Howdy folks, “Honest Donny” here, and we’re really excited about the new car dealership I just opened at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C.
It’s easy to find – just look for the big white house! If that doesn’t work, maybe we’ll add one of those floppy people with no backbone. No, not the Republican members of Congress – although I understand your confusion. I mean one of these:
This month, we’ve got a great deal on some electric cars and tanks… er, I mean trucks.
These babies will really protect you when the rioting starts! (The bad kind, not the tourists visits the J6 folks did.)
Now I know in the past I’ve said some disparaging things about electric cars. Like:
“Electric cars are good if you have a towing company.”
And I said electric car makers “are looking to destroy our once great USA. MAY THEY ROT IN HELL.” And that President Joe Biden sold autoworkers “down the river with his ridiculous all Electric Car Hoax.” And promoting electric vehicles “was the idea of the Radical Left Fascists, Marxists, & Communists.”
But that was before I met this fascist. I want you to meet my new manager, Elon.
He’s a great American… well, he’s South African, but potato/po-tah-toe, right? And he’s making these Teslas – it’s a company he founded! (Oh, sorry, actually, he didn’t start the company, he just invested in it, then wrested control from the founders and tried to claim credit for starting it. Hmm, that’s a situation that could never happen with our government.)
Let me tell you more about these beauties… they’re red, of course, to match my tie, and my hat. And Elon took inspiration from the German automakers to design them. You know, he takes a lot of inspiration from Germany… you might even say he spends most of his time doing a German salute.
And if you put these automobiles into self-driving mode, they’ll take control of the wheel and do all the driving, so you can focus on putting on your orange tanner and combing your hair into a nice cotton candy shape that covers your bald spots.
And the tires, they’re fully inflated… because just like with the economy, inflation is good!
I can put you into one of these babies for just $35,000… or five dozen eggs. You’d better lock down this deal before you get locked up for saying anything bad about me.
We also take trade-ins. Just push, pull, or drag Chuck Schumer down here and we’ll give you a real sweetheart deal, without any sort of negotiations at all, just like Chuckie did for me.
And if you buy now, I’ll throw in a free* pair of gold sneakers. (*you’ll just need to pay the fealty fee of $400… it’s standard for deals like this).
Come on down to Honest Donny’s car lot at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. You can take public transportation… wait, I probably defunded that because it’s “woke.” Maybe take a Cybertruck Uber. Unless it’s snowing.
I’ve been doing some digital spring cleaning, and I encourage you to do the same.
WaPo may be sorry to see me go, but I call b.s. on the “absolutely nothing has changed…”
There are the two recent developments that made me unsubscribe.
First was the news from Jan. 4th:
And then the final blow (because it blows) came this week:
I agree with Amanda Katz, a former member of the opinion team at the Washington Post who stepped down from her role at the end of 2024. She called the change:
“an absolute abandonment of the principles of accountability of the powerful, justice, democracy, human rights, and accurate information that previously animated the section in favor of a white male billionaire’s self-interested agenda”
My $40 a year won’t put a dent in Bozos wallet. But I’m not gonna stand idly by while the free press gets gutted by a guy who sells trinkets and baubles (mostly from China).
And here’s a bit more spring cleaning you can do, courtesy of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
Instructions are here. (I should’ve spelled out the URL, as it’s “JohnOliverWantsYourRatErotica.”)
I’m rarely on Facebook, but every little bit helps!
Finally, there’s the non-elected, non-citizen who is running our country. (Oops, sorry for the typo, I meant “ruining” not “running.”)
Getting rid of the Twit is a bit more difficult (so much for “efficiency”) as you’ll have to request YOUR data, then wait for an email with a download link. But instructions are here.
It’s chump change to the oligarchs. But dollars are the only noise they hear. And if we all do it, maybe democracy still has a chance.
[L to R: Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, and the Walt Disney Company/ABC News.]
Here’s Dave Chappelle’s plea at the end of his Saturday Night Live monologue:
A nice sentiment, but likely to fall on deaf ears. And Dave needs to save some “good luck” wishes for the American people who will be harmed by t-Rump’s policies, decrees, and whims.
OK, I’ve had my say. You know where I stand. As best as I can over the next four years, I’m going to try to not give any more oxygen to the dumpster fire. Lil’ Donny the broken boy needs a steady stream of attention, and I don’t want to contribute. I’d rather focus my attention on things that I can change.
Notice the dateline: January 5th. Two months after the election, when reporting like this two months before the election might’ve made a difference. And almost four years to the date of the insurrection, the biggest challenge yet to our democracy.
Grandpa Joe inherited a total cluster, and managed to right the ship.
Now the most aggrieved man-child in history takes the reins, full of bluster and b.s., hellbent on revenge, caring for no one other than himself, looking to turn the U.S. government into shills, lackeys and toadies, and making bullying, corruption and extortion great again.
January 6th, 2021 WAS the biggest challenge yet to our democracy. Until today at noon.
“Donald Trump and the cynics want us to believe that he is all-powerful, and that if you fight back you will lose. he wants you to believe that if you fight back you may face danger. and he wants you to believe that it won’t matter, because he is in control of everything — and it is not true. it is time for us to build not a resistance but an opposition — something that is durable, something that will last for four years, and beyond. and we need to build that opposition now, and we need to all gird ourselves for the long run.”
Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question to Ben Franklin at the end of the Constitutional Convention in September of 1787: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
Ben Franklin: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
It’s our country. It’s up to us to keep it. It’s not gonna happen in Washington, but it can happen at home.
“Nobody can embargo sunlight. No cartel controls the sun. Its energy will not run out. It will not pollute the air. It will not poison our waters. It’s free from stench and smog. The sun’s power needs only to be collected, stored, and used.”
— President Jimmy Carter, May 3, 1978
L.A. is burning up.
Southern California has been experiencing a protracted dry spell. the rainy season, which generally starts in November, has yet to arrive — since May, just 0.16 inches of rain has fallen in Downtown Los Angeles. Additionally, LA experienced an unusually hot summer.
Droughts, hurricanes, and floods are more extreme.
“Drill, baby, drill” will only make it worse.
We squandered 46 years… we may not have another 46 to spare.
The funeral events for former President Jimmy Carter — who died Dec. 29th at the age of 100 — start today.
The “celebration of life” should continue for generations.
Because while his one-term presidency is largely regarded as ineffective, those four years don’t define him.
What should resonate is the way he lived his other 96 years, especially the 44 that followed his Presidential term. He helped cure diseases, helped make elections work, got on roofs and hammered and nailed, lived a 77-year marriage with Rosalynn that ended with her death in 2023 and taught a Sunday school class in Plains, Ga.
Three and a half million Africans were affected, hospitalized or killed by the Guinea worm in 1987. By 2023 there were 15 cases, total. Carter called it the most rewarding accomplishment of his life, and so was his work to minimize river blindness. He always found affairs of the soil more rewarding than pavement.
from the same post as above
Now let’s talk about those roofs, hammers, and nails.
The Carters demonstrated their commitment to social justice and basic human rights over and over again during their time in the White House. Their resolve only persisted since moving on, most notably through the Carter Center in Atlanta. They also worked on numerous Habitat builds both in the United States and around the world alongside passionate volunteers just like you.
Here is what Carter predicted at the dedication ceremony: “In the year 2000 this solar water heater behind me, which is being dedicated today, will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy…. A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”
Would that we had listened to Jimmy. We’d be a lot better off today.
The Carter administration set a goal of deriving 20 percent of U.S. energy needs from such renewable sources by the turn of the century…
By 1986, the Reagan administration had gutted the research and development budgets for renewable energy at the then-fledgling U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) and eliminated tax breaks for the deployment of wind turbines and solar technologies—recommitting the nation to reliance on cheap but polluting fossil fuels, often from foreign suppliers.
Yep, Ronald Reagan, the guy who trounced Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election. He’s the former President who has a D.C. airport named after him, as well as countless schools, highways and streets.
Reagan’s policies also widened the racial wealth gap.
The history is clear: so-long as the basic architecture of Reagan’s economic vision — lower taxes on the wealthy, less regulation, less unionization — remains in place, closing the racial wealth gap will be hard.
BTW, ol’ Ronnie also had the solar panels taken down in 1986, even though they were working fine.
Curing disease. Providing a pathway to homeownership. Being an advocate for fair elections across the globe. Encouraging the use of renewable energy. Being a devoted husband for 77 years. Teaching Sunday school.
Or, helping the rich get richer at the expense of a social safety net.
Reagan’s tax changes had significant effects, increasing economic inequality across all metrics. These effects have continued to the present day, because Reagan’s tax changes have not come close to being counteracted.
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