ROLEY

Tag: Trump

  • Could someone inform the Fanta Menace that it takes some wind out of his argument about returning to the office when he spent almost a full year of his first term on a golf course (307 days), and has spent about 8 days of his 29 days so far on the links.

    Tell this idiot to have a Coke, a smile, and a fucking seat.

  • Monday, February 3rd, 2025

    • Short but sweet today, I only have one question: This can’t possibly be what people voted for, can it?

  • Thursday, Jan 30th, 2025

    • The fact that FOTUS wants to turn Guantanamo Bay into a ‘relocation camp’ for migrants has me steamed. I know I’ve said this before, but my family was stationed there from August 1980 to December 1982. It was one of the planet’s most unique and awesome places—no other place like it. Then Dubya decided to make it a prison, and that has left a stain on that place that will never wash out. This will ruin it. I’m unbelievably livid, but I’m mostly sad. This is what people will remember about Guantanamo Bay, and not the stories of the people that lived there. I bought the domain gitmomemories.com today, with the intent of finding those stories and posting them on a website there. I don’t know how this will go, but I’ll share more about it when I figure it out.
    • I said that I was hoping for the same level of incompetence out of 2.0, and it appears we got it. Unfortunately, that level of incompetence means the body count continues apace. I don’t want to be Mr. Drama and scream that they’re going to kill us all, but I can’t help but think that a good chunk of people aren’t going to make it out of 2.0 alive. I wish it weren’t so.

  • Tuesday, Jan 28th, 2025

    • With the understanding that Apple is seldom the first at something (something the Android Crew is eager to point out pretty much always), I am very happy to see that Samsung has opened its mouth about a non-invasive blood sugar test on a wearable. This is a big deal for folks with diabetes, and if it’s on an ‘affordable piece of tech’, I promise you a ton of us would buy it regardless of cost. More than anything else, that’s a quality of life enhancement. Up to this point, a CGM is the only way to keep from pricking your fingers multiple times a day, but a CGM still breaks the skin and can be costly.
    • Meta says All Your Toks Are Belong To Us, Plz Taek R Monee. But do go on about how TikTok is a national security threat and this had nothing to do with TikTok drinking every other platform’s milkshake. A reminder of the brilliance of Bill Hicks:
      • “Go back to bed, America. Your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control again. Here. Here’s American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed, America. Here is American Gladiators. Here are 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America! You are free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!”
    • Here is a link to the Posse Comitatus Act. The US Military being deployed to California would be leading every newscast and on the front page of every paper. It’s not.
    • Jim Acosta leaving CNN reminded me of what a real anchorman looks like signing off, and before you say newsmen don’t roll like that anymore, I’d tell you, “I know. That’s the problem.”

  • Friday, January 10th, 2025

    • If you accept that Trump was never going to jail under any circumstances, then let’s focus on what happened today. The verdict was upheld, a sentence was passed. I’m not sure if this is appealable to a higher court from here, I think he would have to show something happened to prevent him from getting a fair hearing? If it’s not appealable, then the bottom line is that Donald Trump is now and forever a convicted felon. Make all the jokes you want about ‘getting away with it’, he didn’t. In a (very) small way, there has been accountability. Trust me, he’s livid about this.
    • If you want to know why you’re in a cult, part eleventy: MAGA has jumped to naming all the people who also have convictions, like MLK, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela… You could hear the sound of millions of goalposts moving. Like I said the other day. “STOP PERSECUTING ME!” said the guy in charge.
    • I listened to the Supreme Court arguments for TikTok today. IANAL, but it appears to me that the government is dressing up a free-speech argument as a national security threat. What the government is accusing TikTok of doing is using an algorithm to show you content. It thinks China can manipulate that algorithm to show you what it wants you to see. The trouble with this argument is that an algorithm is an editorial slant. That’s ANY For You/Discover/We Think You’ll Like/Related Page at ANY content company. Facebook does the same thing, lest you forget. There are two questions to answer: Does a threat to national security trump the 1st Amendment? Second, if TikTok poses a national security threat, then show us the threat. I can think of a greater threat to national security than this, and it’s not hypothetical. It’s real, and it’s taking office in 10 days. That opinion has been and will be all over TikTok, and I think that’s the real reason the gov’t wants it gone. Speaking truth to bullshit? Well, we can’t have that, can we?
    • I put together my new desk chair last night, and I realized upon sitting in it that it does not recline. It’s one of these ergonomic chairs that adjust in a few ways, but reclining is not one of them. It’s probably very good for my back if I can keep from slouching forward. This is just one of the ways I don’t human very well I suppose, but we’ll see if this chair helps my posture. I’m practically a hunchback on my best days.
    • With any luck, a super-duper pod this weekend. Stay Tuned.

  • Thursday, January 9th, 2025

    • A small correction to my half-baked meaningless babble about the jack Smith report yesterday: It has been pointed out to me that even if the concerige judge Cannon gets overturned, it will be appealed to SCOTUS, where Concierge Justice Thomas will accommodate them. So, if you’re asking the overall question “Did the insurrection work?’ the answer is yes. Yes, it did.
    • The more I think about it, the more I believe that while we should be afraid of what happens when these people in power have no guardrails, it might be the best thing to happen to our society in the long term. This came to me when I saw a post by Nancy Mace, AI’d to look like a knight in armor in front of a ladies’ room door. She also felt free enough to call people on the left dumbasses, which is usually something left for the rabble to do. Watch this space.
    • Re: Meta. I’m torn about what to do with my Meta accounts. Some people in my life I can only contact through Meta, so I need to keep the account. I rarely use it for posting anymore, so he’s not getting money or clicks from me. I think I can remove the Instagram/Threads accounts on principle. I was concerned about where to post photos to share, Glass (paid) or Pixelfed (Fediverse), but I’m forgetting First Principles here. I have a place to share my photos: MY place.
    • A little PSA from my day job: Here’s a hypothetical: If you call the bank on behalf of your elderly parents or in-laws, and we can’t get permission from them, we can’t talk to you. Also, you can’t DO anything. In most cases like that, the bank would need a Power of Attorney. So, don’t turn around after the bank tells you that and try to make a withdrawal online on, say, a day when you think no one is paying attention. We’re paying attention, and you just got the account frozen. No withdrawal for you. We need the POA. Period. Thanks for playing.

  • Wednesday, January 8th, 2025

    • Remember this as you read stories about buying Greenland, taking control of the Panama Canal, and renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”, that Woody Allen had this nailed years ago. I stand by my prior statement that he returns to the scene of the outrage and makes it part of his shtick. That doesn’t make him less insane. The man operates solely from self-interest and is unable to see anyone or anything outside of that context. Again, a narcissist isn’t affected by anger or opposition. What they cannot stand is silence, and/or the possibility of being humiliated in public.
    • This business with Jack Smith’s report would be an excellent example of his aversion to being publicly humiliated. He’s trying to stop the report from being released or stall it until after the inauguration. Then his AG pick can spike it if she’s confirmed. At the very least, Bondi will do what Bill Barr did with the Mueller Report. (EDIT: The concierge judge Aileen Cannon has acted as expected and blocked the release of the report, deferring it to the 11th Circuit, and ordered that the block remains in effect until three days after the circuit court makes their decision or is otherwise resolved. This ruling is a clear sign that Cannon knows it’s likely to be overturned on appeal, but the three-day buffer ensures no release before the inauguration. Make no mistake: The person practicing ‘lawfare’ has always been Trump. Every accusation is a confession, as the saying goes. )
    • All of this to say: There is no magic bullet. There is no damning report, there is no allegation of criminal behavior that will get Trump another impeachment for the next two years at least. No one is coming to save us, as they say. Stop listening to people who want you to believe otherwise.
    • I don’t give a fuck what Mark Z. says. When you get to the chewy center of it, he did not create Facebook for some lofty moral purpose. He was dragged into doing ‘the right thing’ every single fucking time Facebook has been called on the carpet. He’s slime, he’s always been slime.

  • Wednesday, January 1st, 2025

    • As much as I’d like to write some flowery New Year’s related prose here, I will resist the urge. I never live up to it anyway.
    • From a numerology standpoint–if you’re inclined to believe that stuff–this would be a ‘4’ year for me, where I lay a foundation for whatever is to come. I’ve been through one of these years about a decade ago. I did not get the message, or this stuff is just cyclical. It’s probably as much a bunch of hokum as astrology. To be fair though, the day I was rear-ended by a drunk driver in 1988, my horoscope said that ‘evening would find you in a bit of a scrape’. So, I’ll stay open to the Universe, thanks.
    • I don’t want to spend the next year–or four–obsessing over the dementia patient and the techpolitburo. If anything, this is where being a card-carrying member of Generation X may come in handy. Maintain an overdeveloped sense of cynicism, sarcasm, and dark humor, and get on with it. Wolverines, Bueller, and Amen.

  • Tuesday, November 19th, 2024

    Yesterday, I wondered if Rachel Maddow would have anything to say about their channel throwing themselves prostrate on the tiled floors of the Craptastic Compound to save their access, jobs, or whatever. She did not, so she is complicit in their new surrender policy. We must then assume that MSNBC no longer cares about journalism, or if they ever did. What they care about is eyeballs, ratings, and ad revenue. If that is the case, we should refer to cable news—and MSNBC specifically—as For-Profit News. Up to you if you want to trust anything that prioritizes money over truth, but I won’t. I’ll see if I can find something trustworthy to share. Someone suggested Democracy Now as an alternative. I’ve never seen it, so I have no idea. I’ll let you know.

    The Manhattan DA’s Office recommends to Judge Merchan that Trump’s sentencing be delayed so that the Court can hear Trump’s motion to dismiss. Of course, this case will get dismissed, because we have two levels of justice here. The only ‘Lawfare’ being practiced here is what Trump has proven he’s very good at, using the court’s rules against itself, and getting away with it. He will tell you that makes him smart.

    This might be a rhetorical question, but If a culture warrior falls in the forest and no one is there to hear them bitch about Starbucks Cups, books and other people’s junk, do they make a sound? Was there a race between Boebert, Greene, and Mace to be the first person to drop a bill about Ladies’ rooms in the Capitol? Good to know that lot are taking care of the really important stuff, those utter wastes of space.

    Related: I’m reminded of something Michael Stipe said to Tabitha Soren once along the lines of “The only time you should be worried about what I’m doing with my dick is if you’re sitting in my lap.” I would amend that to “The only time you should be worried about what I’m doing with my dick–or if I even have one–is if you’re sitting in my lap.”

    I suppose that this is just a sample of what we’re going to be in for, at least until January 2027 if we’re lucky.

    On a lighter note, caught the first episode of Dune: Propecy last night. Wonderful bit of world building here. Long before the events of Dune, it’s the early days of the Bene Gesserit. If you liked the Recent Dune movies, you’ll like this. Something nice to chew on while we’re waiting for Dune: Messiah.

  • Monday, November 18th, 2024

    The big reveal this morning–that Joe and Mika went to the Craptastic Compound–should be the death of cable news. At the very least, it should be the death of MSNBC. I wonder what the Monday Prime Time contingent has to say about this, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a big rift between Rachel and Joe. It doesn’t matter. They’ve burned their reputation for something they won’t get.

    One of the things I’ve taken to watching during my recovery (I’ve had plenty of time), is Yellowstone. I didn’t think that was going to be my cup of tea, but like every other person who’s been suckered in by this show, it’s all about the next batshit crazy thing Beth is going to do. I’m starting Season 5 next, I understand I’m in for a ride. The guy who created the show has got another one in the works called 6666, the ranch in which Jimmy spent Season 4. I certainly hope that means we’ll be seeing more of Jimmy. His character arc was awesome.

    Managed to get a little B-Roll of time-lapsed stuff over the weekend. Nothinghuge, just the skyline at what passes for a Downtown here in Virginia Beach, and some shoreline at the Chesapeake Day during the very windy weather on Saturday Morning. It looks good, and one of these days I might have a reason to use it.