Truth Hurts
When he dies, the only people who’ll mourn him are the hateful, greedy, and the willfully misinformed. The rest of us will be glad he’s finally gone.
The worry should be, who and what comes next.
The barbarians are at the gate, and they have a blueprint for hate.
Check out my Suno collaboration here.
Pardoning drug traffickers, providing favorable treatment to convicted sex traffickers, pardoning violent criminals who attacked law enforcement on January 6th, turning a blind eye to war crimes, greenlighting the murder of survivors of a military operation, stripping health care and SNAP benefits from the most vulnerable, kidnapping and disappearing people with no due process.
How much longer are we going to allow the moral rot of this administration to drag America’s name and reputation through the mud?
When do we say “Enough is Enough”?
Check out my lyrics to a rockabilly rebuff of President Cheese Puff on Suno. https://lnkd.in/etWRPNY4 – Leave a comment and share!
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my book, My Paper, My Words: Rantings from a Progressive Boomer and Peeved Parent, from Amazon. And if you feel moved to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems that reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-911 America.
The collision of technology, conservative ideology, and the incel movement in American culture is resulting in a volatile mix of online radicalization, misogyny, and political extremism.
By amplifying exclusionary beliefs, digital platforms normalize violence and connect isolated individuals into communities that can spill over into real-world harm.
Online platforms, social media, and dedicated incel sites provide a fertile breeding ground and powerful echo chamber for individuals with extremist and misogynistic views. It is in these intellectually dank digital hangouts that we encounter the danger of algorithmic amplification and the recommendation systems, which push members of these online communities deeper into radical content, normalizing hostility toward women and liberal values.
There is also a porn-component to this toxic, digital culture. Studies show links between incel misogyny and online pornography, which reinforces distorted views of women and sexuality.
What’s even more concerning is the acceptance of misogynistic beliefs and behaviors as “boys will be boys” by the Trump administration, which is tapping into the aggrieved community of non-college-educated males, not for the purpose of assisting them, but rather to turn their growing sense of isolation and anger towards college-educated women into votes.
There is an overlap between MAGA conservatism and ideology and the INCEL movement in America, specifically around the anti-feminist narrative, where both groups tend to frame feminism as a threat to traditional gender roles.
INECELS adopt a worldview of being “dispossessed men,” which resonates with broader conservative rhetoric about cultural decline and loss of male authority.
It’s at our own peril that we turn a blind eye to the alignment of incels and far-right groups around exclusionary, anti-democratic, and xenophobic tendencies. Isolated and digitally immersed young men in America are susceptible to being drawn to extremist online communities that distort masculinity and normalize misogyny.
The blending of conservative ideology with incel dogma and rhetoric widens the divide over gender, sexuality, and democracy, fueling broader culture wars in a country that is more culturally polarized than ever.
I wrote a poem a while back about the radicalization of young non-college-educated males through far-right groups around exclusionary, anti-democratic, and misogynistic views. I used the AI music platform Suno to put my poem to music.
Here is the resulting song, New Boy Paranormal.
Let me know what you think in the comments!
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my book, My Paper, My Words: Rantings from a Progressive Boomer and Peeved Parent, from Amazon. And if you feel moved to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems that reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-911 America.
What a shame and disservice to the men and women being sworn into the military at yesterday’s football game in Washington, DC.
In what should have been a proud and patriotic moment for these young men and women, the fans could not hold back their boos and distaste for the draft-dodging coward and enemy of American democracy swearing them in.
I want to think if I were in attendance I would have applauded in celebration of the men and women on the field rather than boo the putz in the press box who has embarrassed our country in front of the rest of the world – but honestly, I don’t know if I would have been able to hold back my anger at the man responsible for the rampant divisiveness ripping at the fabric of our country.
The adverse reaction that a stadium full of American citizens had to President Trump’s public appearance would be a wake-up call to any other politician. But Trump is so thickly coated in narcissism that nothing outside of the inflated opinion he has of himself matters, as the big, fat, ugly shadow he casts continues to eclipse the hope and optimism that used to shine brightly from America.
What to do with a shoe box full of lyrics, looking for a place to live?
I’ve always wanted to set some of my work to music, but because I have no musical skills, nothing ever came of it.
I’ve been seeing a lot of AI-generated content on social media lately, so this morning I created an account on Suno.com, picked a genre, pasted a poem I wrote years ago (Baby Teeth and Bullets), and clicked Generate.
I wasn’t sure what to expect as I watched the progress wheel on the Suno website spin round and round.
In about 1 minute, Suno set my poem to music in accordance with a genre and other characteristics I selected.
I was amazed at how quickly Suno created the song and, even though I feel a little conflicted (guilty?) about using AI to create art, I was giddy at the result.
Checkout Baby Teeth and Bullets the song and let me know what you think about it and about the ethics of using AI to generate art.
Remember when
we walked the Glen
down to the Manor
and back again
just passersby
to grass and sky
with inlet smiles
and sunlit eyes
Cicada rhythms
danced through the trees
the Sakonnet rolled
out to the sea
that world embraced
both you and me
Remember when
we walked no more
stopped skipping stones
along the shore
we buried secrets
in closet walls
dodged each other
in narrow halls
Glen strolls replaced
by trips to malls
by all-day meetings
and late-night calls
We lost ourselves
and raised the kids
crossed some lines
and hit the skids
then peeled apart
as our parents did
Mundanity paved over love
harsh words gave way
to push and shove
our home became
a handless glove
Does love lie dormant
at the Glen
under rotting leaves
and muddied Zen
or is Wolfe’s
“You can’t go home again”
as true as dirt and oxygen
where the fireflies
we choose to chase
are snuffed
by Moirai’s cold embrace?
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my book, My Paper, My Words: Rantings from a Progressive Boomer and Peeved Parent, from Amazon. And if you feel moved to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems that reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-911 America.
No, Donald Trump’s statement that Ronald Reagan loved tariffs for our country and its national security does not accurately reflect President Reagan’s views on tariffs.
Reagan was a strong advocate for free trade and often spoke against tariffs, viewing them as harmful to economic prosperity.
In fact, in a 1987 national radio address, Reagan explicitly criticized tariffs, stating they “hurt every American” and arguing that protectionist policies like tariffs lead to “shrinking markets, collapsing businesses, and widespread job losses”. He believed that while tariffs might seem patriotic or protective in the short term, they ultimately stifle innovation, provoke retaliatory trade measures, and damage the broader economy.
No, Donald Trump was not telling the truth.
A recent controversy arose when the Ontario government aired an ad using clips from Reagan’s 1987 speech to highlight his anti-tariff stance. Donald Trump responded by calling the ad “fake” and claimed it misrepresented Reagan’s views. However, fact-checks and the full context of Reagan’s speech confirm that he genuinely opposed tariffs and championed open markets.
While Reagan did occasionally use targeted trade measures for strategic purposes, his overall philosophy was rooted in free and fair trade, not broad protectionism or nationalistic tariff policies.
So, while Trump may frame tariffs as essential for national security, invoking Reagan as a supporter of such policies misrepresents the former president’s well-documented economic views.
Anyone with a cell phone or computer can do a quick Google search and know definitively that Trump was lying about the Ontario government’s Ad being fake and lying about Ronald Reagan “loving tariffs.”
It took me less than 5 minutes to debunk President Trump’s statements.
The more prescient issue is how fluidly this administration weaponizes lying.
Most politicians (and non-politicians for that matter) lie to get out of a jam. The Trump administration’s repetitive lying is part of a strategy to manipulate public opinion.
This administration is taking a page from the 1930s Nazi party playbook, where writings and speeches consistently emphasized emotional appeal, repetition, and the subordination of truth to political strategy.
According to Arty, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, believed:
The Trump administration has been widely criticized for employing repeated falsehoods as a political strategy, often aligning with the idea that repetition can foster belief.
Here are several notable examples of falsehoods repeated by Donald Trump and his administration:
A 2023 study published in Public Opinion Quarterly found that repeated falsehoods from Trump’s presidency significantly influenced public misperceptions, especially among partisan audiences. The more often Trump or officials from his administration repeated lies, the more likely people were to believe them, even after the falsehoods had been publicly debunked.
President Donald Trump’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2025, included several claims that have been widely fact-checked and found to be misleading or false across multiple topics. Here’s a breakdown of the most notable inaccuracies:
Trump stated:
“I ended seven wars… Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
Fact Check:
Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and claimed renewable energy sources “don’t work” and are “too expensive.”
Fact Check:
Trump claimed:
“I have the highest poll numbers I’ve ever had.”
Fact Check:
Trump described U.S. immigration laws as “suicidal” and blamed them for economic and social decline.
Fact Check:
Trump said:
“All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up.”
Fact Check:
I’ve given up on President Trump ever speaking truthfully about anything. Whenever he opens his mouth, lies spill out. Lying is his default setting.
I can’t see how anyone with even an ounce of intelligence could watch that speech and not be embarrassed and ashamed of who we put in office.
We all knew the speech (like all of Donald Trump’s speeches) would be littered with lies and misinformation, so no surprise there. But the boorish and self-congratulatory tone was off the charts, even for Trump. If the delegations had any courage at all, they would have stood up and walked out.
I heard Stephen Hawking talking
to a mirror on the wall
about dust-dance-chaos in tornadoes
and wheelchair wheelies at the mall
I heard Stephen Hawking talking
to Rip Vanwinkle on a plane
about a theory he’s been stalking
around the surface of his brain
I saw Stephen Hawking talking
to dark shadows in the rain
about bending atoms in the Balkans
and mending Jacob Marley’s chain
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my book, My Paper, My Words: Rantings from a Progressive Boomer and Peeved Parent, from Amazon. And if you feel moved to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-911 America.
Hi folks,
I’ve just published “Imagine There’s No Donald” on Amazon.com.
Imagine There’s No Donald is a lyrical collection that channels the melodic cadence of (mostly) Beatles songs to deliver searing poetic indictments of Donald Trump, the MAGA movement, and their corrosive impact on American democracy.
Each poem echoes the structure and emotional resonance of iconic musical tracks—think “Rocky Racoon” reimagined as the tale of Donald Trump’s destructive path to the presidency, or Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun” transformed into a lament on Republican cowardice and lost democratic norms.
Through this fusion of pop nostalgia and political critique, the collection:
Whether riffing on “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” to expose the sycophantic rot of the Trump administration or twisting “When I Saw Her Standing There!” into an elegy against oligarchs and authoritarianism, this book is a poetic rebellion—an artistic act of defiance that refuses to be silent in the face of democratic decay.
Most free thinkers, poets, and essayists are but a thorn in the side of the authoritarian regime that is running roughshod over America’s democracy. Writing and speaking truth to power sometimes feels like screaming into the void. But with critical mass and momentum, art can influence public sentiment and mobilize opposition to repressive policies and tactics, making it a powerful adversary to regimes that rely on propaganda and control.
Verbal resistance alone won’t revive our democracy. If we’re going to right the ship in America, we’re going to have to do more than sing and complain. We’re going to have to take to the streets and, as the honorable Georgia Congressman John Lewis famously said, “get in good trouble, necessary trouble” by the millions.
Get your copy of Imagine There’s No Donald on Amazon. Please feel free to share the link with others on your social media or simply by giving the book to a loved one as a gift.
Peace (and FUDT).
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my first book, My Paper, My Words: Rantings from a Progressive Boomer and Peeved Parent, from Amazon. And if you feel moved to write a review of the book on Amazon or elsewhere, I’d be honored.
My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems that reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-9/11 America.
bendingtheneedle