Monday, October 6, 2025
The spoils are sliding
The Spoils Are Sliding
Almost forty years ago, when I worked at a surface coal mine, it wasn’t unusual for the spoils to slide. For those who’ve never stood beside a dragline the size of a church, here’s what that means:
To get to the coal, you first have to move mountains — literally. The overburden, all that useless dirt and rock sitting on top of the coal, is dug up and piled somewhere out of the way. But gravity, that relentless accountant of the universe, keeps the books balanced. You can only stack dirt so high and so steep before it begins to move back down. Slowly at first — inches a day, maybe less — until one morning you come to work and the entire spoil pile has crept halfway back over the coal you just uncovered. A slow-motion disaster.
The strange thing is how deceptively calm it all looks while it’s happening. You can stand there and watch a fifty-foot wall of dirt ooze forward at the speed of a glacier. If you blink, you miss it. But give it enough time and it swallows everything.
That, my friends, is what’s happening to our democracy.
Our freedoms — the hard-won layers of rights and norms that generations dug out for us — are being buried again under the slow slide of corruption, lies, and authoritarianism. The spoils are sliding.
The Trump movement, with its contempt for truth, justice, and the rule of law, is the gravity pulling it all downhill. Each day, the slope steepens a little more — a judge attacked here, a journalist smeared there, another election rule “adjusted.” And because it happens gradually, many Americans barely notice. They don’t see the slow crawl of authoritarian dirt creeping over the coal seam of liberty. They go about their lives, unaware that the thing we’re losing isn’t some abstract idea — it’s the ground beneath our feet.
History tells us that democracies rarely collapse with a bang. They erode with a shrug. Rome didn’t fall in a day, and neither did Hungary, Turkey, or Russia. Each thought they were “too strong” to fail — until the weight of apathy and propaganda buried their freedom for good.
So what’s the message?
Don’t stand there watching the slide and telling yourself it’s no big deal. Don’t believe that “it can’t happen here.” It is happening here.
The overburden is moving. The spoils are sliding.
If we don’t start digging back — voting, organizing, speaking out — the coal seam of our democracy will be gone before we realize it was ever there.
Sunday, October 5, 2025
A Good Day at the Donut Hall
Post: “The S-Word That Scares MAGA More Than Math”
They just kept pouring through the door—actual people, in Payson—coming to hear a Democratic Socialist. I know, I know, that’s like spotting a Prius at a monster-truck rally. The red hats must’ve felt a disturbance in the Force.
And the best part? It was a great presentation. Nobody handed out hammers and sickles. Nobody pledged allegiance to Karl Marx. Nobody nationalized your barbecue grill. Just regular people talking about how maybe—just maybe—the economy should work for everyone, not just the yacht club.
Of course, to the MAGA crowd, anything that isn’t Trump-approved automatically falls somewhere between terrorism and Satanism. They think “Democratic Socialism” means government agents will seize their bass boat and redistribute their beer fridge.
But here’s the shocker: Democratic Socialism is just democracy with better manners. It says, “Hey, maybe the people who make the country run should have a say in how it’s run.” Radical, right? It’s the idea that healthcare, education, and retirement shouldn’t depend on which billionaire your congressman owes a favor to.
You already live with a little socialism every day—Social Security, Medicare, public schools, libraries, fire departments. You like roads? Guess what, comrade—you’ve been driving on socialism this whole time.
The “Democratic” part means it’s all done through voting, not dictators. The “Socialist” part means we invest in people, not hedge funds. The “MAGA interpretation” part means they scream “COMMUNISM!” every time someone mentions dental care.
So yeah, a bunch of people in Payson showed up to learn about Democratic Socialism. Nobody was brainwashed, nobody grew a beard and moved to Cuba. Turns out, when you explain that it’s about fairness, dignity, and democracy, people lean in.
Maybe that’s what really scares the red hats—an idea that makes sense.
Saturday, October 4, 2025
Another Trump lie
Trump’s “Army of Opportunity”
When Trump was busy blowing smoke up the backsides of the generals, he bragged that military recruitment was at an all-time high.
And technically, he wasn’t lying — which, for Trump, is like finding a unicorn.
Yes, numbers went up. But not because Americans suddenly felt the patriotic urge to join Trump’s Brown Shirt Brigade. No, it’s because a whole lot of people are broke, desperate, and need a paycheck more than a purpose.
See, the Army rolled out a new program designed to scrape the bottom of the barrel. That’s not me being mean — that’s their phrase. They’re now recruiting folks who couldn’t qualify before, helping them lose weight and pass the basic test. Think of it as boot camp before boot camp — the pre-owned soldier program.
So, congratulations America: if you’re homeless, jobless, and hopeless, Uncle Sam wants you! You’ll get a bed, three meals a day, and the exciting opportunity to be first in line when the shooting starts.
And yet, there was Trump onstage — puffed up like a toad in heat — bragging that “our recruitment numbers are fantastic.” Sure they are, Donnie. It’s amazing what happens when poverty becomes your biggest recruiter.
If you want the real story, check today’s New York Times. Turns out, we’re not building an army of heroes — we’re building an army of survivors. And the man selling it as “winning” wouldn’t know honor if it saluted him.
Friday, October 3, 2025
Kill them all then sort out the innocent.
What Have We Become?
Our new Secretary of Defense seems to think the path to victory is making soldiers more ruthless and violent. Forget strategy, forget diplomacy—the new doctrine is: be meaner, hit harder.
Before Trump wandered onstage to showcase his latest episode of public derangement, Peter Hegseth delivered what sounded like a high school locker room pep talk to the generals. His message? Our troops are “wimps,” weakened by the radical idea that women also serve. Morality? That’s for losers. Civilian casualties? Just background noise. The subtext was clear: it’s fair game to kill anyone who isn’t waving a Republican flag.
The generals sat there in silence, watching the performance, no doubt wondering what circus they had stumbled into.
Meanwhile, Trump and Hegseth were practically giddy over their new rebranding idea: scrap the “Department of Defense” and call it what it really is—the “Department of War.” Because what’s more macho than renaming things while innocent people die?
Trump, a lifelong fan of studio wrestling, loves the fake tough-guy act. Hegseth, when not drunk, loves to play macho man himself. Together, they strut and posture while the country stares into the abyss.
What have we become?