agents are paying into social security (though it is unlikely they will ever be able to draw the benefits of those payments), they are paying income taxes on their low wages,  and they are buying goods in the local economy on which they pay sales taxes.  The immigrants are paying gasoline taxes to keep our roads in good repair, and fees to the DMV, and rent, and utilities, as well as the other day-to-day expenses faced by most of us who were born here.

Immigrants are not getting a free ride.   The only free ride in store for most of the undocumented workers in this country will be the expensive one that the government gives them as they are flown to some third country known for either its inhospitable conditions or its cruelty - or both. Meanwhile, Joe Bob will continue to sit in front of his television, chug his beer, and curse the false premise that he can't find work because some brown person took the job he should have had.

That's the pablum the Trump administration and Fox News are feeding us, and we are expected to swallow it without question.

If Trump or his field marshals would like to learn more about how our economy works or who is paying the bills in this country, the US Census Bureau has reams of relevant data on its computers, and those people work for him, so it should be easy to access - if anyone in the Trump administration has an interest in facts, that is.

Immigrants didn't steal Joe Bob's job, he just didn't want to work in the hot sun for crap wages.  Immigrants aren't a threat to Grandma's social security, in fact they are helping to sustain the system by paying into it, and immigrants aren't eating cats and dogs, that's just a lie that was promoted by devious and dishonest politicians to fuel hatred against immigrants.

Yes, ignorance is a major factor in America's war on immigration, and its prevalence makes us look weak and dishonest to much of the world community.

There is nothing MAGA about that.

The Police State Nightmare Rolls On

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I have two granddaughters, both are thirteen, and both are very sweet young ladies.  The girls are cousins to each other and live in different parts of the United States, and poor old Pa Rock's opportunities to visit with them seem to decrease with each passing year.  Recently I had an opportunity for an extended visit with one of the girls where I was able to pick up on a couple of things regarding her thoughts on politics.  First I learned that she is no fan of Donald Trump, and then I also found out that the reason for her dislike of Trump is that she lives in constant fear that some of her friends are going to be kidnapped off the streets by Trump's masked ICE goons and sent to live in cages or be deported - never mind that many of them were born in the United States and have always lived here.

Those children of hard-working immigrants live in fear, and because they are rightfully afraid of their own government,  their friends and classmates are scared for them.  What the hell kind of "freedom" is that when children are forced to live in fear?

And in a closely related matter:

Earlier this week I saw photos on the internet of ICE agents and what appeared to be members of the US military using smoke grenades as they rounded up migrant agricultural workers from the crop fields of central California.   After pressure from corporate farming and the hospitality industry a couple of weeks ago, Trump had said that he would cut agricultural and hospitality workers some slack, but apparently Herr Miller and Herr Bannon both rushed into the Oval Office and helped the President to change his mind back to their position of deporting everyone they could grab.  (Stephen Miller, Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff, has set an arbitrary quota of 3,000 migrant arrests per day, and to meet that number he's using a big net with minimal exceptions or safeguards.)

Then yesterday, with the images of those farmworkers trying to run for safety through the rows of crops and smoke still clear in my mind, I received an email from my cousin, Susanna, in California who had been a firsthand witness to the incident.  She has given me permission to share her observations in this blog posting.  It follows:

"Yesterday I drove down our bucolic mountain pass toward an appointment in Santa Barbara.  The views of the sparkling lake, mountains of rugged pink dotted with scrubby fire hardy greenery, and avocado groves placed with an optimist's hand into the hillsides - I can count on this winding hypnotic vision to bring me an overwhelming sense of calm.

"Ventura County is an embarrassment of riches, both in terms of beauty, and good neighbors.

"As I approached the ocean, I saw something I will never forget.  The most sweet and peaceful hamlet turned into a militarized zone.   Men in full combat gear carrying rifles.  Other men, in street clothes and bullet proof vests wearing masks and no identifying ID.  

"ICE agents are kidnapping hard working and gentle people working in agriculture, in restaurants, walking down the street (that happened in my town!).

"The kind people of Ventura County came out immediately to be supportive of these agricultural workers in Carpinteria, and experienced our own military being used against them.

"I did not sleep last night.  I did not even try."

What America is experiencing right now is not freedom, nor liberation, or even some grand re-balance of justice or the economy.  It is fascism and racism, pure and simple.

We are better than that.

This police state nightmare has to end!

Levi King, Again

 

by Pa Rock

Witness to History

A couple of weeks ago while I was visiting in my daughter's home in Oregon, Molly asked out of the blue, "Dad, did you know Levi King?"  The question caught me by surprise and I hesitated as I tried to form the best answer.  Finally I went with, "Yes, I knew him well.  I even testified at his murder trial in Texas."  That was followed by me asking why she had brought up the fairly infamous spree killer, and she responded by pulling up Episode 1 of a new documentary on murderers that is currently running on Prime called "The Killer Speaks," in which the focus is on extended interviews with people who commit the act of murder in an effort to ferret out what brought about their actions.

The first episode, which Molly was in the middle of watching, was on Levi King of McDonald County, Missouri, who had killed an elderly couple in McDonald County in 2005, stolen their pick-up, and driven to Texas where he killed three members of a family there (a husband, wife, and 14-year-old son) before later being arrested as he tried to cross into Mexico at El Paso.  Levi was 23 at the time of those murders, and he was already an ex-con having served time in prison for second-degree arson and burglary.  He was arrested for murder in Texas exactly one week after being released from a halfway house in St. Louis following his first imprisonment.

To say that Levi King was well on the way to life behind bars (or worse)  when he committed those murders would ba a serious understatement.

Levi was tried first for murder in Missouri in 2008.  He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.  Then he was sent to Texas to stand trial for the murder of the three family members there.  Texas was known for its bloodlust, and there was a strong assumption that the Lone Star State would execute him.  His murder trial there was in the fall of 2009 in Lubbock.

That is where I entered the picture.

In 2009 I was working as a civilian social worker with the United States Air Force at Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix.  I received a call out of the blue one morning from a lady who identified herself as an attorney in Texas who was representing Levi King in his murder trial.  She asked me a few basic questions about my history with Levi King and his family (parents and siblings) while I had been working as a child protection official in McDonald County, Missouri, and then informed me that I would be receiving a subpoena to come to Lubbock to testify in his murder trial.

Levi pleaded guilty in the Texas trial, just as he had in Missouri, so his court-appointed defense team was not trying to get him off, but they were focused on saving him from the death penalty.  A big part of their defense seemed to be showing the jury the awful circumstances under which Levi had grown up, and to that end myself and one of my former co-workers from Missouri were called in to testify regarding our numerous interactions with Levi and his family.  I guess we must have been effective to some degree because he was eventually sentenced to life in prison by the Texas jury - instead of being given the death penalty.

In a blog entry in this space on October 7, 2009, entitled simply "Levi King," I had the following (among other things) to say:

"I have much that I would like to say about this young man, the crime of murder, and the subject of capital punishment.  I must, however, remain rather circumspect on discussing Levi because I knew him on a professional basis through my work in child protection for the state of Missouri.  Let me describe him thusly:  Levi King was a child who grew up in a very isolated location under less than optimal circumstances.  It would be fair, I believe, to conclude that his childhood was aborted by his circumstances in much the same manner as his adulthood was aborted by his crimes.  Yes, he grew through childhood and he will probably grow through adulthood, but in both cases he was (and will be) tragically shortchanged."

(And yes, before you loose the hounds on me, I also fully realize that the lives of five innocent people were also tragically shortchanged by the actions of Levi King.   I am not condoning his actions or trying to apologize for them - but I am just simply trying to shine some light into the dark recesses of the mind of a man who chose to end the lives of people whom he did not even know.)

I sat with Molly and watched most of that episode.  Levi is in his forties, now, but I could still see the boy that I knew as a young teenager inhabiting the visage of a long-term, hardened prison inmate.  I hope that he is doing well, and I also hope that it was the families of his victims who reaped the financial benefit from his involvement in the crime documentary - and not Levi.

Old Friends

 

by Pa Rock

Friend of The Rose

Today is a milestone of sorts in our family:  my little dog, Rosie, and I have become the same age.   She was born on this date in 2014 (or that is at least what I was told - and I met her at a roadside puppy stand in Caulfield, Missouri, on September 1, 2014 when she would have been 52 days old or approximately seven-and-a-half weeks.  Based on her petite size at the time we met (just one pound and one ounce) and the fact that she was just barely weened, I suspect that she could have been younger than that, but we celebrate her birthday based according to the information I was given.

That would make today Rosie's eleventh birthday in human years, or her 77th in dog years.  Pa Rock turned seventy-seven in March.  The two of us seem to have a very good understanding and appreciation of each other's aches and pains - and failing vision - and we both enjoy our naps.

Rosie was in a cardboard box with her little sister (who actually was a bit smaller than Rosie) when we met.  The box was on a folding table under a shade tree at a junction of two paved country roads, about half way between my community of West Plains, Missouri, and the shopping community to which I was headed, Mountain Home, Arkansas.  The sign on the table said "Puppies for Sale," and I pulled in to take a look.  There were no other cars, just a rough-looking lady sitting in a folding chair by the table selling dogs.  When I reached into the box and Rosie looked up and licked my hand, I knew I was in love.  But I resisted the impulse purchase and told the lady that I was going on to Mountain Home (25 miles away) to complete my business and if she was still there when I came back by we would talk again.

I drove back two hours later and was surprised to find the woman still sitting next to the table and cardboard box.  When I got out of the car and looked in the box, I was pleased to see that the puppy who had licked my hand was still there.  (Her sister had been sold to a family driving through who was headed home to Chicago.).    The roadside merchant smiled at me knowing that she had just landed her final sale of the day.  I pulled ten $20 bills from my pocket, gave them to the puppy peddler, and took my girl home.

Purchasing a pet from a breeder is not the most ethical way to acquire a pet because it encourages more people to get into the business, and I realize that.  But in this case, with this particular small-time breeder, I felt it was more of a "rescue" than it was an actual "purchase."  Given similar circumstances, I would do the same thing again.

Rosie and I have had a great run together, and we hope that we are around to share each other's company for at least a couple of more years before we wander off over the horizon.  Old friends are the absolute best friends!

Major Win for Foot Health and Air Passengers

 

by Pa Rock

Infrequent Flyer

Don Trump has never had to remove his shoes in a public airport, and now, thanks to a Big Beautiful Bribe from the Qatari royal family, he will never have to.  Some of the young Field Marshals in his entourage, however, probably have been forced to go through the degrading process of taking their shoes off and placing them on a tray on a conveyor belt to be x-rayed as they, the shoes and the Field Marshals, are scanned by mechanical harbingers of a new world order.  

The mandatory removal of passengers' shoes and then forcing them to pad across the (often) nasty airport carpeting in stocking feet has been in place for almost twenty years, the result of ONE individual who unsuccessfully tried to walk onto a passenger plane with some sort of homemade explosive in ONE of his shoes.  That seemingly terroristic fizzle succeeded in slowing the boarding process of millions upon millions of airline passengers over the next two decades, a success the tinhorn anarchist could not have imagined in his wildest dreams.

But now that particular airport humiliation is history.  The TSA has announced that airline passengers will no longer be required to remove their shoes as a part of the boarding process.  The flying public may not be any safer, but at least they can travel in the comfort of not having to worry about what exotic vermin are laying eggs in their socks at 35,000 feet.

Small mercies.

Now that the issue of shoe removal has been resolved, maybe the airlines can start to address the many other flying injustices, such as baggage fees which can be almost as much as discounted tickets for humans - overbooking and overcrowding (in seating designed for anorexics), and unfriendly skies which are not adequately supervised by trained and certified air traffic controllers.

As long as we consent to being treated like cattle, we WILL BE treated like cattle.

(There are no middle seats on AmTrak.)

Elon Parties on Down

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

A few days ago, billionaire pest Elon Musk floated the idea of starting his own political party, not in his native country of South Africa, nor his adopted country of Canada, but in his most recently adopted country of the United States of America.  That's right, the world's richest human , a man who literally purchased the latest round of the US presidency for Donald Trump at a cost of more than a whopping quarter-of-a-billion dollars, has developed a taste, or perhaps a "hunger," for American politics, and he now wants to buy another big helping of our democracy to feed his insatiable gluttony. 

Yesterday Elon said that he has formed the "America Party," though what he has filed and with whom is unclear.  Musk has announced an intent to primary Republican members of Congress who  voted for Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" because the bill will balloon our national debt and because it apparently did not do as much to make the lives of America's poor as miserable as Musk would have liked.  Only two Republican members of the House had the cajones to vote against the Trump bill, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.  Three GOP US Senators cast "no" votes on the bill:  Rand Paul of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Susan Collins of Maine.   Before casting his vote, Senator Tillis announced that he would retire at the end of his current term.  The other four will presumably try to hold onto their seats when their current terms end.

So that leaves a helluva lot of Republicans for Elon to primary.  As pricey as American elections have become, even Elon Musk might balk at putting out that much money.

The thought now is that he may single out the most vulnerable Republicans and primary them with America Party candidates who are loyal to him - and try to elect enough to be the deciding factors in close votes in the House and Senate.

Trump quickly responded to Elon's party formation announcement by saying his former DOGE Master has "gone off the rails," and many Tesla shareholders showed their lack of support to the company's CEO (Musk) by dumping their stock.  (Perhaps Elon should have named his political newborn "the Petulant Party" or "Elon's Pity Party.")

The patriarch of the political effort, Elon Musk, reports reports that his new party is pro-gun and pro-bitcoin.  (It sounds as though there may be no carefully crafted party platform or manifesto as of yet, just a jumble of whatever crosses Elon's childlike mind, much like the Republican Party under Trump.)

But the pro-gun stance aside, Pa Rock supports the creation of more minor league Republican parties - and may they have many glorious and bitter primary elections that will fracture their support among the idiocracy for generations to come.

I'm thinking about starting my own political party, but so far all that I have basically come up with is a name:  "The River Party."  (Of course, at this point that's all Elon really has for his party - just a name.)  I am thinking that the River Party will have a strong environmental focus and initially be funded through "beer busts" along America's riverbanks, followed by collecting and selling the empty cans to aluminum recyclers.  Party dues would also involve beer.

The River Party would show the America Party how to party on down, you betcha it would!

(Platform proposals for the River Party are currently being accepted c/o Pa Rock's Ramble!)

Underpinnings of the New "Golden Age"

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Trump's big bullshit bill that became law last week is supposedly going to usher in a new "golden age" in America.   The stated intent is that it will pump more money into some peoples' pockets, particularly those who are very rich, which their largesse will then allow it to  "trickle down" to the unwashed masses, a phony assumption that has been proven wrong over and over again for the last half-century.  The bill will also transfer large amounts of our national treasury, which has been operating in the red for decades, to Immigration and Custom's Enforcement (ICE), and will give that agency almost unlimited means to detain and deport people, even American citizens who were born in this country.

The bill will balloon our already staggering national debt, but does nothing to positively address the also-staggering, social inequalities in America - and the needs of the working poor - things like basic nutrition, healthcare, public education, housing, the environment, and poverty in general.    Those cans have been kicked on down the road and somebody else can deal with them later on.

Issues of inequality can always wait.  The first order of business is to take care of those who are already doing well.

I heard a story on the news yesterday about a housing ordinance that was passed last month by the city of West Fargo, North Dakota.  It seems people were having the audacity to rent storage units and then move into them - the only type of housing they could afford.  Once the city officials learned of the situation - they rushed to pass ordinances which would make it easier for developers to come in and build low-income affordable housing.

That, of course, is not true.

When the very respectable leaders of West Fargo found out about the problem, they did what the city leaders of many other American communities are so quick to do - they passed an ordinance which banned sleeping in buildings, vehicles, or temporary structures not designed for residential occupancy - including storage units and tents.  The newspaper account that I read this morning did not mention sleeping outdoors, but many American communities also do not allow their homeless to sleep in parks, on beaches, or on the streets.

City governments often see homelessness as something which must be moved on down the road.  The situation is generally ignored by state government and the Feds.  Where the homeless go is unimportant, just so long as it's somewhere else.

There are solutions to homelessness of course, but they involve spending money to construct houses, providing job training, creating jobs with living wages, and all manner of things that would interfere with tax breaks for people who don't need the money.

Sometimes the chronically homeless require hospitalization (if they don't just crawl off and die), or they are incarcerated for brief periods of time as punishment for daring to sleep outside - and their children are bundled off into state foster care systems, and none of those options are free - or cheap.  They can be so time time-and-money-consuming that more public housing begins to make sense.  But Americans tend to have an almost rabid reaction to the notion of somebody getting "something for nothing."  Jesus certainly would not approve of handouts to "those" people.

The answer is likely to wind up being to house them in the many huge detention facilities (aka "concentration camps") currently being planned by ICE, with our government then trying to balance its books on the backs of the poor by selling their labor to corporations.  We had a similar system in place during the early years of America.  It was called slavery.

Or, the neo-Nazis currently burrowing their way into the federal government may have something else in mind.

Golden age, my ass. 

Iron Heel of Tyranny

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Most Presidents of the United States come into office after a hard fought election promising to heal old wounds and vowing to bring Americans together.  But Donald Trump is an American original who certainly does not style himself after "most" Presidents.  Trump has always been far more focused on settling scores than he has been on healing wounds.

Last Thursday, just hours after Congress had passed his mean-spirited "Big Beautiful Bill" that will transfer even more of the nation's wealth away from those who actually earn it, and up to those who are already looking down on us from penthouse balconies and the upper decks of megayachts, Donald Trump took to the stage and bellowed about how he actually felt toward a large portion of his fellow Americans.

And his remarks were unusually ugly, even for Trump.

The President of the United States was addressing a large group in Des Moines, Iowa, that was intended to be a "non-political" celebration of America's independence, and sponsored by an organization called "America@250."  A patriotic pep rally on the day before the Fourth of July.  That sounds innocuous enough.

But Trump never sticks to his script, and as he jumbles along, often speaking pure gibberish, whatever crosses his mind also tends to cross his lips, like the nuisance drunk at the bar who blathers on until he finally passes out.  Last Thursday when he stepped on that stage - just hours after getting his "legacy" bill passed - Trump had politics on his mind, and he was particularly focused on the Democrats in Congress, none of whom voted for the bill.  Standing behind thick bulletproof glass in Iowa, he went straight into attack mode.  Still angry about the vote earlier in the day and the fact that all Democrats had voted against his bill, Trump declared:

"They wouldn't vote only because they hate Trump, but I hate them, too, you know?  I really do.  I hate them.  I cannot stand them because I really believe that they hate our country."

Divide and conquer.

Trump is not focused on unity or healing.  His intent is to set fires and fan the flames, to divide us as a people, and ultimately to render us compliant and docile as we stoke the engines of production and pull the wagons of commerce - and make more money for those who already have a chokehold on the world's wealth.

The iron heel of tyranny is coming down, it's coming down hard and fast, and it's not just Democrats who are going to be crushed under its force.

Sebastian, Young Adult

 

by Pa Rock

Proud Grandpa

My second oldest grandchild, Sebastian, is no longer a child.  As of today he is an 18-year-old young adult preparing to go out and conquer the world.

Sebastian graduated from high school in Oregon less than two months ago and since then has relocated to the Kansas City area where he tells me that he will likely look for a job or go to school.  

Life is full of exciting choices when you are eighteen.   But life is also full of responsibilities, some which come when you cross that imaginary age line into adulthood.  Even though the military draft ended in 1972, young men in the United States, those between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, are still required to traipse down to their local post office and register for the draft - just in case.  (Don't forget that one, Sebastian.  It's a biggie.)   And eighteen-year-old Americans of both genders have a responsibility to uphold and defend democracy by registering to vote and then staying informed on the issues and voting in every election.  (That is also a biggie!)

But have some fun while you are at it.  Being eighteen should be about fun.  In a few days you will be twenty-eight and consumed with the pressures of starting a family or some brave new venture, and a few days after that you will be a relatively young grandparent of forty-eight who is beginning to question how so much time has already slipped by.   And by the time you are seventy-eight, only a few more days down the road, you will be tripping over the dog, looking for your glasses, and wondering why nobody ever comes to visit.

Life goes by fast, Sebastian, too damned fast, so grab as much enjoyment from it as you can, and live it on YOUR terms.  Enjoy being eighteen - it only comes around once!

Happy birthday, Sebastian, with much love from Pa Rock!

King George Would Have Been Royally Impressed

by Pa Rock

Patriotic American

This is July 4th, 2025, the 249th anniversary of the signing of our nation's Declaration of Independence as our founding fathers and mothers began the arduous process of securing our freedom from the political and economic control of Great Britain and its tyrannical King George III.  

Today is also the 199th anniversary of the death of Thomas Jefferson, the man who was the principal author of the Declaration as well as one of its signers, and the 199th anniversary of the death of John Adams, another signer of that hallowed document.  After helping to secure the independence of our fledgling nation, John Adams went on to become its second President, and Jefferson was the third President of the young country.

While millions of Americans are celebrating Independence Day with family outings, backyard barbecues, pool parties, fireworks, and countless other festivities, Don Trump is busy celebrating by signing his Big Ugly Bill that will take health insurance away from millions of his fellow countrymen (including children and society's most vulnerable), and subsequently lead to the closure of hundreds of rural hospitals - except possibly in Alaska, remove school lunches from the grasp of millions of children, end supplemental nutrition assistance for many Americans with what looks to be a goal of permanently ending the SNAP program across the nation.  

And those are just some of the headline items.  The bill also permanently lowers taxes for the wealthiest Americans - including billionaires like Trump, who have not paid their fair share of income taxes since Eisenhower was in the White House, and it will increase the national debt over the next decade by more than three trillion dollars.

Happy birthday, America!

Trump will sign his tax-relief-for-the-rich bill at 5:00 p.m. (EDT) in the White House while a contingent of US warplanes (B-2's, F-22's, and F-35's) fly overhead, perhaps to make up for the flop of a military parade that Trump gave himself on his birthday last month.  How much will toady's military circus cost us, Donbo?  And will you still be golfing in Florida on the people's dime again  this weekend? 

It's not about us, the American people.  It's never been about us.  It's always about him.

King George would have been royally impressed!

Summer Happened While I was Gone

 

by Pa Rock

Observer of Nature

Summer happened while I was on my road trip through the great American West.   When I left southern Missouri on Tuesday, June 17th, the Ozarks were still experiencing the lingering rains that had been fairly constant throughout the spring, but on that Friday, June 20th, the season officially changed to summer, and right on cue, things began to dry out and heat up.   I was on the road sixteen days and did not encounter any rain at all.  Last year on a very similar trip at exactly the same time of year, I drove through several massive rainstorms.

The Ozarks apparently did have some rain while I was away this year, but that seems to be over.  I arrived home just before noon yesterday to clear blue skies, and today is also bright and cloudless.  Alexa tells me there is a chance of thunderstorms next  Wednesday - but just a chance.    Now that's the kind of summer I am used to!

I had carefully picked off every deadhead from the many rose bushes on the farm just before leaving on the trip, and I came home to find them all in full bloom, so I am once again picking off deadheads!   The outdoor potted flowers all needed a drink yesterday as well, and I carried water to them just before dark.  I have a hanging basket with a small fern beneath the front porch overhang that my son had forgotten to water, so I made sure to get it.  Before I left I had discovered a small, neat, vacant bird nest in the fern, but it looked to have been abandoned,  Yesterday when I began sloshing water around the nest, two very tiny baby birds with their eyes still tightly shut, popped their heads up.  The babies' beaks were open wide and they were undoubtedly thinking (hoping) Mama was home.  I quickly cleared the area so Mama could come home!

Those baby birds were as special as anything I encountered on my 4,500 mile trip through our country's wide open West - including the Space Needle.

The world is a wondrous place for those who take the time to enjoy it.  This holiday weekend would be a great time to start!

Have a bang-up time this Fourth of July, and stop to smell the roses while you are at it, or at least pick off a few deadheads!

The Home Stretch and Windmill Blades

 

by Pa Rock

Traveling Fool

I am on the road today heading from my son's home in Roeland Park, Kansas, to my own home in West Plains, Missouri.  I should reach my destination around noon.

I arrived at Tim and Erin's (my son and daughter-in-law's) home yesterday before noon after spending the night before in Hays, Kansas, a bustling community on I-70, but otherwise in the middle of nowhere - but it does have a nice variety of lodging and affordable places to eat.

When I was traveling through Kansas heading west at the start of my trip, I wrote about seeing a couple of extended semi-tractor-trailers, each carrying a single blade for wind turbines (electricity-producing windmills) that are beginning to sprout up all across the country, and especially in the windy and desolate parts of middle America.   As I passed those trucks I became aware of just how massive those blades are.

Today I saw a story on the internet about a truck overturning in Maryland (also on I-70), dumping its cargo - one windmill blade - onto the roadway, and blocking some of the lanes going both directions.  Now there are plenty of people in the state of Maryland who also know just how enormous those blades are!

Just one more thing to watch out for when you are on the road - as I am today - heading home!

UPDATE:  Arrived home at 11:45 a.m.   The long road trip is over.  4,503 total miles including some running around in Salem, Oregon.

One More Use for a Gideon's Bible

 

by Pa Rock

Road Warrior

Monday Evening:  I began today at the Brickyard Inn in Rawlins, Wyoming, and ended it at the Econo Lodge in Hays, Kansas, approximately four hours from tomorrow's driving goal of Roeland Park, Kansas. It was my second stay at the Brickyard, and I liked it so well - clean, cheap, and safe - that I left the maids a nice tip each time, and this visit I even left them my glasses.   As a result of the recent cataract surgery, I don't need the glasses for driving, and I was a hundred miles down the road this morning before I realized they weren't on my nose, but I do need them for reading and working at the computer.  Tonight as I type this blog entry, I am correcting text paragraph by paragraph with the aid of a small magnifying glass that I bought at a truck stop.   

My motel tonight is between an Arby's and a Freddy's.   I couldn't read the Wi-Fi choices on my computer, so I clicked on the one that I thought was Econo Lodge and got Freddy's free Wi-Fi instead.  The connection is better than the food, but the eatery closes in thirty-six minutes, so I must rush.   Gilda Radner said it best:  "It's always something!

Tonight's room is short on plug-ins, which is a fairly common problem in motels.  There is a nice lamp on the desk with two outlets on its base, but it sits too low to plug in my electronics.  I dug through my luggage and the room itself looking for something that I could sit under the lamp to raise it one inch higher, and finally came up with a solution:  the Gideon's motel Bible.  It's a Godsend!

The Gideons and I have a history.  Many years ago when I was a principal at a large middle school, a group of Gideons showed up at the school on the last day of classes wanting to hand out free Bibles to the students in the classrooms as they were preparing to leave for the summer.   I politely declined citing the Constitution's clear separation of Church and State, and the proselytizers took great offense.  They brought in reinforcements and when classes dismissed they had their people on the public sidewalks surrounding the school and were passing out Bibles at warp speed as the kids were rushing off for their summer of freedom from books and such.

So, I really don't mind using a Gideon's Bible as a lamp stand!

Roeland Park (near Kansas City) tomorrow, and home on Wednesday!

Road Food

 

by Pa Rock

Road Warrior

Sunday Evening:  I am back, in Rawlins, Wyoming, at the Brickyard Inn, the place where I stayed ten days ago on my trip to Oregon.   I liked the motel, the room, and the price so much that I came back.  470 miles of hard driving today, about a hundred less than yesterday.

There is lots of road construction occurring on Interstate 80.  It wasn't so bad today for those of us going east, but there was one place where traffic heading west was backed up several miles.  Summer is the most popular time for working on the roads, so keep that in mind if you are planning any major road trips.

I had the best burrito of my life today for lunch at a "Maverik" convenience store.  It was a little less than  five dollars, and one made a complete meal, even for a big and wide guy like me.  I have been in several "Maverik" convenience store on this trip and really like their selections of meal and snack items, the reasonable pricing, and the friendly customer service.  My gas this evening at a "Maverik" was $2.99 a gallon, which is the cheapest I have found on this entire trip.  All of the meal items, like that great burrito, are made fresh daily in the individual stores.

I googled "Maverik" tonight and learned that they have 800 locations in 21 states.  I also learned that they are taking over the "Kum and Go" convenience stores in Missouri, and most  of the takeovers were completed in June while I was on the road.  I read some on-line reviews that complained about empty shelves and problems  as the converted stores were getting set up and started, but give 'em some time.  I think it will be well worth the wait.

It's looking like rain tonight in southern Wyoming.  I have not had to drive in any rain this trip - knock wood.  Last year on my first day out of Kansas City heading north, I was almost washed off the road, and during that trip I had to navigate several serious rainstorms.   Alexa did tell me today that it is still raining in southern Missouri.  Maybe I will bring some of this sunshine home to the Ozarks.

Right now my plan is to be in either Nebraska or Colorado tomorrow evening, and back in the Kansas City area Tuesday evening - and home on Wednesday!  There are plenty of road miles still waiting to be driven before this trip is over, but soon . .  . soon I will be back with my sweet little Rosie and mischievous Gypsy!

More Joys Along the Road

 

by Pa Rock

Road Warrior

I left Salem, Oregon, about 6:45 this morning, just after my hotel finally served breakfast..  After paying just over $230 for a one-night stay, I was damned sure going to get the free breakfast!  Drove through the Cascades again, and truly enjoyed that part of the trip.  Bought the first tank of gas for the day in the beautiful little berg os "Sisters," Oregon, and later drove through the much rougher-looking community of "Brothers."  Finally made it into Idaho late in the day.  

The lady running the 76 gas station in Sisters was absolutely charming and extremely courteous.  If you are ever through that way, please stop and tell her Pa Rock sent you.  She won't know my name, but it will probably brighten her day anyway!

I had difficulty finding a place for lunch,  and finally wound up at an A&W near dinner time.  When I first lived on Okinawa in the early 1970's the island had just one American fast food franchise - an A&W,. Before we left two years later there was also a Kentucky Fried Chicken.  During my second stay fifteen years ago, almost of the major franchises were represented on the island.

I pulled one major bonehead move in traffic today - no accidents or injuries - but it may have been caught on camera, so I may be coming back for court at some point.  I blame my stupidity on being tired, which is no excuse at all.  Tomorrow I WILL find a place to stay early in the afternoon.

Tonight (Saturday) I am at a roadside motel just east of Twin Falls, Idaho.  It is a surprisingly nice room, larger than last night's, but without a refrigerator or telephone - and the rent is less than $100!

I wish the United States had a comprehensive passenger rail system - or a tele-transporter system - or airports adequately staffed with air traffic controllers!  Average people pay big taxes, we should have nice things!