Modern Twain

They called it the One Big Beautiful Bill. Turns out, it was one big beautiful lie, dressed up in red, white, and overdraft.

Let us pray the rhetoric cools, for if the nation finds itself in need of leadership, this president couldn’t lead a parade down a one-way street.

My hand holding up a book titled: “Pillars of Creation: How the James Webb Telescope Unlocked the Secrets of the Cosmos” by Richard Panek. The cover is the JWST image of the Pillars of Creation.

sometimes you DO judge a book by its cover and get it because it’s a pretty space picture

They will teach children to love America, like nothing the USA has ever seen before.

Republicans political identity is built more on grievance than knowledge, more on slogans than substance, we hear the echoes of Know-Nothingism loud and clear.

What we’re witnessing today isn’t brilliance from the private sector, it’s a recycled strain of Know-Nothingism, dressed in modern slogans but rooted in fear: fear of the outsider, fear of change, fear of a future. And just like in the 1850s, it threatens to trade democracy for demagoguery.

He’s a responsibility mercenary, always on duty when the credit’s good, AWOL when the cost is high.

When power needs a villain, the image gets doctored and the public gets the story before the facts even get their pants on.

Many a driver has pretended not to know English to avoid small talk, but it takes the Lord Himself to silence a red hat with a captive audience.

Video ‘I don't know if President Trump has spoken with President Xi’: Secretary Bessent ABC News’ Martha Raddatz interviews Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on “This Week.”

Ahh yes. Strategic uncertainty.

Calling chaos a strategy is the first refuge of a man who’s lost the map.

abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/vid...

I tie up half my brain when dealing with the rich, charity demands I meet them at their level.

We built a world where the poor scroll through mansions they’ll never live in, on phones they can’t afford, to distract from jobs that don’t pay.

The modern robber baron doesn’t need a railroad, he’s got a broadband plan and your data in his pocket.

Nothing steadies a ship like the captain promising not to drill more holes.

This administration governs like a spoiled child, no plan, no patience, and no sense of what anything costs until it’s already broken.

When the Secretary of Defense leaks war plans in the family group chat, it’s no longer a republic we’re running, it’s a reality show with live ammunition.

A republic can survive a scandal. What it cannot survive is the shrug that follows.

Man is the only animal who builds a whole world just to blow it up, and then blames the creeper for it.

I never much trusted religion, but I always respected resurrection. A fellow can use a few of those in a lifetime.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

The ghosts of old tyrannies roam freely in the background of our modern stage, summoned inexplicably by those who ought to know better.

Tomorrow, churches will fill with lilies and hallelujahs, and for a moment the world’s troubles might pause at the church door. But until then, the absurd and the profound continue to dance hand in hand.

The person sitting in darkness is not in need of saving, they are watching, in horror or disgust, at the cruelty and hypocrisy of their would-be saviors.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it does rhyme.

In the Wilmington Coup of 1898, they burned Black newspapers and called it saving the South. In 2021, they stormed the Capitol and called it saving the Republic. Each waved flags, quoted God, and swore they were saving freedom when all they really saved was the lie that power belongs only to them.

It’s easier to shout ‘truth’ than to sit quiet and hear it.

When the news becomes theater and the theater becomes news, a fool is king and the king is a meme.

The CFPB Has Been Gutted The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau terminated the positions of 1,406 employees at the congressionally mandated agency.

The watchdog’s been shot and the burglars have keys.

www.wired.com/story/cfpb-h...

It takes a special kind of genius to preach self-reliance while asking for donations every 15 minutes.