The Right Wing Radical Repugnican State Legislature Just Reduced Medicaid Reimbursements By 4% More

The political cartoon above is from a time when the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill was still being debated in congress and largely ignored by the general population of our country. TRAITOR Trump, the Criminal Syndicate which supports him by posing as "cabinet", and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican party lied unceasingly to the American public in order to get the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill passed. There was total disregard on the part of millions of Americans to the obvious widespread damage the bill was intended to do to the entire country and to the overall American economy. The Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill was passed by the Right Wing Radical Repugnican majority in congress and signed by TRAITOR Trump on July 4, 2025. I am proud to say that on July 4, 2025, I was present at Rosenberg Square in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, that day as Ned Pillersdorf officially announced his candidacy for the US House in Kentucky District 5. Where were you? A key provision, literally a legislative time bomb, of the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill was that most of the damage it was planned to do was delayed until 2026 after the midterm elections. It was literally a legislative wolf in sheep's clothing and that was very intentional because the Right Wing Radical Repugnicans and TRAITOR Trump knew if they made it effective immediately upon ratification and signature it would guarantee the electoral defeat of most of its supporters. Now, the cat is out of the bag, the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill is rapidly becoming effective and the horrible damage it was intended to do to most of America and Americans has begun. But to make matters worse in Kentucky, the Right Wing Radical Repugnican majority in the state legislature has just passed, over Governor Beshear's veto, another 4% cut in Medicaid reimbursements which will make the effects of the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill far worse on Kentucky hospitals, clinics, and medical providers. Below is a map of hospitals in Kentucky which were initially placed in danger of permanent closure by the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill. What is interesting is that if we look at the point where the borders of Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana meet on the Ohio River just west of Cincinatti and draw a line straight south from that point to the Tennessee border we find that 23 o the 35 endangered hospitals are east of that line. The effects of the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill were always intended to do more damage in Kentucky east of that line than to west of the line. Congressman Hal Rogers and every other Right Wing Radical Repugnican member of the Kentucky legislative office holders at the federal level voted in support of that bill. Now every member of the Right Wing Radical Repugnican state legislature has voted to remove another 4% from Kentucky Medicaid reimbursements to medicaid providers. They did that over the veto of Governor Andy Beshear. That extra 4% of income to hospitals and providers will increase the damage of the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill to a point where the number of hospitals in Kentucky which will be in even more grave danger of closure will be greater. Will it rise from 35 hospitals to 40, to 45, or even 50? We won't know until the closures start happening and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican legislators nationwide start denying their support for the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill, and those elected at the state level start denying their support of the additional 4% cut in Kentucky Medicaid reimbursements. Very few businesses, where they are country stores, beauty shops, and family restaurants can survive a loss of 4% of their income for an extended period. It is the dream of TRAITOR Trump and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican party that those effects will be permanent. It is the dream of the Kentucky legislature in Frankfort that those horrible effects of both the Big,Vicious, Ugly Bill and their own 4% cut in Medicaid reimbursements will be permanent. None of them give a tinker's damn what you think or how their actions might affect you, your family, your family business, your aged parents and grandparents, your child with multiple medical issues,or your neighbor next door who is battling cancer or heart disease. They are happy now! They were happy the day they passed each of these highly damaging pieces of legislation! They will still be happy when your local hospital closes, or your local general practitioner decides to move to a state with a state legislauture and federal elected representatives who give a damn about their constituents, hospitals, medical providers, and citizens! Get used to it! Or get up off your ass and fight to remove every one of those Right Wing Radical Repugnicans from office for life! You have to learn to Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out! You have to learn to defend yourself, your family, your neighbors, your state, and your nation. No matter how much you are hurt they will not come to your aid. The sources of their incomes and their happiness are not the same as yours. They have protected themselves and abandoned you! What are you going to do about it? Your only option is to vote, not just to vote, you have to vote the way you should have been voting all along, STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC, Every Election, Every Race!

July 4th 2026, After 250 Years America And American Democracy Are Under Attack From Within!

Today, July 4th, 2026, is the 250th anniversary of American Democracy and America and American Democracy are more endangered today than we have ever been. That danger is centered in the White House, being directed by Fascists inside the White House. Let's just look at a few recent headline stories from across the country. The American Civil Liberties Union has worked to defend and protect American Democracy every day since its founding in 1920, 106 years. Almost ten months ago,that organization posted this story on their website. While a headline which screams "How Trump's Attacks On Our Democracy Put America At Risk" should be shocking, rare, and terrifying, headlines and stories about the danger which TRAITOR Trump and the Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet" pose for us and our Democracy, they are so commonplace since June 16, 2015, that millions of Americans ignore them totally. This so-called "second administration" of TRAITOR Trump is doing a great deal of things which previous FASCISTS and would be dictators have been doing since atleast 250 years ago, and millions of Americans insist on claiming that all they do is in the best interest of the country. The ACLU story in particular is and should be chilling to any lover of this country and our Democracy. Early in the story it states "There is now a coordinated assault on the constitutional architecture that has sustained American democracy. This assault should alarm anyone who values constitutional governance and the personal freedoms we so often take for granted." That should terrify every citizen in this country and it does not. The formerly sacred institutions of American government are now being utilized to install FASCISM in the country and most people do not understand that fact. The article moves on to state that Federal agents have repeatedly detained or arrested public officials conducting legitimate oversight, including Newark, New Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka, Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, and Senator Alex Padilla, who was tackled and detained for asking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem questions. Students, including green card holders, have been detained and threatened with deportation for writing op-eds or expressing views that deviate from what the administration deems acceptable.

In some ways, the facts in this previous quotation from the ACLU article are now old hat since the article is more than 8 months old. We have seen ICE agents murder two people who were peaceful protestors in Minnesota and little or no outrage has been seen in the general populace. We are now seeing several Americans charged with vandalism and other crimes for touching a $16million dollar disaster at the Reflecting Pool literally in sight of one of our nation's most hallowed shrines to Democracy, the Lincoln Memorial. An Olympian who once epitomized American values to the watching world has been charged in an overt act of domestic terrorism in order to silence opposition to TRAITOR Trump and his TREASONOUS enforcers who, after giving a multi-million dollar secret and unvetted contract to one of his supporters, to repair the reflecting pool did a damn fine job of gravely damaging that symbol of American Democracy. And nobody seems to care.

An active duty American Air Force Major was arrested on July 2, 2026, in his full uniform for using his constitutional right to free speech to openly criticize TRAITOR Trump's actions in Venezuela. That was a direct violation of the US Constitution for anyone, whether in uniform or not, to be arrested for utilizing free speech to question what are clearly two totally unjustified wars against two countries with the basic intent to steal their assets such as oil, gas, rare earth minerals, and other valuable possessions of two sovereign nations. Major Jason Watson knew full well that he had chosen to end his military career before he opened his mouth that day. It should be a shock to every living American of sound mind when such a career military officer finds it necessary to willingly give up a career in which he has volunteered to literally place his life on the line to defend this nation. But it has not been seen as a shock to most people in this country. Most people are either to uneducated, uncaring, or ignorant to understand that such a person would find it necessary to place his life on the line, as he swore to do when he was inducted into the US Air Force, in such a manner contrary to the publicly stated intent of the people who have disastrously found themselves in charge of this country's military. Major Jason Watson is much more an American Hero today than he has ever been before when he willing complying with orders to participate in war crimes and international terrorism against Venezuela and Iran. The former Olympian David Hearn is now much more an American Hero than he ever was as an Olympic canoeist. Both these men, both those murdered citizens in Minnesota, and every other American who has simpley stood up in a No Kings Day Protest is much more a loyal American patriot than any of the hired thugs who arrested or murdered them.

Today, July 4th, 2026, America and American Democracy are far more endangered than they ever were in any of our previous wars. Democracy is being attacked in ways it never was by Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, or Emperor Hirohito of Japan. We are under attack from those who are allowed to walk freely every day into the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the US Supreme Court and all of our government departments to pretend they are "making America great again". Those people, TRAITOR Trump and his many minions, are the most dangerous enemies America has ever faced. It is long past time for every American citizen to Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out in defense of our Democracy or it will be lost forever long before November 2028.

Closure of The Federal Medical Center Prison In Lexington--How Many Jobs Will Be Lost

On July 1, 2026, WKYT-27 announced that the Federal Bureau of Prisons had announced in a press release that they were planning to close the Federal Medical Center or at least a portion of it called the Satelitte Camp on Leestown Road in Lexington. The press release from the Bureau of Prisons refers to the facility as a satellite camp which is a minimization of the history and the ongoing importance of this prison. It was one of six facilities on a list of six proposed closures. This facility has been in Lexington and Fayette County since 1935 and is one of the most well known prisons in the nation. It began as a federal drug treatment facility and was also a leading research facility in the effort to successfullly treat alcohol and drug addictions for most of its long and productive life. During the 1940's to 1980's, the facility was frequently the point of incarceration and treatment for many famous people. During the period when heroine was widely connected to the jazz music scene, numerous famous musicians who had become addicted,eventually arrested on federal drug charges, and convicted.

In the 1970's, I used to be a regular visitor to the facility along with other members of the substance abuse treatment community in Lexington and as part of my commitment to the treatment of addictive behaviors. I met several interesting people during those visits although I have to admit that I never met any of the more famous people who were incarcerated there over the years. But I did meet a man who claimed to have been the prisoner at Walpole, Massachusetts, who picked up and carried the firearms to their eventual user which were key to the Walpole prison riot,one of the worst prison riots in the history of the country. I also met one of the early American airline hijackers who told a fascinating story about his crime and incarceration. He was a traveling salesman at the time he committed the hijacking and also a chronic alcoholic. He said that he took a flight for business reasons at a time when he was drunk and in a blackout. Shortly after the plane gained cruising altitude, he said the stewardess came down the aisle taking drink orders, and he told her "This is a hijacking. I want to go to Cuba." He said shortly afterward, one of the crew told him the pilots said they were not carrying enough fuel to make the trip to Cuba and would need to stop somewhere and refuel. He said "OK!" since he was a well mannered alcoholic. The plane landed in Atlanta and a crew member told him "These other passengers don't want to go to Cuba. Would you be willing to let them get off here?" Being a well mannered alcoholic, he said, "Sure, they can get off." When the steps were lowered and the passengers left the plane, a team of FBI agents boarded, arrested him, and took him to the local federal prison to be held for the police and court processes. He said that he came to full consciousness at about 6pm that evening, realized he was in jail, and that the place didn't seem like any ordinary jail he had ever seen before. He always swore that the first thing he could consciously remember about the events was that when he came out of his blackout there was a televison on the wall at the end of the cell block and the 6pm news was on. He said he saw himself being led off the plane between two FBI agents. His family had some money and got him a good defense attorney and a psychiatrist who hypnotized him to probe his memory of knowledge of the events. He and the psychiatrist both testified that he had no organic memory of the hijacking. He eventuall was able to either get a plea deal or was simply convicted and given a fairly light sentence.

These two men were not typical of all the prisoners at FMC and they stood out in a place where it was hard to stand out. The Lexington Herald Leader published a story on February 16, 2024, which contained a lenghty list of former famous musicians who had been incarcerated and treated at the facility when it was called The Narco Farm. That list included the names of Jazz musicians including Chet Baker, Howard McGhee, Benny Green, Red Rodney, Sonny Rollins, Tadd Dameron and Jackie McLean. It also mentioned William S. Burroughs, Sr., a member of the Beat Writers whose book "Junkie" mentioned what might have been a slightly sanitized version of his time there. His son, William S. Burroughs, Jr. also spent time at the facility and wrote his own book primarily about his incarceration and treatment. But for my money, which was simply $1.59 spent at a Goodwill store, the best book about FMC is "The Narcotic Farm" by Nancy D. Campbell, JP Olsen, and Luke Walden which was published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in 2008. It was a fantastic reasearch job and contains hundreds of historical photographs from the facility along with an excellent historical account of the life of the prison since 1935. In addition to the William S. Burroughs, Sr. book which was originally published in an Ace Double, it also mentions William S. Burroughs, Jr's book "Kentucky Ham" which contains a more lengthy story of his time at FMC. Two other books about life at FMC when it was known as The Narco Farm, are also discussed in "The Narcotic Farm". Those two books are "The Fantastic Lodge: The Autobiography Of A Girl Drug Addict" edited by Helen McGill Hughes and "The Farm" by Clarence L. Cooper, Jr. who was also incarcerated and treated in Lexington before being released and dying as a homeless addict.

Research done at FMC Lexington on consenting prisoners has been instrumental for many years in affecting how substance abuse treatment has been done and the production and approval of several drug therapies both moderately successful and unsuccessful. The long, productive, and incredibly interesting life of FMC Lexington deserves to be told and the facility deserves to be preserved. At a time when the current treaonous administration is destroying much of what is productive in America, and simultaneously creating and wasting billions of dollars on asinine failures such as Alligator Alcatraz, and two totally unjustified wars of aggression, FMC Lexington needs to be preserved and maintained as an active institution in the Bureau of Prisons. Why in the face of potentially several hundred good jobs being lost aren't the Right Wing Radical Repugnican majority in the Kentucky state legislature fighting this proposed closure?

Pinto Bean Politics!

When I was growing up in a country store on Beaver Creek in Knott County Kentucky, we sold pinto beans by the pound, weighed from a galvanized barrel that sat under the main counter in the store. We bought the beans in 100 pound bags, dumped them in the barrel which also held a pretty nice blackjack carved from a piece of wood to a shape just like a miniature baseball bat, about a foot long with a nice handgrip and about a 3-4 inch circumference on the head which was drilled to about three inches down the handle to include a nice round cylinder of lead. To my knowledge the blackjack was never used in the long period my parents operated the store. Our customers came in, usually talked small talk for a short while, bought whatever they needed, maybe even a pound or two of pinto beans, and left without ever needing to be knocked out with the blackjack in the bean barrel. I no longer own that blackjack but in today's world of the most corrupt politics in the history of the nation, and the worst living example of a human being working on a daily basis from the White House to destroy the entire nation and our democracy, we sure need a good metaphorical political blackjack. On a recent check of the price of pinto beans, I found that WalMart is charging $14.94 for a 20 pound bag of pinto beans. That boils down to about 74.7cents a pound for bulk pinto beans. WalMart is now selling the one pound bag of pinto beans for a dollar. When I was often helping my parents behind the bean barrel, I don't think we ever charged more than 10cents a pound and we were making a decent profit in those days. The point to this focus on pinto beans is important because there are millions of Americans of all stripes and cultures who are eating pinto beans on a daily basis. Several different cultures are highly dependent on pinto beans as a staple source of protein. Most people of moderate to poor means in the American south depend on pinto beans as a major portion of their diet. That includes both Caucasian and African American citizens of the deep south. Most members of the various Hispanic cultures in America are also largely dependent on pinto beans. Frijoles, in many forms, are a common sight on Hispanic dinner tables. Nearly every person who ever grew up in Central and Southern Appalachia grew up, in large part, on pinto beans. We even had pinto beans once a week in the high school lunch room at Knott County High School at Pippa Passes, Kentucky, when I was a student there. Pinto beans may well be the answer to help us solve our ongoing attempted tyranny by TRAITOR Trump and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican party.

One of my favorite memories about pinto beans goes back to about 1992 when I was working for a short while, between human services jobs, at a horse farm in Central Kentucky. I was salesprepping several brood mares which were headed toward a November Breeding Stock Sale at Keeneland. The mares were actuallly owned by a man who was contracting for the sales prepping with the owner of a farm I was working on at the time. I was sent to the owner's farm to do the work. One day, the owner who was born and raised in Quito Ecuador, a Mexican immigrant blacksmith, and I were standing in front of a barn in a conversation and found ourselves talking about how we had grown up in three very different locations and cultures. We suddenly discovered that all three of us had grown up eating pinto beans, one in Mexico, one in Ecuador, and one in Eastern Kentucky. It was an educational moment for me for sure. What is the point to all this and politics? What the Democratic party needs to do to win all the next upcoming elections in this country is to locate, educate, register, and guarantee the turnout to vote of the great majority of the pinto bean cultures in America. If we do that we will be back in control of our country, our Democracy, and our future. We will no longer be facing the horrible situation in which we finid ourselves today. We can begin the next 25 to 50 years of necessary work in order to save our country after all the political, moral, and ethical damage which has been done over the last ten years by TRAITOR Trump and the other TRAITORS who facilitate most of his crimes against the government, the country, the world, and the planet. The answer is all about pinto beans.

When Impeachment Happens, It Must Be Multiple And Simultaneous!

During the so-called "Alaska Summit" between Russian President Vladimir Putin and TRAITOR Trump, it should have become apparent to most rational Americans that TRAITOR Trump is owned and controlled by Putin, cannot take any definitive action on any subject which remotely involves Russia without the approval of Putin, and will do literally anything and commit any crime in order to appease Putin and attempt to legitimize a man who has open arrest warrants from the World Criminal Court as a result of his war crimes in Ukraine. Actually Putin is the second person TRAITOR Trump has held "summits" with who has open arrest warrants from the World Criminal Court also. Various journalists from every legitimate American media company have stated clearly after that so-called summit that the event was a disaster for both Ukraine and for TRAITOR Trump. It was immediately referred to by several journalists who are experts on war journalism as a "nothing burger", an old expression from the world of Hollywood gossip columnists in the 1950's to describe an event which has no worth, no significant importance, and is of little consequence to anyone. But it also signaled once again that TRAITOR Trump will do anything to appease and legitimize Putin, will do literally anything to harm Ukraine, and will stoop to any crime which will, in his twisted brain, give him some kind of advantage over anyone alive. Sooner or later, TRAITOR Trump must be impeached, removed from the White House by military force if necessary, indicted in federal criminal courts of at least part of his recent crimes, arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, incarcerated, and left in federal prison until the day he dies before being buried beside Osama Bin Laden. But this blog post is really intended to impress on the world that simply removing TRAITOR Trump from the White House is not sufficient and could actually endanger the country and the world even more. He is surrounded and supported by a hand picked conglomearation of criminals, TRAITORS, and Russian Agents who are all equally as dangerous. There is no one in the current line of succession who is fit to serve in any position of public trust at any level all the way down to potentially becoming a local magistrate or constable. Several of them have already been convicted of crimes or accused of serous crimes including TRAITOR Trump himself who has been convicted of 34 of the 82 felonies for which he was indicted; held legally responsible for the rape of E. Jean Carroll in a monetary sense; held responsible for stealing money from a New York based "charity" and barred from being an officer of any corporation licensed in New York. For those 92 felony indictments, he was indiced in fur jurisdictions by five seperate grand juries. Charles Kushner, Jared Kushner's father, who is now the Ambassador to France has previously pled guilty to several counts of tax crimes. Peter Navarro who is not in the direct line of succession in a position which doesn't require senate confirmation was found guilty of contempt of a congressional sub poena. Kristi Noem has admitted in her autobiography to killing at least two animals, her hunting dog, and a goat which had done nothing at time she chose to shoot it after killing the dog did not fully satisfy her rage. She is in the line of succession. admittedly, Noem is in last place in the line of succession;but if everyone who is disqualified for legal, moral, or ethical reasons from succeeding an impeached TRAITOR Trump, she could be the last dog standing, if you will excuse that turn of phrase. The one person in the line of succession who is not directly under the thumb of TRAITOR Trump is Chuck Grasley who is President Pro Tempore of the Senate but also already 91 years old. If he is the only rational replacement for TRAITOR Trump, God Help Us All! Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been proven to have disclosed highly classified information to an unsuspecting journalist who had the patriotism and moral conviction to report the offense. First in the line of succession is J. D. Vance who has proven time after time that his entire life and career are built on lies, yet, if TRAITOR Trump should be impeacheed and removed after the 2026 congressional election theoretically gives the Democratic party a majority in both houses of congress, Vance would suddenly find himself in the position of power which he lusts after and proves on a daily basis he is tragically unfit to ever hold. Several years ago, he was summarily removed from the board of AppHarvest which has since failed, gone bankrupt, and been sold. There is only one remotely viable choice to succeed to the office TRAITOR Trump now holds, and that person is 91 year old Chuck Grasley. If and when the day comes, as it must, and TRAITOR Trump is impeached, removed, and criminally charged for at least part of his crimes, Grasley, must be the successor. To ensure that succession, Vance must also be impeached simultaneously with TRAITOR Trump. The Senate will find it necessary to hold the impeachment vote of Vance first, refuse to consider the possibility that the vice presidency could be filled instantly with another unfit subject, and vote to convict and remove TRAITOR Trump immediately after removing Vance. After the impeachment by a new House of Representatives majority in 2027, convicted by a new Senate majority, and removed from the White House which, based on the TREASON of January 6, will most likely require military intervention, we would be faced with the need to pray constantly that President Grasley be allowed to live and remain rational until January 20, 2029, when the new Democratic President, whomever that might be, could be sworn in.

Mass Population Movements And William Faulkner

I am in the process of reading "The Unvanquised" by William Faulkner. As I sometimes do, I found a quotation in the middle of the book which I am compelled to write about today. This is that quotation below:

"...he nor they could not have known what it was yet it was there--one of those impulses inexplicable yet invincible which appear among races of people at intervals and drive them to pick up and leave all security and familiarty of earth and home and start out, they don't know where, empty handed, blind to everything but a hope and a doom."

"The Unvanquised" the book from which I drew that quotation is a fairly well known book by William Faulkner which was published in 1934, minety-one years ago, long before anyone on earth imagined that Russia and Ukraine would now be more than three years engaged in a war of aggression which was started, perpetrated, and perpetuated by Vladimir Putin and Russia, no one else. As a result of that war, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens have been forced to feel one of "those impules inexplicable yet invincible which appear among races of people". As a result, just as Faulkner in his book was describing the mass exodus of African American slaves from the defeated south after the Civil War had ended. But Ukraine is not now, and has never been defeated in the last three plus years of this war. Yes, many of their people have become refugess for a variety of reasons within the greater reason of having been faced with the possibility of death if they remained in Ukraine. They have picked up and left all security and familiarity they have ever known, started out empty handed and blind to everything except a hope of a safe future in some other peaceful country and the overwhelming and inexplicable doom they have known quite well ever since the day Putin declared his war of aggression and invaded their country. They have traveled to dozens of other countries around the globe, some simply to cross the borders of Ukraine into Poland or another much safer European nation. Others have traveled across the planet and hundreds of thousands of them have come to America over the years of war chasing that hope. From January 20, 2021, until January 20, 2025, those people who came to America had that hope while living in a country which was compassionate, welcoming, and rational in its approch to them and their forced exodus from home. Now, from January 20, 2025, their hope has been destroyed and, once again, all they can see is that doom which they fear so justifiably. America is now in the hands of the worst TRAITOR in the history of the world, TRAITOR Trump who is working daily to attempt to force Ukraine and its democratic government to surrender to their attacker and surrender much of their country, their land, and their hope to that attacker, that dictator Vladimir Putin and to his Russian Agent, the TRAITOR Trump.

I was stunned as I read that quotation above from William Faulkner and realized just how applicable it is to the treachery of TRAITOR Trump who has abandoned ever promise the United States made to the Ukrainian people and their democracy in order to support his Russian master. Just a few days ago in Alaska, the world watched as TRAITOR Trump kowtowed to Vladimir Putin and his design to destroy Ukraine and its democracy. We watched the world's worst dictator being welcomed to American soil by the world's worst TRAITOR and would be dictator, TRAITOR Trump. We watched as the two of them attempted to decide the fate of a sovereign nation and its people without a single representative of their interests in the room. We watched the attempted murder of the nation of Ukraine in order for TRAITOR Trump to appease and attempt to legitimize his Russian owner. Just yesterday, we watched the President of Ukraine being ignored by TRAITOR Trump as he disembarked from his plane at the airport in Washington, DC, after TRAITOR Trump had rolled out a red carpet for their would be destroyer and dictator in Alaska. But Ukraine does have allies across Europe in several countries, the European Union, and NATO. But can Ukraine and their supporters actually win this conference room war against them? We don't know. But what we do know that they cannot win it if the American people also surrender to Putin and TRAITOR Trump. We must not do that. We must support Ukraine and their fledgling democracy. We must be the nation our Founding Fathers intended us to be.

Let's Hold A Nationwide One Day Strike To Oppose TRAITOR Trump!

Ever since August 5, 1981, the date when Ronald Reagan was allowed by the AFL-CIO and the American people to fire 11,359 professional air traffic controllers, I have said the same thing when that subject comes up. What I said was this: "If the AFL-CIO and all the other components of the organized labor movement in America had stood up to Reagan, refused to allow the air traffic controllers to be fired, and staged a one day nationwide strike, he would have had no choice except to back down, reverse those firings, and negotiate with the air traffic controllers. His War Against The Working Class would have been dead in the water, and today America would be a very different and more successful nation. The same holds true for TRAITOR Trump and every crime he and the Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet" in support of his TREASON have committed and will commit in the future if they are not held responsible for their crimes. If they are not held responsible for those crimes, you can bet your sweet ass that worse is on the way, already being plotted, perpetrated, and dreamed of by the worst TRAITOR The world has ever seen and the other lesser TRAITORS who support him. On No Kings Day, June 14, 2025, roughly 5million people participated in more than 2,100 hundred separate protests from sea to shining sea. But what would it have looked like if, instead of peacefully standing out in public holding protest signs and chanting slogans, those 5million of us had just waited until the following week during regular working hours from 8am to 5pm from sea to shining sea for one day and stopped working. If 5million of us had gone on strike for one 8 hour day, stopped driving trucks, delivering products, making those products, mining or manufacturing the individual components of those products, never unloaded a single ship at a single of our international ports, stopped teaching in the nation's classrooms, stopped nursing patients in our hospitals, and stopped doing whatever it is that each of us does for a living. That would change the face of the battle against TRAITOR Trump, his Russian Owner Vladmir Putin, and their ultimate goal of destroying the United States. What we need to do now is to call that one day nationwide strike, carry it out on a weekday, preferably a Wednesday so the work week is clearly broken into two disparate halves,and the general public is clearly told that it is purely and solely in protest of the crime spree being perpetrated by TRAITOR Trump and his supporters. And it should also be made clear that unless he and his entire Criminal Syndicate are removed from the halls of government that such a strike will occur at least once a month until they are gone. If one day strikes don't work, then expand them to two days, three, four, or five until the truth is realized all over the world. I am not in a position to organize and coordinate such a strike. But I will always be in a position to support such a strike by doing everything I can to promote and defend it. This is just one grandiose, but realistic, idea for saving the America most of us love. This ideas is free for the taking by anyone with a network of support large enough to bring this strike to fruition. Let's schedule it! Let's make it happen! Let's make it absolutely clear that we are tired of TRAITOR Trump, his Fascism, his TREASON, and all his crimes against this country. Please share this post with everyone you know until someone steps up to take the ball in hand and carry out the planning, scheduling, and organization to make this Strike In Defense Of Democracy a reality!

TRAITOR Trump's Attempted Appeasement And Attempted Legitimation Of An International Terrorist And War Criminal

This meeting in Alaska is all about APPEASING and ATTEMPTING to legitimize an INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST and WAR CRIMINAL who has an arrest warrant from the World Criminal Court at The Hague. It is also phase two of the TREASON which occurred when TRAITOR Trump in 2017 brought a Russian ambassador and a purely Russian film crew not just into the White House but into the Oval Office. There were no American media crews at that meeting. There are at this meeting, but just think for a minute that this is the military base where Russian flights into US territory are monitored and intercepted. Putin is being accorded full treatment as a foreign leader on a diplomatic mission which means he will have a full detail of Russia's finest with him. You can bet every one of them is an expert on Russian intelligence gathering practices, probably all are FSB officers. The big Q is just what will they know about that military base which they have been unable to learn from satellites and communication monitoring. He's being set up to commit further spying just as he was when the ambassador and his crew were allowed into the Oval Office.

July 4, 2025, A Major Political Announcement For Kentucky's 5th Congressional District

On July 4, 2025, my wife Candice and I traveled to Prestonsburg, Kentucky, to attend and support the announcement by Ned Pillersdorf that he is running against Congressman Hal Rogers in Kentucky's 5th Congressional District. It has been far too long in this district since a viable Democratic candidate has run against Rogers. The event was held in Rosenberg Square, a small, but beautiful park at the corner of West Court Street and North Lake Drive in Prestonsburg. The event was attended by somewhere in excess of 100 people which, in my opinion, is a good turnout for a political event on a major holiday which is often saved for family reunions and yard sales. And the heat was in the low to mid 90's all day so it was somewhat oppressive which probably depressed attendance to one degree or another. Ned gave a speech after being introduced which is roughly what is conained in the text of one of his blog posts this morniing which can be found by scrolling down his Facebook page which is found listed as "Ned Pillersdorf". Or you can go to this link on Facebook and watch or simply scroll to the point Ned starts speaking and see this video of the event which lasts in total for slightly more than an hour. I am actually completing this post on July 7, 2025, and some of the media responses to Ned's announcement have now been deleted from their companys' websites. But I remember one in which the writer stated roughly that Ned had given a "blistering speech" about TRAITOR Trump's "Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill". I was somewhere between surprised and shocked by that coverage of the speech I had seen in its entirety. I had thought that Ned had given an honest, accurate, and measured response to the "Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill". You can bet that if I had been asked to speak to a crowd of a hundred in Kentucky or anywhere else in the nation, even Texas, Alabama, or Mississippi, the speech I would have given would have been far more derogatory of TRAITOR Trump than anything Ned Pillersdorf said in Prestonsburg on July 4, 2025. Yes, Ned's speech was accurate, tasteful, mild in my estimation, and a lot less than anyone deserves to have been accused of who voted to support that 900+ page attack on America, her citizens, and the world in general. Ned Pillersdorf is the first viable, electable, and deserving candidate for congress in Kentucky's 5th Congressional District in at least twenty years. Ned has done more for the people of the district in the last forty years than Hal Rogers ever attempted to do. Vote for, support, and elect Ned Pillersdorf to the US Congress from the 5th District of Kentucky.

"Alligator Acatraz" Is TRAITOR Trump's First Concentration Camp!

The Holocaust Encyclopedia tells us that:

"The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933. In the weeks after the Nazis came to power, the SA (Sturmabteilung; commonly known as the Storm Troopers), the SS (Schutzstaffel; Protection Squadrons—the elite guard of the Nazi party), the police, and local civilian authorities organized numerous detention camps to incarcerate real and perceived political opponents of Nazi policy."

TRAITOR Trump's first concentation camp, known as "Alligator Alcatraz" was opened in South Florida on July 1, 2025, in South Florida with TRAITOR Trump and Rod DeSantis present and happily touting its existence as if they had just funded an actual day care center, community college, or hospital. The only term I find adequate to describe TRAITOR Trump's emotional response to this concentration camp is "masturbatory glee". This isa term I have used once or twice before in reference to some of his most egregious and criminal acts. When TRAITOR Trump is able to do anything which creates havoc,makes the world a more dangerous place, or worsening the living conditions for a major segment of America's population, his responses are always a public exhibition of strutting like a rooster in a chicken lot in which he is the only male of the species. His face becomes exactly like of the high school bully who has just slapped a non-consenting freshman girl on the hindquartes and gotten away with it. When he stood in front of the press at the opening of this hell hole,his experssion was exactly like that of an insecure 13 year old boy who has suddenly discovered that he has one black hair on his chest or crotch. TRAITOR Trump delights in the suffering of others, especially if he is the perpetrator of that suffering. There is no word or expression in the English language that better describes his reactions in these instances than masturbatory glee.

We are teetering on the edge of the greatest disaster any civilized country can perpetrate or ignore as it is being perpetrated. We are facing the onset of what will become an American Holocaust if TRAITOR Trump is not stopped by the US House, Senate, and Supreme Court. It is unlikelyh at this time that any of the three are willing or morally able to do that. The razor slim margins which votes on his "Big Vicious, Ugly Bill" is being defeated by are not based on strength or moral courage. They are based on the dissent of a small handful of the worst elected officials in America whose oppostion is due to their desire to make that "Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill" even bigger, more visious, and uglier. The United States is sitting at the cusp of being host to a Second Holocaust. More concentration camps are going to be built. More people will be incarcerated unjustly, denied due process, deported, suffer from inhumane treatment, and many of them will die in the process or because of hte long term effects of that process. The question has now become "what will you as an idividual citizen do in response to this sought after Second Holocaust? Will you sit silent or even assist as thousands of German citizens did in World War II? Will you simply stick your head deep within your shell of compliance while blaming other under your breath as many other German citizens did in World War II? Will you ignore this Second Holocaust as much of the so-called civilized world did in World War II? Or will you be a real participant in the resistance to this Tyrann, this Racism, this Second Holocaust? Will you even join TRAITOR Trump in his masturbatory glee?

Kentucky Hospitals Likely To Close And Counties Without A Hospital In That Event!

Over the last few weeks, we have all heard a lot in the news media about how TRAITOR Trump's "Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill" will do myriad kinds of harm to America, especially to rural America, the lower and middle classes, hospitals, education, health care in general, vaccines and vaccine production, Medicaid, Medicare, WIC, SNAP or Food Stamps, agriculture, food safety, airline safety, the arts and sciences, and several other critical aspects of life in America. It will also add about 4 TRILLION DOLLARS to the budget deficit, and all of this damage is being done to provide vast unnecessary tax cuts to the rich, super rich, and corporations. Every word you have heard about the upcoming damage is true! The damage is intentional, purposeful, and will cost thousands of lives across this country in addition to the vast economic damage it will do. But in this blog post, I just want to address one aspect of that damage, the damage to hospitals and health care in Kentucky. Every legitimate news agency and policy analysis corporation is telling us the same thing. If the proposed cuts to Medicaid are approved (and it appears they almost certainly will be approved) thousands of hospitals, especially rural hospitals will be forced to close due to lack of income. Hundreds of thousands of the poorest, and often sickest Americans will lose their access to health care, and thousands of those people will die along with the hospitals which have been serving them. According to the Kentucky Center For Economic Policy, there are 35 hospitals in Kentucky which are likely to close on that list of hospitals. Since I first heard that dire forecast, I have been studying the issue both on my own and in consulations with others who understand the issues and politics involved. Two of the people I have discussed this with in depth are a retired attorney who spent her career in Eastern Kentucky and comes from a very politically centered family, and a retired nurse who spent her career working in one of the poorest counties in the state which does not have a hospital at this time to lose. We all agree that there are a vast number of issues that would arise for Kentucky and the nation if this Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill" becomes law. My reading of the article which I supplied the link to above shows me that the majority of the 35 hospitals in Kentucky which can be expected to be starved out if Medicaid is cut are in Eastern Kentucky. Although I generally think of I-65 as being the border line between Eastern Kentucky and Western Kentucky, that is not absolutely accurate. We can also take the position that I-75 is the border between the two. But for the sake of somewhat original thinking on that issue, let's say that the border is an extension of the line created by the border between Ohio and Indiana. If we go to that point on the Kentucky border with Indiana and Ohio and draw a straight line from there due south to the Tennessee border, it is as good a candidate for the border between Eastern Kentucky and Western Kentucky as any other. The image below is of that map showing the locations of the endangered hospitals in Kentucky from the linked story by the Kentucky Center For Economic Policy. If you use that imaginary line from the KY/IN/OH intersection, you will find that only 12 of the endangered hospitals are west of that line. East of the line are the 23 remaining hospitals which are most likely to close due to the loss of Medicaid funding created by the "Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill". God Help Us In Eastern Kentucky If That Happens!

The counties in this list will all be without a hospital in the event Medicaid funding is cut as designed in the "Big Ugly, Vicious Bill" They are Letcher, Knott, Floyd, Martin, Lawrence, Elliott, Carter, Rowan, Greenup, Lewis, Breathitt, Jackson, Lee, Owsley, Rowan, Rockcastle, Montgomery, Powell, Clark, Clay Fleming, These counties are contiguous and constitute a vast block of real estate in Eastern Kentucky which would have no local hospital. Patients in these counties would have no readily available emergency rooms, ICU's, maternity wards, or other services which require a hospital setting. To illustrate just how bizarre this possibility is let's look at some geographic possibilities which would be created. It would be possible to travel by car from Jenkins on the Virginia border to Vanceburg on the Ohio border without ever driving through a county with a hospital. It would also be possible to drive by car from Mount Vernon in Rockcastle County to Greenup in Greenup County without passing through a county with a local hospital. In addition to the loss of these hospitals, the job losses would be catastrophic in a region which is already economically distressed. Nearly all the prescribing professionals (M.D.'s, APRN's, PA's) would be highly likely to leave the region, perhaps even the state. Additionally, thousands of licensed providers such as imaging professionals, Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses, Certified Nursing Assistants, and a few other professions would be forced to leave the region in order to find work. There would also be hundreds to several thousand unemployed food service workers, housekeeping workers, maintenance workers, clerks, bookkeepers, and security professionals. Yes, there are a couple of hospitals which might survive such as those in Pike and Perry Counties but those two counties are on the Virginia and West Virginia borders and the drive for many patients would be just too far, too expensive, too time consuming, and thousands of low income patients would be likely to not receive regular ongoing health care. One hospital not on the list in Johnson County would suddenly be the primary source of care for Lawrence, Martin, Floyd, Magoffin, and Elliott counties due to the closure of the one hospital in Lawrence County and all three in Floyd County. In legitimate emergencies and accidents, the concept of The Golden Hour for transport to an emergency room would no longer exist. Distances would be too great in many cases for an ambulance crew to assess, transport, and facilitate admission to a hospital for many critical patients in a timely, life saving manner. EMT's and other emergency responders would suddenly be traveling far from their primary service area and their numbers would, at present levels, be too small to provide both the added transport and provide the current level of services in their primary area of responsibility.

The Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill is a disaster in the making for Kentucky and many other states where multiple hospitals will be lost. The damage of this bill is deliberately designed to minimize the poor of this region and several others, to deny them medical services as are customary in a real Democracy. It is intentional! It is criminal! It must not be allowed to take place. This bill must not be approved.

Amazing Press Conference From The White House!

Just a few hours ago in the White House briefing room, the most amazing press conference in the history of the world took place. The White House press secretary released a surprising and exhilirating list of new developments from the ever expanding and limitless brain of "the stable genius" Donald Trump. After a discussion of how the American bombing of three Iranian nuclear development sites had made more progress toward lasting peace for the entire foreseeable history of the world than any other leader ever made, the press secretary stated that this action is guaranteed to be the final action necessary to guarantee that Donald Trump will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She added that this "peaceful bombing" will be followed by the agreement from Ukrainian President Zelensky that he has realized he "should not continue his war of aggression against Russia and will reccomend that the Ukrainian parlaiment offer a peaceful solution to the crisis which he caused and will also reccomend that Ukraine do as it should have long ago and rejoin the Russian nation". All of this action in the interest of world peace was created by our Supreme Leader Donald Trump. She also discussed other developments which have been made in recent weeks by Donald Trump which will reveal totally that most of the rest of the world "don't know what the fuck they are doing". Those developments included in her discussion listed Donald Trump's highly effective and inspiring attendance at the meeting in Canada of the G7 in which in her words, "He was lauded, praised, congratulated, and cheered by those lesser members of the G7 for his incredible work to advance the world into the full enjoyment of the 21st Century." Then she went on to say that since Donald Trump has secured peace in the Middle East, increased the likelihood that Ukraine will agree with Russia and Putin to end their war of aggression against Russia and they will be simultaneusly readmitted into the Russian nation on the same day that Canada becomes the 51st state of the United States. Her press conference went on to disclose that Donald Trump has "a lot more free time on his hands now since the world is at peace and he is working on other things of great interest to the world." She added that "a lot of the lying media claim that all Mr. Trump does is play golf but what they don't realize is that being on the golf course gives him a lot of time to use his awe inspiring intellect to work on other issues." Shestated that just in the last few days he had been eating a piece of cherry pie just as George Washington, our tenth or twelfth worst president, had eaten cheerry pie so does Donald Trump. "But while Mr. Trump was eating his pie, he found a perfectly round seed in it. And, after firing the White House Chef and sou chef, he thought further on the subject and was reminded of how so many second class math professors at places like Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Notre Dame mistakenly believe that the thing they call Pi doesn't have an end to and think it could have a million digits. What a waste of numbers is what he said. Then he thought some more and figured out that the kind of Pi you can't eat only has four digits after the three. Those four digits, and we don't mean fingers here,are 4547 and that's the end of that." She went on to say that it is a cinch that Donald Trump will become the only person in the world to receive both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize in Mathematics. When one of the left wing sissy reporters from CBS reminded the press secretary that there is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics, she said "There will be one now because Donald Trump has straightened out this mess about the kind of Pi you can't eat which has been going on unstopped for 1400 years ever since some of those fools like Archimedes and Fig Newton started spreading that lie so they could make money from it." Yes, this is Satire!

The 21st Century "Fireside Chat": Governor Andy Beshear's Podcast

There are very few people in America who are old enough to remember the last episode, or any other, of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous Fire Side Chat which took place from 1933 until the final one in June of 1944. During the Great Depression and most of World War II, the Fireside Chats provided a link by radio, the most technologically advanced media of the time, beween the President of The United States and the American people. They allowed FDR to exert a persona of firm, steady, calm, unswerving leadership to the country during the most incredibly dangerous period of his presidency. Today, Aemrica is in just as critically dangerous a time and the White House is occupied by the most dangerous human on earth anyone could ever imagine allowing to be anywhere near even the most lowly position of power, TRAITOR Trump. We are in desperate need of a person and a media event which can provide the same kind of persona of firm, steady, calm, unswerving leadership to a country in the most dangerous times we have seen since Pearl Harbor was bombed and our participation in World War II began. Our political times today are just as much days which "will live in infamy" as those during President Roosevelt's terms. Our nation is just as endangered now as then and the danger is centered inside the White House, inside the deranged mind of the person who works on a daily basis to destroy America and American Democracy, TRAITOR Trump. But we have a leader in America who is qualified to lead the country, committed to doing anything within his power to provide that calm, steady, effective leadership to take us out of the danger zone which is daily being perpetuated by the Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet" inside the White House. That person is Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and he is already providing the country with a form of media which can be the 21st century equivalent of FDR's Fireside Chats. That person is Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, and the media from which can do the trick, if only enough Americans watch it each week is Andy Beshear's Podcast which is available on all forms of internet based communication. I prefer to watch the podcast on Youtube and it can be found at this link. The podcast can also be found at its internet website at this link. The podcast is roughly 50 minutes each week and broken into several regular segments, most of which appear each week with a few exceptions. The primary portion of the podcast is an interview of roughly 25 minutes with a major American political leader, corporate executive, or other important poublic figure. Such guests on the podcast have included Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready, Senator Amy Klobuchar, and others from both poltics and business. Other segments of the podcast include "In My Kentucky Accent" in which Governor Beshear discusses some important political issue of that particular week in his customary honest, ethical, probing, and straight forward manner. He pulls no punches, tells the truth as he sees it, doesn't seek to protect himself from all possible criticism, and says exactly what needs to be said in every instance. Another regular segment is a conversation with two of the governor's closest friends, John McConnell and Jonathan Rabinowitz. McConnell is a Kentucky insurance agency owner. Rabinowitz is an attorney and sports agent who is a managing partner for the national law firm Morgan and Morgan. Both are successful, intelligent, politically astute men who have long standing friendships with Governor Beshear, and are obviously well trusted friends. Once in a while some member of the governor's family, wife Brittany, children Will and Lila,will appear in a more casual family oriented brief appearance. The two children often educate their three elders on the slang of their peers in high school.

If you want to see Aemrica become the country is once was, an actual democracy, a safe place for any member of any special interest group to live and work, a country which is respected by the rest of the world, and a bastion of constitutional freedomes, Andy Beshear is the best person to assume the presidency and lead us out of the deliberate destruction in which we now find ourselves and our country. Watch the podcast, share it with your family and friends, and begin to work to support Andy Beshear as the best possible person to lead America out of the horrible disaster in which we find ourselves.

"No Kings Day" Protest, Morehead, Kentucky, June 14, 2025

Yesterday, my wife and I attended the "No Kings Day" protest in Morehead, Kentucky, along with somewhere in excess of 200 other people who are all committed to seeing the end of the occupation of the White House by TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet". It was a very successful and fulfilling event. It never stopped raining the entire time we were there. We arrived at almost exactly the scheduled start time of noon and had to leave at about 1:30pm to meet an old friend of mine at Cracker Barrel whom we hadn't seen in about 25 years. I wish we could have stayed longer. I dropped my wife off around the corner from the little city park at the junction of KY 32 and Main Street, and then drove down the street about three blocks to find a safe parking spot at a business which was closed for the day. When I returned to the protest, my wife had been invited under a tent which the organizers had set up, actually one several such tents. We had not thought about making protest signs and took none which is a shame. But the street side of the park was lined shoulder to shoulder and about three rows deep with people who were holding a wide variety of signs some of which were homemade and some which were commercial products. My favorite sign of the day is the one in the picture above. But during the time we stayed, one man who told me he is 80 was sitting down to take a break and agreed to loan my wife his sign which she held while he rested and managed to situate herself in her power wheelchair on the street edge with the sign. There was a lot of traffic for a Saturday in Morehead and most of the cars driving by were blowing their horns in support, waving in agreement, sometimes shouting encouragement to us, and in the spirit of honesty, some few would give us the finger or shout an obscenity. But the majority seemed to be supporting us. I talked to numerous people during the time I was there including a photographer for the local Morehead newspaper. Our conversation was about the difficulty which small town newspapers and radio stations are facing with the movement of most advertising money to the internet. We specifically discussed one of the Morehead stations which some people I know used to own as one in a small chain of small town Eastern Kentucky stations. That station, and all their others, have recently been sold to a Right Wing Radical Repugnican who has actually served prison time for vote buying when he was an elected public official. The Morehead newspaper has actually been sold a couple of times since the inception of the internet as have at least two other papers in Eastern Kentucky. None of those sold seem to have been bought by people with liberal leanings. Yes, it is possible for a newpaper editor, publisher, owner, and staff to promote rational liberal ideas which still providing accurate honest reporting. In fact, one small town newspaper on the Virginia border has, in the last couple of years, won a major award from the Kenucky Press Association for reporting it did on the 2022 floods in several Eastern Kentucky counties, and it is quite liberal in its leaninings. It's a shame in these times that more small town newspapers and radio stations were being bought up by Right Wing Radicals and being turned into megaphones of the Radical Right. I stayed at the protest as long as my other appointment would allow and both of us really enjoyed our time. We both feel a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment for having taken time out of our lives, as we always do, and as you should also be doing, to support the steadily growing public opposition to the TREASON of TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate. Always Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out!

I wish I could have personally thanked every one of those American Patriots who stood up in Morehead and every other town and city in the country on No Kings Day. That is impossible. But each of you should know just how proud of you I am and how grateful I am for your courage and commitment to our country and our democracy! Always Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out!