Forked Tongues
These messengers speak words
that can slap you awake,
then abandon you
as they return
to the problems
of the privileged rich.
For Weekend Writing Prompt: Speak (limited to 22 words)
For Fibbing Friday, the task at hand is: These are characters in pantos or animated movies, but who would you nominate for the role (fictitious or real person)/
Note: Because I had never heard of Pantos before, I am going to write a description of what characters I can find on the Internet before I cast the role.
1. Widow Twanky. (Male) A traditional pantomime dame. She has a reputation of being a strict mother but neither son takes her that seriously. She runs the town launderette and is always complaining about being overworked but really she does very little. She speaks loudly and dresses the same way): D0NALD TRUMP
2. Buttons. (He is typically a male servant of the household): DAN SCAVINO –Trump’s former golf caddy (really), now deputy head of staff at the Whitehouse.
3. Cinders. (She dreams of attending the royal ball and marries the prince): MELANIA TRUMP
4. The Beast. DONALD TRUMP
5. Gru. (The main character of Despicable Me.): DONALD TRUMP
6. Cruella de Vil KRISTI NOEM
7. The Fairy Godmother RICHARD GRENELL presidential envoy for special missions since 2025.
8. Abanazar. (the primary villain, an evil sorcerer, in the traditional British pantomime version of Aladdin. He poses as Aladdin’s uncle to trick him into retrieving a magic lamp): ELON MUSK
9. Carabosse ( The wicked antagonist): PUTIN
10. King/Queen Rat. DONALD TRUMP AND MELANIA
Mr. Trump is such a fine actor that I had to cast him in a number of roles. Pretender to all, master of none.
My friend Brad sent me this. Don’t know where he found it, but I must pass it on:
BREAKING: The White House melts down and attacks music legend Jack White after he insults Donald Trump’s “disgusting” and “vulgar” redecoration of the White House
“Jack White is a washed-up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media because he clearly has ample time on his hands due to his stalled career,” claimed White House spokesman Steven Cheung.
“It’s apparent [White]’s been masquerading as a real artist, because he fails to appreciate, and quite frankly disrespects, the splendor and significance of the Oval Office inside of ‘The People’s House,’” Cheung added.
this is Jack’s response…
“Listen, I’m an artist and not a politician so I’m in no need to give my answer or opinion on anything if I’m not inspired or compelled, but how funny that it wasn’t me calling out trump’s blatant fascist manipulation of government, his gestapo ICE tactics, his racist remarks about Latinos, Native Americans, etc. his ridiculous ‘wall’ construction, his attacks on the disabled, his attempted coup and mob insurrection and destruction of the sacred halls of congress, his disparaging sexist and pedophilic remarks about women, his obvious attempts at distraction about being a close personal friend of Jeffrey Epstein and his inclusion in the Epstein files, his ignorance of the dying children in Sudan, Gaza, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his lack of empathy for military veterans and those struggling with poverty, his attempts to dismantle healthcare, his obvious wimpy and pathetic kowtowing to the dictators Putin and Kim Jong Un, his nazi like rallies, his attempts to sell merchandise and products like Goya beans through the office of the President, his fake ‘gunshot to the ear’ that he showed no medical records or photographs of, his constant, constant, constant lying to the American people, etc. etc. etc.”
“No, it wasn’t me calling out any of that, it was the f*cking DECOR OF THE OVAL OFFICE remarks I made that got them to respond with insults,” he continued. “How petty and pathetic and thin skinned could this administration get? ‘Masquerading as a real artist’? Thank you for giving me my tombstone engraving! Well here’s my opinion, trump is masquerading as a human being.”
“He’s masquerading as a christian, as a leader, as a person with actual empathy,” he wrote. “He’s been masquerading as a businessman for decades as nothing he’s involved in has prospered except by using other people’s money to find loophole
after loophole and grift after grift.”
“His staff of professional liar toadies like Steven Cheung and Karoline Leavitt have been covering up and masking his fascism as patriotism and fomenting hatred and division in this country on a daily basis,” White went on. “And I have ‘ample time on (my) hands’? That orange grifter has spent more tax payer money cheating at golf than helping ANYONE in the country. Improve. Anything. There is no progress with him, only smoke and mirrors and tax breaks for the ultra wealthy.”
“So maga folk, enjoy your concrete paving over of the rose garden, your 200 million dollar ballroom in the White House, and your gaudy ass gold spray painted trinkets from Home Depot, cause he ain’t spending any money on helping YOU unless you fit into his white supremacist country club rich idiot agenda,”
“Wow, he hates who you hate….good for you, be proud of yourselves, how christian of you all,”
“The only way you can support this conman is because you are a victim of the 2 party system and you ‘defend your guy no matter what he does.'” he wrote. “No intelligent person can defend this low life fascist. This bankruptor of casinos. This failed seller of trump steaks, trump vodka, trump water, etc.”
“This man and his goon squad have failed upwards for decades and have fleeced the American people over and over,” wrote White. “This professional golf cheat, this grifter who has hundreds of thousands of deaths from his inaction of the pandemic on his hands, this man that the majority of the country somehow were fooled into supporting and voting into office (through the flawed electoral college) and their love of reality
television stars.”
“Being insulted by the actual White House that this particular conman leads is a badge of honor to me, because anyone who trump supports and likes is a villain who gives nothing to their fellow man, only takes what can benefit themselves,”
“And no I’m not a Democrat either, I’m a human being raised in Detroit, I’m an artist who’s owned his own businesses like his own upholstery shop and recording label since he was 21 years old who has enough street sense to know when a 3 card monte dealer is a cheap grifter and a thief,”
“I was raised to believe that we defeated fascism in World War II and that we would never allow it again in the world. I don’t always state publicly my political opinions, and like anyone I don’t always know all of the facts, but when it comes to this man and this administration I’m not going to be like one of the silent minority of 1930’s Germany. This man is a danger to not just America but the entire world and that’s not an exaggeration, he’s dismantling democracy and endangering the planet on a daily basis, and we. all. know. it. -JW III… ‘To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.’ – Theodore Roosevelt”
Heather Cox Richardson, Aug 27, 2025 Letters from an American
Today, for the second time in as many days, President Donald J. Trump suggested that Americans want a dictator. In a meeting in the Cabinet Room that lasted more than three hours, during which he listened to the fulsome praise of his cabinet officers and kept his hands below the table, seemingly to hide the bad bruising on his right hand, Trump said: “The line is that I’m a dictator, but I stop crime. So a lot of people say, ‘You know, if that’s the case, I’d rather have a dictator.’”
With Trump underwater on all his key issues and his job approval rating dismal, the administration appears to be trying to create support for Trump by insisting that the U.S. is mired in crime and he alone can solve the problem. The administration’s solution is not to fund violence prevention programs and local law enforcement—two methods proven to work—but instead to use the power of the government to terrorize communities.
There is a frantic feel to that effort, as if they feel they must convince Americans to fear crime more than they fear rising grocery prices or having to take their children past police checkpoints on their way to school… . .
To see the resst of this article, go HERE
Our Emperor’s New Clothes
How do we mentor our burgeoning youth
in these times of unequalled stretchings of truth?
Teach them to sort out these rash acts of treason,
to approach them with heart and strain them through reason.
Teach them hating is wrong and exclusion is selfish—
that plastic’s destroying our coral and shellfish.
That medical care should be something for all
and that hoarding of wealth brings a country’s last fall.
Teach them the future is theirs to decide.
Teach them the truth of whom to deride.
Teach them that facts being taught by their teachers
may rival what they’re being taught by some preachers
and those who would rule to win their own gain,
lining their pockets again and again
with tax cuts that only extend to the rich
while the trickle-down theory develops a hitch.
Teach them to sort out rhetoric from fact.
Teach them to care and to vote and to act
to stretch out the privilege to blanket us all.
We are not alone on this spinning great ball.
Our former meddling and incredible gall
is why we’re considering building a wall
to keep out the hungry and frightened downtrodden
who come to us weary, exhausted and sodden.
They ask for asylum and our protection
from dictators who have prompted defection
much as many Americans are fleeing south
to avoid the stupidity and the vile mouth
of the dictator who is now ruining our land
with illogical thinking and truth that is canned.
Who will mentor whom in this crazy new world
once the last hateful invectives are hurled?
Our world has been sold out for profit and gain—
overseen by leaders opportunistic and vain.
Perhaps it’s our youth who will now mentor us
to sort out the truth from this internet fuss.
As in the old legend, They’ll teach the uncouth
to forsake propaganda for naked truth.
It’s hoped that our youth wake us up from our doze
to point out the truth of our Emperor’s new clothes!!
The Weekly Challenge Weekend prompt is “burgeoning.”
Game of Cards
I would pay a pretty tuppence
to invest in his comeuppance.
His smug assurance, his galling preening.
He’s like a babe in need of weaning,
sucking at the teat of fame.
What other mortal needs his name
written on towers around the world?
He’s Ozymandias, stone lip curled
in cruel splendor, sure in his power
reasserted on every tower.
But remember, as he counts each coup,
how all the mighty have fallen, too.
False knights wear armor prone to tarnish.
His Midas touch will lose its varnish.
We’ll laud the day when he’ll be dumped—
That day when he’ll be over-trumped!
The dVerse prompt is Power.
Coup d’état
Build up all your borders. Put truth behind a scrim.
Remove all your immigrants. Trim and trim and trim.
Box up all your freedoms and lock them safe away.
Amend the 10 Commandments to “Ye shall not be gay.”
Dumb down all our children to increase control
so you can assure that you’ll retain control.
Tear apart two hundred fifty years of “free”
to put into your control what once was liberty.
Subjugate your citizens and say it is God’s will.
Then provide the Kool-Aid to see if they will swill.
Prompt words for the Three Things Challenge are: BORDER, TRIM, BOX
 July 22, 2025
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| By Carl Swanson
Deputy Editorial Director, Opinion |
The writer and podcast host Molly Jong-Fast grew up knowing that her grandfather Howard Fast, known for writing the novel the movie “Spartacus” was based on, was also famous for being blacklisted in Hollywood for refusing to give information to the House Un-American Activities Committee.
In a guest essay for Times Opinion, she writes that she was reminded of what her grandfather went through after CBS’s decision last week to cancel Stephen Colbert’s late-night show. Colbert had been graciously derisive of President Trump for years. The cancellation looks to Jong-Fast like a “dark moment for an American media company seemingly bowing and scraping” to the president, “obeying in advance, hoping to make a deal,” since Paramount, CBS’s parent company, is in the midst of closing a merger with Skydance that requires approval from his administration.
For its part, CBS released a statement saying that the cancellation was “purely a financial decision,” and it’s true that “The Late Show,” like most everything else on TV, isn’t the moneymaker it once was (although it is still the top-rated late-night show on air). But it’s also true that Paramount’s chairwoman, Shari Redstone, has a family fortune tied up in getting the Skydance deal done.
What does this mean for free speech?
It’s pretty clear now that nobody is safe from an administration determined to bring anyone or anything it sees as standing in its way, no matter how august — Harvard University, high-powered law firms, and TV networks — to heel. And, as Colbert might have just shown, “We’ll never be able to mock Mr. Trump into submission.”
To Read the entire article, go HERE
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lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 