The Life in My Years

An anthology of life

The 47-America’s Nightmare series of posts is winding down. There will be one more post to follow this one that will be focused on my own personal thoughts (Okay, possibly two). Parting Thoughts and Parting Shots is the title I have in mind.I’m bringing these posts to a close for a number of reasons, the …

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Paging James Comer. Paging Jim Jordan. Paging Byron Donalds. Paging all of the Republicans who spent four exhausting years and boxcars full of taxpayer dollars trying to prove that Joe Biden was the infamous “capo di tutti capi” (“boss of all bosses”). James Comer. The name should sound familiar. Comer is the Republican Congressman and …

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May 5, 2025It ‘s Cinco de Mayo and I suspect that, unlike St. Patrick’s Day, when many people, Irish or not, hoist a mug of green beer and proclaim that “today everyone’s Irish,” there are more than a few white American folk who, after downing a few tequila shots, stop well short of proclaiming “today …

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America has reached the momentous, yet really meaningless milestone that occurs every four years; the completion of the president’s first 100 days in office. It’s an unofficial-official anniversary demanded by nothing more than tradition. Neither required by law or mandated by the Constitution, the hundredth day is when the pollsters poll, the press reports (in …

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April 27, 2025I was at a protest yesterday and one of the speakers asked the assembled crowd, “How many of you are afraid to look at the news in the morning?” The show of hundreds of hands was almost unanimous, and I imagine that those who didn’t raise their hands had them full. Almost as …

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April 2025 “We were heading onto the ferry leaving France to England. The French border officer asked if I had applied for entry when I first arrived last week. I told him I believed the ETIAS was not required until October. He said I needed to pay the penalty within 3 days. Then when entering …

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The second of two parts about the Trump Administration’s assault on the First Amendment. “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ~ Alexander Butcher, 2016 winner of the Orwell Youth Prize. It’s a mostly innocuous op-ed, but it got flagged as being …

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The first of two parts about the Trump Administration’s assault on the First Amendment. “Free speech is unthinkable. All other kinds of freedom are permitted. You are free to be a drunkard, an idler, a coward, a backbiter, a fornicator; but you are not free to think for yourself.” ~ Burmese Days by George Orwell …

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On Sunday April 6th, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman turned to X (Twitter) and sounded the alarm after Trump’s so-called “liberation day” liberated Wall Street of $5 trillion dollars (and me of $20,000 dollars). Ackman wrote in part,“ … by placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby …

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April 5, 2025Around the country, across all 50 states, a financially devastated, Trump weary nation took to the streets to protest. In New York and Washington DC the crowds were estimated at 100,000 each; St. Paul, Minnesota was estimated at 25,000; 10,000 in Montpelier, Vermont; 30,000 in Chicago; and 20,000 in Atlanta. In little Hercules, …

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