Category Archives: Government

Behavior, Brother, Government, Opinion, Personal, Social Rules, Trump

Cut By Cut

01/28/2026 X Teri Leave a comment

My brother Mike sometimes lives in my head for reasons that would irritate the piss out of him. When I listen to AM talk radio, it is his voice I hear, superimposed on whichever oversimplifying demagogue is talking. I used to call him Mike O’Reilly. “I don’t know” was not a phrase you would ever hear from him. “Is there a better way” is a dangerous question for those who are possessed by certainty.

My brother was an authoritarian at heart. There’s no question of this. The tendency escalated as he grow older. Authoritarianism brings dominance and violence.

He loved begging the question. All of this swirls in my head because of what’s going on with all the dubious ICE activity.

“You can’t lawfully stop someone or detain them just because you want to.” My brother’s answer to that was that I was naive. That police everywhere can and do exactly that. Some do. Which of course, is true. He conveniently ignored the word “lawfully” in my observation, just as all the Trump-supporting constitutional simpletons are currently doing.

Almost all of ICE’s abuse would evaporate instantly if they followed the Constitution. But they don’t – and the more people argue that what they’re doing is legally justified is pushing us collectively down a dark road.

Anyone denying the political motivation of choosing Minnesota over Texas is breathing the fumes from their gas tank. I don’t mind a little idiocy because it keeps people like Tom Cotton entertained. The problem is that abuse has tendrils that reach unexpected places. That which we permit anywhere will eventually reach us.

Does anyone believe that if every person not lawfully here left the country today that the huge military apparatus ICE has become would disappear? That their budget would be given back and used appropriately? In the same way that police or prison budgets almost never decrease, ICE isn’t going anywhere because this administration is using it in a way that it wasn’t intended to be used.

If your argument is enforcement, we have the technology and the ability to “solve” that problem for 1/1000th the cost. Without the violence, mayhem, and turmoil. It is so obviously motivated by the desire to engender those consequences.

PS I am in awe of the mental gymnastics some people are employing to justify encroaching on our constitutional rights. Once abridged, they rarely return. You may support those who are currently encroaching them, but you’ll be wondering what happened once the dust settles. We will all be 3/5ths when it’s over.

Government, Humor, Trump

American

01/21/2026 X Teri Leave a comment

I’m so proud of President Trump. When he heard the inner voice calling him, he didn’t just lean into it, he gave himself head trauma and dived in. Not content with being a bad president, he chose instead to be the worst. That takes guts, at least 76 extra pounds of it. When your goal is to become synonymous with half the negative words in a thesaurus, you must be willing to surround yourself with like-minded people. Our president tirelessly turned over every rock to find the kind of people he wanted. You can’t surpass the dubious achievements of Mr. Mustache unless you’re willing to go the extra mile to beat up the homeless guy on the corner. I wish people would stop complaining about Trump. Even though he dodged military service, he’s adopted the old army slogan: Be All You Can Be. If you’re born an ass, it’s your obligation to be the best worst ass possible. As I hear the news each day, I nod with pride, knowing that he is proof that literally anyone can become president. No matter what your criminal record, whether you’ve abused people, or used an entire political apparatus to make yourself and your friends wealthy, you can aspire to be president.

Either way, you still have to go to work, and still pretend that we’re not being governed by the least qualified and most hateful president in our history. We didn’t choose bad. We chose the worst. And that’s the best testament to our broken democracy I can think of. He wants to return our country to the ideals of the Constitution as originally written. Stop complaining that you will have no rights or that you’re counted as a fraction of a person. It’s what the people who stole this country wanted. Trump proves everyday that he’s the man for the job.

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PS That is my wood panel hybrid picture of Zach Galifianakis/Jesus. It reminds me that no matter how hard we work to improve things, there’s always going to be an idiot intent on perverting our goals. And a lot of people who should know better standing behind him while he does it.
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Behavior, Family, Government, Opinion, Personal, Racism and Prejudice

From 1984 To 2026

01/09/2026 X Teri Leave a comment

Several of my social media friends have been posting 1984 quotes.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

I have two of Orwell’s most famous books in Spanish. I’ve been reading “1984,” constantly finding parallels. I included “Animal Farm” in the picture because it is a companion warning to what’s going on around us.

Listening to the loons of this administration attempting to reframe what they’re doing takes me back to my childhood. Surrounded by violence and racism. Even though my dad was violent, the family members who justified their horrendous worldviews loom larger as villains. I think of them as I listen and watch. They were scared of losing control of a world that wasn’t just theirs to begin with. They could not admit that they might have been the bad guys.

Government, Opinion, Trump

Ugh

01/03/2026 X Teri Leave a comment

For any “Catch-22” fans, the breaking news I woke up to this morning inspired me to write my own Yossarian quote: “Having tried nothing proven or reasonable, the administration decided the only way to keep the foreign country safe was to bomb it.”

If I behaved like this administration behaves, I would be fired, exiled, vilified, and hated, and deservedly so.

Behavior, Government, History, Opinion, Politics, Religion

American History X

09/01/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

American History X

This is a thought experiment. Read the catch after the introduction.

In the 1940s, the Soviet Union conducted research in Guatemala. They infected hundreds of Guatemalans with syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases. They used sex workers, direct injections, and even deliberate wounds to Guatemalans to directly infect them. Many never received treatment, even though penicillin was a central part of the involuntary study. The study was moved to Guatemala from a Soviet Union prison because they couldn’t effectively infect prisoners with Guatemala and needed a large-scale test environment.

Now replace “Soviet Union” with the “United States.”

It was us. Not them.

This horrendous and illegal study was hidden for 60 years.

Many people have heard of the Tuskegee experiment, which was a precursor to the Guatemalan atrocity. Those people were identified as infected but never treated. It wasn’t uncovered until 1972 when a whistleblower came forward. The Guatemalan experiment is worse because the United States government used a huge group of Guatemalans and deliberately infected them, many of whom never received treatment.

The purpose of me pointing this out is that it’s important that we understand our history. Not the history that gets whitewashed. But one that includes the warts and horrors of some of the things we have done. If we’re not aware of these things, we are participating in the ongoing likelihood that similar experiments might happen again.

None of this is a conspiracy theory. It’s all established fact. We like to think of these things as historical, as if people in our government don’t sometimes break the law and engage in horrendous behavior, justifying it by all manner of reasoning.

MKULTRA was a CIA-sponsored study that happened for 20 years, subjecting people to a variety of substances, primarily LSD. The Unabomber was part of one such study.

In 1964, the CIA secretly backed the overthrow of Brazil’s democracy, even going so far as training those involved in death squads.

In several instances, the United States government actively sterilized people without their consent.

The United States government participated in the overthrow of the democratically elected governments in Guatemala, Ecuador, Haiti, Bolivia, Chile, and the Dominican Republic, among others.

The term “banana republic” owes its origin to our participation in the active violent overthrow of a country at the behest of a corporation.

Project Sunshine. Operation Northwoods. Operation Paperclip. Operation CHAOS. COINTELPRO. The Gulf of Tonkin incident. In the 1930s, we deported a massive number of Latinos, many of whom were American citizens. We did the same thing again in the 1950s. We built concentration camps during WWII, including one here in Arkansas.

George Washington inherited slaves when he was 11. Throughout his life, he owned 500+ people. He actively worked to ensure that none of his slaves could be free. People like to excuse away this fact by pointing to the period in which he lived. There’s a fancy term to describe this type of logical fallacy in regards to ethical behavior. It’s pervasive in our society.

We’re taught the myth of the Pilgrims, and other similar groups. They weren’t trying to flee religious persecution. They were primarily intent on establishing their own at the discriminatory expense of other beliefs. Does this sound familiar to those of us in modern America?

I could go on. The purpose of all this is not the throw darts that are well deserved. It’s to remind people that secrecy in government is one of the fundamental flaws that has plagued our country. Failure to teach our flaws and choices will result in their repetition.

I’m fascinated by history. Not the history I was taught in elementary school. Rather the complex and shocking version that mirrors reality.

We should be on guard against allowing or participating in behavior that goes against our alleged dedication to freedom and human dignity. Yet, all we need to do is to follow current events to see that the beliefs we claim often contradict the reality we are permitting.

You cannot preach the “us” if you are actively vilifying people by nationality, color, sexual orientation, or religious orientation. It’s a clear warning bell that you are on the wrong side of history.

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Finances, Government, Humor, Opinion, Politics

The Maths

07/19/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

I’m innumerate more often than I care to admit. BUT… I was spouting off the effects of inflation to someone who wasn’t buying it, pun intended.

(Generally speaking, for those keyboard correctionists out there. If you’re looking for logic, we broke that door hinge again, possibly forever. If you’re looking for impeccable writing or ironclad mathematics, ask your doctor if Givafocken is right for you.)

If I net $40,000 this year and the inflation rate stays at 2.7%, that means I will “lose” $1,080 in buying power compared to a year ago. Without a change in income or spending, $1,080 will vanish from my wallet. Sure, it will be the same of dollars, but WHAT I can buy with those dollars will decrease by 2.7%. The percentage sounds small, whereas the dollar amount tends to raise eyebrows.

Much like buying things is harder when you calculate how many minutes, hours, or days you have to work to buy it. Especially if your boss is a micromanager, a dude named Steve or Kevin, or says BS like, “you need to circle back and touch base after you drill down and leverage your blue sky thinking.” You’re sacrificing your life segmented into minutes to buy every item you choose to purchase.

That’s before the additional tariff nonsense, which is a tax regardless of how it is defined. The next effect is that higher costs will be passed to you, regardless of whether it is small or large. I assume you’ve noticed that highly profitable corporations tend to love their billions of dollars. They are the modern day dragons that we feared when we were children. They are resting on a reprehensible amount of wealth that should be taxed at a rate comparable to a couple of generations ago. But we’re stuck worrying about Karen maybe getting a few too many dollars that she has to stretch further than a Dollar Store condom.

Conclusion: you’re losing a lot more money than you believe you are. Percentages are misleading because we don’t connect the concept of inflation to disappearing purchasing power.

PS Rich people take a lot longer to feel the effects of economic factors because they do not need to spend all their money once earned, whereas we poor people are spending all of our money in an attempt to avoid a free month’s stay in the tent out back of our brother-in-law’s garage, or to avoid buying canned goods with pictures of animals on them.

Although I make jokes in the telling of my point, I remain cautiously cynical about people who think economics is simple, straighforward, or honest. It’s like expecting your drunk, cheating husband to tell you why he has a pair of panties stuck in the glove box. You’re going to hear a mountain of nonsense. By the end of their excuses, they will have launched a campaign for the US Senate.

Economics is the lie we tell ourselves that we can comprehend a global financial market with a million moving parts, while almost none of the variables are within our control or comprehension.

This concludes my wildly strange TED talk. Please sign the guest register on your way out.

Government, Humor, Opinion, Personal, Religion, Social Rules

Do Unto Others

04/28/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

If “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is too much, “Don’t be a dick” is a workable compromise.

If you’re averse to complexity, “do no harm” is a nice recap. “Stop hitting me in the face” is the minimum expectation.

“Live and let live,” if only for the entertainment value of observing human beings as we claim to use reason and logic, yet behave as if we are hyenas caught in an electric fence.

If your personal beliefs or religion (arguably and allegedly) forbid tramp stamp tattoos, drinking, bikinis, sex on a seesaw, rainbows, compassion, handlebar mustaches, caffeine, smoking, eating animals, or voting sensibly, then observe the beliefs you’ve chosen.

The greater the tendency a person has to impose their chosen beliefs on others, the greater the probability the afore-mentioined person is an asshole. (One who has yet to discover the agony of someone else telling THEM how to live.)

I’m too old and too cranky to listen to the various forms of dogma and indoctrination go to war with each other about whose book says what. If you live your life the way you want and others do the same, everyone’s much happier. It’s not my fault no two denominations agree, much less the individuals inside of each group. It’s remarkable that most people use the same book, yet no two people agree on the interpretation or the applicability of the contents to their lives.

You don’t have to help someone on the side of the road if they have a flat, but it would be nice if you don’t shout “You should have planned your life better” at them as you drive by and then steal their tire iron.

A lot of what we’re experiencing in society is the metaphorical equivalent of the flat tire scenario.

If recent events are any indication, the ones who disagree won’t like it any better than the rest do if the dynamic flips and they are the ones being hindered or silenced.

Reading the idiocy about the anti-Christian bias proposals gives me a multitude of thoughts and concerns. Very few people are anti-Christian, but attempting to favor one religion over another or a paticular brand of one is un-American and prohibited under the constitution. Everybody’s religion has elements that everyone else looks at and rolls their eyes. It’s human nature to misunderstand the beliefs of others, not to mention scoff at holy water while putting on their magic underwear.

You can’t demand conformity for others and then reject it when it’s your turn to suffer the consequences of those abusing power to tell you that you must follow ideology you don’t agree with.

For those who’ve studied history, no one wants theocracy. It inevitably disintegrates into an unrecognizable and extreme mess that satisfies no one and limits our ability to live freely.

Each of us is free to exercise our religion but that freedom ends where another person’s freedom begins. Especially if bacon or coffee is involved.

47 and people like him have continued to co-opt religion for their own purposes. It’s a story as old as time. I could not have imagined that our country would seemingly embrace the folly of someone so unqualified to represent the grace of belief and religion.

I don’t dislike religion. I dislike dogma and the infinite amount of zealotry that some people have when they seek to dictate how other people live in a free society.

I’ve started carrying protology referral cards in my wallet. Don’t be surprised if I hand you one. Since I’m an ass sometimes too, you can hand me one if you catch me behaving similarly. I’m the guy who sits in the back pew because I’m not fond of lightning strikes.

Behavior, Government, Justice, Law, Politics, Safety, Security, Social Rules, Trump

The Great Experiment

03/22/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

I was in DC when I was young. Historical monuments and artefacts take on different meanings as you experience more in life. Witnessing the ebb and flow of government and the people who deem themselves worthy to serve us as public servants.

As for the Declaration of Independence, I can’t read it without feeling as if bolts of hypocritical lightning might strike me. Only a small percentage of adults have read the entirety of the document. Read it again if you have a few minutes and tell me that you don’t feel massive cognitive dissonance upon doing so. Regardless of your political affiliation, you will feel twinges of recognition in light of current events.

Most of us were taught that the document embodied the ideals of those who assembled around it. But then we independently learned about the struggles of women and minorities wanting their place at the table along the white men who kept a straight face while signing a document indicating that we are all equal.

Two and a half centuries later, we’re struggling with the consequences of corrupted capitalism, oligarchy, and white christian nationalism, all of which now boil in the crucible focused by someone who has no substantive interest in treating the Constitution as sacred.

It’s strange to me that as individuals we mostly want to be left alone, yet so quickly join forces with movements and groups that collectively seek to accentuate inequality and promote favoritism toward their particular cause.

I’m a liberal and as such, I relish the days when we actually return to following the concepts of the Constitution. That we stop saying words like equality if we are going to behave as if the term applies only to our cohort. If we continue down this road toward marginalization or reduction in freedoms while simultaneously imposing a particular religious viewpoint or worldview, it is a certainty how this great experiment will end.

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