A Damn Good Idea

This entire country is ignorant on how the government works and that has lead to some silly stuff in government….why is this?

Civics is not a mandatory subject in schools….here in Mississippi a Senator is trying to do something about the ignorance.

In celebration of America’s 250th birthday, we must ensure that Mississippi’s students graduate with knowledge of and appreciation for the Declaration of Independence and our state and federal institutions it inspired. Civics knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors are not passed along through the gene pool, but must be built anew with each rising generation of citizens.

To this end, I am proud to author Senate Bill 2292, legislation that would require civics courses in every public and charter school in Mississippi in order for students to graduate high school.

Earlier this month, the Senate unanimously passed SB 2292 with strong bipartisan support. It’s now assigned to both the House Education and Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Committee, and I encourage my House colleagues to put aside “education politics” of the last couple of years and advance it to the House floor, teeing up its passage prior to our adjournment in April.

Thirty-seven states plus D.C. require stand-alone civics courses for high school graduation, seven of them for a full year. If we pass this bill, beginning with the 2027-28 school year, Mississippi would proudly join this mix.

Civics knowledge is sadly lacking across our citizenry, perhaps most acutely among our students here in Mississippi. Nationally, only 22% of eighth graders achieved proficiency on the most recent NAEP civics assessment — the lowest performance of any tested subject outside U.S. History. For Mississippi students, who largely lack access to a dedicated civics course, the picture is likely no better. Mississippi students deserve better than that national floor.

Sen. Wiggins: Mississippi must require civics education for graduation

This is a stellar idea….not just for Mississippi but for this whole darn country.

Here in Mississippi I do not think this has a chance for state politicians like having an ignorant popular that is easily duped into their schemes and scams.

Hopefully this idea will catch on nationwide…..it is sadly needed for an informed population.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Dark Days Of Yesteryear Returns

Lots has been said and/or written about what is going on in the US these days…..some see it as an improvement but most see it for what it is….a return of the fascism of the past.

Donny has set himself up as the supreme leader with is underlings cleaning up his messes…..all this smacks of the aesthetics of yesteryear….

What is most revealing about the MAGA aesthetic is its studied ugliness. On one side stands the grotesque excess of beauty-pageant femininity, plastic smiles, puffy lips, lacquered beach-wave hair, sharpened jawlines, and a hyper-sexualized nostalgia masquerading as “traditional values.” US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem exemplifies this aesthetic as a badge of cruelty. Carefully styling herself in a Barbie-doll register of hyper-femininity, she delivers media performances staged in front of prisons and other sites associated with the punishment and terrorization of immigrants. The effect is chilling: a glossy, pornographic aesthetic fused with images of confinement, state violence, and racialized cruelty. Beauty here does not soften power; it aestheticizes domination and makes authoritarian violence appear natural, even glamorous. This aesthetic of cruelty is not confined to clothing (heavy on tweeds), posture, or setting. It increasingly takes hold at the level of the face itself, where artificiality is no longer concealed but aggressively displayed.

Fascist Aesthetics Has Come Back with MAGA Politics

There is more if interested….

The United States is not merely awash in brutalizing and murderous acts of state-sanctioned violence. It is being restructured by them. The killings of Rachel Good and Alex Pretti are not aberrations or tragic mistakes; they belong to a longer and darker history that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People once named with chilling precision. In earlier periods of American turmoil, such killings were called lynchings, acts “carried out by lawless mobs, although police officers did participate, under the pretext of justice.” Today, this violence extends well beyond the bullet and the baton. It takes form in the expansion of prison camps, what Thom Hartmann rightly calls concentration camps, the war on immigrants, and the routine assault on Black and brown lives made disposable through policy, indifference, and neglect. At the same time, the country is saturated with a culture steeped in fascist spectacle and authoritarian display. Under the Trump administration, aesthetics itself becomes a battleground, a weaponized field where power works on desire, memory, bodies, and pleasure to consolidate domination.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/02/13/maga-aesthetics-and-fascist-power-spectacles-of-white-supremacy/

All this is pointing to a problem that we have faced before but not with such approval as today….the GOP today seems to be embracing the policies and actions that this country fought against less than a hundred years ago…..

No less an authority on right-wing extremism than Laura Loomer, Donald Trump’s wacko loyalty policeman, said it: Republicans have a Nazi problem, warning that there are those “trying to redefine” the party “so it can become modern-day Hitler Youth.”

When a Loomer admits it, you know this is a real problem, not just a liberal fabrication.

The Republicans’ entanglement with Nazism — especially after a recent kerfuffle involving conservative hero Tucker Carlson, Nazi apologist Nick Fuentes, and Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts (more on that to come) — has been much written about, as GOP stalwarts argue over whether they should denounce Nazi sympathizers or make common cause with them. This is a debate that really shouldn’t be a debate at all, and certainly not one that requires another disquisition on the Republicans’ moral bankruptcy.

But I am delivering one nonetheless, because — no matter how much space this courtship has been given, no matter how many pundits decry the celebration of Nazis and the canonization of Adolf Hitler by large segments of the conservative movement, no matter how often conservatives trot out antisemitic tropes, and no matter how often conservative leaders declare that this would be a much better country if it were a dictatorship — the fact that one of our two major parties actively, publicly, enthusiastically embraces Nazism should be a scandal, a horror, and a disgrace. Not something to be promptly forgotten, as it has been, but something that should be a front-page story every single day.

Lest we forget — and Republicans seem to have forgotten — the Nazis were the bad guys, the very personification of evil, the force that hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives to defeat, and the gleeful, bloodthirsty murderers of millions. They needed to be destroyed, forever castigated as the very worst of humanity, not emulated. Yet emulated they are.

So, yes, Ms. Loomer: The Republicans do, indeed, have a Nazi problem, and that means America has one too.

America’s Nazi Problem

What amazes me is that many average Americans see no problem with the direction the government is taking….I have people I know that see no problem with the direction that I do not understand for they see and hear the same information I do yet they are content with the erosion of our rights as Americans.

How can this be?

We live in a ‘Dual State”…..

Life under authoritarianism is actually, for the most part, weirdly normal. It’s often even, well, boring. The average person can go about their day as usual. You take your kids to school, you head to the office, and yes, you even host dinner parties. You live in the realm that Fraenkel referred to as “the normative state,” and from within that realm, it’s easy to think that if you just keep your head down and avoid making waves, you’ll be perfectly fine, thank you very much.

Fraenkel’s book is called The Dual State for a reason. This first state, the business-as-usual one, actually exists to lull you into a sense of complacency such that you don’t realize that another state is also operating in parallel with it. That second state, which Fraenkel calls “the prerogative state,” only becomes visible to you when you do something that the powers that be don’t like. Then suddenly you’re in a realm where the rule of law does not exist, where citizens can be killed with impunity, where you — even you, who thought you were invulnerable — can become a target.

The dark genius of this setup is that most people don’t realize that the prerogative state is active until it’s too late. They only wake up when the knock comes on their very own door — or when the door is forcefully broken down.

“The Dual State lives by veiling its true nature,” Fraenkel wrote.

That’s why it’s not surprising to me that your friends have been politically inactive. If they think of themselves as “not the target” — if they’re citizens, if they’re white, if they don’t speak with the “wrong” accent or express the “wrong” political views in public — it’s extremely easy for them to think everything is mostly normal, because the whole political apparatus is designed to make them think exactly that.

(yahoo.com)

Cut it any way you like but the ugliness of the Goon Platoon and Donny’s sycophants is getting out of hand.

We are entering into a world that was crushed before and it will again….but only if the American people have the courage to step up.

Do we?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Voting Reform?

My state as well as many others are in this frenzy to keep voter fraud to a minimum….voters are having to jump through hoops to vote…..basically some of the measures are nothing more than a poll tax and a way to keep the vote to mostly white people….exclusion is the main objective.

Donny and his Magic Sharpie has just signed another EO on voting…..

President Trump is trying to put a tighter federal grip on how Americans vote by mail—and the fight is likely headed straight to court. On Tuesday, he signed an executive order aimed at limiting who can receive mail-in ballots, arguing it will curb what he called “legendary” cheating in absentee voting ahead of November’s midterms, when control of Congress is at stake, Politico reports.

  • “The cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible, what’s gone on,” Trump said during the signing ceremony in the Oval Office. The AP notes, however, that a 2025 Brookings Institution report found that voting fraud occurred in only around four cases per 10 million mail ballots— 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast.
  • The order directs the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to compile a federal list of approved absentee voters. The Postal Service would be instructed to send mail-in ballots only to people on that list. It also directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate and prosecute “election officials, individuals, and other entities that violate the law by issuing or distributing Federal ballots to ineligible voters,” CNBC reports. The order threatens to cut federal funds from states that refuse to comply.
  • The move is expected to face legal challenges that could drag on past the midterms. Marc Elias, a leading Democratic voting-rights attorney, said he plans to sue, calling the order unconstitutional. “If Trump signs an unconstitutional Executive Order to take over voting, we will sue. I don’t bluff and I usually win,” Elias wrote on X. Officials in Oregon and Arizona also pledged to sue, accusing Trump of trying to violate their states’ right to run elections, the AP reports. “We don’t need decrees from Washington, DC,” said Tobias Read, the Democratic secretary of state in Oregon, which has voted entirely by mail since 1998. “My message to the President: We’ll see you in court.”

Wait!  Did not Donny just vote by mail-in?

“The Constitution is very clear—the president has no power over elections in the states.”

But to be fair just how prevalent is voter fraud?

It is NOT a problem.

With the Senate taking up the GOP voter suppression bill that is Donald Trump’s top legislative priority, we thought it would be good to take a closer look at the reason why Republicans claim that this legislation is needed: the supposed scourge of noncitizens voting.

People familiar with the debate know that it isn’t much of a problem at all. That’s because it is illegal for non-Americans to vote in federal elections, and since the upside of doing so, i.e., casting one additional ballot among tens of millions of others, stands in no relation to the downside, i.e., imprisonment and deportation, hardly anybody does it.

How rare is it that somebody commits this most pointless of crimes?

We are so glad you asked! Let’s take a look.

Including the 2000 presidential election, which is a great reference point not only because it’s a quarter century in the past but also because it was decided by 537 votes* and therefore any small factor could have made a huge difference, Americans have cast about 1.5 billion ballots in federal elections.

According to the conservative Heritage Foundation, aka “the Project 2025 guys,” aka “a bunch of guys who support voter suppression and are therefore really intent on finding evidence that noncitizens voting is a widespread problem,” exactly 100 aliens have been caught committing voter fraud.

In other words, according to these numbers, one noncitizen is caught trying to vote illegally for every 15,000,000 votes cast.

Or, to put it differently, if you wanted to randomly pick out a non-American at a polling place, you’d have a 1 in 15 million chance to be successful.

Those aren’t great odds.

What Are the Odds of a Noncitizen Voting? We’re Glad You Asked

If you believe the wizards of propaganda we have a problem…..but it you look at the big picture then there is NO problem.

The problem we do have is that pundits are gaming the numbers to enact all sorts of silly and wasteful measures to limit who gets to have a vote in our elections.

In essence this is theft of an election….there is your fraud.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Last Week At The Sh*t Show–05Apr26

Our Clueless leader has been doing what he does best….screwing up a country in need.

The last week saw a continuation of our war on Iran, firing the AG, a speech that wasted time, plus we are searching for a missing pilot….and in about 24 hours Donny’s ultimatum to Iran will expire…..then what?

Remember that loud mouth racist that got shot awhile back…..well there is more to the story and could make for a helluva conspiracy.

Ballistic experts have revealed why the bullet which fatally wounded Charlie Kirk may not match the alleged assassin’s gun.

Tyler Robinson was named as the man charged with killing the Turning Point USA founder at an event at Utah Valley University on 10 September 2025

https://www.ladbible.com/news/world-news/north-sentinel-island-tribe-resurfaced-footage-207025-20260404

Donny has a plan to ban paper money…..

The days of pulling a crumpled $20 bill out of your wallet may be numbered. The U.S. Treasury has officially greenlit a sweeping monetary overhaul that will replace all paper currency with a combination of government-issued cryptocurrency and physical gold coins by 2027.

The plan calls for a full phase-out of paper money in favor of two new official forms of payment: TrumpCoin, a blockchain-based digital currency, and a line of gold coins embossed with the president’s likeness in denominations of $5, $20, $100 and what the Treasury memo describes simply as “the big one.”

The days of pulling a crumpled $20 bill out of your wallet may be numbered. The U.S. Treasury has officially greenlit a sweeping monetary overhaul that will replace all paper currency with a combination of government-issued cryptocurrency and physical gold coins by 2027.

The plan calls for a full phase-out of paper money in favor of two new official forms of payment: TrumpCoin, a blockchain-based digital currency, and a line of gold coins embossed with the president’s likeness in denominations of $5, $20, $100 and what the Treasury memo describes simply as “the big one.”

https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/economy/us-treasury-approves-president-trumps-plan-to-phase-out-paper-money/

Donny is considering pulling out of NATO…..

After slamming allies for failing to join the US-Israeli war in Iran, and threatening no more US support, President Trump is now suggesting the US may pull out of NATO. Asked if he was considering withdrawing, Trump told the Telegraph the matter is “beyond reconsideration.” “I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin knows that too,” he said, going on to argue that allies have failed to reciprocate US support in places like Ukraine and are unreliable partners in the current Iran conflict. He said support should be “automatic.”

(Here is the real reason he wants to pull out)

The NATO treaty demands countries refrain from threats or use of force in international relations; strengthen free institutions; work to resist armed attack; consult with members when one’s territory, independence, or security is threatened; and view an attack on one as an attack on all when occurring in eligible territory while offering “such action as it deems necessary.” Trump’s threat to leave the alliance—a move that would require support from two-thirds of the Senate under a 2023 law, per the Wall Street Journal—comes as senior British officers publicly warn of the country’s lack of readiness and as Trump aides float potential US troop withdrawals from Germany.

Baby Vance has a new title…..

President Trump has handed his vice president a new title: “fraud czar.” The president said Friday that JD Vance will lead efforts to root out what Trump alleges is fraud involving federal social-welfare funds, with a particular emphasis on states led by Democrats, Reuters reports.

  • “Vice President JD Vance is now in charge of ‘FRAUD’ in the United States,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “It is massive and pervasive, and the job he will be doing, in conjunction with many great people within the Trump Administration, will be a major factor in how great the future of our Country will be. We will call him the ‘FRAUD CZAR.'” He claimed that the “numbers are so large that, if successful, we would literally be able to balance our American Budget.”
  • The assignment stems from an executive order Trump signed last month creating a national task force under Vance’s leadership to pursue the president’s long-running accusations that some states are misusing federal welfare dollars. Trump said Vance’s focus would technically be “EVERYWHERE” but concentrated on California, Illinois, Minnesota, Maine, and New York. He said “raids have already started” in Los Angeles. In a post on X Thursday, Vance praised an operation that targeted health care and hospice fraud in the Los Angeles area, the Hill reports. “Our task force isn’t wasting any time cracking down on fraud,” Vance wrote.

Crack down on fraud?  Sorry but the title made me laugh.  Think about it.

What a pack of clueless boobs!

Speaking of clueless boobs….

The College Republicans of America (CRA) — an organization for young conservatives that has over 280 chapters on campuses nationwide, as well as had numerous recent scandals involving bigoted statements from its leadership — appointed right-wing broadcaster Kai Schwemmer as its new political director on March 5.

However, Schwemmer has ties to white supremacist Nick Fuentes, and a recent review of Schwemmer’s past videos reportedly revealed his homophobic, antisemitic, and racist comments, including a claim that gay men are trying to give people AIDS by taking over gyms. The CRA has refused to apologize for hiring Schwemmer and said it will not bow down to the “woke mob” that has expressed concern over his views.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/03/leader-of-national-gop-organization-says-gay-men-take-over-gyms-to-spread-aids/

Then there is the idiot from Florida (that really does not help for there are so many)….but in this case that moron Matt Gaetz….

Former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz has claimed that the US is secretly running ‘forced breeding programs’ working to create alien-human hybrids.

The controversial conservative firebrand added that a member of the US military described this program to him in detail, saying there were six to 12 secret facilities around the country engaged in abducting humans to mate with extraterrestrials.

Gaetz said: ‘I had someone come and brief me who was in a military uniform, worked for the United States Army, that was briefing me on the locations of hybrid breeding programs where captured aliens were breeding with humans to create some hybrid race that could engage in intergalactic communication.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15701963/matt-gaetz-alien-human-breeding-programs.html

That does it for me for there is only so much stupid I want to force upon my loyal readers….I apologize.

Now the cleanse the way…..

Have a wonderful Easter and as always…..Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You KNow

“lego ergo scribo”

IST Saturday News Dump–04Apr26

It is the Easter weekend and all is well….

Local–Weather here has been early summer….80s high and mid 70s lows….it is disgusting.  But people are delirious at the temps so they can frolic on a contaminated beach….

Personal–Not much to report…still battling with health issues and trying to stay out of the weather.

Let us begin with the big news for scifi fans….

We have a new moon mission and could be the start of something big…..

The Fifth Dimension is possible….not the musical group from the 70s but rather a real 5th dimension….

Scientists say they can explain dark matter by positing a particle that links to a fifth dimension.

While the “warped extra dimension” (WED) is a trademark of a popular physics model first introduced in 1999, research published in The European Physical Journal Cin 2021 is the first to cohesively use the theory to explain the long-lasting dark matter problem within particle physics.

Our knowledge of the physical universe relies on the idea of dark matter, which takes up the vast majority of matter in the universe. Dark matter is a kind of pinch hitter that helps scientists explain how gravity works, because a lot of features would dissolve or fall apart without an “x factor” of dark matter. Even so, dark matter doesn’t disrupt the particles we do see and “feel,” meaning it must have other special properties as well.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a70855909/fermion-particle-fifth-dimension-portal-discovery/

That brings me to the multiverse…..all things comics….Marvel, DC, etc  but is it just imagination or is it real?

The idea of a multiverse – a hypothetical collection of all possible universes – is one that science fiction fans love to explore. But does the multiverse actually exist?

To answer the question of whether the multiverse is real, we first need to agree on what it means for something to be real. As an astrophysicist who studies cosmology – the large-scale history and structure of the universe – and the philosophy of physics, I’ve thought about this question more than a few times over my career.

The most immediate definition of “real” might be that you can see and touch it. My lunch is real in this sense, because I can taste it and you can hear me chewing it (hopefully not too loudly). So “real” might be defined as something you can perceive with at least one of your five senses.

But that would leave out a lot of things that are also real. The microwaves that heat up your food are real, but you can’t directly perceive them – only their effect, heated food. So some real things you can “see” only indirectly by the evidence they leave behind. The existence of dinosaurs is another example – you can see only their fossils.

So, you can ask two versions of the question of whether the multiverse is real. One: Can you see, hear, touch, smell or taste it? Two: Even if you can’t, is there any evidence of its effects?

https://theconversation.com/are-multiverses-real-an-astrophysicist-explains-why-it-depends-on-how-you-define-real-268357

As long as this is my scifi section for this week…..how about this bit?

A recently declassified CIA document confirms that after Soviet troops shot down a UFO in 1987, the aliens turned 23 soldiers into stone.

In March 2026, a rumor resurfaced on social media claiming that a declassified CIA document confirmed that aliens turned 23 Soviet soldiers to stone after a UFO was shot down.

The caption of one Instagram post (archived) sharing the claim said the alleged incident happened between 1989 and 1990, “when a Soviet military unit allegedly shot down a low-flying saucer-shaped UFO during training exercises.”

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cia-document-aliens-soviet-troops/

Are you buying this?

More on UFO…..and Donny says he will release proof…..and then a dude disappears….

Police in New Mexico are knocking on a lot of doors in the hunt for a missing former Air Force general with a high-level UFO background. The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office says investigators have reached out to more than 600 homeowners near the Albuquerque residence of retired Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, 68, asking for security camera footage or any information that might pinpoint his movements since he vanished on foot on Feb. 28, leaving his phone behind, per the New York Post. Despite dozens of tips, authorities say they still have no confirmed sightings. Early on, they noted they were concerned for McCasland’s safety “due to his medical issues,” per Fox News.

A Silver Alert is in effect for McCasland, who once led research at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, overseeing classified space weapons programs. That role, and his expertise on alleged government knowledge of extraterrestrials, has drawn wider attention to the case. Journalist Ross Coulthart called the disappearance “a grave national security crisis” on his podcast, tying its timing to President Trump’s recent call for the Pentagon to prepare UFO-related files for release, per NewsNation. The sheriff’s office, working with the FBI, says it continues to pursue every lead and is urging anyone with information to contact its Missing Persons Unit or submit tips online.

Where did he go?

The American government now has an official site for UFOs…..

Washington quietly grabbed a corner of the internet this week that’s bound to fuel speculation: Aliens.gov now belongs to the White House, 404 Media reports. A bot that tracks federal web domains spotted the Executive Office of the President registering the address early Wednesday, though the URL doesn’t yet lead to a live site. The timing comes about a month after President Trump vowed to order the release of government records related to extraterrestrial life, UFOs—now more often dubbed “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UAP—and any associated programs. Trump made that promise on his Truth Social platform, saying he would tell the “Secretary of War” and other agencies to start identifying and disclosing files on what he called “extremely interesting and important matters.”

The new domain lands amid a long-running boom in official and semi-official UFO talk: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has pushed for broader declassification of UAP material; rock musician Tom DeLonge’s To The Stars outfit helped publicize Pentagon cockpit videos of odd objects tracked by Navy pilots; and Congress has held multiple hearings, with mixed results. Public fascination cooled somewhat last year after the Wall Street Journal reported that portions of the Pentagon’s UFO lore were tied to disinformation efforts meant to hide secret weapons programs. (And certain outlets seem wary of the idea that aliens.gov will bring any real information; Gizmodo calls the domain name registration simply “the next distraction from everything else” while the Daily Beast gets more explicit, calling it the “next Epstein distraction.”)

Interest spiked again in February, when former President Obama told interviewer Brian Tyler Cohen that aliens are “real” but added he hadn’t seen them and didn’t believe they were hidden at Area 51—unless there was a vast plot that even excluded him. After the clip went viral, Obama clarified on Instagram that while the odds favor life somewhere in the universe, he saw no evidence during his presidency that Earth has been visited. Asked about Obama’s remarks days later, Trump accused him of revealing “classified information” and then half-joked he might “get him out of trouble” by declassifying related material. Whether aliens.gov becomes the public portal for that pledge—or remains a mysterious piece of digital real estate—hasn’t been explained. Asked about it by Newsweek, a White House press rep said simply, “Stay tuned.”

It appears I was a bit sciencey today.

Finally it is Easter weekend and a time for chocolate rabbits and such….and some of it is missing….

Easter candy shoppers in Europe may be hunting for more than eggs this year. Nestlé says an entire truckload of its new KitKat line—about 12 tons, or 413,793 bars—vanished between its factory in central Italy and a distribution site in Poland. The company said Friday that “the vehicle and its load are still nowhere to be found,” adding that it’s working with local authorities and logistics partners to track them down. Nestlé warned the theft could leave store shelves short of KitKats ahead of the Easter rush and cautioned that the bars might surface through unofficial sellers, CBS News reports.

The chocolate bars were to be distributed throughout Europe, per the AP. Each bar carries a batch code that can be scanned; if the code matches the stolen shipment, the scanner will receive instructions on how to notify KitKat, which says it will pass the information to the proper authorities. The company treated the theft as amusing but not exactly funny. “Whilst we appreciate the criminals’ exceptional taste, the fact remains that cargo theft is an escalating issue for businesses of all sizes,” KitKat said in a statement.

But the best news came from the world of entertainment…..

Reality TV, once cable’s workhorse, is now seeing more and more of its cameras turn off. MTV is ending Jersey Shore: Family Vacation and Catfish; HGTV has axed shows like Christina on the Coast; and similar cuts are happening at Food Network, TLC, Lifetime, E!, and more, per the New York Times. The number of new unscripted series in the US has dropped by roughly a third since 2022, according to research firm Luminate, with every subgenre—from cooking and travel to true crime—feeling the squeeze. Even budget-friendly reality formats are no match for the collapse of cable revenue, consolidation among media companies, and a surge in audience members heading over to YouTube and other digital platforms.

Some stalwarts still pull viewers—think Survivor, Below Deck, and the Housewives universe—and newcomers like The Traitors and Love Island USA do still break through, but networks are now far more cautious on how many shows they churn out and are leaning hard on existing brands. Workers behind the scenes describe a contracting industry: longtime editors and supervisors laid off, teams halved, workloads rising. Instead of snapping up reality shows during the 2023 Hollywood strikes, studios mostly held back, with The Hollywood Reporter and Variety starting to track the reality-TV decline soon after. Meanwhile, YouTube became a new landing spot for talent and series like Somebody Feed Phil and a planned Yolanda Hadid home design show. One veteran executive sums it up as a march toward “fewer ideas from fewer companies.”

The death of fake reality?

Good riddance!

That does it for me….please enjoy your Easter weekend with family and friends…..and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Poor Blondi Is Out

First Donny got his panties in a twist with Noem and now he has dropped the ax on another woman in his cabinet, AG Blondi.

Reports that Attorney General Pam Bondi was on thin ice with President Trump turned out to be correct. Trump announced Thursday that Bondi’s time as AG has come to an end and that Deputy AG Todd Blanche will serve as her replacement. “Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900,” Trump added. “We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future, and our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General”.

Sources tell NBC News that Trump had become “more and more” frustrated with Bondi in recent days, feeling she hadn’t “executed on his vision” in the way he wanted. According to Fox News‘ sources, Trump informed Bondi that her time was up on Wednesday in a meeting before his speech on Iran. She is the second Cabinet-level official to be fired in Trump’s second administration. Kristi Noem was fired as Homeland Security secretary early last month.

An excuse?

Since she took office seems she did everything Donny wanted and then some…..so why the ax?

President Trump said Thursday that Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general, ending the contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department’s culture of independence from the White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees, and moved aggressively to investigate the president’s perceived enemies.

  • The announcement follows months of scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation that made Bondi the target of angry conservatives despite her close relationship with Trump, the AP reports. She also struggled to satisfy Trump’s demands to prosecute his political rivals, with multiple investigations rejected by judges or grand juries or yet to produce charges.
  • Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, came into office last year pledging that she would not play politics with the Justice Department, but she quickly started investigations of Trump foes, sparking an outcry that the law enforcement agency was being wielded as a tool of revenge to advance the president’s political and personal agenda.
  • She ushered in a period of intense turmoil at the department that included the firings of career prosecutors deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump and the resignations of hundreds of other employees.
  • Bondi rejected accusations that she politicized the Justice Department and said her mission was to restore the institution’s credibility after overreach by Joe Biden’s administration with two federal criminal cases against Trump. Bondi’s public embrace of the president, however, marked a sharp departure from her predecessors, who generally took pains to maintain an arm’s-length distance from the White House to protect the impartiality of investigations and prosecutions. Bondi positioned herself as Trump’s chief supporter and protector, praising and defending him in congressional hearings and placing a banner with his face on the exterior of Justice Department headquarters.
  • You’ve turned the People’s Department of Justice into Trump’s instrument of revenge,” Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said at a February hearing. At the same hearing, Bondi responded to a question about Epstein’s accomplices by talking about the stock market, saying, “The Dow is up over 50,000 right now.”
  • Bondi struggled to overcome early stumbles over the Epstein files that angered conservatives eager for government bombshells about the case. She stoked conspiracy theories with a suggestion in a 2025 Fox News Channel interview that Epstein’s “client list” was sitting on her desk for review. The department later acknowledged that no such document exists.
  • Bondi was ridiculed over a move to hand out binders of Epstein files to conservative influencers at the White House, only for it to be later revealed that the documents included no new revelations. And despite promises that more files were going to become public, the Justice Department in July said no more would be released, prompting Congress to pass a bill to force the agency to do so.
  • Even Republicans began to challenge her, with the Republican-led House Oversight Committee last month issuing a subpoena to her to appear for a closed-door interview about the Epstein files.
  • Despite her loyalty, insiders say Trump had become increasingly frustrated with Bondi. A former White House official tells NBC News that failing to secure indictments “is a problem for job security with the president. No one is more anxious than Trump to get everything done immediately. He’s at a stage in life where he realizes that time goes fast. He wants action.”
  • “Good riddance. Pam Bondi was the wrong choice from the start,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on X. “But the rot at the Department of Justice begins and ends with Donald Trump. As long as his focus is on using DOJ as a tool for revenge and not law enforcement, the cover up of the Epstein files, along with the countless other problems at DOJ, will continue.”
  • Trump named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer as the acting attorney general, though sources tell the AP he has privately discussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a permanent pick. On X, Blanche praised Bondi for leading the Justice Department “with strength and conviction.” “Thank you to President Trump for the trust and the opportunity to serve as Acting Attorney General,” he said. “We will continue backing the blue, enforcing the law, and doing everything in our power to keep America safe.”

Did it all come back to the Epstein file?

Seems everything is being linked to that ‘file’.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Collapse Of Democracy

There have been many writers that are telling us that we are witnessing the collapse of American democracy since the election of Donny for his lovely second term as president….that is wrong…..we have been living through it well before Donny started his assault on our rights.

Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, American political life has taken on a familiar rhythm. Each week brings another court ruling framed as a breaking point, another election cast as the last real one, another executive order described as the moment it all finally tips over the edge, another person murdered by a government that’s finally gone too far. Democratic party fundraising emails promise to “save the Republic”. Commentators warn that the guardrails are giving way. Anxious citizens refresh their screens, waiting for the collapse of American democracy.

This state of permanent panic rests on what Sigmund Freud called an illusion: a belief embraced not because it reflects reality, but because it satisfies a psychological need. The illusion in this case is that the United States still has a democracy to lose. The more unsettling truth is that Americans are not living under threat of future democratic breakdown; we are living inside the aftermath of one that has already occurred.

For tens of millions of people, democratic life has been absent for decades as they endure precarious housing, inaccessible healthcare, unchecked policing powers, debt servitude, vanishing public goods, and near-total exclusion from meaningful formal political power. For others – the wealthy, the politically connected, the donors and oligarchs – the same system produces not insecurity, but insulation, along with a constant need to rationalize the deprivation of others upon which their power is predicated and to disavow any responsibility for it.

These are not signs of a democracy under threat. They are symptoms of one that eroded – if it ever existed – long ago. Why, then, does American political discourse remain fixated on a catastrophe that always seems imminent but never quite arrives?

https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2026/mar/08/trump-democracy-oligarchy-policy

This is a situation that some of us have been saying for decades but people were too busy to notice the slide….and that is where our problem lies….people think that living only for their individual interests will keep everything on a an even keel…..I believe people can see now that that was a moronic reason….well some people.

Disagree?  Knock your socks off.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Babbling Mess

Dear Donny made a national speech on our war with Iran….it was a short speech (surprise….surprise) and as usual was a total waste of time….his and ours.

Presidents make these types of speeches reassure the nation….if that was his intention then like most things Donny it was a failure…..

President Trump said US forces will “finish the job” in Iran soon as “core strategic objectives are nearing completion,” offering a full-throated defense of the war Wednesday night in his first national address since the conflict began more than a month ago, the AP reports. He used his platform before a wide audience to tout the success of the US operations and argue that all of Washington’s objectives have so far been met or exceeded, but said Iran would continue to face a barrage of attacks in the short term. “We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” Trump said. “We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” (Iran’s president issued a letter in advance of Trump’s speech.)

But Trump also spent much of an address that lasted just under 20 minutes repeating many things he had already said in recent weeks and providing few new details. The speech appeared unlikely to move the needle of public sentiment at a time when polling shows many Americans feel the US military has gone too far in Iran and as gas and oil prices remain high. A few notable things he didn’t say:

  • He didn’t mention the possibility of sending US ground troops into Iran.
  • Nor did he reference NATO, the trans-Atlantic alliance he has railed against for not helping the US secure the critical Strait of Hormuz, where a chokehold by Iran has sent energy prices soaring.
  • He also didn’t say anything about negotiations with Iran.
  • He didn’t bring up his April 6 deadline for Iran to reopen the waterway or face severe retaliation from the US.

Trump ticked through a timeline of past American involvement in conflicts and noted that the ongoing war in Iran had lasted just 32 days, seeming to appeal to the public for more time to achieve the mission. “World War I lasted one year, seven months, and five days,” he said. “World War II lasted for three years, eight months, and 25 days.” Trump also added references to Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. He also noted that in “these past four weeks, our armed forces have delivered swift, decisive, overwhelming victories on the battlefield.” He said US military action had been “so powerful, so brilliant” that “one of the most powerful countries” is “really no longer a threat”—even as Iran kept up its attacks on Israel and Persian Gulf neighbors early Thursday.

So all he did was regurgitate all the crap he had spread for the past 5 weeks.

Then there is the reactions of Donny’s favorite part of his job…..the markets…..

Investors got a fresh reminder Wednesday that geopolitics often calls the shots on Wall Street, CNBC reports. US stock futures slid Wednesday night after President Trump signaled the conflict with Iran is likely to grind on, even as he again suggested an end may be near. S&P 500 futures fell roughly 0.8%, Nasdaq 100 futures about 1%, and Dow futures dropped more than 300 points. Asian stocks also fell, the AP reports. The moves came as Trump vowed to strike Tehran “extremely hard” and said the US would push Iran “back to the stone ages” over the next few weeks.

Markets reacted in real time: futures weakened during the speech while oil prices jumped, with US crude up nearly 4% above $103 a barrel and Brent up 5% past $106—a high point for oil prices in recent weeks, Forbes reports.

So all in all waste of time…..for him and for me…..

He really should study up on what these types of speeches are really for and not just to see his pasty mug on TV.

I Read, I Write, You KNow

“lego ergo scribo”

 

The King’s Roost

Most presidents after their time in the WH set about putting together a presidential library and dear Donny is no different….only his will be a typical gaudy piece of trash.

Donald Trump is picturing his presidential library less as a building and more as a skyline takeover. On Monday, he shared a video on Truth Social depicting a soaring glass tower in downtown Miami, topped with a needlelike spire and emblazoned with “TRUMP” at the top, per NBC News. An American flag drapes down its center, and the first floor showcases a presidential jet, which reportedly will be a Boeing 747 gifted by Qatar, slated to go on display once he exits the White House for good. Inside, the renderings show a replica Oval Office, a version of the West Colonnade, and a large ballroom.

The proposed skyscraper would loom over Miami’s Freedom Tower, a landmark for Cuban immigrants in a county that swung Trump’s way in 2024. Designed by local firm Bermello Ajamil, the library is set for construction on nearly 3 acres along the waterfront valued at more than $67 million—land that was tied up in a court fight last year before a judge allowed its transfer from a college to the state. The site sits not far from Trump National Doral. Trump’s post also directed supporters to a donation page for the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation. The AP notes the library video came just hours after it was announced that a Florida airport will be named after Trump.

Just what one would expect from a classless person….this monstrosity will be gaudy, tacky, and an eye sore….and sort of phallic in nature.

Just another building emblazoned with his name to feed his fragile ego.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Another Rambling Speech?

The nation will be sitting on the edge of their chairs as Donny tells us what he has planned for the Iran War tonight.

President Trump says the end of the Iran war is near, and the White House says plans to explain what comes next in a prime-time address Wednesday night. In a post on X, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump “will give an Address to the Nation to provide an important update on Iran” at 9pm Eastern. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said the US would wind down its military campaign in Iran within “two or three weeks” and again brushed off the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a problem mainly for other nations.

  • “We will be leaving soon,” Trump said, though the New York Times reports that he mentioned different timelines. He said it would be “maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer to do the job. But we want to knock out every single thing they have.”
  • Trump, who has repeatedly cited four or five objectives for the war, said he “had one goal: They will have no nuclear weapon and that goal has been attained,” the AP reports. Later Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was ahead of schedule with multiple objectives, including wiping out Iran’s missile and drone factories, CNN reports. “We’re well on our way. We are on or ahead of schedule on each of those four objectives and we can see the finish line. It’s not today, it’s not tomorrow but it’s coming,” Rubio told Sean Hannity in a Fox News appearance.
  • Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told European Council President Antonio Costa on Tuesday that Iran had the “necessary will” to end the conflict with the US and Israel if “guarantees” were in place, Euronews reports. “We possess the necessary will to end this conflict, provided that essential conditions are met, especially the guarantees required to prevent repetition of the aggression,” Pezeshkian said, according to a statement from his office.
  • On the ground, the fighting showed little sign of wrapping up on Tuesday, the Times reports. A large airstrike hit the Iranian city of Isfahan, triggering a massive blast, and a Kuwaiti oil tanker went up in flames after a drone attack at a Dubai port, which Kuwaiti officials blamed on Iran. In Washington, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the US has begun flying B-52 bombers over Iran for the first time in the conflict, describing it as evidence that Iranian air defenses have been badly weakened.

Will this be a typical Donny self love fest or will he give the nation the straight skinny?

My guess is the former not the later…..he has not giving the nation the straight skinny for over a year.

Will there be hints at US Troops on the ground?

So many questions with few answers forthcoming.

I will be watching and writing.  (so you do not have to)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”