Has anyone ever seen Ben Grimm and Donald Trump together?

Venezuelan Narco Regime Provided Over $20 Million to Fund Black Lives Matter
October 29, 2025

□ [Democratic Underground 'We're Shutting It Down':  Coordinated Economic Blackout Set For Nov. 25 - Dec. 2"]

There are indicators that the left is finally getting close to collapse.  Multiple posters on this leftist site are saying the week-long strike being planned is a bad idea, it won't convince anybody, will hurt the working class who participate, risk losing their jobs, all that sort of thing.  A few other posters, while not agreeing with this, have no real response other than 'what else can we do?'  The protests got more attention than they deserved and still didn't make a difference, why do they expect this to be different?

Nobody points out that they need to involve more than just old white people although that must be one of the underlying arguments.  There's just the assumption that everybody will be part of this and no effort is needed to make it happen.  Someone even points out that this is what losing an election means, the winners get to call the shots and the loser have to accept it.

I did see another indicator.  An unnamed member of Congress [ahem!] says a lot of Democrats want the government shut-down to end.  It's the leadership who isn't going along.  Doesn't that tell us what the party is really about, where those in charge get what they want regardless of what anyone else thinks?

I'm still expecting the insane leftists to win the upcoming elections, the marxist Muslim in NYC and the Virginia child-killer and whoever else the party has out there these days.  Hopefully I'll be proven wrong as I was a year ago and they'll all be kicked to the curb.  But even a few losses would show that the leftists really have no chance of taking control with consent of the citizens.  They can't even function outside of their large cities that Democrats have run for decades and if enough normal people are paying attention to this, they can't even win there.

Army Sergeant Who Gave U.S. Secrets to China Gets Just Four Years — Judge Cites “Mental Health”
October 28, 2025

Day 29 without a federal government.  The world's gone mad!  People are just getting by without a federal government to love us and hug us and call us 'George'!  How can anyone live with these people?  This is why we're supposed to have Democrats teaching in school so people learn what really matters, pronouns, DEI and that 2 + 2 can self-identify as 5.  And stuff about how great the federal government is, except when Trump's in charge, which is why we need it to come back.

Gotta admit, I'm getting desperate, I need a fix.  Really, I'll do anything.  Take all my money, bend me over and use me as a sex toy, just give me another shot of government!  I thought that was why we brought those millions of foreigners with guns in to help us but where are they now when we need them?  You just can't rely on anyone anymore.  Only Mother Government can make everything better.

Hungarian Viktor Orbán, Czech Andrej Babiš and Slovak Robert Fico Form the ‘Axis of Peace’
October 29, 2025

□ [“Dems Showing Signs They Are Looking for Off Ramp From Schumer Shutdown"]

They really think they can blame other people for things.  Republicans all voted for a budget as the law requires.  They also voted for a short-term spending bill to keep the government open.  Democrats voted against both of those and the Senate requires 60 votes to pass either of these.  So they're clearly saying the government can stay shut down unless they get what they want, showing that a functioning government isn't the priority.  So yeah, they get blamed for it being shut down.

Hadn't noticed but last week they also voted against a bill to pay federal workers and military.  I did hear that one of them had said people just had to suffer because this gave Democrats more political leverage.  I guess that's how you show people you care about them.  They're being hit from the federal unions, big retailers, people who get SNAP funding to buy food.  They can all suffer too.

Republicans knew this, that's why the House didn't even bother to stay in session for the last month.  They'd already done their part.  They probably don't but it would be nice if they have a bills with even bigger spending cuts ready to go if Democrats ever get around to saying they'll vote for it.  That would be a hilarious way to really bring it home to them where Americans want to go.

I'm guessing the party is discussing who will give in on the vote.  These people weren't chosen because they'll stand against the party to support their voters so that's a problem.  And sooner or later they'd have to explain why they held out for so long if they're just going to cave anyway.  What did you get from making your voters suffer?  My advice would be to have Bernie Sanders and a few other big names be the ones to give in on re-opening the government.  They're popular enough to take the hit and it would suggest that maybe the party has finally learned something a year later.  Of course it's entirely possible Schumer will order a few Democrats to support the bill and take the blame.  He's in charge so he can do that.

Elon Musk’s Wikipedia Challenger ‘Grokipedia’ Finally Launches - Written by A.I.
October 29, 2025

□ [“Movie About Bruce Springsteen is a Box Office Dud"]

To an extent, I guess I see a reason for these old rich rock stars to want to see biopics about themselves.  It's possible this was even part of the deal Springsteen made to sell his catalogue for however many hundreds of millions he got for it.  I don't know how enjoyable Springsteen ever was in concert but he's way too old to be doing that anymore so this might be considered the next best thing.  I've heard that's what it was for Queen and whatever other acts have done this, basically just cram together their best-known songs and call that a movie.

I guess that's a problem for Bruce though, he was always promoted as being American but has just pissed off the American audience for the last couple decades.  Never remotely been a fan although I have his greatest hits somewhere and possibly one or two other albums and there are at least a couple of his songs I enjoy.  To me he's always looked manufactured, like the record companies in the 70s had realized how to do that for acts that weren't straightforward pop music and Bruce was one they were pushing the most.  He'd become famous no matter how long it took, and it obviously worked.

But he's driven the audience away, as has the rest of whatever used to be rock'n'roll.  To the extent I pay any attention to what's going on in music, it looks like the big names of recent decades just do a couple of albums and that's it.  Nothing people like listening to, just something that's technically a hit and then forgotten.  The other rock stars are all quite old and seem to have either retired or are only on tour because they need the money.

But this movie failure connects with the larger failures going on in Hollywood.  They've gotten rid of creating anything of quality so they could promote the stars over everything else.  Now the stars are failing to keep an audience because nothing they do has any real quality.  But at least they're mostly total leftists so that means something, right?  Well, no.

SNAP Recipients Threaten To Loot As EBT Apocalypse Is Upon Us
October 29, 2025