Stooge Circus

Welcome to the Stooge Circus: A Case Study in Payson-Style Hypocrisy

Last night, Payson residents were treated to a full-scale performance of what can only be called The Stooge Circus—a town hall meeting starring Council Members Steve Otto, Jim Ferris, and Charlie Bell. These three political contortionists have perfected the art of promising one thing, doing the opposite, and acting as though no one will notice.

For years, they rallied the Tea Party crowd with two battle cries:

1. “The town should vote on major spending!”

2. “The 1% sales tax is an outrage and must be repealed!”

Now that they’re in power?
Both principles have vanished like cotton candy in a rainstorm.

Take the swimming-pool fiasco. Payson once had a real opportunity to build a modern aquatic facility that would have served families, seniors, and youth for decades. That dream is gone—sabotaged by obstructionists who campaigned on outrage but govern with duct tape.

Jim Ferris, the loudest opponent of the new pool, now proposes to “save” the crumbling Taylor Pool with pocket change and aluminum-can economics. Instead of a long-term community investment, they want to patch, glue, caulk, and pretend it’s progress—all without giving the voters a say, despite promising voter involvement in every major project.

And the sales tax?
These same officials who demanded a public vote to impose it now insist on keeping it—quietly, conveniently, and without a peep about voter approval. What was once tyranny when someone else did it is now “responsible governance” when they do it.

This isn’t leadership.
It’s performance art.
And the theme is hypocrisy on parade.

The Three Stooges of Payson have managed to turn civic inconsistency into a governing philosophy. If there were awards for political contradiction, they’d sweep the ceremony. But the people of Payson deserve honesty, transparency, and real planning—not circus acts, not duct-tape solutions, and not elected officials who forget every promise the moment they sit behind the dais.

Payson deserves better than this show. The question now is:
How long will citizens tolerate a government run on slogans during elections and shortcuts during governance?

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Dead, but not dead for a good cause, or attend your own funeral

The Donut Tontine: A Fundraiser Where Everyone Dies (But Nobody Actually Dies)

Let’s be honest—raising money is hard. Bake sales flop. Raffles annoy people. And no one wants to hear the words “fundraising committee.” So Kadizzle reached deep into the dark, dusty basement of financial history and dragged out a strange old creature called a tontine.

Don’t worry. No one is actually harmed in this version. Mostly.

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What in the Heck Is a Tontine?

A tontine was an old-school retirement plan from way back before Social Security, 401(k)s, or even common sense. Here’s how it worked:

• A group of people all put in the same amount of money.

• That money gets invested.

• Everyone splits the yearly interest.

• When one person dies, their share of the interest gets divided among whoever’s left.

• As people drop off, the survivors make more money.

• The very last person alive gets everything.

Yes—this worked great financially and terribly morally. Unfortunately, it turned out that when money increases with each death, people start dying a little faster than nature intended. Who could have predicted that? Because of the “light murder problem,” tontines were outlawed.

So naturally, Kadizzle thought: We can fix this.

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The Donuts with Democrats Tontine (No Assassins Allowed)

Here’s the safe, modern, non-murdery version.

• We recruit 26 brave donut patriots.

• Each person throws in $100.

• That creates a $2,600 Donut War Chest.

• The money sits in an interest-earning account.

• The interest helps pay for donuts, coffee, and the emotional support required after consuming that many pastries.

Instead of real death, we use something even more powerful:

Artificial Death (Also Known as “You’re Dead, But Please Pass the Sugar”)

• Every member’s name goes into a jar.

• At each meeting, one name is drawn.

• That person is now officially “Dead to the Tontine.”

• They stop receiving future interest shares.

• But they do not stop showing up, because this is not a cult. Probably.

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The Funeral (With the Corpse in the Audience)

At the next Donuts meeting:

• The previously “dead” person shows up very much alive.

• A formal funeral is held.

• Someone delivers a eulogy listing:

  • Their good deeds

  • Their bad political opinions

  • And at least one mildly embarrassing personal fact

• The “deceased” sits silently and listens to their own life summary like a ghost at their own wake.

This continues for about two years, one death per meeting.

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The Final Survivor (May God Have Mercy)

Eventually, only one symbolic survivor remains. This person:

• Becomes the Last Donut Standing

• Is crowned Keeper of the Financial Flame

• Does not get assassinated, poisoned, or shoved down a stairwell

• Does not get the money either—because this is a fundraiser, not a crime documentary

Meanwhile, Donuts with Democrats keeps the original fund and uses the interest for donuts and operations the entire time.

And here’s the beautiful part:

• Everyone gets some money back from interest during the process

• So the real cost to each person is less than $100

• Everyone gets donuts

• Everyone gets coffee

• Everyone gets publicly eulogized while still alive

This is what economists call a win-win with frosting.

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Example Numbers (Because Even a Donut Cult Needs Math)

• 26 people × $100 = $2,600 total fund

• If the account earns 5% per year:

  • $2,600 × 5% = $130 per year

• Over two years:

  • About $260 in total interest

• That interest:

  • Offsets what each person originally paid

  • Helps buy donuts and supplies

• Donuts with Democrats still keeps:

  • The full $2,600

  • Plus the interest earned along the way

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Act like nothings wrong

Act Like Nothing’s Wrong

The country is melting under a Trump-style dictatorship, and yet millions of Americans—especially within the GOP and the Tea Party—continue to behave as if everything is perfectly normal. Rights vanish. Institutions crumble. Corruption parades itself in daylight. And still, they smile, wave flags, shout slogans, and insist that nothing is wrong.

How do they do it?

The evidence is everywhere, in plain sight. Court rulings ignored. Inspectors general fired. Prosecutors attacked. Journalists vilified. Judges threatened. Elections undermined. Enemies praised. Allies discarded. The rule of law turned into a joke, the Constitution reduced to a prop. Lies now pile up like snowdrifts—layer upon layer, burying facts, burying accountability, burying truth itself.

And yet the faithful remain serene. They chant. They cheer. They deflect. They deny. They gaslight their neighbors and themselves. The corruption becomes “strength.” The cruelty becomes “toughness.” The criminality becomes “smart business.” The collapse becomes “freedom.”

This behavior is not new to human history. It is a familiar psychological defense: when the truth becomes too terrifying to face, people retreat into denial. They normalize the abnormal. They excuse the inexcusable. They learn how to act like nothing is wrong to preserve their identity, their tribe, and their sense of safety.

A song captures this mindset with uncomfortable precision. Its characters are thieves, addicts, and enablers—people surrounded by disaster who survive not by confronting reality, but by performing denial. Each character faces a crisis so obvious it should shatter their world, yet they choose the same solution: pretend everything is fine.

The corporate thief is caught red-handed after twenty years of betrayal and responds not with accountability, but with lawyers and denial.
The alcoholic drinks himself into isolation, abandoned by everyone, yet convinces himself that the bottle is enough.
The mother watches her daughter disappear into addiction and sex work, yet chooses silence over truth.

Each tragedy ends the same way:
Act like nothing’s wrong.

That is exactly what we are seeing today on a national scale.

When corruption is exposed, they don’t demand justice—they attack the investigator.
When lies are proven false, they don’t correct them—they repeat them louder.
When violence erupts, they don’t grieve—they justify.
When democracy is threatened, they don’t defend it—they mock it.

Fear runs the engine. Fear of outsiders. Fear of losing status. Fear of being wrong. Fear of the world changing without their permission. Rather than confront that fear honestly, it is easier to deny reality, wrap oneself in slogans, and accuse anyone who tells the truth of being the enemy.

But denial has consequences.

You can “act like nothing’s wrong” only for so long before collapse becomes unavoidable. Societies that abandon truth cannot govern themselves. Nations that excuse open criminality eventually become ruled by it. Movements that worship power over principle finally consume their own followers.

The tragedy is not only what authoritarian leaders do. The deeper tragedy is how many ordinary people help them do it—simply by looking away, closing their ears, and pretending that everything is fine.

History shows us where this road leads. It never ends in stability. It never ends in peace. It ends in reckoning.

And reckoning does not care how long we pretended.

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A new low for the Trump dictatorship

 The lying and deceit of the Trump gang remind me of the Three Stooges destroying our town of Payson. Killing people just for fun takes us back to Roman times. The local Stooges killed the hope for a new swimming pool, and Trump showed us how to kill people cling to a sinking boat. What kind of America do we live in. Ride around town and see people living in ramshackle homes while the rich put gold bricks on Trump's desk to buy favors. Wow, have we ever sunk this low? Now the Trump mafia wants to take health care and more from the poor to provide the rich with even more. What have we come to?

Let them freeze

How Low Can a Nation Sink? A Reflection on Power, Greed, and the Erosion of Our Communities

The cascade of lies and deceit pouring out of the Trump political machine echoes a sad pattern we’ve seen before—right here in small towns across America. When unprincipled people gain influence, their chaos spreads outward, damaging everything from national institutions to local hopes for community improvement.

In our own town, local political “Stooges” helped kill the dream of a new swimming facility, not because the project lacked merit, but because obstruction has become their identity. Nationally, Trump displays a similar brand of destructive leadership—one that treats human beings as disposable and clings to power at any cost. Watching him joke about people dying as they claw for survival on a sinking boat is more than grotesque; it is a chilling sign of moral decay.

Drive through many small towns and you can see the consequences with your own eyes: families living in run-down homes, infrastructure crumbling, and communities struggling while the ultra-wealthy slip gold bars to political strongmen in exchange for favors. The wealthy get richer; the poor are told to sacrifice a little more so that billionaires can accumulate yet another tower of excess.

How did we reach a point where cruelty is embraced as strength, poverty is dismissed as laziness, and public good is treated as an afterthought?

We are living in a moment where a political mafia openly seeks to strip healthcare and basic services from millions, all while selling the fantasy that this theft somehow makes the nation “great.” It is a shameful chapter in American history—and one we must not normalize.

The question we must ask is simple:
How low are we willing to let this go?

Every citizen, regardless of party or background, has a duty to push back against corruption—whether in Washington or in our own town halls. The strength of a democracy is measured not by the power of its leaders, but by the courage of its people.

Let’s summon that courage.

Let’s rebuild what has been torn down.

Let’s demand a country worthy of its ideals again.

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