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This should surprise no thinking person. An unhinged, unstable, narcissist egomaniac, drunk on power. A cruel man who loves to punish, control and watch his toadies and former antagonists grovel and supplicate themselves to his whim. He has made a mockery of government and democracy. He has engaged in purges and persecutions, large and small, for pleasure and purpose. He has destroyed and disabled fundamental institutions and protections. He has legitimized lying and cheating. He has made fear and subservience, lies and subservience the currently of governance. He has made America a pariah nation. He has further corrupted a dishonorable political party, such that it has now ceased to be. He has hoodwinked half of America. He is a Looney Tunes caricature of a mad emperor. He has seized power and braggadocio and blitzkrieg, counting on the indifference and incapacity of the public. And he is surrounded / supported by a some of the nastiest, ignorant, incompetent, corrupt and immoral people who have ever served in American government.

To the MAGAts who supported this cosplay autocrat (and bit of human garbage) and to those who could not be bothered to vote (because you didn’t like the candidates), I hope you are happy with what you are getting. The ‘fun’ is just beginning.

When the $#it hits the fan, Dear Leader will (continue to) blame Biden or his choice of enemy de jour, but the result will be the same: America sliding into further corruption and decline. Things won’t work (like NOAA), the necessities of life will cost more (insurance, medical treatment, taxes) and lies will pile upon lies to deny, deflect and attack.

[Happily, MAGAts mostly stay clear of this site.]

At around 4-5 weeks puppies begin to bond with humans. I like to take them inside one at a time for some bonding time on the sofa. This 5 week old bright-eyed female from Meg x Max litter is small and adorable …even more pleasing in temperament than her stunning looks (with natural eyeliner). Whoever gets her will be very happy. She is naturally bonded to humans with her sire’s serene temperament (100% trusting). Unlike most of the imports, this farm-bred pup is completely unbothered by house noises. She is the Easy Street of puppies. ALL of her littermates are the same.

Sue surprised me. I thought her date was 4 days from now. She was nervous at first. Mayhem, actually. A first time mother and being Nel’s daughter account for that. Sue will not be winning any ‘Mother of the Year’ awards. She settled down as they started to roll out. A little help from me along the way assured that everything kept going smoothly(ish). Sue is a bull on the field and in the whelping box. Hard bitches tend to be less attentive moms. The best mothers tend to be calm, smart, deft working sheep, kind, less dominant and pushy. Jazz and Lotti and Meg all fit in that category.

Congratulations Susie!

Hot shot stud, Ormond Mirk, is available at stud in Vermont.

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THE MORNING AFTER:

• Puppies all present and accounted for
• Mom looks like nothing even happened yesterday …except that she shed some uncomfortable extra weight

So they finally did it. The MAGAt party passed a complete piece of shit bill that screws America, now (Medicaid, taxes ) and in the future (debt, research, renewable energy) …because Il Duce demanded it and threatened the cowards and quislings of his party if they didn’t.

For Independence Day, my ‘dogs for democracy’ will stand with me on a street corner in protest against a tyrant who is trashing the constitution and rule of law, enabled by the very worst of America: MAGA deplorables and greedy tycoons. There is nothing to celebrate.

Here is what tax cuts have done to wealth distribution:

“From 1981 to 2021, tax cuts moved more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% to the top 1%, and Penn Wharton projects the top 10% of households will receive about 80% of the total value of this [Big Beautiful Bill] law, too. Those in the top 20% of earners can expect to see nearly $13,000 a year from the bill, while those in the bottom 20% of households will lose about $885 in 2030 as the pieces of the law take effect.*

* Heather Cox Richardson 4-July post

The bill funds more Trump goons: masked, muscled white guys taking people off the streets. And it funds gulags and detention camps …oh yes, and the wall Mexico is going to pay for:

$170.7 billion into immigration enforcement—more than the military budgets of all but fifteen countries. The law provides $51.6 billion to build a wall on the border, more than three times what Trump spent on the wall in his first term. It provides $45 billion for detention facilities for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an increase of 265% in ICE’s annual detention budget. It provides $29.9 billion for ICE enforcement, a threefold increase in ICE’s annual budget.*

* Heather Cox Richardson 4-July post

Here is what the MegaF**k Bill does to climate initiatives:

“It stomps out incentives for purchasing electric vehicles and efficient appliances. It phases out tax credits for wind and solar energy. It opens up federal land and water for oil and gas drilling and increases its profitability, while creating new federal support for coal. It ends the historic investment in poor and minority communities that bear a disproportionate pollution burden—money that the Trump administration was already refusing to spend. It wipes out any spending on greening the federal government.”*

* Inside Climate News (ICN) Weekly

Yeah, right, spineless wonders …Trump’s gonna fix it and Mexico is going to pay for the wall. What poor excuses for Americans. You sold America out. Our fathers (my dad) fought in WW II to defend our freedoms. They would be disgusted. Veterans of all wars died for sacred principles –for the promise and idea of America. Immigrants risked their lives to get her for 200 years and built a country we were once justly proud of. MAGA voters and their representatives disgrace the spirit and ideas of the Declaration of Independence this Fourth of July: they actually support and enable a would-be tyrant King.

I am sickened by the sight and smell of MAGAt trash.

Daria sent me a Day 4 update from Metro NYC. Coal and Daria do 15km – 30km runs every day as she trains for her triathlons with the glory of the Big Apple on the horizon. Coal has landed so well. That smile of his tells me everything!!

This is how it is supposed to be for all dogs from Thundering Paws Farm!!!

Daria with Coal and Jullian with Venti show what full lives working border collies can live in urban environments when a human is prepared to make a collie’s wellbeing central to their lives.

The way they look at me says it all.

I practice ‘rapport based training’. Before a dog even sees sheep, we build a rapport. The rapport with young Kate was instant! From the moment I let her out of the crate from Wales, she was mine. When a dog likes me, wants to be mine, it makes all the difference in training.

Bridget and Galen Samson, innkeepers at Lambert’s Cove Inn, on Martha’s Vineyard, took into their care a pup named Cait, who was found to have congenital heart defects. Running around chasing dogs and sheep on a farm would have meant an early death for Cait. Instead, she is an adored ‘inn dog’ at the upscale Lambert’s Cove Inn.

Cait was recently featured in the Vineyard Gazette with her fellow greeter, Pearl.

Cait almost didn’t get the chance to join Bridget and Galen. At 10 weeks old she was lost for 4 days and nights in snow and freezing cold in the Dartmouth Woods with her littermate Gunner before being found by Dartmouth Ph.D biology students on a Thanksgiving Day hike. A miracle!

I find patience hard. Not my nature.

…but it is amazing how the right things seem to turn up if I wait. And there was no more right for Cait than Bridget and Galen.

Coal arrived safely in his new home with Daria, in New Jersey. Daria is a polymath triathlete. Together they will train and push each other forward. Daria had everything ready, just right for Coal. And what did she do on his second full day with her? Took him out for a 15 km training run, half of her normal 30 km. Without hesitation, I can say she is the PERFECT home for Coal. Thanks to Good Dog for brining Daria & Coal together.

A happy new beginning!

The Meg x Max litter of 5 pups (3M/2F) turned 4 weeks this weekend. At 4 weeks +/-, pups leave the whelping box for the puppy kennel. They also get weaned from just mother’s milk to hard food. This group of big pups (from both dam and sire) needed no encouragement to start chowing down hard food, a mix of scrambled egg, ground beef and ground puppy kibble. The pups in this litter are confident and friendly, like their parents –and big!

The pups will spend the next 8-10 weeks in this group kennel as they develop together. Their personalities start to become distinct. And at 12 weeks some will be available to new homes. Pups spend much of the day outside playing and exploring, returning to the kennel for naps and overnight.

For those of us ASTONISHED at the appeal of Trump… this is a cogent 6 minute reflection on the psychology of the Trump cult.

@jayneconverse3

6/27/25 They’re not following Trump because of what he does. They’re following him because of how he makes them feel. Understanding it is the first step in breaking the spell. #cultpsychology #Authoritarianism #PoliticalPsychology #TrumpSupporters #fyp #CultOfPersonality

♬ original sound – Jayne – Jayne

…but I’m afraid this doesn’t make me feel any better. The cult is half or nearly half of America, with the plutocrats and corrupt operators laughing at the credulity and ignorance of the MAGAts while they screw them over. And it’s not clear that MAGA-cult is shrinking. It may even be growing. Even if the cult itself is not growing, our acceptance of it (with a shrug, the new ‘normal’) is growing.

From the video:

1. Trump doesn’t offer policies, he offers ‘identity’. ‘Identity fusion‘ is when personal identify is fused with the identity of the leader.
2. He offers ‘revenge‘, not solutions. A big middle finger to those (groups) people have been taught to hate.
3. People crave order, and Trump promises strength. He creates crises then sells himself as the only one strong enough to fix them. He creates ‘dependency‘.
4. His followers are trapped in an information bubble. They don’t just believe his lies; they live inside them. It’s a closed loop ecosystem, called ‘epistemic closure‘. Followers no longer accept any outside information.
5. Shame is powerful. Trump supporters can’t admit they might have been (are) wrong, so they double down …just like Trump does. To turn away now would be taking on shame, admitting they were wrong and losing their community. That is terrifying to them, so they dig in deeper.
6. Trump makes his followers feel ‘seen‘. He gives them belonging and community which they crave. [Hillary got this right when she famously said he ‘lifted them up’]

Trump didn’t just seize government. He seized the minds of half of America. I don’t understand cults and conspiracy thinking, so I didn’t think such a thing was possible in America.

Trump and his MAGA cult is the price we are paying for social neglect and greed (which found its first powerful expression in Reagan) …letting a big chunk of the country fall behind for the last 50 years. It was fertile ground for an opportunist like Trump to ‘instinctively’ use it for power, ego and corruption.

And just to end this post on a light note…