Really great day yesterday. Three big events packed into one little day:

1. Got my 2024 tax information organized, summarized and sent to the accountant. That involves hours of wading through credit card and Amazon statements, attaching each expense to the correct business. Not fun, but done. Now it’s up to the accountant, assuming we even bother filing after Musk finishes hollowing out the IRS. 🙁
2. Finally, finally, resurrected the original Big Stereo I bought back in 2010-ish. It’s been sitting dormant in my office after being replaced by Big Stereo v2. I finally got the time and inclination to clean it up, set it up, hook it up, and (hopefully) listen to it. It’s now up and running, actually a bit of a surprise. I figured something would have aged out and keep me from firing it up. The system is almost as basic as the one in KY – it’s my original Jolida 302B tube integrated amp (that’s the part I wasn’t sure would work; tubes are finicky), the Vandersteen 2ce Signature speakers, and a new device, a Bluetooth auxiliary DAC that lets me stream music to the Jolida from my phone. It works and sounds great. It’s like having an old friend back in the house. I’ve set it up in the largest guest bedroom, and it fits in nicely there.
3. Got to watch most of the UK v OK game, a game with a wild last-second finish – a happy one. The Cats won a game that came down to the last second, in a hostile arena. It’s a game we would not have won in recent years. But Otega Oweh played a game for the ages, and we escaped with a W.

All in all, a big day. Celebrated with some Basil Hayden Malted Rye.

For all you MAGA-types, THIS is why we need the programs of USAID. And the World Health Organization. And the Centers for Disease Control. From the article:

An unidentified illness has killed scores of people and infected hundreds in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Health Organization has reported, with preliminary investigations tracing the outbreak to three children who in January ate a bat and died.

Fifty-three people in the country’s northwest had died from the disease, out of 431 reported cases as of Feb. 15, and “with nearly half of the deaths occurring within 48 hours of symptom onset” in one of two identified clusters, according to a weekly bulletinpublished by the W.H.O.’s Africa office.

“The outbreak, which has seen cases rise rapidly within days, poses a significant public health threat,” the report said, and “the exact cause remains unknown.”

Victims’ symptoms have included fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and body aches, among others. The children who perished from the illness also had bled from the nose and vomited blood.

A new, unknown hemorragic fever because three kids ate a bat. Maybe they ate a bat because they were starving. Or because they didn’t know any better, or because tradition. Either way, nutrition and education, two pillars of USAID’s work, could have prevented this.

One of these days a new disease is going to come roaring out of the jungle and take a big chunk of humanity. And we won’t have the guardrails of WHO and CDC to protect us.

I can hear the pushback now, “…USAID was a rampant with fraud and useless programs…”, or something like that. But cut out the cancer; don’t kill the patient. Sure, I disagree with some of USAID’s programs and spending. We don’t need to spend money on exporting culture war behaviors (my culture war list includes religion, race, gender, sexual preference – just stay the hell away from those issues). But education, nutrition, clean water, medicine…those are universal needs. And the more healthy and educated people we have in the world, the better.

I’m not sure why, but I’ve become less stressed about King Trump’s administrative actions. Part of it is recovering from yet another cold – things are always worse when you’re sick. Also, I’ve just made some proactive moves to protect our assets – I just moved 10% of our stock/bonds investments into real estate, which I think will be more protected from the ongoing chaos. Plus, I’m moving the majority of our remaining equity investments into energy and utilities, as I think those will be the absolute last sectors to fall if things go completely to hell. Food, entertainment, insurance, travel, tech, housing, etc are all financial sectors liable to crash on the course we’re on. But people will fight for their electricity, their water, their heat and AC, to the bitter end. When those fall we’re officially in apocalypse territory.

The first indicator will be next month’s employment report. If it’s as bad as I expect, we’re on the slippery slope. Inflation will rise, interest rates will rise. The value of the dollar will fall. I hope I’m wrong, but pretty sure I’m not. Sure enough to revamp my retirement funds appropriately. Those are NOT casual decisions, because there’s not enough time left in my personal runway to recover from a bad mistake.

This may be a great example of the power of taking action. Rather than feeling helpless, doing *something* provides a confidence boost. And something doesn’t have to be financial. You can get involved in a local political group, a book club. You can run for office. You can start a neighborhood get-together. Donate to your favorite nonprofit, PBS for example. I may end up doing all of those things, because any/all of those are better than the end game of taking up weapons and fighting for democracy as a last ditch effort. At my advanced age, I have no illusions about my chances in a world where we’re in physical combat (see the recent movie, Civil War, which is now quite within possibility).

I *may* actually buy some guns. My brother Don would be proud of me if I do, but I think that’s a tiny, tiny hedge against the risk of armed conflict with…looters? MAGA-types? It’s a worst case scenario “solution”. Gotta think about this one.

Bottom line, do something. Don’t just sit around and fret.

This is a test post using Dave Winer's new blog editing tool, Wordland. It's pretty simplistic so far – looks like it supports text and images.

Update. I'm having trouble seeing how to add a URL. Is it this? Yes, as it turns out, the way to create a hyperlink is to highlight the text and a new menu pops up. Not obvious, but easy to use once you know.

Going to see The Rush Tribute Project today, after the UK game. Big day. For a tribute band, they’re really good and I have superb seats. Here’s a sample, The Spirit of Radio. Classic.

However, in preparing for that show, I’ve listened to / watched this next video a few times. This is the best 11 minutes in rock and roll history, as far as I’m concerned.

The Governor of Maine, Janet Mills, is my new hero. Full stop.

Today, Maine governor Janet Mills took the fight against Trump’s overreach directly to him. At a meeting of the nation’s governors, in a rambling speech in which he was wandering through his false campaign stories about transgender athletes, Trump turned to his notes and suddenly appeared to remember his executive order banning transgender student athletes from playing on girls sports teams.

The body that governs sports in Maine, the Maine Principals’ Association, ruled that it would continue to allow transgender students to compete despite Trump’s executive order because the Maine state Human Rights Law prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender identity.

Trump asked if the governor of Maine was in the room.

“Yeah, I’m here,” replied Governor Mills.

“Are you not going to comply with it?” Trump asked.

“I’m complying with state and federal laws,” she said.

“We are the federal law,” Trump said. “You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t….”

“We’re going to follow the law,” she said.

“You’d better comply because otherwise you’re not going to get any federal funding,” he said.

Mills answered: “We’ll see you in court.”

As Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times put it: “Something happened at the White House Friday afternoon that almost never happens these days. Somebody defied President Trump. Right to his face.”

Hours later, the Trump administration launched an investigation into Maine’s Department of Education, specifically its policy on transgender athletes. Maine attorney general Aaron Frey said that any attempt to cut federal funding for the states over the issue “would be illegal and in direct violation of federal court orders…. Fortunately,” he said in a statement, “the rule of law still applies in this country, and I will do everything in my power to defend Maine’s laws and block efforts by the president to bully and threaten us.”

“[W]hat is at stake here [is] the rule of law in our country,” Mills said in a statement. “No President…can withhold Federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will. It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws.”

“Maine may be one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won’t be the last. Today, the President of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: who and what will he target next, and what will he do? Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end? In America, the President is neither a King nor a dictator, as much as this one tries to act like it—and it is the rule of law that prevents him from being so.”

“[D]o not be misled: this is not just about who can compete on the athletic field, this is about whether a President can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot.”

Quote from today’s Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson.

Judges, congresscritters, governors and mayors, this is your role model. Do this and we’ll be mostly fine.

I saw a phrase today that completely summarizes the current state of America: “a paradise of fools.”

It’s been a paradise because we’ve enjoyed 75 years of post-WW2 growth, stability, and prosperity. It’s been the best place in the world to live and prosper, with few exceptions. Compared to many countries, America has been a paradise.

But now that’s ending because we are fools. Half of the country has been brainwashed to allow a malignant narcissist to gain the top position in America and begin tearing it all down to serve his desire for money and power. The very machinery of government, flawed as it is, is being destroyed quickly. It may never recover. And we fools just sit and watch it happen.

So after that paradise, we fools will be left with…what? First we’ll have to live through a period of severe economic disruption – I can see no other outcome of a torn apart federal government. It’ll make the pandemic disruption look small. On our current trajectory, it’ll make the Great Depression look pretty good.

Then we’re likely to have to live through a war, as war is the go-to solution the tribe in power uses to pump the economy and distract the masses. Sadly, this time we are likely to be on the wrong side of a war.

Maybe this is just a natural cycle. Maybe people en masse are too stupid to continuously improve on a good thing. Sociopaths, nihilists, religious nuts, terrorists, etc. eventually figure out how to use the resources and freedoms of a paradise-system against itself. That’s what is happening right now. The berserkers have used our system against itself and are gleefully knocking down its foundations. All that will be left when they are finished is ruins.

It’s all very sad. For me personally, I’m sad that my final 20-ish years on Earth may be spent trying to deal with the outcomes. Life may get very tough, very quickly. I don’t think there’s a happy ending to this story.

All we fools can do is make every day count for something. Fight back if you can. Enjoy paradise while we have it. The barbarians are not at the gate, they’re inside the castle tearing it down.

Spent some time this morning rethinking my position on crypto and specifically, bitcoin. This well-written primer by the NYTimes was helpful.

I’ve long held that bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme. First “investors” win big at the expense of later investors, and the last guys in lose it all. That’s still a possible final outcome for all the cryptocurrencies. But bitcoin has been around for quite a while – since 2009-ish – and over that time the value of a single coin has grown from $0 to about $97K. ALL that growth is via speculation – the coin has nothing to back it up in reality. Coin purchasers hope that demand continues to outpace supply and that their eventual sell price will exceed their buy price. With a ton of volatility along the way, so far that has been the case.

I feel bad that I strongly advised a few friends not to invest in bitcoin in 2017. I told them that they had to be ready to lose it all, as BTC (bitcoin) (a) is 100% speculative with nothing backing its value, and (b) is extremely volatile, swinging wildly up and down with no apparent cause. While I stand by that advice, if my friends or I had invested $1000 in BTC in 2017, that would now be worth about $25K – a seriously great ROI. Here’s a 10-year graph of the coin’s market value.

Illustrating the crazy exponential growth of BTC, if that same $1000 had purchased BTC in 2009 (when it all began), it would now be worth about $100 billion! Quite a few folks bought (or created, though that’s a whole other essay) BTC in the 2009-2015 era, and have done quite well as a result – assuming they cashed out at the right times. My KY Turo partner has a BTC mining (creating) operation and I think he’s made out well. But it involved him buying into a hydro-power generation plant to drive the BTC mining computers. Not a gig for everyone.

So is it a good investment right now? The answer is…maybe. We’ll never see the exponential returns that the first investors saw, where a dollar multiplies into millions. But could we see BTC at $200K. Or at $1M? Yes, potentially. So the original advice remains – yes, you could make some real money via BTC, doubling or even 10x-ing your investment. If you’re willing to leave it alone until you reach a cash-out level that you like, and assuming nothing crashes between now and then. There’s minimal regulation, no protections other than the cryptological blockchain. But there is the “safety” of the now-millions of other BTC investors making the market. That’s what’s holding BTC steady right now – millions of investors/believers.

Another way to make money on BTC is probably the most technically sophisticated – high frequency trading of the coin’s puts and takes, making money on its volatility. IF you can predict those ups and downs over short periods of time, you can make a lot of money. But that’s well beyond the capability of most investors, including me.

There was a low-risk path to making significant money from BTC, and that was becoming a miner early. All you needed was computer expertise, and I had that. I regret not getting involved in early BTC mining systems – that would have been fun. But other than that, it’s just too speculative for me. I like dividend-returning stocks, real estate, fixed-rate return bonds, etc. I *might* spend a few thousand on BTC this year just to experiment, but I’ll do so knowing that I may lose the money. It’s a lot like going to Vegas and betting all your cash on black.

Still in a rut, but for a good reason. Went to Cabo after two weeks of a nasty cold, but was fine by the time we left Socal. Felt healthy. Good week in Cabo, then picked up yet another cold on the way back, or maybe on the final day there. I’ve been flat on my back with the same damn symptoms – congestion in sinus and ears, fatigue, and general malaise – since Sunday. It’s starting to mess with my head. Don’t feel like writing, reading is difficult, and anything involving walking around is a bridge too far. I have the attention span of a squirrel at the moment.

Not sure why I’m suddenly a virus magnet. By most measures I’m a lot healthier this year than in previous years. But every airline trip sends me into the cold/virus/flu zone. I’ve got lots of things I need to do, but no energy to do them. Frustrating.

The Cats play Vandy today, woefully shorthanded due to injury. I can sympathize. A win would go a long way toward improving my outlook.

It’s the beginning of the end for a great company. Private equity has their hooks into Southwest. I just hope they hang on long enough to remain my preferred shuttle between KY and CA homes.

Looking back over the last several posts, I realize I’m writing the same story over and over. The political situation in the US is bad, real bad. But saying that six different ways isn’t helpful. So I’ll find something else to write about.

And no more whales for a while.

We made the crossing back into the US from Mexico yesterday, and I’m starting to think we should have stayed. Today’s headlines are horrific. For example:

Musk’s DOGE seeks access to personal taxpayer data, raising alarm at IRS 

Trump begins firings of FAA air traffic control staff just weeks after fatal DC plane crash 

CDC ‘disease detectors’ among hundreds fired as Trump administration ramps up agency cuts  

Trump administration asks Supreme Court to greenlight whistleblower office firing

Jan. 6 Rioters Argue Pardons Apply to Charges Including Murder Plot, Child Porn 

Trump DOJ Assigns Sensitive Ethics Powers to Political Aides

Crypto Gamblers, Tech Oligarchs, Wall Street Opportunists. What Could Go Wrong?

Transportation Department workers with ‘exceptional’ reviews told they’re fired for ‘performance’ issues

And there’s plenty more where those came from. Everywhere you look it’s chaos in the federal government. Radical conservatives are finally, finally achieving their goal of making government small enough to drown in a bathtub.

It’s hard to write fiction right now, when the reality of what’s happening in the world is so much worse. I knew what was probably coming, and the reality is…worse. Fascists in charge, US reputation going to shit, the new administration saying “fuck you, libtard” to current law. A rogue billionaire looting the US Treasury and tearing down all checks and balances. It’s a lot. I suppose it could be worse – a giant asteroid could hit mid-America, trigger the Yellowstone supervolcano and kill most of us, ushering in a post-apocalyptic world and an ice age. That *might* be worse. Reading the headlines lately, I find myself rooting for the asteroid. Maybe a medium sized one.

Our democracy shitshow may be why the whales of Cabo are so intent on putting on a show for us. They feel sorry for us. We’re seeing huge breaches by humpbacks, lots of shore rolling and spyhopping by grey whales, the occasional wave of a fin or tail. Nonstop whale TV. I’ll definitely miss it starting tomorrow, when we return to Socal. At least it won’t be bone dry there.

Lots of pictures today, but here’s one of our curious whales, spyhopping. Been visiting here for 20 years, and this year is the first time we’ve seen it.

First night in Cabo, and I spent it with the door open, listening to whales breathing right offshore. The sound has a wonderful rhythm – first you hear the wave crashing, then silence as the water flows back. During that silence you can hear whales blow, all night long. It was really peaceful.

The whales are showing new behaviors this year. Cruising right up against the shore, for one. Closer than we’ve ever seen them. Another new behavior is sticking their heads up out of the water, full vertical, and taking a look around. It’s as if they’ve discovered people and are curious. Turns out there’s a word for that, courtesy of brother Mike. It’s called spyhopping.

I brought the Mongo Lens out yesterday evening. Haven’t processed the pictures yet, though here’s an iPhone pic of this morning’s true tequila sunrise. Ice cold Herradura, as a matter of fact.

Cruelty and stupidity on display – 30 tons of food rotting in TX because Convict Donnie and MAGA hate helping non-white people.

I’m not a religious person, but there *is* something biblical about all this. It feels like pure evil has made its way to the top of our government and is happily spreading pain and suffering in every direction. Not sure what we did to deserve this, though the elections show that there’s a lot of latent hate in the hearts of half of America. We’re just as tribal as those in the Middle East – we hate and strike out at anyone not in our tribe.

That may be humankind’s core defect – tribalism. It’s deeply, deeply ingrained in us. It’s why it’s so easy to divide us. Somewhere in all this is a key to putting the country back together again. We need a common identity. We had one in WW2 – every person could join the tribe of anti-Nazi’s and anti-Pearl Harbor bombers. A common enemy is a powerful uniting force. But is that the only way to generate a national identity for the US?

A pandemic didn’t do it. We could have all rallied against our common enemy, the virus, but wedges were driven around issues of vaccination, virus origin, countermeasures (masks, drugs, and lockdowns), so all the pandemic did was create new weird micro-tribes. While we were in isolation, an unhelpful factor.

Musk’s attack on our government’s very structure isn’t doing it, because a significant faction of MAGA are actually nihilists – they just want to tear it all down. Their hate and fear has made them unhinged, unable to see that government structure, while imperfect, is a helluva lot better than rule by force, middle ages style.

An alien (I mean extraterrestrial) invasion *might* do it, but the stakes are pretty high for that scenario. A significantly advanced space-faring foe might be impossible to defeat. The real thing almost certainly won’t be an Independence Day remake. We’re more likely to be enslaved or eradicated. The best we could hope for is a benevolent alien dictator, as in “…OK children, time to stop squabbling. We’re taking all your weapons and you’re going to behave. Those of you who don’t, we’ll just store in suspended animation for a century or two. By the way, we like the whales a lot, and they’ve told us horrific things about how you’ve treated them. So it’ll be a while before we allow you any real freedom.”

Given our history and proclivities, it’s more likely that we’ll get the chance to rally around some common enemy in WW3. Unfortunately, given the direction we’re heading at the moment, America might be cast in the role Germany played in WW2. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants?

Gotta give this one some more thought. What can we do to counteract the toxic effects of tribalism?

I’m attending a two-day online writers’ conference Friday and Saturday. I probably should just write, but it feels good to learn something. Even a little.

The first presenter, an agent, has a bad case of vocal fry; very distracting. It’s a weird almost-always-female habit that ends words and sentences in rising tones and a weird gargling growl. Here’s a Youtube explanation of it. At least this presenter had some good content – I learned a couple of things.

The second presenter/teacher has a better voice, but she is not aware that her slides are not advancing as she talks. Then after that was fixed 15 minutes into the session, she doesn’t understand that she needs to put her display in presentation mode – full screen slides. You can’t read the small print, and we can all see her entire desktop. Another irritating presentation foible, this time just ineptness. Strike two.

Switching hobbies, I received a rental lens for the Cabo trip – A Sigma 60-600 superzoom. I rented it for about 10% of the purchase price, because I’m not sure how often I’ll use something like this. The lens is a beast – the logistics of traveling with it won’t be simple. About 18 inches long (unextended), and it weighs six pounds! It makes my camera look weirdly small – the tail is definitely wagging the dog with this combo. I hope to get some great whale breach shots with it, given the 10x optical magnification. We’ll see.

One more quick comment on the coup taking place in DC. One thing that strikes me is the consistent cruelty of the actions. Thousands of civil servants, in the US and abroad, told that their job is over immediately, with no time to plan for what is always a difficult, disruptive event. No time to change the kids’ school, no time to do anything but frantically look for another income-producing job. Donnie and Musk say “Yeah, that’s tough, but so what? F you.” Cruel.

Then there’s Convict Donnie himself ordering the immediate eviction of the Coast Guard’s previous leader with three hours’ notice! That’s petty, vindictive, and cruel.

Shutting down USAID completely, rather than focusing on culture war funding but preserving true aid to those who are hungry, diseased, and homeless, is cruel. Donnie and Musk take the usual conservative position – it’s not our job to help those “other people”.

Sending immigrants, illegal or otherwise, to Guantanamo Bay is just cruelty theater. I’m all for cleaning up the immigrant mess, but we don’t have to be assholes about it.

The mass release of the J6 prisoners, done by a lazy and thoughtless Commander in Chief, was cruel. All the officers who defended the Capital were disrespected, and some folks are now in danger.

There are other examples. But cruelty is a virtue signal among the far right, and Donnie understands that. By stepping on someone else’s neck, he signals that he’s powerful and should be feared.

Update: Saw this quote in a website comment today, and I loved it. It’s not exactly on the theme of cruelty, but it’s sooooo true:

“There’s nothing a conservative hates more than conservation.”

I’m gravely concerned about the things happening in DC lately, and wondering what to do about it. Helplessness is a terrible feeling. My first step in fighting that helplessness is to document, as clearly and simply as I can, what I think is the right path for America. That sounds like a grandiose task, but it’s actually pretty simple if you stick to the big picture. Yes, the devil is always in the details, but so long as the details don’t conflict with big picture principles, it all works.

It’s not about being a Democrat or Republican – political parties have become just another superb way to divide us, and our current attackers understand that. This document tries to be clear about what I believe is right in American democracy, and what we should strive for in whatever actions we may take as individuals. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

***************************************

A Platform For America

2/4/2025

This document is written as a hopeful blueprint for voters in a troubled 2025. The hope is that Americans will see the wisdom in going back to basic principles and ignoring the divisive noise of political parties, culture wars, and social media. The American system of law is under attack, and only by organizing and acting with fair, coherent, and consistent principles in mind will we keep America a strong democracy.

This is NOT an attempt to rewrite the Constitution, though it does lay out some sorely-needed adjustments to America law.

Fundamental Concepts

1. A Nation is simply the system of laws that its Citizens agree to live by. Agreement is by vote.

• A Citizen is a human being who is granted the right to vote. That grant, that right, is defined in the law.

• All humans are not Citizens, but all Citizens are adult humans. Children, machines, corporations, other legal entities, plants and animals…none of these may be Citizens. Each of these may be provided protections or controls under the law, but they may not vote to create the law.

• All American Citizens are equal under the law. Completely, with no exceptions. It follows that no Citizens are above the law. Every American Citizen, and every human being within its geographic boundaries, are subject to the constraints of the law.

• America shall create no law that favors or disadvantages any race, gender, sexual preference, or religion. American law shall be agnostic as to those categories.

Important Principles for America

The American system of laws has become distorted and dysfunctional as the world, the nation, our society, and technology have evolved. To regain the vision of an America that works for everyone, these principles must become encoded in American law.

1. Elected and appointed government leadership in all three branches of government must be subject to term limits. Supreme Court Justices, Federal Judges, Congressional Representatives, Senators, all Federal office appointees and the President must be term limited.

• Limits must be placed on money donated to support candidacy for government offices and money donated to support any proposed law. We have seen the effects of infinite money on the democratic system, and it is destructive.

• All elections for public office must be decided by a majority of the popular vote, where the vote is constrained to the geographic scope of the office. For Governor of a state, only Citizens of that state may vote. For Sheriff of a County, only Citizens of that County may vote. And for President of America, all American citizens will have an equal vote.

• Congress has become dysfunctional and ineffective. Term limits and candidacy donation limits will address much of that dysfunction, but the composition of the US Senate no longer equitably represents American voters. For example, the Senatorial votes of North Dakota are fifty times more powerful than the Senatorial votes of California. To address this inequity, each state must be allotted at least two Senators. States with more than three million Citizens will be allotted a Senatorial seat for every three million Citizens residing in that state. That would result in a body of approximately 134 Senators representing the interests of Citizens across the American states, a practical number. This change will also slightly change the balance of powers allotted to Congressional Representatives and Senators.

• All American Citizens have the same citizenship rights. Those rights include all the rights defined in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In addition, American law must explicitly include the right of self-determination, so long as the decisions a Citizen makes about themself do not infringe on the rights of another Citizen or conflict with the law.

***************************************

I’d like to find a group of people who are willing to work for this ideal. It’s certainly not either political party – they’re too invested in stupid culture wars and sustaining their own power and money flow. But as I decide what groups to spend time with, I’ll bring this document along as candidate guidance. It certainly embodies what I think needs to happen.

The items in this document deal effectively with some of the major problems in our democracy. Election influence with infinite money, the incredibly divisive abortion issue, the issue of doddering old fools “representing us” forever, the issue of a President becoming a dictator/king, the issue of minority rule, the steady erosion of individual civil rights – all these are dealt with effectively if we adopt this platform as law.

I’ve opened up comments for this post, so if any reader has a thought, feel free to share. It’s not gonna change anything tomorrow, but it’s a start on a different path.

More people are realizing that a coup is taking place and writing about it. That’s progress, but what are we going to do about it? Every day the attackers get more entrenched and stronger.

If Congress doesn’t call an emergency session and put the brakes on things soon, we’ll have the entire authoritarian apparatus installed. Game over.

Meanwhile, here’s another fine individual given a leadership role in the Donny Convict crime organization – the #2 spot in the State Dept goes to Darren J. Beattie. He seems nice.

No joy in Mudville today. Arkansas showed up to play and beat UK. No excuses, they played harder than us. Our ex-players had something to prove and it showed.

That sadness aside, what occupies my mind this morning is an existential question. What can an ordinary US citizen do as the new administration tears down the government, creating chaos? It’s happening right before our eyes. Heather Cox Richardson tells the story better than I can, and it’s frightening. Garret Graff tells the story of how Musk is pulling off a literal coup right before our eyes in his newsletter Doomsday Scenario. It’s hard to understand how/why people aren’t rising up to protest this.

Portions of the conservative party have long said they’d like to tear down the federal government and remake as a smaller, whiter, less powerful body. They’ve begun that process in earnest this past week. I have no idea what the next year(s) is going to look like if they are allowed to continue. It’s not crazy to think that we might slide into an apocalyptic period, with wars (civil and otherwise), lawlessness, financial collapse, hunger, disease, etc. Once you remove the checks and balances of the federeal government, we’re at the mercy of local lawmakers and multinational corporations. (There’s a book idea in there somewhere). I agree with the anarchists on one thing – there’s LOTS that should be changed about the US government. But the way we get there is important, and wholesale, random-ish. petty culture-war destruction is NOT the right way.

So back to the question – what is an ordinary citizen to do? We elected the monster, and now it’s coming for us.

I’d like to write something about the worse than expected beginning of the Trump regime. But there’s so much happening, so fast – 90% of it very bad – that I don’t know where to start.

There’s the pitiful, spiteful culture war stuff. MAGA will be so proud:

• For Federal organizations, removing all minority recognition events, including National African American/Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Pride Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month, National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and National American Indian Heritage Month
• Requiring all Federal employees to remove their pronouns from their email signatures
• Deleting data about gender, contraception, abortion, HIV statistics from Federal websites
• Removing all references to DEI from Federal websites
• Firing any Federal employees who administer DEI programs
• Renaming things like Denali and the Gulf of Mexico

It’s a lot, but none of that is going to matter much because more substantive, more damaging fuckery is happening in parallel:

• Firing hundreds of FBI agents who participated in the Trump investigations (just doing their jobs)
• Firing thousands of civil servants for any number of actions that the Trump team finds objectionable
• Firing the prosecutors who handled the Jan 6 cases – again, they were just doing their jobs, following the law
• Firing the Inspectors General of many organizations – the watchdogs for bribery, corruption, and crime
• Giving Musk and his minions keys to the financial kingdom – access to and control of Federal payment systems
• Freezing and then unfreezing Federal spending on programs already committed by Congress
• Rolling back or removing hundreds of environmental and worker safety regulations
• Placing idiotic tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and other nations, for no good reason that I can ascertain
• Firing up Guantanamo Bay as a new prison for illegal immigrants
• Giving nonsense orders to CA water authorities to release water from reservoirs for no good reason, so Trump can claim he “opened the faucet” (this is criminally insane – I need a drink just thinking about it)

Trump 2.0 is much, much worse than the first time. He came in with a plan (Project 2025), and the loyalists ready and willing to do anything he orders. This isn’t “an orderly transition of power”. It’s pretty much the definition of a coup.

I’m worried on multiple fronts. I think the social and economic disruption that will follow all this will destabilize the US economy, and the dollar’s value will drop. Stock, bond and mortgage markets will roil. And we won’t have the experienced people in place to pull things back together as they start to unravel.

It’s hard to imagine that this is what the Trump team actually wants. More likely, the various factions (the fiscal hawks, the billionaire bros, the culture warriors, the white Xtian nationalists) are simply focused on getting their narrow goals served and no one is interested in the big picture.

You can make a strong argument that this is the beginning of the end – the America we grew up with won’t survive. I hope that’s not the case, but right now we’re in a plane headed down with no pilot available to pull it out of a fatal crash. I’m not sure our seat belts will help.

Update – this just happened. Trump wants to decide what we teach students in every state. Horrific.