Tag Archives: Political commentary

War Games for The Sunday Whirl

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War Games

Those bitter hopes that sting one’s mind
are wishes of the futile kind
that make us restless, turn us odd
as we assume that frail facade
that we think hides our fears and doubt
about what this new world’s about.
Massive ills that strip our world
as daily missiles are unfurled
to hit those cities torn by war
 to stem the orange monarch’s roar––
his curiosity to quell
concerning this day’s nouveau Hell
unleashed upon the place he names
to be the target for his games
of fire and brimstone, bomb and gun––
war games he invents for fun!!

For The Sunday Whirl, the prompt words are: facade doubts curiosity bitter torn hit restless hope massive frail strip sting

UN Panel Condemnation of Trump

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BREAKING: Trump is dealt a massive political black eye as a top United Nations panel condemns him for his relentless hate speech and deeply cruel immigration policies.
The entire world is starting to stand up to this bully…
“The Committee was deeply disturbed by the growing use of derogatory and dehumanizing language, and the dissemination of negative and harmful stereotypes targeting migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers,” wrote the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a group of 18 independent experts.
They stated that hate speech from leaders like Trump, in tandem with his brutal immigrations crackdowns around places like schools and churches, has led to “grave human rights violations.” This has long been apparent to the American people, who have been forced to watch as masked federal thugs flood our streets, terrorizing and murdering people at will.
The panel further stated that leaders like Trump have pushed stereotypes about migrants, refugees and asylum seekers (which Trump regularly does to excite his racist MAGA base) by “portraying them as criminals or as a burden.” Such language, the panel concluded, leads to discrimination and even hate crimes.
They also specifically called out Trump’s ICE and Customs and Border Protection for implementing discriminatory policies like racial profiling and “random” identity checks to target people of color.
The panel further wrote that they are “deeply concerned” about the skyrocketing number of detainees imprisoned in detention facilities — pointing out that it spiked from 40,000 in 2024 to 73,000 in 2026.
The panel experts are also “alarmed by the death of detained refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants in migration detention facilities, particularly the deaths of at least 29 migrants in 2025 and six in January 2026.”
They urged the White House to begin complying with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
This is what Trump has done to America. The entire world can see that we’re being controlled by a deeply racist fascist regime. We commend them for speaking out and adding their voices to ours!

 

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Metallica for RDP Sunday

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Metallica

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Metallica

Use your cook pots for umbrellas, ‘cuz it’s raining iron rain.
I don’t mind heavy metal, but as weather? It’s insane.
The drumming is excessive, and if you can’t take the pain,
you don’t want to be caught out singing in the rain.

If you plan on going wading, I’d have another think,
for the puddles that you’re ogling seem to be full of zinc.
When it snows, most of the snowflakes have crystals made of lead—
not a pleasing prospect when they’re falling on your head.

Oceans full of copper, bronze and steel and tin
may be the place you have to die for to be in.
Silver hills and valleys, rivers made of gold
are all that’s left now that our nature’s all been sold.

Does tungsten please your taste buds? Can you eat the golden calf?
With no leather, those bronze slippers aren’t as comfortable by half.
Aluminum for cooking, some folks think can’t be beat,
but what you use for cooking you cannot also eat!

Now they’ve fracked away our water and melted polar ice,
Mother Nature thinks a world of metal would be nice.
So put away your appetites, for food will be passé
once the plants and animals have all been put away.

Say thank you to our rulers. Say thank you very much
for their self-serving decisions and their Midas touch.
Some of us saw this coming but the others did not see
They were too busy getting their news from Fox TV!!!

The RDP Sunday Prompt is “bronze.” Lest you think I go to far: “Researchers Discover Faraway Planet Where the Rain is Made of Iron.”

Divided We Fall for Sadje’s “Deciding” Prompt

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For Sadje’s prompt, “Deciding,” I am rerunning a poem from 2018 that is even more relevant seven years later:

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Divided We Fall

As we bicker on the web, as we snipe and snooze,
soothing our hurt feelings with doobies or with booze,
our rulers are sequestered, each pondering on his throne,
deciding what new property to seize and make their own.

A chunk from social security, another bit from schools.
So long as we’re not educated, we’ll remain their fools.
Cut taxes for their cronies and let them drill for oil
in our nature preserves until we start to boil.

Record heat in one spot and fires in another.
Record snow and hurricanes. We drown or freeze or smother.
They are not going to notice these travesties and glitches,
for they’re busy in their counting rooms, counting out their riches.

What percentage earned today? What yachts to buy tomorrow?
The fortune that they earn today is mankind’s future sorrow.
If we stay divided, we play into their plans.
We keep each other busy as they work on their tans!

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In Answer to Sadje’s Sunday Poser  269 :Deciding

Holding On Together, for The Sunday Whirl

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Holding On Together
Greed, despair and tragedy need not rule our lives,
so long as that calm part of us holds on and survives.
(That presence that walks with us on those hard journeys where
evil seems to stalk us from within its fiendish lair.)
For at each of its stages, Earth has held it all:
both vibrating heart strings that heed the spirit’s call
as well as those demonic fiends that seem to be in power,
issuing their edicts from whichever tower 
they’ve chosen to reign from, be they palaces of stone
or White Houses half demolished that they claim to own.
These despots or these presidents, these potentates or kings
seem to concentrate their power in edicts and in things,
whereas those below them go on living their lives
by concentrating on the kindness that survives
and which we show each other in our living day-to-day,
hoping that the nightmare will soon fade away.

This is my very favorite quote and I have paraphrased it a hundred times. Here is the actual quote:

“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is what happened on the banks.” ~ Will Durant

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle  the prompt words are:
greed tragedy despair presence walk calm strings earth all spirit vibrating heart
Images created with the help of AI…the best that I could do.

Ohh, That’s RICH – This Commentary is as Applicable Today as It Was in August, So I’m Publishing It Again!!!

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I have an additional favorite political commentator who is on a par with Heather Cox Richardson. Here he is again!!! Thanks to Forgottenman for sending me this video.

 

Reblog of Poem Published in 2019 Mistakenly Attributed to Dr. Seuss with Note from the Real Author

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Just today, Nov 4, 2025, I received this message from “Handy Barker” concerning this poem he wrote, which was quoted as a Dr. Seuss poem everywhere I could find it, or I would have attributed it to him. Here is the note I received from him, which I am publishing along with my apology:

Again, sorry, Handy…

Richard Teresi from “Ohh, That’s Rich”––on World Series Baseball and Demographic Politics

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Forgottenman has made his blog private, but he sent this to me and I asked him if he would put it on my blog. It is so well-stated and well-presented. In spite of the fact that I am no follower of any sport, this brought me to tears. The commentator is Richard Teresi, who writes under the title, “Ohh—That’s Rich.”

Comment by Forgottenman:  2025 World Series, game 3 in L.A., going 18 innings, setting multiple records. (No, I didn’t watch – highlight reels only.) Lots of commentary, but THIS is the absolute best, most important commentary on that game I can imagine! Thanks, Rich! 

Links:

 

New Führer, for The Sunday Whirl

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Given the task of writing with no set prescribed topic, my mind always goes to stories of the past. It serves them up like medicine—a treasured dose that blows away the control of a world too bent on bad news. They trigger gratitude for a simpler world that had recently dispensed with Hitler’s threat. Our country had regained control of the world, along with a union of nations bent on peace and the worth of every man, no matter what color or nationality or faith—practices seventy years later again considered something to prompt a shooting match with bigger guns as a new führer (this time our own) practices his strength, his guns aimed at whom? Next time, perhaps you. Perhaps me.

Words for the Sunday Whirl were: serve medicinal gratitude mind triggers blow control shoot practice treasure you stories

Advice to Folks in High Places for the 3 Things Challenge

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Advice to Folks in High Places

Of course, coarse words might prove a curse,
but words that weave a lie are worse.
So don’t use utterances truthless
as terrifying as they’re ruthless.

The Three Things Challenge asked us to include three words: COURSE COARSE CURSE