Why do they need more money? The rich folks worship the almighty dollar, and never have enough to suit them. The rest of us? We have to be happy with what we have: And most of us are.
The suits with the scissors are at it again, snip snip at the very seams of the republic, talking savings while gutting the heart and soul of our country like it’s on a mortician’s slab. Budget cuts, they call it. Efficiency. Trimming the fat. But I see bone. I see marrow. We’ll see the children coughing in schools that don’t have nurses, the mother crying in a hospital waiting room because Medicaid doesn’t stretch far enough to cover the whole broken body of her boy.
And they talk long-term like they’re prophets, like they’ve seen the other side of the mountain and it’s golden—but it’s barren. It’s cracked asphalt and poisoned rivers, and the sun getting hotter, meaner, madder. They’re cutting the lungs of the Earth—science, the planet, the future—and calling it fiscal responsibility, while the ice melts and the sky burns.
And then they tell you it’s for the debt, the big, bloated balloon of it, floating out past reason, like that’s the repo man at the door. However, the truth is that the cuts don’t save us from debt; they just shift the burden. They pass the check to you and me, especially the ones sitting on the bus with holes in their shoes, while the slick-suited top-percenters cruise past in black-windowed Benzes, sipping their tax breaks with a smile.
The tax cut game—it’s a carnival shell trick, a flick of the wrist. You think you’re getting something, but the big prize always goes to the guy who paid to rig the game. Who really wins? The guy pulling $600K, $1.1 million, more? The ones already swimming in it, now just getting shinier gold-plated floaties. And all while the rest of us—schoolteachers, firemen, clerks—get a coupon that expires next week.
Belgium’s got the nerve. Ninety percent tax on the ultra-fat cats. And their economy is humming like Keith Jarrett flying on the keyboard. Meanwhile, we’re scared to ask the ones lighting cigars with our power lines and roads to pay their share.
Back in the ’50s, they taxed the top at ninety-one percent and still built highways and dreams and moonshots, all while they paid the bills for WWII. Now it’s 37% and falling like the leaves of some dying tree. And they want to cut corporate taxes down to 21% permanently!—while your break’s on a ticking clock set to disappear right when the rent goes up again.
Their companies use the roads more. The power more. The resources more. They burn it all faster and wider and dirtier—and still cry foul when we ask for fairness. And why not? It’s cheaper to buy a congressman than pay a tax bill. Lobbyists are the new tax accountants. All polished teeth and backroom deals.
So, I ask you: who benefits? Not you. Not the nurse working the midnight shift. Not the kid on free lunch. It’s the money movers, the boardroom barons, the lords of the loopholes.
And it’s not just math—it’s morality. It’s the soul of the republic. And it’s slipping, slipping, slipping out the back door, silent, unnoticed, like a ghost. Like the way immigrants are being deported to foreign jails.
We sit on this cracked stoop in the LED hush of another sleepless American evening, wondering why the soul of our nation isn’t in the Dow or the debt ceiling or groceries,—but in the hands of the bus driver who wakes up at 4 a.m., in the calloused fingers of the carpenter patching someone else’s dream house, in the trembling voice of a teacher reading history to kids who don’t yet know how much history’s being made for them, not by them.
We’ve let the men with ledgers rewrite the gospel. Let them tell us what’s fair and what’s “fiscally responsible,” like they’ve ever bled for a bill. But we remember. We remember what it means to share a burden, not dodge it. We remember when progress was paid for with courage, not campaign donations.
So let them have their talking points. We’ve got the streetlamp truth and the diner-booth wisdom, the midnight oaths between lovers and strangers alike, all whispering the same thing:
This country ain’t just numbers—
It’s a heartbeat.
And it deserves better than to be balanced on the backs of the tired and the poor and the barely-getting-by.
The road still stretches out ahead—vast, uncertain, wild.
Ah yes, nothing screams “servant of the people” like a $400 million flying palace gifted by oil barons while slashing Medicaid back home. Trump’s loyalty isn’t to America — it’s to any regime that spells “ethics” with dollar signs. And now he’s turning Air Force One into Qatari Uber. Imagine being so spiritually bankrupt you build your presidential library out of foreign bribes and Medicare cuts.
But sure, let’s keep pretending this is about greatness. Spoiler alert: it’s not. It’s about graft, gold-plated toilets, and gutting the country for a golf course. May your luxury jet never find the runway of public trust again.
—Virgin Monk Boy
(Patron Saint of Grounded Presidents and Expired Emoluments)
Coruption, in this administration is on the increase daily. When is Congress going to get tired of this? Or are they also on the take for the big beautiful gifts?
"When Trump ran for reelection in 2024, he convinced enough working families desperate for radical change that he cared about them." No, not the operative point. The one that applies are the words of L.B. Johnson, " "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you". That is why they voted for Trump.
Also, "Human rights are so far on the back burner they aren’t even on the stove for the Trump administration". Trump and his party has for decades berated Jimmy Carter, and this may be the chief reason. Carter believed the US government should highly consider human rights, that is counter to the Republican Party.
If there is a next presidency, I hope firstly, that that person has integrity and morals. Then I hope everything Trump has done will be erased or demolished. I hope if he is not jailed immediately, then that he is shipped to the Middle East and banned from ever setting foot in this country ever.I do not believe that we as a country will truly be able to move forward and rebuild a new nation without those actions
Trump‘s actions leave me speechless. Who is going to stay at all these luxury hotels that he’s building? Not that I could afford it but even if I could, I wouldn’t set foot in a hotel associated with the Trump family.
Had this been any other nation on earth, the military would have conducted an overthrow of the government. Or the leader of the government would have to face a tribunal. But here we are, simply whiling away, while a megalomaniac turns our nation into his personal draconian empire. As a first generation son of immigrants, I am seriously questioning all that I was taught to believe about this nation.
Impeach him as quick as possible. When he became president he swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. He has made a mockery of it. You sware an oath of allegiance to the United States and then you blatingly do exactly the opposite. If that isn't grounds for impeachment, I don't know what is.
Why worry about impropriety when rules are only suggestions to someone who all his pathetically worthless life has gotten everything he wants by flouting them. The plane will be bugged, for sure. If the Qataris have any decency they'll rig it to explode over the Atlantic, ridding us of a huge problem.
As head of the Trump Crime Family (he is the most experienced at committing fraud, after all), His Vain, Vile, Venal and Vindictive Supreme Nastiness is setting himself up. He seems to forget that the Stench from the Bench has only given the green light for corruption by the Liar-In-Chief if the heinous acts he commits are "official" acts conducted as part of the job. Like his $TRUMPet chivaree at the WH. Go, Donny Boy, Go!!!!
Absolutely. They have sullied themselves beyond redemption and have put our democracy in the most perilous position ever. I hope we survive to repair the damage. I wish Biden had packed the court when he had the chance to negate what McConnell had done, but I'm not sure if he would have succeeded and the backlash from a failed attempt could have done even more damage.
Why do they need more money? The rich folks worship the almighty dollar, and never have enough to suit them. The rest of us? We have to be happy with what we have: And most of us are.
The suits with the scissors are at it again, snip snip at the very seams of the republic, talking savings while gutting the heart and soul of our country like it’s on a mortician’s slab. Budget cuts, they call it. Efficiency. Trimming the fat. But I see bone. I see marrow. We’ll see the children coughing in schools that don’t have nurses, the mother crying in a hospital waiting room because Medicaid doesn’t stretch far enough to cover the whole broken body of her boy.
And they talk long-term like they’re prophets, like they’ve seen the other side of the mountain and it’s golden—but it’s barren. It’s cracked asphalt and poisoned rivers, and the sun getting hotter, meaner, madder. They’re cutting the lungs of the Earth—science, the planet, the future—and calling it fiscal responsibility, while the ice melts and the sky burns.
And then they tell you it’s for the debt, the big, bloated balloon of it, floating out past reason, like that’s the repo man at the door. However, the truth is that the cuts don’t save us from debt; they just shift the burden. They pass the check to you and me, especially the ones sitting on the bus with holes in their shoes, while the slick-suited top-percenters cruise past in black-windowed Benzes, sipping their tax breaks with a smile.
The tax cut game—it’s a carnival shell trick, a flick of the wrist. You think you’re getting something, but the big prize always goes to the guy who paid to rig the game. Who really wins? The guy pulling $600K, $1.1 million, more? The ones already swimming in it, now just getting shinier gold-plated floaties. And all while the rest of us—schoolteachers, firemen, clerks—get a coupon that expires next week.
Belgium’s got the nerve. Ninety percent tax on the ultra-fat cats. And their economy is humming like Keith Jarrett flying on the keyboard. Meanwhile, we’re scared to ask the ones lighting cigars with our power lines and roads to pay their share.
Back in the ’50s, they taxed the top at ninety-one percent and still built highways and dreams and moonshots, all while they paid the bills for WWII. Now it’s 37% and falling like the leaves of some dying tree. And they want to cut corporate taxes down to 21% permanently!—while your break’s on a ticking clock set to disappear right when the rent goes up again.
Their companies use the roads more. The power more. The resources more. They burn it all faster and wider and dirtier—and still cry foul when we ask for fairness. And why not? It’s cheaper to buy a congressman than pay a tax bill. Lobbyists are the new tax accountants. All polished teeth and backroom deals.
So, I ask you: who benefits? Not you. Not the nurse working the midnight shift. Not the kid on free lunch. It’s the money movers, the boardroom barons, the lords of the loopholes.
And it’s not just math—it’s morality. It’s the soul of the republic. And it’s slipping, slipping, slipping out the back door, silent, unnoticed, like a ghost. Like the way immigrants are being deported to foreign jails.
We sit on this cracked stoop in the LED hush of another sleepless American evening, wondering why the soul of our nation isn’t in the Dow or the debt ceiling or groceries,—but in the hands of the bus driver who wakes up at 4 a.m., in the calloused fingers of the carpenter patching someone else’s dream house, in the trembling voice of a teacher reading history to kids who don’t yet know how much history’s being made for them, not by them.
We’ve let the men with ledgers rewrite the gospel. Let them tell us what’s fair and what’s “fiscally responsible,” like they’ve ever bled for a bill. But we remember. We remember what it means to share a burden, not dodge it. We remember when progress was paid for with courage, not campaign donations.
So let them have their talking points. We’ve got the streetlamp truth and the diner-booth wisdom, the midnight oaths between lovers and strangers alike, all whispering the same thing:
This country ain’t just numbers—
It’s a heartbeat.
And it deserves better than to be balanced on the backs of the tired and the poor and the barely-getting-by.
The road still stretches out ahead—vast, uncertain, wild.
And we ride it not to get rich,
but to get right.
Ah yes, nothing screams “servant of the people” like a $400 million flying palace gifted by oil barons while slashing Medicaid back home. Trump’s loyalty isn’t to America — it’s to any regime that spells “ethics” with dollar signs. And now he’s turning Air Force One into Qatari Uber. Imagine being so spiritually bankrupt you build your presidential library out of foreign bribes and Medicare cuts.
But sure, let’s keep pretending this is about greatness. Spoiler alert: it’s not. It’s about graft, gold-plated toilets, and gutting the country for a golf course. May your luxury jet never find the runway of public trust again.
—Virgin Monk Boy
(Patron Saint of Grounded Presidents and Expired Emoluments)
Coruption, in this administration is on the increase daily. When is Congress going to get tired of this? Or are they also on the take for the big beautiful gifts?
"When Trump ran for reelection in 2024, he convinced enough working families desperate for radical change that he cared about them." No, not the operative point. The one that applies are the words of L.B. Johnson, " "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you". That is why they voted for Trump.
Also, "Human rights are so far on the back burner they aren’t even on the stove for the Trump administration". Trump and his party has for decades berated Jimmy Carter, and this may be the chief reason. Carter believed the US government should highly consider human rights, that is counter to the Republican Party.
If there is a next presidency, I hope firstly, that that person has integrity and morals. Then I hope everything Trump has done will be erased or demolished. I hope if he is not jailed immediately, then that he is shipped to the Middle East and banned from ever setting foot in this country ever.I do not believe that we as a country will truly be able to move forward and rebuild a new nation without those actions
Trump thinks he has the Midas touch. If he ever leaves we will discover just how much lead he actually left behind.
Trump‘s actions leave me speechless. Who is going to stay at all these luxury hotels that he’s building? Not that I could afford it but even if I could, I wouldn’t set foot in a hotel associated with the Trump family.
Had this been any other nation on earth, the military would have conducted an overthrow of the government. Or the leader of the government would have to face a tribunal. But here we are, simply whiling away, while a megalomaniac turns our nation into his personal draconian empire. As a first generation son of immigrants, I am seriously questioning all that I was taught to believe about this nation.
Impeach him as quick as possible. When he became president he swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. He has made a mockery of it. You sware an oath of allegiance to the United States and then you blatingly do exactly the opposite. If that isn't grounds for impeachment, I don't know what is.
Here’s a plan for the plane. The plane becomes the trump bookmobile flying state secrets to needy oligarchs and autocrats
Corruption, stupidity, giant FAIL!
Why worry about impropriety when rules are only suggestions to someone who all his pathetically worthless life has gotten everything he wants by flouting them. The plane will be bugged, for sure. If the Qataris have any decency they'll rig it to explode over the Atlantic, ridding us of a huge problem.
Excellent
Dan, I am a subscribed member. Not only are your posts so informative, but it is your phraseoly that is so great. Thanks for doing this.
As head of the Trump Crime Family (he is the most experienced at committing fraud, after all), His Vain, Vile, Venal and Vindictive Supreme Nastiness is setting himself up. He seems to forget that the Stench from the Bench has only given the green light for corruption by the Liar-In-Chief if the heinous acts he commits are "official" acts conducted as part of the job. Like his $TRUMPet chivaree at the WH. Go, Donny Boy, Go!!!!
The Supreme Court failed us and the Constitution with giving him immunity, granting Citizens United, and dropping Roe v. Wade.
Absolutely. They have sullied themselves beyond redemption and have put our democracy in the most perilous position ever. I hope we survive to repair the damage. I wish Biden had packed the court when he had the chance to negate what McConnell had done, but I'm not sure if he would have succeeded and the backlash from a failed attempt could have done even more damage.