Labels

We like to stick labels on everything and person and the only labels that count are the ones we give ourselves.

So when we say we are trans what does it mean?

We got a grant to come up with a survey (Henceforth to be know as the instrument.) to study the trans community for AIDS. one was pretty straight forward. Cut and pastes the standard HIV/AIDS questions, but... the meaning of words was the big issue that held us up. We asks question like you were playing "20 Questions" or "I Got A Secret"

Okay, think of this. When a person says they are trans, what does it mean?

A. They crossdress.

B. They are drag performers.

C. They live full time in their chosen gender.

D. They have transitioned all the documentation.

E. They have had GCS.

F. All the above.

You can see the problems that we faced. So we asked: Do you ever dress in the cloths of the opposite gender? Do you do it as part of an entertainment act?

So we asked a series of question to determine what the labels meant to them.

But why do we even need labels... Hi, I'm Diana

We like to stick labels on everyone and everything, but the only labels that count are the ones we give ourselves. So, when we say we are trans, what does it mean?

We got a grant to come up with a survey—henceforth to be known as "the instrument"—to study the trans community regarding HIV/AIDS. That part was pretty straightforward: we cut and pasted the standard HIV/AIDS questions. But the meaning of words was the big issue that held us up. We had to ask questions like we were playing 20 Questions or I've Got a Secret.

Okay, think of this. When a person says they are trans, what does it mean?

A. They crossdress.

B. They are a drag performer.

C. They live full-time in their chosen gender.

D. They have transitioned all of their legal documentation.

E. They have had gender confirmation surgery (GCS).

F. All of the above.

You can see the problems we faced. Because of this, we had to ask: Do you ever dress in the clothes of the opposite gender? Do you do it as part of an entertainment act? We asked a whole series of questions just to determine what those labels meant to them.

But why do we even need labels at all?

Hi, I'm Diana.

Sat 9

Saturday 9: Big Girls Don't Cry (1962)

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…

 

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) When is the last time you shed a tear?

Yesterday.

I am not going into details but it is a family health issue.

2) Lyricist/producer Bob Crewe recalled he got the idea for this song while watching a movie on TV. "Big girls don't cry" was a line from the 1956 film Slightly Scarlet. Give us a quote from another movie.

Plastics!

3) This inspiration came to Bob during the late night/early morning hours. What time of day are you most productive? 

2 AM.

4) Bob wrote another song for the Four Seasons, "Silence Is Golden." The band was not happy with their recording and never released it as a single. Three years later, The Tremeloes had an international Top 10 hit with "Silence Is Golden." Tell us about a decision you wish you could do over.

No. Too embarrassing.

Too many times I want to do over stuff… mainly what I say doesn’t come out right.

5) Before he got his big break, Four Seasons lead singer Frankie Valli worked as barber. Do you have a hair care appointment scheduled?

First, and I said this many, many times… you got to have hair! When you are a “Chrome Dome” you don’t need to see a barber.

6) Oscar-winning actor Joe Pesci has a connection to the band. He was a young chum of Four Seasons founding member Tommy DeVito. By the time DeVito left the group and found himself overwhelmed by gambling debts, Pesci was a star. He helped his friend out, making Tommy his personal assistant and getting him cameo roles in films. Tell us about someone who has been there for you in tough times.

Actually yesterday was a really down day.

7) The Four Seasons disbanded in 1977 after 17 years together. The original bandmates reunited onstage 1990 when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was an important night for them professionally and personally, too, as it gave the old friends a chance to reconnect and mend fences. Is there anyone from your past you wish you could reach out to?

Yes, my father “Where did you hide those keys?”

8) Another hit song from 1962 was "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." Tony Bennett compares San Francisco to Rome, Paris and Manhattan. Have you visited any of those four cities?

San Francisco, my sister-in-law’s brother lives in San Francisco and we visited them once out there.

9) Random question – You're home all alone. Do you close the door when you use the bathroom?

No… it is never closed always open. 24/7.

 

---

 

Yesterday was my birthday and the pharmacy really tick me off. And made it into a bummer day. I posted it on my blog if your want to read. But I'm not going to link to it.

The Pill Pushers!

[Rant]

I am mad… I usually don’t sound off about “things” but… yesterday was my birthday.

It started off with a phone call…

9:00 AM a call from my doctor's... take your meds!

10:00 AM a call from my insurance company ... take your meds!

11:00 AM pharmacy calls... take your meds!

1:30 pharmacy calls... take your meds!

I don’t know if it was my birthday that triggered the calls but they set me off! And you know what, not one of the callers asked if I was taking my meds... it was a statement: "You have to take your meds"

You see pill orders are issued by a computer… it tells the clerk to count out this number of pills and stick this label on it. It has no bearing on when you last picked up the pills! Ding! This date do this. Being human you forget once in a while, I figure that I have about a 90% medication-taking rate. But you slip. But the computer doesn’t. So by the end of the year’s prescription you might be off by two weeks. But the computer goes “Ding” and out pops another 90-day supply.

So this spring I pick up my fourth prescription of the year. But two weeks later the computer went “Ding” and ordered another 3-month supply. If I picked up the order I would have had just about a 6-month supply.

So now the calls start. “You are not taking your medication”

One time when I complained to a clerk… she just told me to throw out the rest of the prescription and pick up the new one. So she told me to throw out $800 of meds so that they can keep their books straight!

Before I retired… I worked making nuclear plants… safety was #1. There was this form called a 10CFR21. CFR stood for Code of Federal Regulations and I was required by law if I found a safety hazard to report it… it could be a criminal offense!

So if I was going to write one for the pharmacy:

Safety violation #1: Automatic refills ** do** not check if multiple prescriptions of that drug are open. This causes a possible dose reduction for a new prescription for the same drug but at a different dose being mixed up.

Safety violation #2: Automatic refills are not based on the actual purchase but are refilled on anniversary dates. This causes the possibility of taking multiple doses of the same drug.

[/Rant]

Breaking News: Russia To Send Us Diesel Fuel!

Do you remember all the economic sanctions we placed on Russia over the Ukraine war like the Direct Import Bans, The Price Cap Coalition, Financial and Banking Sanctions, and Export Controls? Well, those all went out the window because Trump is running scared that the Republicans will lose control of Congress.

So he went to Putin with hat in hand... help me!

Trump eases Russia sanctions, says Putin will release diesel supplies amid unprecedented price spike

Escalations in the Russia-Ukraine war have caused diesel costs to spike this fall, repeatedly setting all-time records.

NBC News

By Steve Kopack

Oct 9, 2026

President Donald Trump said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would “immediately” release hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel fuel onto the global market.

Trump made the announcement on Truth Social and said the action would will help bring diesel prices down.

Can you imagine if Biden did this?  

“Today, at President Trump’s direction, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is immediately issuing a temporary general license to allow the supply of Russian diesel to the global market,” the Treasury Department said on X.

A document posted to the Treasury’s website said that “the sale, delivery, offloading, or importation, including importation into the United States, of diesel fuel of Russian Federation origin are authorized through 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time, April 7, 2027.

In a separate statement, Putin said that he had informed Trump of Russia’s “readiness to supply oil and petroleum products to the US and global markets.” Putin did not offer any specifics, however, such as when a potential release would begin or how much fuel it would entail.

Just like that all the sanctions went out the window!

Diesel futures fell 4% Friday in the wake of Trump’s announcement, but they remain higher by more than 110% since the start of this year.

This was all done for politcial reasons.

BBC News reported...

"Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Putin later said Russia was willing to supply both the US and global markets with oil and petroleum products.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said any easing of sanctions on Russia played into Moscow's hands and would prolong the war.

Trump is now beholding to Putin! What do you think the real price is?

But Zelensky hit out at it, saying "gifts to Putin will not work for peace" and that Russia would repay the diesel with "further terror".

"Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged," he wrote on social media.

Trump only thinks of one thing... himself!

Ship & Bunker reported that...

"Anyone considering buying or selling Russian diesel should keep in mind that UK and EU

sanctions remain fully in force," Steve Simms, principal at Simms Showers LLP, told Ship &

Bunker.

And The Guardian wrote:

Zelenskyy denounces Trump's decision to lift diesel sanctions on Russia as 'weak'

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denounced Donald Trump’s decision to suspend sanctions on Russia, to let the US buy diesel fuel from the nation that kills Ukrainian civilians daily, in an interview with Axios on Friday.

Zelenskyy, who had traveled to Washington to plead with US lawmakers to pass tougher sanctions on Russia last month, reportedly told Axios on Friday that Trump’s decision, was “not fair and not honest” and “looks like a happy birthday present for Putin”.

“It looks absolutely terrible,” he added.

Ukraine’s president also criticized Trump’s decision in a statement on social media, in which he wrote:

Peace never comes through weakness. Today, representatives of the U.S. Congress were in Kyiv – a bipartisan delegation – and I am grateful to them for visiting Ukraine at such a difficult time. They asked: what is needed to end the war? The answer must be strong. There must be sanctions under the Lindsey Graham bill, there must be support for Ukraine in protecting lives, and there must be pressure on Russia for its war. And today, there was a conversation between the leaders of America and Russia. A conversation that leads to something different. …

Any easing of sanctions against Russia without a clear and lasting de-escalation agreement with Russia is an obvious weakness. It plays into Russia’s hands – allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict even greater losses and damage on the world. …

Gifts to Putin will not bring peace or any benefit to the civilized world. Russia will “repay” the diesel with further terror and perfidy. Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged. What is needed is real de-escalation with Russia on a reciprocal basis. We count on America’s fair support for our defense of life, for our defense of people in Ukraine – and on the United States having a correspondingly strong conversation with Russia. A strong one, not a weak one.

 The New Republic wrote...

Meanwhile, Russia will get the right to sell its oil globally. Congress last month passed a sweeping sanctions bill, which Trump signed, punishing countries that purchase Russian oil. Now it seems the United States is one of them.

If Trump thinks his latest move cozying up to Putin will potentially help in the upcoming midterm elections, he has another think coming.

While Newsday wrote:

Rep. Don Beyer, the senior House Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee, called Trump’s announcement “infuriating.”

“This is what we warned anyone who would listen: Trump isn’t the slightest bit trustworthy when it comes to Russia,” Beyer said in a statement on X. “Giving him expanded tariff powers in hopes he would use them to help Ukraine was a mistake. Now he’s lifting sanctions on Russian fossil fuels.”

[...]

“It’s kind of shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Michael Lynch of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, a non-partisan research institution focused on energy and economics.

“If we get diesel from Russia, basically it means that their existing customers are not going to get it and they’ll have to go somewhere else, and that will keep the price basically where it is now,” Lynch said.

So the bottom line is that Russia is diverting fuel from their customers to appease Trump... Naw, Trump is not beholden to Putin. So you don't think Trump is a Russian asset?

So Russia is helping Trump & the Republicans to win the elections... so I guess we can say that we have Russian involvement in our elections.

---

Updated

As they just said on PBS News Hours Ukraine has been destroying the oil refiners in Russia... and Russia barely has enough fuel for it's own country. 

Why Are They Attacking…

… The disabled?

I can think of many reasons why the Trump administration is cutting back on disability rights (Note: these are not my ideas, but rather seem to be the actual reasons driving the Trump administration's cutbacks):

It costs too much and he has to pay for tax cuts for billionaires,

It cuts into business profits,

It forces businesses to hire inferior workers,

It forces them to deal with the disabled,

They have to see people in wheelchairs.

I think all these reasons are very cynical and could very well be true.

Trump’s actions signal a move toward institutionalizing people with disabilities, advocates warn

AP News

By  ANNIE MA

July 1, 2026

For decades, disabled people have fought for their rights to go to school and live alongside peers without disabilities — rights that some fear could be losing ground under the Trump administration.

Last month, the Department of Education announced it would shift oversight of special education to the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose comments on the limits of disabilities such as autism have drawn sharp rebukes from advocates and lawmakers.

Meanwhile, after a White House push to police homelessness, the Department of Justice released guidance that lowered the barrier to institutionalizing any person with a disability.

Taken together, the actions signal a worrying return to a reality where people with disabilities are pushed to the margins of society, advocates said.

Scary! Set your Wayback Machine to the 1930s!

The Murder of People with Disabilities

The Nazis saw people with disabilities as an obstacle in their attempts to create an idealized "German race." In 1939, the Nazi regime began a systematic program to murder them.

Even if that is not the reason they want to institutionalize the disabled, and it is merely because it is cheaper to house them, the results are the same.

Reducing human independence and self-worth to a monetary value is typical Republican thinking. Me vs. Us.

The Trump Administration’s War on Disability

Executive actions, budget cuts, layoffs, and legislation—all enacted in the Trump administration’s first six months—have curtailed disability rights and services, including access to Medicaid and the right to free, appropriate public education.

Center For American Progress

By Mia Ives-Rublee & Casey Doherty

July 28, 2025

History will show the first six months of the second Trump administration as an all-out war against disabled people. From executive orders intended to roll back civil rights protections to legislation that cuts key services and support, the disability community has faced structural violence in the form of federal policy. This all comes as the community continues to suffer severe impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic that have resulted in further disablement, isolation, and death. It has even been alleged that President Donald Trump once told his nephew, Fred C. Trump III, that he should let his son, who has “complex” intellectual and developmental disabilities, “just die” because of the cost of care.

To me, it sounds like Trump is taking us down the rabbit hole.

As I said, I’m cynical. We can keep saying “Trump,” but it is MAGA who backs him, and MAGA are Republicans. They are leading us down the hole of authoritarianism.

During the 1930s the Nazis tried to:

Influence the elections – Trump ✔

Controlling the press – Trump ✔ 

Go after immigrants – Trump ✔

Go after the homeless – Trump ✔

Go after the disabled – Trump ✔

Go after LGBTQ people – Trump ✔

Concentration camps – Trump ✔

Taking over the government – Trump Coup?

This election is probably the most important election ever! The next crux will come on January 3, 2027, when Congress is sworn in.

Racism? Or Love of Money?

I just don't know with Trump; it could very easily be both.

There is oil! But also race.

But to get it, you have to dig up indigenous people's cultural historic sites and U.S. military historic sites.

But hey... it's oil!

US sued over plan to blast Utah canyon inscribed by 19th century 'Buffalo Soldiers,' European pioneers

By Andrew Hay

October 8, 2026

Conservation groups sued the US government this week over plans to blast the cliff walls of an eastern Utah canyon and build an oil truck highway through an area covered in ​historic inscriptions and near world-renowned Native rock art.

The project to replace a winding dirt ‌track with a paved road through Gate Canyon would destroy 100-foot (30-meter) cliffs with at least 47 historic sites, including 19th century inscriptions by Black American "Buffalo Soldiers" in the US Army and European pioneers, according to the lawsuit, opens new tab against the US Bureau of ​Land Management. The cliffs are also a habitat for threatened species such as the Mexican ​spotted owl, the suit claims.

All hail the mighty dollar! Anything Trump's billionaire friends want, Trump bends over backward for!

Gate Canyon runs north off Nine ​Mile Canyon, described as the world's longest art gallery, according to, opens new tab the Bureau of Land Management. Nine Mile Canyon, ​which is about 46 miles (74 km) long, is home to the United States' largest concentration of Native rock art with more than 1,000 art sites containing over 10,000 images, some dating to prehistoric times.

The plan to pave Gate Canyon as an alternative ​truck route to the Uinta Basin oil fields would turn Nine Mile Canyon into a busy oil ​highway, potentially damaging one of Utah's most important cultural and scenic areas, the lawsuit claims.

I imagine the fact that it is historic for Black soldiers probably doesn't give any sway with Trump & Company!

Investing (dot) Com wrote...

The plan to pave Gate Canyon as an alternative truck route to the Uinta Basin oil fields would turn Nine Mile Canyon into a busy oil highway, potentially damaging one of Utah’s most important cultural and scenic areas, the lawsuit claims. 

"BLM rushed its April 2026 decision to approve the blasting and paving of Gate Canyon and hid that process from the public," says the 50-page lawsuit filed in US District Court District of Utah, Central Division.

Plaintiffs in the Utah lawsuit - including the Center for Biological Diversity - said the Bureau’s approval of the road project proposed by Utah’s Duchesne County violated a string of federal laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, National Historic Preservation Act and the Endangered Species Act.

That is why they hid it! They knew they were doing wrong!

All Hail The Mighty Dollar!

Flocked!

Flocked: Adverb, to get “falsely reported to the police.” by an error in reading the the license plate on a car, and then reporting the wrong number to the police!

Used: "I got flocked by a ALPR and they reported me to the police."

September 03, 2026

Privacy, Surveillance, and the Algorithmic Panopticon

Privacy, Surveillance, and the Algorithmic Panopticon: How Privacy Has Been Eroded in the United States

The Legislative Erasure of Privacy: How We Got Here 

    Over the last two decades, the United States government has constructed an invisible, omnipresent web of communications surveillance. Under the guise of national security, intelligence agencies have normalized the mass collection of domestic metadata, utilizing programs to tap directly into the servers of major technology companies and monitor citizen communications. The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 fundamentally altered the privacy landscape, shifting the government's focus from targeted foreign threats to sweeping domestic surveillance capabilities.

 This infrastructure was further entrenched by the FISA Amendments Act and Section 702. Section 702, which was recently reauthorized despite intense congressional debate, allows the government to compel U.S. service providers to hand over data on non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States. However, this creates a massive loophole for intercepting domestic data, as the communications of Americans are routinely swept up in "incidental" collection. In addition, legislation like the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) mandated that telecommunications networks be built with inherent wiretapping capabilities, systematically eroding the Fourth Amendment in the digital space.

The trouble arises when the AI reading the plates can't make out a digit so it guesses! And it is not just local... a woman got hauled off to jail for something that happened on the other side of the country.

A Flock camera hit sent troopers to her door. They had the wrong car.

A Florida woman was jailed for nearly two weeks on triple homicide charges before her defense attorney’s digging sparked a reinvestigation

WBTV

By Emily Featherston and Brendan Keefe

Sep. 14, 2026

Lindsey Isaacs was asleep in her apartment when Florida Highway Patrol troopers began pounding on her door, ready to tell her they believed she was responsible for the deaths of three people.

Their evidence — images of Isaacs’ vehicle captured by a Flock Safety camera near the Deland, Florida scene and “marks” on the Durango they alleged were “consistent with the damage” to the hit vehicles.

“I thought I was getting set up. I didn’t understand what was going on,” Isaacs said.

Because of images of her license plate and claims of what would turn out to be non-existent physical evidence, Isaacs spent 13 days in jail after being arrested and denied bond for crimes she did not commit.

Notice in the lower right of the image.... the error rate of 71%!

Tell Me.

If Trump is so sure that elections are rigged, then why didn’t he invite the OSCE’s international election observers to monitor the elections?

US: Trump Administration Rejects External Election Observers

Decision Compounds Fears Sparked by Administration Actions Around Midterms

Human Rights Watch

September 25, 2026

The Trump administration’s decision not to invite the leading international election observation body to monitor crucial US midterm polls fuels fears of serious human rights concerns around the upcoming elections, Human Rights Watch said today. 

“The US government has long criticized Russia and other governments for dodging external scrutiny of their elections,” said Philippe Bolopion, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Now the Trump administration is mimicking that behavior.”

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has observed every US federal election since 2002, called the decision “regrettable” and “not in line with” US commitments. Just over a month before the elections, the United States is mired in several controversies that raise concerns about the rights of voters, Human Rights Watch said.

It sure makes you wonder: What is Trump hiding? If he is so sure there is election fraud, then why doesn’t he invite independent international observers to help verify his claims? What would he have to lose by allowing outside observers to see for themselves?

The Devil Is In The Details

The conservatives are once again attacking abortion rights. This time, they are going after a medication that treats Cushing’s syndrome and is being looked into to treat certain psychiatric disorders, uterine fibroids, and other hormone-related conditions. But conservatives have labeled the drug “the abortion pill,” when it does a whole lot more!

But for the conservatives they want an all out ban of the drug! The right-wing Restoration News writes;

ROAF Report: Comstock Act Is 'Law of the Land'—Enforce It

Oct 01, 2026

Samantha Flom

The Trump administration must prosecute the illegal mailing of abortion drugs.

Mailing abortion-inducing drugs has long been a federal crime in the United States, yet somehow, mail-order abortions are skyrocketing—and the Justice Department is ignoring the lawlessness. A new Restoration of America Foundation (ROAF) policy paper calls on the Trump administration to correct course to "protect the health of women and save the lives of hundreds of thousands of unborn babies."

ROAF's Law of the Land report, released today, centers on the Comstock Act of 1873. The law expressly bans the mailing of "every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion," among other obscene materials.

Lawmakers have amended Comstock several times in its 153-year history. Yet given ample opportunity to do so, they have not stripped the act’s abortion-related provisions. And though the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade rendered the law unenforceable for nearly half a century, the circumstances, as ROAF points out, have changed. 

The Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision overturned Roe, making Comstock once again the law of the land. But instead of upholding that law, "the Biden administration—following its announcement to 'use every lever we have to protect access to abortion care'—deliberately suppressed the Comstock Act’s enforcement," the report notes, referencing a post-Dobbs statement issued by former President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services secretary.

In May, the Supreme Court stayed the ban on mifepristone after Trump imposed restrictions on it.

The Comstock Act restricts abortion-related materials, and the question before the courts is whether mifepristone can be restricted because one of its uses is to induce an abortion. It is approved to help treat Cushing’s syndrome, and it has shown promise in reducing uterine fibroid tumors. So the question before the court is: Does the Comstock Act apply simply because one of its uses involves abortion?

The Restoration News goes on to say...

That statement proved to be more than posturing. Months later, the Biden Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued a memo that, as ROAF puts it, "deliberately gutted enforcement of the Comstock Act." The Biden Food and Drug Administration then followed up that memo in 2023 by permanently lifting its last meaningful restriction on the abortion drug mifepristone: the in-person dispensing requirement. Now, virtually anyone can order abortion drugs online without any medical guidance whatsoever.

So Trump rolled that back! KFF back in May wrote;

Mifepristone was first approved by the FDA more than 25 years ago with in-person dispensing requirements. In 2023, after extensive evidence repeatedly affirmed the drug’s safety, the FDA removed the in-person dispensing requirement, allowing prescribing via telehealth and dispensing by mail or through retail pharmacies. In the wake of the Dobbs decision overturning the federal right to abortion, this option provides access to medication abortion, particularly for patients in states where the provision of abortion is heavily restricted, as well as for those residing in rural areas in states where services remain legal but  where there are few providers. Telehealth abortions have been increasing as a share of all abortions – 27% in the first half of 2025. Mailing mifepristone enabled clinicians to provide abortion medication to  tens of thousands patients across state lines, supported by state shield laws protecting providers from out-of-state prosecution.

It will all boil down to, will Trump's Supreme Court focus on the treatment of abortions or look at the drugs broader usages?

Because banning a medication over one of its uses could put other patients who depend on it at risk of losing access to treatment for painful conditions, such as uterine fibroids.

---

The Trans Connection

The Trump administration is trying to do something similar with puberty blockers. They are seeking to restrict or ban their use for transgender youth, but these medications also have established medical uses for other conditions. Once again, a medication is being defined politically by one of its uses while its broader medical applications, and the patients who depend on them are at risk being overlooked.

This Doesn't Sound Like We Are Winning.

You know, if you are following Trump's war, that the negotiations are not going as planned. Thirty-one weeks (or about 7 months and 1 week), that is how long the war has been going on. Oh, Trump drops bombs and pounds them back to the Stone Age, but he can't change the fact that he lost.

Plain and simple, we lost. Trump cannot dictate the terms of the ceasefire. Why? No matter what Trump does, Iran can just hit another ship to counter Trump's motive. The Strait of Hormuz is "checkmate," an "ace in the hole," holding "all the aces," or whatever term you want to use; as long as they attack shipping in the straits, Trump can do nothing. The Christian Science Monitor reports...

Nearly seven months after the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, analysts say Tehran’s strategy has evolved into a bid to restore deterrence and end the war on its terms. For Iran, that means forcing U.S. bases out of the region, raising the cost of their presence to Persian Gulf allies, lifting sanctions and a U.S. naval blockade, and locking in economic leverage over global energy choke points.

The price of oil has Trump over a barrel; he lost. He is just looking for a way to weasel out and save face.

Trump talked Europe into releasing its diesel reserves while he pumps oil out of our U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Tell me, what happens when the reserves run dry? Then what?

Indeed, the IRGC has reveled in the scale of destruction of U.S. military assets, which partly achieved a long-standing Iranian demand – little more than fantasy before this conflict – that the U.S. “withdraw” from the region.

This is the Russian Ukraine war and we are playing the part of the Russians!

This Is The Trash Out There!

Did the town do the right thing?

Small town shuts down pro-ICE MAGA film that mocks queer shooting victim Renee Good

The film’s script reportedly depicts Good as a fat blue-hair woman

LGBTQ Nation

Daniel Villarreal (he/him)

October 6, 2026

The town commissioners of Livingston, Montana voted last Saturday to “immediately temporarily suspend” a filming permit for a movie tentatively titled Pawn Shop, a pro-ICE feature film produced by the anti-LGBTQ+, right-wing media outlet The Daily Wire.

The pro-ICE film reportedly depicts ICE-shooting victim Renee Good — a queer, blonde-hair mother of three — as “a fat blue-hair” woman named Melanie who is shot by ICE agents while driving and listening to NPR. Right-wingers have long vilified NPR as being a biased, liberal, and leftist media outlet, even though studies have shown that the outlet is generally unbiased, independent of government propaganda, and provides key benefits to US democracy.

But the show went on because of the First Amendment.