Yer Captain hasn’t written a blog in recent weeks for the simple fact that the news cycle is moving too darn fast.
It seems President Trumpf’s entire administration is employing the Gish Gallop at an astonishing level.
CAPTAIN’S NOTE: You might recall the “Gish Gallop” from the 2024 presidential campaigns. Candidate Trumpf would fill his allotted debate time with so many half-truths and downright lies that his opponent couldn’t keep up, much less respond to them in any meaningful way.
Frankly, the Captain would have simply replied, “That’s all bullshit!” and moved on with answering the question.
The Gish Gallop is being utilized at virtually every level of government now, so much so that the mainstream media can’t keep up, and citizens are losing the capacity for outrage because there is so much with which to be outraged!
Take, for example, the campaign promises Trumpf made to his MAGA cult:
“A New Golden Age” is coming.
Throughout his first year-and-a-half he promised us check after check – thousands of dollars coming our way!
So where is our DOGE check after Elon and his crew cleaned up all that graft and corruption? Where is our Tariff check that would ease the burden of higher food costs due to Trumpf’s erratic application of tariffs? Where is our huge income tax refund?
Turns out, his billionaire cronies are getting richer, but the rest of us? Meh.
And if you look back in our history, that almost perfectly mirrors the last “Golden Age”, later labeled “The Gilded Age” because it wasn’t golden for most people.
Now, like then, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has only grown wider.
Significantly so!
“Root out waste, graft, and corruption”.
DOGE was tasked with sifting through the federal budget and administration to find $2 trillion in WG&C.
They found a couple billion, laid off thousands of federal workers, and stole personal data on untold millions of Americans before they gave up.
But Trumpf HAS created a more transparent government. Right out in front of everyone he has been extorting millions of dollars from American companies and universities, forcing them to fall in line with his demands or lose government support.
He’s doing it right out in the open!
And boasting about it!
And nobody is trying to rein him in.
The national debt is currently spiraling out of control. We’re at $39 trillion now, which means we are paying $2.8 billion in interest EVERY DAMN DAY!
Yet Trumpf is spending like a drunken pirate!
[No offense to actual drunken pirates!]
>>>He tore off the East Wing of the White House (without permission) and wants to build a $400 million ballroom (to hide a secret underground bunker – which is becoming less and less secret with each passing day). He claimed to have corporate donors lined up to pay for it, but now some of his acolytes in Congress are proposing a bill to pay for the vanity project with our tax dollars.
>>>He wants to spend $100 million+ for an arch in his own honor to rival France’s Arc de Triomphe.
>>>The “non-war” Israel dragged us into in Iran has cost $60 billion so far, and there appears to be no end in sight.
>>>His kids are sitting on Boards and are investing in companies doing business with the federal government, including multi-million dollar no-bid contracts.
This goes way beyond what they hounded Hunter Biden for for an entire year!
>>>Trumpf’s son-in-law, Jared, is traveling on official government business (without being vetted) and collecting billions in foreign dollars for his venture capital firm as he travels.
Needless to say, Trumpf has not “drained the swamp” as he promised.
If anything, he has added a few more gators to it.
In plain sight.
Transparency my arse!
“Release the Epstein Files.”
This was one of those empty promises he hoped he would never have to follow through on.
Because his name appears in the files more times than anyone else’s.
But MAGA grabbed a hold of this one and held on, forcing a law that called for the release of the files – a law which Trumpf had no choice but to sign.
But thanks to a carefully-placed operative in the guise of the Attorney General, the files that were released (estimated to be only half of the total) were heavily redacted, blocking names of most of the perpetrators and exposing the names of some of the victims.
However...
So far, no one in the U.S. has been charged for anything related to the Epstein files.
Except Gislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s partner in crime.
But the GOP is currently looking for an excuse to pardon and release her.
So long as she stays silent about what she knows.
And the big one: “No more wars!” “America first!”
But in the last year-and-a-half Trumpf has bombed at least seven countries and now we are engaged in a war with Iran that has not been approved by Congress.
Speaker of the House Little Mike Johnson claims it is not a war, so Congress doesn’t have to weigh in.
Mates, we’re spending a billion dollars a day bombing another country!
What would you call it?
And what are we getting for that money? Higher gas prices, higher food prices, and because Iran is blockading the Strait of Hormuz (which was open international waters before Trumpf started this fight), the world economy has been affected.
"America First!" Woo hoo! Bleh.
He went into this non-war (partnered with Israel) thinking Iran would shiver and surrender at the threatened might of the U.S. military.
But after weeks of trading missile strikes - many aimed at neighboring countries, Iran remains unbowed.
In fact, they are responding with short AI videos mocking the U.S.
CAPTAIN’S NOTE: We are shooting down Iran’s $50,000 drones with our $4.5 million Patriot interceptor missiles. Yer Captain’s guess is that Iran’s strategy is simply a variation of Muhammad Ali's "Rope-a-Dope", to absorb the abuse and bleed the U.S. dry in the process.
Then on Sunday night at the White House Correspondents Dinner, a person broke through security, shot a Secret Service agent (who was wearing a bullet proof vest), and headed toward the banquet hall where the dinner was being held.
He didn’t even get close to the hall before he was tackled by the Secret Service. But everyone inside scrambled for cover at the sound of gunshots, and the President and other Cabinet members were whisked away to safety.
A lot of questions were raised about this whole fiasco, most especially why seven of eight persons in the Line of Succession were all together at this event. Should the alleged assassin had been carrying a bomb and had been successful, Senate President pro-tempore Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) would be the next President of the United States!
Yikes!
But even before the Secret Service got Trumpf’s fat ass out of his chair and off the stage, many were claiming the whole thing was staged.
Again.
Maybe it was because the President’s response to this supposed threat on his life was to hold a press conference 30-minutes later, at which he made a pitch for his ballroom again!
Maybe it was because, before the event began, his press secretary promised, “There will be shots fired!”
Oops!
Or maybe it was because talent agent Michael Glantz continued to calmly sit and eat his salad as everyone else ran for cover!
The thing is – and the point of this post – this administration has lied to us from the very first day. We don’t know what to believe anymore.
The White House has churned out a steady stream of bullshit, the media is cowed – or co-conspirators, social media is infiltrated by foreign operatives and bots, and the real ones never take the time to get the story straight, going with whatever will achieve more clicks.
Add to that mix the growing realism of AI.
Y’know, you used to be able to identify a fake simply by counting the fingers on their hands.
Not so much today.
Here’s the thing: We don’t really know what’s going on with the war in Iran. There is supposed to be a 10-day ceasefire. Then Trumpf extended the original ceasefire to “indefinitely”.
WTF!
And Israel insists the ceasefire does not apply to them as they continue to bombard Lebanon.
CAPTAIN’S NOTE: And why are they bombing Lebanon? Israel talked us into bombing Iran! They are supposed to be working with us on that!
By the way, we haven’t heard anything new from that downed F-15 fighter pilot for whom we launched a massive recovery effort.
Or was that just a cover story to hide our sending in a SEAL Team to try to steal Iran’s nuclear stockpile? A mission Trumpf telecast weeks in advance? A mission that failed.
I mean, why do you need a squadron of fighter jets, two transport planes, and refueling planes to retrieve one downed pilot?
Are peace talks with Iran going on or not? VP Vance failed to make Iran "accept our terms". Was that because we sent along a banker and developer as the negotiating team?
Yet in recent weeks the President seems to have lost interest in the non-war that he started.
And not by coincidence, someone is cashing in on this non-war, betting on the stock market or the price of oil just minutes before the President makes a public statement (usually on a Friday afternoon) that affects the markets.
The huge amounts involved (thinks “billions of dollars”) makes it appear to be insider trading.
CAPTAIN’S NOTE: Martha Stewart, TV’s domestic goddess and bosom buddy of Snoop Dog, went to prison for five months for insider trading, having saved $46,000 by dumping some ImClone stock.
Every court ruling today is appealed, and most go all the way up to the Supreme Court, many of which are settled by the right-wing court’s “shadow docket”.
The shadow docket is supposed to be an emergency, non-argument docket, featuring rapid, often unsigned rulings on time-sensitive matters without full briefings. With this Court it has been expanded to include high-stakes policy decisions, raising concerns about transparency, accountability, and the bypassing of traditional legal procedures.
Despite daily headlines, we don’t really know what’s going on with the White House Ballroom project.
Today, we don’t really know what’s going on with ICE detentions and deportations.
We don’t really know what going on with Trumpf’s tariffs.
We don’t really know if someone tried to shoot the President last night.
CAPTAIN’S NOTE: Although with a job approval rating hovering around 30%, it’s altogether possible.
Are you exhausted yet?
All of this is flying at us at an alarming rate!
By the time the Captain grabs hold of one issue, does due diligence to research and verify (yes I do), then writes a compelling blog, a dozen other issues have sprung up and wilted, and that issue that at one moment was so outrageous is no longer discussed or even considered relevant.
Social media is a better forum for immediate responses, but not necessarily for well-thought-out responses.
Yer Captain often utilizes Facebook, but I try to not overdo it.
I have FB friends who post 15-20 political posts every damn day!
That gets old pretty quick.
So please understand, dear mates, yer Captain has a real job. Unlike some others I follow, I don’t get paid for this and I don’t have all day to sit and sift through the crap!
I will give you my best.
When I can.
In the meantime, Hold Fast!
