Sunday, September 27, 2026

Big Brother!

[Essay]

There are those who say, “Yeah, but it is only an ad.” I say, no, it is a lot more than a 30-second ad.

The rapid-fire montage of imagery is akin to subliminal advertising!

The dramatic music and intense personal praise have led critics to describe it as unprecedented and akin to state-run media or psychological conditioning.

It is not the fact that taxpayer dollars paid for this, but the fact that it is government-produced propaganda for “Fearless Leader.” I don’t usually use derogatory nicknames, but this fits what he did to a “T.” It is something that you saw with Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong, and something like North Korea now.
A new White House advert about President Donald Trump, which aired on Fox News and features JMSN's Love Me song playing on repeat, has sparked backlash on social media
Irish Star
Scarlett O'Toole and Chiara Fiorillo
25 Sep 2026

Donald Trump has faced ridicule on social media following the launch of a new White House advert about him.

The 30-second spot, broadcast as a paid commercial during Fox News breaks with a disclaimer noting it is funded by the US government, showcases multiple images of the president, 80, set to JMSN's song Love Me. In the footage, Trump can be heard saying, "Together, we will defeat communism, socialism and Marxism in America. America will never be a communist country."
Total propaganda!

The British Guardian put it this way…
The White House on Friday defended its decision to use taxpayer funds to buy airtime on Fox News for a White House-produced, pro-Trump ad that some Democrats said could be illegal government propaganda aimed at influencing voters in the upcoming midterm elections.
Naw… Trump would never do that. Would he?
By contrast, the 30-second version of the pro-Trump ad broadcast on Fox News this week uses audio of Trump telling supporters in Las Vegas last month: “Together we will defeat communism, socialism and Marxism in America,” and a rapid-fire montage of images of Trump beneath the onscreen text: “America will never be a communist country,” as a chorus sings the words “love me”, taken from a song of that name by JMSN. In the original speech, Trump explicitly identified the enemy as “Dumocrat communists in Congress”.

The last 10 seconds of the ad include text at the bottom the screen saying: “Paid for by the US government.”
This is something out of the novel 1984 and Big Brother—glorifying Trump, complete with a repeating chant of "Love me" like some subliminal message. Can you imagine if it was Stalin's picture up there with flags waving in the background what people would have thought? We saw these films in the 1930s. We saw them for the Ayatollah, and now we are seeing them for Trump!

CBS News wrote,
The White House, in response to CBS News' inquiries about the pro-Trump ad, denied it was a political ad and called it a "public service announcement."

"These public service announcements are about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad," a White House spokesperson said. "The ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic. We should be proud of our country."

A White House official said the PSAs "are clearly not political," and noted, "The President is not on the ballot and the ads don't have a call to action."

In another letter to Wiles, the top Democratic appropriators in the House and Senate demanded that the ad be immediately pulled from air, saying it was a violation of federal law. 

"This is the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea, not the United States of America, and it is an egregious and illegal misuse of Americans' hard-earned tax dollars," Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland wrote.
The only thing missing in the ad was the apple pie!

Add to this Trump wanting his banners all over D.C., the desire to build the ballroom and the arch, and his name on the Lincoln Center. And now this!

No, it is not the cost I object to, but the ad itself. It should never have been made.

[/Essay]

UPDATED: 4:40PM










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“Once Bitten, Twice Shy.”

You have to watch out for a cornered rat... that is when they are most dangerous!


Republican former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz summed up a large portion of the GOP’s midterm message this week when he responded to a man who said he was voting Democratic for the first time ever.

“I hate the war too,” Gaetz told the man on X. “But the Democrats want to trans your kids.”

The trans issue seemed to be a potent one in the 2024 election — President Donald Trump’s team cut an effective ad that professed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was “for they/them. President Trump is for you.” But a new CNN poll this week suggests that playbook won’t be as effective this time.
“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
And that seems to be the case for several other red-meat GOP issues, as well. Republicans have well-established topics that voters favor them on — and that they’ve sought to focus on. But, right now, polls show those aren’t voters’ top priorities.
“Don’t let the shiny object distract you.”

In a Gallup poll this is what they found...
  • Economy — 90% extremely/very important
  • Democracy — 85%
  • Immigration — 72%
  • Education — 85%
  • Healthcare — 79%
  • Crime — 75%
  • Abortion — 66%
  • Transgender rights — 38% 
And in a Pew Research poll they found... that when .asked what single issue they most wanted congressional candidates to talk about, 29% named the economy, 7% immigration, 5% health care, and 9% government ethics/reform. We didn't even make the list of responses.

“Smoke and mirrors.” 
“Pay attention to what they don’t want you looking at.”

The voters are not hearing what they want to hear: how are they going to fix the economy?

Then Trump says, “Vote like I’m on the ballot!”

I'll tell you, that probably turned off a lot of voters, and many Republicans are trying to step away from Trump.


There's a rare thing happening inside President Trump's Republican Party: dissent.

The president has long insisted on loyalty, but in recent weeks, a growing number of Republican candidates and elected officials have distanced themselves from core pieces of his agenda: from calling for an end to the U.S. war with Iran and relief from high prices, to criticizing his handling of key agenda issues like immigration.

It comes at a critical moment for the GOP. With less than 40 days until voting ends, the party is scrambling to hold onto a slim majority in Congress, where control of both the Senate and House of Representatives could come down to just a handful of toss-up races.

Trump's presence in the midterms looms large. He has repeatedly told voters to vote like he is on the ballot, despite facing historically low approval ratings. That could backfire, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, which finds that a plurality of registered voters, 45%, and a majority of independents, view their vote as a vote against Trump.
“When the same distraction keeps appearing, start asking what it’s distracting you from.”
On Tuesday, Utah Republican Sen. John Curtis, who isn't up for reelection until 2030, released a letter urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., after ProPublica reported that a Russian oligarch financed large portions of a lavish party to celebrate his wedding.
My worry is what he will if he feels that he's losing... Will he do something with ICE? The National Guard? What will a caged animal do?
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Saturday, September 26, 2026

Saturday 9: Don't Take Your Love from Me

Saturday 9: Don't Take Your Love from Me (1956)
On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun… 


 Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.
 
1) In this song, Doris Day sings about what happens when you take a petal from a rose. When did you last get or give flowers as a gift? 
Um… never.

2) This song is about a woman who fears losing her love. What's the most recent thing you lost? (Hopefully it's not as consequential as a great love. It could be as small or unimportant as the back of one of your pierced earrings.) 
A crown.
Yep, a crown.
I’m just waiting for it to come back.

3) Doris was known as The All-American Girl Next Door. Who lives next door to you? 
I’m in a good neighborhood. But it is a graying neighborhood, the two neighbors on either side, their children just went off to college. And the neighbors across the street had their grandchildren over.
 
4) As a young girl, Doris Day was passionate about dance. She recalled that concentrating on her lessons helped distract her from the pain and embarrassment of her parents' divorce. When you want to escape from what's troubling you, what do you do?
Photography.

5) The maitre d' at one of Doris' favorite restaurants wanted to ask her out. Knowing how she loved her dogs, he impressed her by handing her a bag of meat scraps and bones to take home. They began dating and, in 1976, he became her last husband. What's the best way to your heart? 
Lobster.

6) Over her long career, Doris received Golden Globe and Grammy Awards and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was also inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame, honored for being one of the most celebrated women to have been born there. Name a famous person born in your home state.
Katharine Hepburn
Gary Burghoff
Peter Tork
 
7) She was frank about her financial difficulties, yet some people are uncomfortable discussing money. Are you one of those people?
Kind of.

8) In 1956, when Doris released this song, The Wizard of Oz was shown on network TV for the first time. What movie have you seen multiple times?

9) Random question: Would you rather have a chef or a chauffeur?
Since I hate driving through the Tappan Zee area in New York and going through Providence so right now I’ll go with the chauffeur.

So, what’s new in the Diana household? Well, as stated above, a crown recovery! Otherwise, it's thousands of dollars for a new one. If I find the old one, it will only be a couple of hundred bucks to glue it back in.

Right now, we are in a state of PANIC, we are in the grip of a Nor’easter! I was going to go grocery shopping for just some odds and ends and then I thought: “Diana are you crazy? Everyone and his brother will be to get some odds and ends. I can live without for now.

Where I live, we are on the fringe, but it's in the low fifties with a 20 to 30 mph wind. However, Cape Cod is set to get tropical-force winds of 50 to 60 mph, along with heavy rain. And of course, I’m worried… I still have my patio furniture outside, and I can only wonder where it's going to end up. Outages are piling up on the Cape and here... here is the outage map.

So if everything comes out right as planned I should be back up to the Cape around mid-week.
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Friday, September 25, 2026

Hate Comes To Connecticut

Another Pride flag is torn down from a church in Windsor.
 Pride Flag Torn Down From Historic Windsor Church
The church's senior minister called it an act of intimidation and said the flag would be replaced.
Jay Kenney,
Patch
Sep 9, 2026
 
 
 A Pride flag was torn down from the front of First Church in Windsor last week, prompting the church’s senior minister to condemn the act and promise that the flag will be replaced.

The Rev. Dr. Ned Allyn Parker discussed the incident in an open letter posted Tuesday. Parker said he believes the flag was removed to intimidate the church or silence its message of support for LGBTQ+ people.

“When a symbol of welcome is torn down, the message sent to LGBTQIA+ people is that their dignity is negotiable,” Parker wrote.
No other news source in Connecticut has carrying this, I guess bias crimes are becoming common here.
 

 
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Another Invasion?

Is the military getting ready for another invasion? There are reports that Trump is getting ready to invade Cuba!
CBS News
By James LaPorta
September 25, 2026


The U.S. Army Reserve is examining whether it can provide the military's Southern Command with police forces, medical personnel and other support units within the next four months, according to an internal Army message reviewed by CBS News.

Though the message makes no reference to Cuba, the request is for continued military planning aimed at Cuba, according to multiple U.S. officials who spoke to CBS News under condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

There is no indication in the document that any units have received deployment orders. But the planning comes as the Trump administration puts intense economic pressure on Cuba and urges the island nation to make political reforms.
CNN reported...
He made the promise even more directly during an August 2024 rally speech in the swing state of Pennsylvania, saying: “Under Trump, we will have no more wars, no more disruptions, and we will have prosperity and peace for all.”




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Pro-Life... Bull!

In pro-life states, mother and baby deaths are increasing! Because of these laws that men are passing so they can get more votes.
 

They are not pro-life, but pro-votes.
ProPublica
by Andrea Suozzo and Agnel Philip
September 9, 2026
 
 
Reporting Highlights
  •     Increase in Deaths: ProPublica’s analysis of CDC data found that almost 200 women died after an ectopic pregnancy from 2020 to 2025, compared with about 100 in the previous six years. 
  •     Delays in Care: Abortion bans make exceptions for ectopic pregnancies, but getting a definitive diagnosis can mean waiting days or even weeks, while the risk of rupture and death rises.
  •     Federal Inaction: There’s been no public response to the increase in deaths. The Department of Health and Human Services has drastically cut maternal health staffers and grant funding.
The number of women who died after an ectopic pregnancy has spiked in recent years, a ProPublica analysis found. The mounting deaths in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data have drawn little scrutiny or response.
Of course, there has been no response from the HHS & CDC; that would be admitting to the deaths.
To treat an ectopic pregnancy, which is almost never viable, doctors must terminate it. But lawsuits and federal complaints have alleged that some medical providers are hesitating or flat-out refusing to do that in states where they face criminal penalties for performing an abortion. Patients described their terror. 

“I genuinely thought I was going to die,” said Kyleigh Thurman, whose right fallopian tube ruptured after she struggled to get ectopic care in Texas in 2023.

“There were a few times I asked my husband if I was going to die,” Leitaea Lowrimore of Oklahoma said in a lawsuit after being denied treatment for an ectopic pregnancy at multiple hospitals in February. “I kept thinking about our kids.”
At times like those, doctors shouldn't have to consult lawyers! The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC) wrote:
 
 
Mississippi, Texas, Nevada, and Oklahoma are among the poorest-performing states overall for women’s health care access, quality, and outcomes, while Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island rank at the top, according to a new state-by-state scorecard. The scorecard examining women's health was released today by the Commonwealth Fund and revealed disparities in women’s health and reproductive care across the United States.1

The findings raise concerns over the state of women’s health care in the US and the ripple effects of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which has significantly altered access to critical reproductive health care services.

“The US Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade in June 2022 has significantly altered both access to reproductive health care services and how providers are able to treat pregnancy complications in the 21 states that ban or restrict abortion access," the report stated.
 
[...]
 
 Using the latest available data, the results demonstrate significant disparities between states in reproductive care and women’s health, as well as deepening racial and ethnic gaps in health outcomes, with stark inequities in avoidable deaths and access to essential health services. The findings suggest these gaps could widen further, especially for women of color and those with low incomes in states with restricted access to comprehensive reproductive health care.
Doctors are afraid! When they need to make life-or-death decisions, they don't need the state second-guessing them! When politicians make medical decisions, people die.
 
 
 The increased number of state-level abortion restrictions in the U.S. was associated with a parallel increase in maternal deaths between 2005 and 2023, according to new research presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) 2026 Pregnancy Meeting™. Researchers found that states with five or more different abortion restrictions had higher rates of maternal deaths from any cause, cardiovascular disease, and violence than those states with fewer restrictions. 

“Abortion is a medically safe procedure, and restricting access to it has real consequences,” said Marie C. Anderson, MD, a resident in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York City, who led the study.  
 
“Our research adds to a growing body of literature confirming the profound negative impact these restrictions are having on maternal health in this country,” said co-researcher Lisa M. Nathan, MD, Chief of Obstetrics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. 
But death doesn't mean anything to Republicans as they kowtow to Christian nationalists! A report by the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) said:
 Results. Among the 14 states with abortion bans, there was some evidence of a potential 9.2% (95% credible interval [CI] = −1.6, 20.7) increase in the number of pregnancy-associated deaths above expectation, equivalent to 68 (95% CI = −13, 147) excess deaths; the rate was also higher than expected, with 3.3 (95% CI = −2.6, 9.0) additional deaths per 100 000 live births. Relative changes in pregnancy-related mortality were similar in magnitude but had greater uncertainty. There was no detectable increase in maternal mortality.

Conclusions. Abortion bans may be associated with an increase in pregnancy-associated and pregnancy-related mortality, although data limitations and chance variation in these rare outcomes constrain the certainty of these and other findings. (Am J Public Health. 2026;116(6):819–828. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2026.308465)
And even if these anti-abortion laws are repealed, the damage they have done will take years to repair. Clinician.com writes;
Abortion Bans Lead Physicians, Nurses to Avoid Certain States
August 1, 2023

Medical students, residents, and practicing OB/GYNs are saying they do not want to train and practice in states with extreme abortion bans, including Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and others. The authors of a recent study found that four in five physicians and trainees preferred to avoid working in states with abortion bans.1

“Our main findings were that among a very large sample of physicians and trainees on social media — over 2,000 — more than 80% preferred to avoid training and practicing in a state with an abortion ban,” says Vineet Arora, MD, MAPP, study co-author and a professor of medicine and dean for medical education in the department of medicine at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

The preference was consistent regardless of specialty. Physicians said they wanted to improve access to care for patients but also cited personal family health reasons for their preference for states with safe and legal abortion care, Arora notes.
They are creating OB/GYN deserts that will take years to heal, and they know it. They read the same reports, they know what is happening, but they just don't care... period. They want the votes from their evangelical Christian base.

Stop and think for a moment. Now you are a medical student who is looking for a place of residency—are you going to go to a hospital in a state that bans abortions and fail to get a complete education?

The same is true after graduation... would you want to practice in a state where you can get arrested because of treatment for an ectopic pregnancy?

Don't you think that Republicans know all this? They put votes above women's lives.

If they were really "pro-life," they wouldn't reduce spending for WIC, SNAP, school meals, and Head Start. If they were really "pro-life," they would support programs like those instead of reducing their funding! 
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