I have posted only a few times in the past few years–I’ve suffered a disabling condition which led to separation from Microsoft, and I often feel orphaned. Some (but not all!) friends are afraid to reach out, and they disappear. This isn’t unexpected when one falls out of touch, but illness and hardship just aren’t things people handle well. I haven’t done my part–I’ve avoided contacting people because I feared it would leave them disillusioned.

It just so happened that I lived much of my childhood at my grandmother’s house, and she hosted up to six nursing home patients in her home at any given time. I witnessed the ravages of age and infirmity firsthand, and so I’m inured to some extent. I visited her every Saturday once she was in a skilled nursing facility herself. I miss that woman every day of my life.

But the fear extends the usual social coping strategies–people are afraid of Trump. It’s been a year of hell for many Americans. I had intended to post on my new favorite read: Gary Marcus’s Taming Silicon Valley, but runaway delusional LLMs may well prove the least of our worries as we head into the hottest summer on record. I share frustration with the millions of Americans persuaded they can scream but no one will hear them. Are we orphaned?

Megabill from Hell

The Trump bill making its way through Congress is doing so despite

• redistributing wealth upward in the most dramatic amount in American history
• crushing Medicaid-dependent citizens and nursing homes alike
• shielding anything (and I mean ANYTHING) purporting to be AI from any regulation by the states or feds
• ripping away nutrition subsidies for the children these fucktards swear they must protect (at least while in utero)
• enriching a class of people who will barely notice the difference, given their dilithium valued portfolios
• reversing and even penalizing green energy initiatives

Garbage Politicians

With a twisted expression of horror, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) roams the Capitol building expressing concern about the bill she voted to advance. She wants us to believe it was hard to vote for it–it takes zero courage to give the orange tyrant-baby what he wants. Mitch McConnell did one better by saying that poor communities impacted by the devastation this bill represents will “get over it.” After all, he’s seemingly “gotten over” a lifetime of subverting America through chicanery, lies, and a stupid cackle.

My representative, Juan Ciscomani, is too much a coward to hold a townhall on his support for the nuclear bomb that is the Big Beautiful Bill. Cissyco eked out a victory because the Greens were too precious to vote for a Democrat. I hope they’re happy with the result of their childish pageantry–we have no way to restrain the fascist impulses, despite Arizona-6 almost universally opposed.

For years, I’ve volunteered playing music at nursing homes–a third of them face closures should the cuts to Medicaid find their way into law. These are people with nowhere else to go. It’s absolutely fucking gut-wrenching. Trump would say they should die. Many say the opposite.

Is this what career politicians become? Utterly incapable of taking a stand or responsibility for their votes? Would these craven things have permitted Biden the tremendous and overwhelming support had he tried to do this?

Trump’s Affirmative Action

Trump receives special affirmative action treatment in everything he does–

1. He escapes charges of stealing secret and top secret documents because SCOTUS says that even if he committed a crime, anything related to it touched by “official action” is inadmissible. Thus, they side-step the criminality of his actions by ripping away the tool to investigate and prosecute those actions.
2. He attempts to undo the Fourteenth Amendment so that the new GOP order can decide who is and who isn’t a citizen. SCOTUS didn’t say much about that, but instead claimed that lower federal courts can’t issue nationwide injunctions while awaiting legal remedy for the executive overreach. Once more, the tool gets pulled, but the crime withstands it.
3. He bombed Iran without Congressional approval and appropriate notification in violation of the War Powers Act. Mike Johnson decides not to weigh in on whether bombing a country with zero justification is right or wrong. Instead, he, Speaker of the House who now thinks he’s a member of SCOTUS, declares that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional.

This pattern will repeat: Trump breaks the law, the other branches simply remove the tools needed to prosecute him. It’s the dawn of a new day for fascism.

Megabill from Hell Coda : A(nything )I( Do) is AI

I covered the highlights above–it’s too terrible to dwell on it. But restricting AI regulation for ten years is fucking bananas. I’ve worked in tech for years, and you can call ANYTHING AI. When you see “Better with AI” messages polluting your desktop and phone screen, it’s just packaging. Gary Marcus’s book (which I’ll review in a later post, along with Stuart Steven’s latest book Conspiracy to End America) is a very important step in educating oneself on this. Layperson and expert alike can benefit from Marcus’s work.

I understand the starry-eyed belief that better technology is ALWAYS going to be better for everyone, but let’s face it–Silicon Valley has created toys we love, but they’ve soaked up tremendous wealth, overtaken much of the legal framework governing their monopolistic policies, and lied to investors and consumers alike. I think I’ll call any grift I can think of AI, and no one can stop me. Right?

Praise the Lord and Pass the Rich’s Riches!

The other components of the bill explode the deficit, the debt, the enforcement agencies under Trump’s control, and dump mountains of cash on the permille, the top 0.1% of income earners. Robert Reich does a much better job of explaining our predicament: check out his site Inequality Media. The top one percent owns 40% of all the wealth in the country. The billionaires reap the benefits, and the body politic presses hard for the heavily, thoroughly debunked supply-side bullshit. Rand Paul still believes this apparently.

Breakdown of Constitutional Powers

Years ago, I had an exchange with a friend about whether a Second Constitutional Convention might be in order. My friend argued that the Constitution was the one thing protecting us from utter tyranny, and that we needed it. But the rub is simple: it’s just a piece of parchment if the people charged with protecting it actually do their jobs. Laws exist, but if they’re not enforced, declared defunct, or ignored, they don’t really exist. The cowards in the Republican party don’t seem to understand that appeasing the bully ever works. Appease him once, and he’ll have you on all-fours before you know it.

The system has failed us. Or we’ve failed it. Can murder of Democratic politicians raise a word about gun control? Can a mostly efficient government program like Medicare drown in baseless accusations of fraud? Can Trump sell cologne and phones and bibles?

In Summary

Congress failed us. SCOTUS failed us. It’s as if they feel they must abdicate their power to Trump. This isn’t Constitutional. But it will smell bad, and likely that phone probably won’t work. What remains? The sleeping giant of citizens who don’t believe prices are dropping. But Trump intends to challenge birthright citizenship, once more a stab at narrowing the GOP tent and disenfranchising millions of opponents. Don’t believe me? Read Greg Palast’s fantastic books on voter suppression. Read Ari Berman. Political elites have done this forever, crushing browns, poor folks, the elderly, and the disabled. But now they are targeting a new demographic: affluent whites. That was Nixon’s mistake in Watergate. Maybe this is the Rubicon.

Love each other. We have no guarantee of a tomorrow. To my supportive friends and loved ones, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Let’s keep going.

Next up will be the promised review of Marcus’s book.