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America’s daily shitstorm

March 17, 2025

Dell Franklin,

By DELL FRANKLIN

Editor’s Note: The following series, “Life in Radically Gentrifying Cayucos by the Sea,” to be posted biweekly includes the notes, thoughts, and opinions of an original American voice: author Dell Franklin. 

Franklin’s memoir, “The ballplayer’s Son” and “Life on The Mississippi, 1969” are currently on Amazon.

Just turn on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN and any other national news outlet at any time of day and witness the nonstop brain-bludgeoning, guaranteed to disrupt your life and, according to who’s in the winning column – conservative Republicans and zealous white Christians – there is rejoicing and gloating and a feeling of resounding victory while hogging first place. And if you’re in the losing column – liberal Democrats and woke fiends – you’re getting your noses rubbed in the dirt while gasping in horror at a life once worth living and now, according to the great George Carlin, some twenty years ago, “A life Worth Losing.”

It’s like the 1980s when the LA Lakers and Boston Celtics played for championships, and the hatred between the players and the fans was beyond palpable. It was fucking all out war with no grudging respect or mercy. Kill or be killed.

But today, the news is irresistible entertainment after four years in which Joe Biden emerged from a cave every six months or so to slur up a speech in a somnambulist’s trance, making him a bull’s eye for the venomous opposition that made America appear to be a horrible victim of carnage when actually it was doing better than any other country in the world.

Now, in a near daily spectacle, the ubiquitous orange Messiah, ensconced on his throne in the White House, surrounded by his mean looking and mean acolytes and lackeys and henchmen, as well as his human buzz saw, billionaire Elon Musk (clad in medieval hangman attire and wielding a chainsaw like the grim reaper while perched upon his shoulders is a  miniature clone of himself), the Messiah smugly toys with the press and issues scowling decree after decree to not only obliterate every democratic norm in the country, but further torture anybody who didn’t vote for him and hates him and can’t do a fucking thing about it now that the Dems are scurrying around like a bunch of desperate, needy souls trying to find a voice.

Turn on the news any time of day, and hopefully as soon as you get off work, and the rubbing-it-in is at an all time high, as you get to witness the powerful overpowering the powerless, and the powerless lib pundits squawking with those defeated resigned expressions on their pusses.

What to do if you’re a lib and watch your now tepid MSNBC and CNN that, along with various once courageous metropolitan newspapers, buckle under the emperor?

Well, don’t get drunk, though I stayed that way pretty much during the Reagan administration. Fight? Naw. Give it time.

Instead, sit back on your recliners and enjoy the hilarious shit show. There’s never been anything quite like it. I mean, you’re witnessing a terrible businessman and amateurish TV personality give the greatest performance in political history as he juggles the future of America as well as the world in a wallow of lying and corruption as he dismantles what used to be a pretty good deal.

Cheer him on, MAGA people. The media is the enemy – hoorah! Disobey the judges – hoorah!

Take over Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada – hoorrah! Government employees getting Elon’s meat ax – hoorah, and tough titty swamp critters! Abandon an ally amid a brutal battle and suck up to a murderous war criminal and communist dictator – hoorah!

Oh, the human comedy. (Think the movie, ‘Network.’) The asinine hubris and absurdity is a belly guffaw. The marching orders of the MAGA caps and flags prevail. It is their America, and it is about them and only them, and no goddam sharing their wealth and their massive military ordnance.

“Go, America! Go America!”

It’s time to show all these leeching countries that it’s time to pay up. We’re only good to you if you kiss our asses and understand we’re extorting you for money, motherfuckers. Money money money. And, if it means your suffering, so be it.

My freshman year in college, 1962, we had this very stimulating political science teacher Mr. Cohen. We studied socialism, communism, totalitarianism, etc., and he once said something to the order that “Democracy works very well now, because we have a thriving middleclass, but there is always the danger that capitalism will overwhelm democracy and we will lose our humanity to greed, corruption and materialism.”

Oh, if the prof could see what is going on today in America. I’m not sure he’d be laughing, but at this point it seems to me we can’t lose our sense of humor at the scary sight of human folly at its most extreme and frightening.

 


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We have been so complacent in the last 20+ years of what was happening in the world around us. As Americans in an advanced indusrialized country ,we are the most globally ignorant country in the world.


“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles”


4

The Lakers and the Celtics had referees and played in best-of-seven game series. The team that lost bowed their heads and exited and in the off-season they made moves to get better so they could come back and avenge their loss. We have a team now that doesn’t even pretend to do any of that and in fact they hate basketball.


3

So Dell, tell us which expenses that Mr. Musk has axed that you will miss.


$620K for “an LGB+ inclusive teen pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys” –

$699K for studying “cannabis use” among “sexual minority gender diverse individuals” $740K for examining “social networks” among “black and Latino sexual minority men in New Jersey” –

$50K for assessing “sexual health” among “LGTBQ+ Latinx youth in an agricultural community” –

$75K for researching “structural racism” –

$903,811 for alpaca farming in Peru –

$364,500 to reduce social discrimination of recyclers in Bolivia –

$813,210 for vegetable gardens in El Salvador –

$323,633 to promote cultural understanding of Venezuelan migrants in Brazil – $731,105 to improve marketability of mushrooms and peas in Guatemala –

$677,342 to expand fruit and jam sales in Honduras –

$483,345 to improve artisanal salt production in Ecuador –

$39,250 for beekeeping in Brazil. Take a gander at DOGE.gov it adds up to billions of dollars that could have been spent on, oh I don’t know, homeless Vets? Clean water for Detroit? Tutors for our HS kids who read at the 4th grade level?


43

I’m sympathetic to the idea that the government is wasteful because it’s true! I’ll even acknowledge that most of your citations are probably worth defunding.


But whenever there are comically silly sounding lists like this there is almost never any curiosity as to why they’re doing what they’re doing and if there is anything deeper happening. Like the shrimp treadmills from a decade ago was really about studying marine life response to water quality, studying lizard spit actually layed the groundwork for a lot of new pharmaceuticals. Crazy on paper at first glance, but totally understandable with less than 30 minutes of reading/research.


Unfortunately I don’t trust DOGE to do this considered and detail oriented approach, how can you believe they will when none of the columns on their own website add up. Basic math is step one!


-17

I noticed how many people here are siding against this reply to a very silly list that I guess they believe and expect us to do so as well. What I find when I question people like this, who are so deeply gullible, is that they not only never have used “fact check” measures, they also refuse to ever do so. But apparently, they expect us to go along with such ridiculous crap. And there you have how a gang of grifters can waltz into our White House and destroy all the programs that have made our society livable and saved the lives of countless vulnerable children elsewhere. Not to mention now attacking our Social Secuity, which we pay into our whole lives, with an accuracy rate of only 1% incorrect payments (.84%) actually, and claiming “There was soooo much fraauuud! We found sooo much…SO MUCH FRAUD”, etc. Every time DOGE puts up a post about all the so called “good” they are doing, it has to be taken down due to massive exaggeration, often up to 1,000%!


If what was being done was actually in our interests, wouldn’t it make more sense to tell us what was actually happening instead of a firehose of blatant and obvious lies? Or are MAGAs enjoying pretending to believe the incessantly changing stories? That is what most concerns me, how gullible or intentionally misinformed people are willing to be.


That State of the Union the other night was a case in point. The whole thing was a hideous stream of divisiveness and complete untruths. One side of the room was clapping and cheering wildly, knowing that their constituents were being bald-faced lied to, whilst the other side sat sullenly holding up dissenting auction paddles like beaten losers, under the thumb of the blossoming dictatorship. Pretty much captured exactly what is wrong in this country. It certainly made me proud to be an independent voter who had never belonged to either “side”.


But heartsick over what we have become.


-11

Precious that you think these alleged savings are going to end up helping homeless vets and underprivileged kids. You must be knew to the whole oligarchy/kleptocracy deal.


-18

Eloquently written. We had a good run didn’t we.


-30

3 Words: Kill Your Television.


28

On one hand yes, cable TV is the worst way of getting news (other than social media). Read; newspapers, magazines, newsletters, books.


On the other hand, and forgive me if I’m misinterpreting, you’re saying the solution is to stop paying attention to the bad policy and behavior conducted by the current administration. Just close your eyes, trust Dear Leader.


-14

$36+ Trillion in Debt! Annual interest around $1.5 Trillion? Drastic changes called for. That’s what the people voted for. I’m relieved that Elon and his people are, at his donated expense, auditing our Federal programs and making recommendations to the President and Cabinet Members. Let’s actually see what is in the Federal Budget for now on. If that pisses people off, I couldn’t care less.


27

Multi-billionaires such as Elon Musk never do anything at “donated expense.” He plans on further enriching himself through this DOGE boondoggle. Don’t be fooled.


By eliminating the regulatory process through laying off government experts and watchdogs he will avoid any scrutiny on his government contracts, of which he plans to multiply. He has installed Starlink (supposedly donated) at the White House while his real goal is installing his satellite system at the FAA for potentially billions. Musk has already made $38 billion on government contracts and that number is sure to increase exponentially in the next few years.


Musk also stands to increase his fortune with further Trump tax cuts. Thus, he is, by no means, an impartial advocate in trying to cut government spending. He simply wants that spending to go to him and other wealthy interests rather than being used for the American people. Trump will never balance the federal budget and his tax cuts will only increase the national debt. If that $36 billion is somehow less in 2028, I will eat my words, but I sincerely doubt it.


-29

Even a really quick look into where F’Elon got his money would let one know that he is scamming the crap out of us. What those who paid less attention in school don’t seem to grasp is the math of people amassing BILLIONS and HUNDREDS of BILLIONS and that being a reason those of us doing the work don’t have enough to live on. Those happy to be told fairy tales about how people like that were somehow super-human and geniuses and deserved all of that at our expense and it must be those who are on that sliver of a budget that offers assistance to those in need are the real problem.


Wait until they privatize Social Security. Should be right up there with our healthcare in no time. That is before it is transferred into Bitcoin and just “disappears”.


MAGA i unwilling to take into consideration the HUNDREDS of MILLIONS F’Elon paid into Trump’s campaign to get to be co-pres and axe all the programs that investigated the massive double-digit BILLIONS he has taken from the US government. Our money. He just forked over another 100 MILLION to Trump for access to our records and for favoritism on future government contracts after he and his teen “team” have erased his competition.


Now he and his little team of teen hackers are destroying the programs that were competition to his company. DUH PEOPLE!!! Looking for fraud??? What would you call what he is actually doing? Please fact check me. Or, you know, just give me one of those awesome “down” votes if the truth is just too much to even look into.


-8

Conservative economists and policy analysts have known for decades what is in the Federal budget and what can be done to restore solvency. I’m sorry, but what Mr. Musk is doing is entirely theater, it’s not serious auditing and all the headlines obscure that we are spending more in 2025 than we did in 2024 under Biden. Just cause Musk knows how to do some things well doesn’t make him a master of everything, unfortunately none of his yes men will say that…


https://manhattan.institute/article/a-comprehensive-federal-budget-plan-to-avert-a-debt-crisis-2024


https://reason.com/2025/03/13/the-10-worst-republican-budget-gimmicks/


-28

You didn’t vote for Elon Musk and everything he and Trump have done is illegal. Is that what you could care less about? Trump has the Congress, Senate, and White House. He could have gotten any of this legally. Why didn’t he?


-15

“sense of humor”? Nah. This is real life and real people are being affected by this abhorrent, pathetic, and embarrassing current president and his gov. It is only the rich and ignorant that are laughing Dell.


-26

Hey Dell just like in sports you Lost! Live with it.


27

Thanks, Dell. Great column.


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