Grilling Fauci…

by MyBaconPress

So, does it matter any more where Covid-19 came from? Did it ever? There are two schools of thought on the topic: either it was a natural jump from animals to humans or it came from a US-funded lab in China. Okay, great. How does knowing where it came from affect anything? We still had to go through it. All the same people died. It was a big fight once between left and right, though. Apparently, for the right, it still is.

They called Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as the nation’s infectious disease expert during the pandemic, to testify before Congress about Covid-19. Fauci knows, from experience, what the cons want: an excuse to harass Fauci and his family. He invoked his Fifth Amendment rights on over 100 questions.

At the time, Fauci was trying to understand and manage a new health threat while fully a third of the population challenged every word he said because they had spent a few minutes online doing their “own research.” Fauci only had years of education and decades of practice to work with. How could HE know what they learned in five minutes from some conservative talking head?

Fauci DID get some things wrong, too. He was working blind, having to determine courses of action in real time with little information. Much of what he said was ‘best guess’ or ‘best practice’ stuff that was later modified as information became available. Cons often can’t accept that. They think once a thing is said, that’s the thing and nothing can change it. Smart people know that new information requires modification of thought and that was the battle between left and right on Covid-19.

Fauci generally supported the natural transmission line but even he had doubts. It’s very difficult to say, for sure, and when the focus is managing the problem, where it came from is less important. Meanwhile, Donny was out there suggesting people drink bleach or shove a blacklight up their backsides to get rid of Covid and insisting Fauci didn’t know anything, and since it was uttered by the mouth of their Precious, Fauci had to agree or spend his days being bullied and harassed by blindly loyal MAGA.

Fauci stayed true to the science to the best of his ability and just took the abuse as long as he had to. But as quickly as he could, he returned to private life and has stayed there ever since. The cons won’t leave him alone, though. They’re STILL trying to prove he was just lying to make 47 look bad. (Generally speaking, it’s the truth that makes 47 look bad.)

He responded to the Congressional subpoena. He showed up. He refused to answer their stupid questions. Then he went home. Now Rand Paul, Homeland Security Chairman, wants to hold Fauci in contempt for invoking his Fifth Amendment protections. It makes sense. Having perfect information on a teeny-tiny, rather irrelevant detail of an event that took place over seven years ago is clearly more important than any of the minor challenges the US faces today, right? Leave it to the cons to keep their eyes on the wrong prize…

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Wow, this is going to hurt. On Monday, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) ended for people from Haiti and Syria. They can no longer legally work in the US, and now they can be removed from this once-great nation. The bigots couldn’t be happier.

But there are 200,000 Haitians and 2,000 Syrians contributing roughly $5.9 billion dollars to the US economy. Plucking 202,000 people out of the workforce at once is going to hurt the economy. And for me? It’s not enough that bigots are going to be happy. Turns out, I don’t much care what bigots want…

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We have a little university, here in Sonoma County. It’s called, cleverly, Sonoma State University. The school ran into some money troubles. They ran out. So, something had to go. Did they lose benefits to school functionaries? No. Did they adjust salaries of administrators? Don’t be ridiculous. What they did was, they got rid of ALL of their athletics programs and stopped teaching other subjects.

Just what every student wants, right? A school that doesn’t teach the topics the students need. What a brilliant way to entice students to the school. When the academic program can’t bring enrollment, athletics often does. But, rats, Sonoma State got rid of that, too. Since then, they’ve recorded the steepest enrollment decline in the California State University system.

Who could have guessed? I mean, really, who could know that not teaching subjects and eliminating athletics would cause students to want to go somewhere else? But that’s what happened. No sports? No classes? I’m going somewhere else! Ok, the “no classes” is a bit of hyperbole. They still had classes. But they closed eight different programs entirely so there were “no classes” in those subjects.

But now? Now the sports are coming back. So are the cancelled programs, though stripped down. Cancelling programs and athletics didn’t do what people hoped it would. No doubt. It’s like a car dealership trying to improve sales by not selling any cars. Dumb, with a ‘b.’

Fortunately, the school ALSO got a new President, Michael E. Spagna, and Spagna is bringing back the sports and the subjects. He’s “reimagining” Sonoma State as a whole. That’s his spiel. We’ll see if it works. I hope it does. The old plan seemed to put the university on a death spiral. Hopefully, this will help…

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I know a young lady who just turned 16 years old. For her birthday, she wanted vinyl albums. Not a subscription to some online service. Not a playlist. Actual, physical vinyl albums. I like that. It reminds me of Sony’s choice to stop producing physical discs for their PlayStation game decks – and how people are angry about it. Finally!

I recently moved house. I dragged my CD collection with me. CD’s? Who the hell still listens to CD’s? I do. If some streaming service decides to withdraw music or movies or games or whatever else I’ve “subscribed” to, it’s gone. Oh, you bought it? No, you rented it. You never owned anything.

Look, I understand the value of streaming. It IS convenient. It does serve. It has a place. But it should never have replaced actual ownership of one’s favorite music or whatever. From the producers point of view, the benefit of the physical disc is the problem. I can share my owned discs. I can’t share my streamed stuff the same way.

I still have my disc after the service pulls it from streaming for whatever reason. For example, Sony is about to delete 551 movies and TV shows from the UK PlayStation store because its content licensing agreement with StudioCanal has expired. If you “bought” any of those titles, you’re just out. Had you purchased the physical copies and brought them home, you’d still be able to enjoy them even though Sony deletes them.

Young people seem to be figuring this scam out and they don’t seem to like it. Thank goodness. I’ve never liked it. They HAVE migrated to vinyl instead of CD’s. (One of her new albums skipped on the first play, a frustration I thought young people would never know.) Still, it’s a physical copy of the work, not some stream. There’s a movement afoot for gamers to boycott PlayStation this August in protest of the elimination of physical discs. I hope it works. I’d rather own a physical copy of the things I buy then a digital download that may or may not be there tomorrow…

Let The Traffic Flow…

by MyBaconPress

Back in February of this year, I told you about the Gordie Howe International Bridge. To recap, there’s a bridge connecting Detroit, Michigan in the US and Windsor, Ontario in Canada. It’s called the Ambassador Bridge and it is owned by a wealthy family named Moroun. It’s old (opened in 1929) and inconvenient. It connects surface streets on the Ontario side so if you use it, you’ll still have to wend your way through town. Oh, AND, it’s a toll bridge. The Moroun family makes money from the thing – and THEY get to say how much money. It’s an important trade route. They’ve been making a LOT of money from it.

So Michigan and Canada got together and decided to build a new bridge, the Gordie Howe International Bridge. It’s safer. It’s easier. It’s just better. So, obviously, the Moroun family has been filing lawsuits since the project started and when the span was completed anyway, they used their wealth in the way wealth works best. The bribed Donny. Allegedly. All I can say, for sure, is that the Moroun family has dumped large sums of money into 47 and when the Gordie Howe bridge was ready to open, Matthew Moroun visited President Pedo personally.

The next thing anyone knew, Donny was declaring the Gordie Howe bridge a national threat and he wouldn’t let it open. As usual, he was vague on the details of exactly HOW a bridge that makes travel safer, easier, and more affordable (there’s that word, again) constitutes a “national threat.” We DO know the Moroun family makes about $100 dollars per semi-truck each way, while the Gordie Howe Bridge will only cost them about $43 dollars. Sure, that saves money for the truckers but it takes money out of the Moroun family’s pockets. I’m not surprised to hear that Donny considers a billionaire losing money to a better way a national threat.

But now the bridge is opening anyway. I was curious about how that happened. Donny’s demented mind sees demons in Canada and he really wants to punish them for all of that nothing they’ve done to us. So I was curious about what changed. Why is the Gordie Howe International Bridge no longer a national threat? Well, it turns out – and you won’t be surprised to hear this – Donny extorted Canada.

Canada paid for the bridge – all of the money, up front – and arranged to recoup their investments with the toll revenue, but intended to share some of the revenue with Michigan, as well. Team Evil claimed the bridge was a threat until Canada gave up some of the revenues they expected. Donny says it’s a better deal. Canada says, “We’re dealing with an administration like we’ve never seen before. They renege on deals. They don’t follow agreements. It’s like dealing with pirates.”

That’s an honest look into how other nations view the US today. “It’s like dealing with pirates.” So? Expect more typical trumpery. You just KNOW Donny will be out there telling his base the world respects us more than ever, but “like dealing with pirates” doesn’t sound like respect, to me. Still, the bridge is open now. Well, until Donny has another fever dream and throws another tantrum, that is…

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‘Narcissistic Collapse,’ they call it. When you see or hear Donny rage-tweeting at 2 am or listen to one (any) of his speeches, he’s really on more of a rant than trying to deliver any new information. He attacks one time supporters and he uses very aggressive words.

One author on the subject, Tina Swithin said, “Narcissistic collapse occurs when a narcissist’s carefully constructed self-image is threatened or shattered, often by criticism, public humiliation, perceived abandonment or a loss of control.” She added, “Basically, narcissistic collapse is ‘the moment the mask slips.’ A narcissist’s facade of power, authority and unique greatness goes away as their vulnerability is exposed ― laying bare negative behaviors that were previously hidden or controlled.”

In short, he’s melting down as more and more people see who he really is and just how bad he is at, well, everything, really. He sucks as a human being. HE has always known that about himself. He’s just terrified YOU might be seeing it, too. Many of us do, Donny, and more will see the real you every day…

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There’s this law. It’s called the ‘War Powers Act of 1973.’ It requires the president to end military operations within 60 days unless Congress authorizes an extension. Team Evil is trying a workaround. At one point in their illegal war, they declared a cease-fire in Operation Epic Fury. Now, obviously, the fighting has resumed. But Donny doesn’t WANT to turn to Congress for permission to keep bombing innocents – so Team Evil is trying to pretend THIS US vs Iran fighting is different from the last US vs Iran fighting.

Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, wrote in social media, “Let me explain this absurd ruse: The Pentagon is pretending there have been TWO Iran wars separated by a brief cease-fire.” It really IS absurd. It will lose in court if it ever gets there, but it buys the regime time, and time is what they need to create even more confusion.

This is all coming up because the regime wants to hide the number of American war dead and wounded. If they can convince somebody of their ‘two wars’ delusion, they can separate the number of casualties and obscure the body count, which currently stands at 18 US soldiers killed and 624 wounded since his illegal invasion…

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Hey, is now a good time to remind you that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were best friends and likely co-conspirators in a sex trafficking scheme for years and years? He’s trying very hard to distract people because he wants people to forget that. As he declines, his behavior becomes more outrageous and more dangerous, he’s slowly pushing the Trump/Epstein files off the front pages. But people are not forgetting his pedophile past. Don’t you forget it, either…

Time Off And More Time Off…

by MyBaconPress

Five weeks. That’s how long the current Congressional recess is scheduled to last. Five weeks. They’ve already shut down Congress more than once as an avoidance technique. They’ve had LOTS of time off. Now they’re taking five more weeks. Wouldn’t it be great to have a job where you don’t really have to go all that often and, apparently, one doesn’t even have to leave that job if one dies? Quick question: if one collects a paycheck AFTER one dies, isn’t that fraud? Just curious.

Senator Rick Scott has summed it up nicely. Today is July 26. On July 13, Scott published an op-ed that said this, “Did you know the U.S. Senate has only been in session 79 days (about 40% of the time) so far this year?” Almost eight months into the year, and they’ve been in session less than three months. Remember, this is the highest paid Congress in history. Why, it almost seems as if there comes a point where higher pay does NOT equal better performance. Especially from these guys.

Then again, I’m not sure I mind. The only thing the cons are trying to do in Congress, these days, is harm people or shove money into their own pockets or both. Maybe if they’re not around they can’t do as much harm to America or Americans, right? That’s one hell of a way to think about your political “leadership,” isn’t it? They can’t hurt us if they’re not around. I’m so old, I remember when Congress didn’t even WANT to hurt day-to-day Americans. Ah, the good old days…

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I need to make something clear, here. I seem to have lost most (all?) of my MAGA readers. I can’t say I’m surprised. I lob a LOT of insults at MAGA. (In fairness, they make it so easy.) Still, it seems unkind and I can see where individuals might take personal offense. But that’s the thing. I’m not lobbing insults at individuals. My barbs are aimed at MAGA, the group.

I doubt very strongly every single MAGA supporter buys every single MAGA trope of the movement. In fact, I know they don’t. I still have MAGA friends. But the movement, itself, takes a lot of really stupid positions. Mostly, that’s just to be contrarian but taking a contrarian political position to an obvious correct response just makes one look the fool, doesn’t it?

And, yes, one CAN find individual MAGA supporters who are, in fact, stupid. But really, it doesn’t take much to find honestly stupid lefties, either. Stupid happens and it happens on BOTH sides of the aisle. That’s why the media from each side can so easily find some challenged person to put on camera and present as “this is all of them.” But it isn’t.

So this segment isn’t so much an apology as an explanation. I’ll rip on groups and I’ll rip on ideas but I don’t, generally, attack individuals…

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There’s a pause in the shooting in Iran. Word is, someone told 47 the US was running low on munitions so now he’s in the mood to talk. If nothing else, Donny’s war of choice has weakened the US, right? Not just in our reputation and/or our treasury. He has depleted our stockpile of weapons on a war that is actually putting the US in greater danger. There was no need for this war. If Iran really IS a state sponsor of terrorism, what reaction might they have to being mercilessly bombed for no reason?

Remember during the campaign when 47 told the oil industry that if they brought him tons of money, he’d let them do whatever they wanted? They did, though not the one billion dollars he had asked for, and he has tried to keep his end of the bargain. But his stupid war in Iran is actually driving demand for oil DOWN in the US and around the world. (Psst, we can buy electric cars now.) He’s costing oil companies money. That seems like an unexpected consequence of his stupid war.

Hell, everything about Donny’s war is worse than it was when he chose to start it. Everything. Worst of all, people have lost their lives. Donny just wanted to look tough. Now people are dead. We don’t know exactly how many because the Pentagon has taken to hiding that information. But we know people have died. Kids. Non-combatants. Soldiers. Because Donny wanted to look tough.

Even that didn’t work. He just looks like a buffoon who has no idea how to get out of this war he started. And now the US is depleted in weaponry and treasure. We’re far weaker now than when he started this thing. It really feels like the biggest problem with putting a moron in charge of the country is that one has a moron running the country…

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I sure would like a salad. Sadly, even salad is dangerous under the Trump regime. The Feckless Fuckup has even made salad dangerous! Honestly, I knew from his last term things were going to be bad. He clearly has no idea what he’s doing nor how to do it. But salad? I’ve got to tell you, I didn’t expect that…

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Yet another court has stepped up to reinforce the idea that 47 has no voice when it comes to elections. He keeps trying to stop mail-in voting because mail-in voting is the MOST SECURE form of voting. It’s hardest for him to cheat with mail-in ballots and he totally means to cheat. He’s GOT to get rid of mail-in ballots, but he’s having a very, very hard time doing so because he has NO legal authority.

MAGA Mike, the Johnson’s corrupt conservative House tried to sneak language into a bloated defense bill to get the SAVE MY ASS Act passed, since they can’t get the thing through any other way, but the Senate doesn’t seem interested in following that trend. They can strip the offending language out if they choose. Of course, they’ll have to BE in Washington, DC to get anything done and that seems to be asking just a bit too much from these guys…

Sneaky Weasels…

by MyBaconPress

Well, aren’t they clever? The cons passed a bill against insider trading over the objections of Democrats. Wait, what? Over objections? But we, the people, WANT laws against insider trading by congress critters. Why would Dems stand against that? Well, they wouldn’t, now would they? I mean, they did, but not because of the bill’s ostensible primary purpose.

Some of the Dems DID suggest the bill in question didn’t go far enough to curb insider trading, but the main opposition to the bill came because the cons are sneaky little weasels and they tried to insert language of the SAVE Act into this insider trading bill. THAT way, see, cons could campaign on trying to curb insider trading – which they were not really trying to do – but the evil Dems stopped them, without ever mentioning the voter suppression details hidden within.

The cons, it seems, KNOW their SAVE Act is a terribly unpopular effort at voter suppression. To me, that’s the message behind their sneaky little effort to slip those provisions into other legislation…

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One barely has time for outrage anymore. First we find out 47 has made a deal with Saudi Arabia to let them enrich uranium for civilian use, so long as any support comes from American companies. Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced the deal on Wednesday. People were… confused. Why would Donny let Saudi Arabia have nuclear power?

By Thursday, though, things had changed. Apparently, Wright wasn’t supposed to make the announcement he made. Donny’s irritated. When the questions and criticisms about the deal – signed on Wednesday – started pouring in, Donny added a caveat: Oh, they can’t enrich uranium and they have to normalize relations with Israel.

The White House denies Netanyahu got on the phone and told Donny no, but those just happen to be two pet issues of Israel: no nuclear power for Arab states and better relations with Israel. For their part, Saudi Arabia continues to reject normalized relations with Israel until Israel agrees to a Palestinian state. Since Israel’s goal is obviously to drive out every Arab in the area in a “leave or die” kind of way, a Palestinian state doesn’t seem likely at this point.

So it’s looking more and more like there is no deal with Saudi Arabia, after all. Hey, just like everything else those clowns announce, yeah? I suspect Donny was trying to backdoor the deal and Wright’s announcement derailed the whole thing. That’s just a guess, though…

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Elon Musk says he “got a little too involved in politics” and “got carried away, frankly” by his cruel efforts to dismantle the US government and her reputation around the world with his DOGE crap. His primary concern, it seems, it that people now know who he really is and the vast majority of the world now hates that guy’s guts with a white hot passion. His businesses are suffering because decent people don’t want to do business with him.

The cuts DOGE made were supposed to save money. They haven’t. Instead, DOGE cuts forced tens of thousands of government workers out of their jobs and laid waste to foreign aid — with catastrophic consequences. I mean, people around the world started dying almost right away. People around the world are STILL dying because of DOGE cuts. Oh, also? DOGE leaked highly sensitive data.

DOGE has sparked waves of protests, hollowed out the Social Security Administration, and fundamentally undermined the role of science in the United States. So now Musk thinks maybe he overdid it? Hey, welcome to the party. We ALL think you overdid it and many of us hope you pay the price in your businesses every single day in a “what goes around, comes around” kind of way…

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Look I don’t know why MAGA prefers economic wreckage, rampant struggling, widespread hunger, and re-released killer illnesses but that’s all 47 has brought and they still support the guy. Those must be the things that represent their vision, right? The US is now being considered to decide if we LOSE our status as a state that has eradicated measles – because of the measles outbreak RFK jr brought with his “vaccines suck” message.

Political gamesmanship is all well and good as far as sowing discontent, but it will never defeat objective reality. You want to pretend vaccines are terrible and ineffective? Fine. Now you have to deal with the disease the vaccine prevented because it doesn’t suck and it IS effective. That’s not speculation. It’s every day real life in Bizarro America…

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When a Democrat is in the Oval Office, cons like to run around saying, “Not my President.” Nothing new, there. When a con is in office, Dems will do the same, “Not my President.” The response from the opposition in each case is the same, “He’s all of our President.” That’s supposed to be true and until the most recent infestation at the White House, it was.

Sitting Presidents made decisions about the US based on what was best for the people involved. (Yes, sometimes it was the RICH people involved but the point is the same.) Those decisions were not based on politics, they were based on need. Until 47, if a state suffered a natural disaster, the state received help based on the need. Nobody looked at the voter roles.

Wait, what? Voter roles? What the hell has that got to do with anything? Well, until 47, nothing. They weren’t relevant. But Donny makes decisions about who gets what based on who voted for him and who voted against him. I suspect he thinks he’s teaching his opposition a lesson. “Vote for me and I’ll take care of you. Don’t vote for me and I won’t.” Exactly the message NO decent President would ever, ever deliver.

But is Team Evil really doing that, or does it just seem so? Well, in a recent court filing, Team Evil admitted they cancelled $7.6 billion dollars in grants for hundreds of clean energy projects “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state” — in this case, 16 states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

So when I say to you that he’s not MY President, that’s not MY attitude. It’s his. HE says he’s not the President to every American, only a select few. And the “few” ain’t poor people running around in red hats. He means rich people and only rich people. I think a decent President would try to win over the people who didn’t vote for him with projects that help the opposition states. But with Donny in power, there’s no sense in discussing what a decent President might do…

It’s A Grand Old Flag…

by MyBaconPress

When I was moving into this house, I found an American flag among my possessions. (Yes, I knew I had it.) On something of an impulse, I stuck it into the flag holder at the front of my house. It’s been there ever since, and I like it that way.

See, several years ago, maybe decades, cons started flying the US flag in a grand show of their nationalist tendencies. They intended to show their patriotism. The thing is, these cons aren’t patriots. They HATE America and everything she stands for. They HATE the Constitution and everything it stands for. So why do THEY get the flag? In that act of hanging the flag on impulse, I believe I’ve decided to take the flag back from the anti-America crowd.

There’s an obvious issue, though. MAGA has been hugging the flag for so long, hanging a flag outside one’s home kind of suggests the house is occupied by cons. Many on the left stopped for just that reason. I think that was a mistake.

I have a brother-in-law. More than one, actually, but I’m only writing, here, about the one who spent 30 years in the US Army. Nobody gets to suggest he’s anything but a true, patriotic American. And, like those of us who ACTUALLY love the country, he’s very distressed about the ongoing coup in Washington, DC. So much so, my sister told me yesterday he pulled his flag and put it away.

I reminded her: the flag represents the Constitution. It represents the country that’s supposed to be, despite the fact that the nation’s stated principles have often been aspirational, at best. Under NO circumstances does it represent Donald Effing Trump. I hope he’ll put it back.

But the fact is, the flag was usurped by bad people with bad intentions and I really do not want to be thought of as sympathetic to their misguided, wrongheaded cause. So what’s a patriot – a true patriot, not one of these dime store knock-offs wearing MAGA hats – to do? I proffer one possible solution.

Put out your flag. Then, put one of those “In this house, we believe…” signs right next to it. You know the one. It reads, “In this house, we believe Black lives matter, Women’s rights are human rights, No human is illegal, Science is real, Love is love, and Kindness is everything.” I suspect people stop and stare, confused. Flying the flag is a MAGA move, but human decency is, without question, strictly a lefty proposition.

MAGA doesn’t believe in decency or human rights or any of the other teachings of Jesus, so the sign demonstrates that you’re not MAGA just because you’re waving your flag. That’s my position. That’s how we take the flag back. If you love your country and the Constitution that defines it, fly your flag. Just post your sign of tolerance along side. MAGA would NEVER do that.

People won’t know what to think at first. “Oh, he’s flying the flag. Must be MAGA.” “Oh, wait, a black lives matter sign. He must be decent.” MAGA or decent, MAGA or decent? If enough of us do it and do it long enough, people will begin to understand the difference. And decent America gets the flag back…

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So, here’s a tale we might all want to pay attention to. OpenAI announced that one of it’s GPT models “went rogue” and hacked into a small business. Lovely. DID it “go rogue,” though? OpenAI said they were running a test to see how well they could detect online vulnerabilities. Maybe they found a small business they could target, you know, as an “experiment,” and let the models loose, but got caught unexpectedly.

Yeah, tin foil hat stuff. They claim the test was supposed to be limited to a “sandbox,” isolated from the rest of the web. In an effort to respond to the query, the GPT model found it’s own way out to the web and hacked into the business. Whoops. It looks like the main vulnerability they found was in their own ability to control their creation. That’s comforting, isn’t it? “It can, and will, hack into any computer – and we can’t control it!”

In my open question about which destroys humanity first, Climate Change or AI, AI just took a huge leap forward. Climate Change still enjoys a tremendous advantage in the race to destruction and much of the conventional money is on that, but AI is coming on fast. It’s almost as if AI is being aided by some kind of artificial intelligence…

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I just wrote about how the government is cutting SNAP benefits. Then I see this headline, “Millions of Workers, Including Many Employed by Large Employers, Continue to Rely on Medicaid and SNAP.” Uh-huh. They found that about two-thirds of SNAP recipients work full time. They work for private sector employers, of course, largely in transportation, restaurants and food prep, and retail sales jobs.

They found that “Some employers in selected states had thousands of beneficiaries on their payrolls.” Thousands? Do you know what that is? THAT, is the true welfare fraud, what the corporations are doing. That’s the working class subsidizing the leech class. People are working full time jobs and STILL have to rely on benefits? That’s a disgrace. It really is.

Perhaps there should be some consequence to an employer for such low pay their workers need assistance. How about a fee of two dollars for every dollar of assistance an employee receives? Make it more expensive to starve the worker’s paycheck than to just pay the worker an honest wage. That’s a win-win for everybody. Well, except, maybe, for greedy employers…

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Just like clockwork, here they come. The warnings about communism, I mean. Nobody wants communism. Nobody is supporting communism. I’m on for controlling the excesses of Capitalism, not implementing full-on communism. Communism doesn’t even work. Why would anybody want communism?

But here come the warnings, anyway. The cons are pushing back against a threat that doesn’t exist. Again. You’d think that would get boring, after a while, all of that tilting at windmills. Do you suppose cons are forever fighting battles against imaginary enemies because they know they can’t win any battles on real issues? That’s my suspicion…

It Wasn’t China. It Was Russia…

by MyBaconPress

At one of his speeches, recently, 47 said China was a threat to our elections and he pointed to an intelligence report to support his statement. He can do things like that because he knows his base will just take his word for it and he doesn’t CARE that his opponents will go and look at the document in question. Sure, thinking people know he lied about China, but MAGA won’t know one word of it. Nobody will tell them – so I will.

His opponents DID go look at the report he referenced. Guess what? Big surprise, it doesn’t support one word of the stories he told about China. Donny’s working hard to terrify his base. (It ain’t that hard.) He wants them to think foreign powers interfered with the election but he can’t implicate Putin. Never Putin, most especially when Putin is obviously involved. Still, what the report DID do was support charges that Russia interfered with the 2020 election in an attempt to help the Drumpfster.

“We asses that Russia is using a range of measures, primarily to denigrate former Vice-President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia establishment. For example, it’s directing or encouraging proxies to spread claims about Vice-President Biden. Some Kremlin linked actors are also seeking to boost President trump’s (sic) candidacy on social media more broadly. Moscow’s efforts seek to amplify social discord in the US and undermine Washington’s global standing.” (They certainly succeeded on that one, didn’t they? “…undermine Washington’s global standing.”)

MAGA won’t know. If anybody ever told them what is actually going on, their support for him might fall away and they can’t risk that – so they just don’t TELL MAGA what’s actually going on. It has worked like a charm for decades, now, and there’s no reason to assume it will stop any time soon…

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And, just as a quick sidebar, Biden won 2020 because Donny did such a terrible, terrible job as President when he was 45. Nobody voted FOR Biden. We all voted against the trumpster. Because of Donny’s incompetence, the entire world economy was flatlined. Dead. Biden spent his whole presidency fixing the damage Donny had done, only to hand the whole thing back to the self-same Dumbass who flatlined the economy in his first term. (And he’s doing it again!)

Yes, it’ possible to accurately quote dismal metrics under the Biden administration, but they are nearly all from the beginning of the term, when the trump hangover was lingering. By the end of Biden’s term, the country was strong again and on the rise. We weren’t perfect – Donny had done a LOT of damage – but we WERE doing better than any other developed nation at the time. Joe Biden was a better President than Donald Trump. But then, every President has been better than Donald Trump – and we survived Bush 43…

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It’s always gratifying to see Lying Donny booed by the world. The whole world hates that evil boy and they don’t hesitate to make that clear. When he went to the World Cup final – likely on your taxpayer dollar, BTW – he said he supported Messi and Argentina. Of course he did. So guess who lost? Yep, that would be Messi and Argentina. More trumpster destruction?

What is it with that old, old man? After Spain won the World Cup, 47 went and inserted himself in their celebration. He took the stage with them, then stood like he was part of the team for the team photo. They can edit him out and they have done. That corrupt Bozo that runs FIFA, Gianni Infantino, had to rush over and suggest 47 leave the damn stage so the team could have their moment. I’ll tell you this: people either hate that guy or think they can make money with him. I don’t think there are any other categories…

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Okay, this is completely unimportant. A sculptor out there, Sergio Furnari, thought he saw a moment. After Charlie Kirk was killed, Furnari thought a statue of Kirk would sell big. He thought maybe there were millions of dollars in a Charlie Kirk statue so he plowed ahead. He spent (he claims) $100,000 dollars of his own money to make a life-sized statue of Kirk.

Now? Nobody wants it. Hell, he can’t give it away. He has received the largest number of messages from people writing they intend to find and urinate on the statue rather than celebrate the thing. The guy fronted $100,000 dollars for this thing. He was hoping to get that back. Nobody bit, so he set up an online fundraising campaign trying to get $150,000. As of this writing, he has raised $1,400.

The reason I mention that is this: Furnari is angry, in general, that nobody wants his statue. Mind you, nobody asked him to make that statue, either. He was just so sure people would want it, he moved forward. His choice, of course, but, typical of any conservative, he’s furious at the world over his own poor decision. He says, “It’s like wow. People are cheap, man. You know, people talk, talk – I know lots of people out there, and everybody’s so cheap. You know, like, it’s disgusting how cheap they are.”

Yeah, WE’RE cheap because nobody wants to buy your uncommissioned statue of a loudmouth bigot? That’s not on us, con. YOU made a poor choice. Several of them, it sounds like. Nobody owes you. YOU chose to blow $100,000 in a really peculiar, rather stupid way. What’s the old saying? ‘A fool and his money are soon parted.’ So, take comfort that you’ve proven an adage, Mr Furnari. That looks like what you’re gonna get outta this…

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I still go to Facebook. You can tell, because I post these pieces there. But, damn, Facebook isn’t much anymore, is it? It seems to be all ads, all the time. Boring. It was once a popular site. People still know the name. It’s just that nobody cares, anymore. The truth seems to be that if Facebook isn’t fomenting fury and outrage, it has very little value at all. That’s rather sad…

Nobody’s Cheating But Donny…

by MyBaconPress

So… Donald Trump is out there claiming that that last couple of elections have been rigged. Republicans control the House of Representatives. Republicans control the Senate. A Republican is currently “President.” But the last couple of elections have been rigged? Is he suggesting the Democrats rigged the 2020 election while HE was President? Did the Democrats rig the 2024 election in favor of the Republicans, who won most of it?

Maybe he’s just confessing through his normally lying mouth that Republicans have cheated in every possible way at every possible turn? But he won’t shut up about it. He has the obsession of an Alzheimer’s patient who became focused on some trivial thing and now can NOT let it go. Okay. I have randomly decided I believe him, for the moment. The 2024 election was rigged. There’s not a single Republican who won his or her seat honestly and they should be removed immediately. This is not from me. This is from Donny, himself.

“What I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.” Do you remember that? That’s the Dumbass himself, working as hard as he could to cheat in an election, so we KNOW Donny was cheating and/or trying to. I would like somebody, ANYBODY to show me some evidence that supports Donny’s lies that is at least as clear as his request of Brad Raffensperger. “I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes…”

But nobody can DO that, can they? There IS no evidence of cheating that so clearly supports the charge – from anywhere else, really. And Donny didn’t just get upset that he lost the election he put so much effort into cheating to win. (There’s a reason he wants you using voting machines instead of mail-in ballots, and it ain’t vulnerability.) He also bragged that “nobody knows” tabulating machines like the cheating con Elon Musk, who, Donny suggests, manipulated said tabulating machines in 2024 just enough to give Donny his ever-so-slim victory.

Seems like the solution is MUCH simpler than his stupid SAVE My Ass Act. Really, if he wants to stop elections from being rigged, all he has to do is stop rigging them…

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Oh, SNAP! The benefits, I mean. SNAP is the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. It provides some food for struggling citizens. Well, it did. Now the cruel regime is cutting SNAP benefits and increasing the requirements to qualify. They’re also shifting more of the cost to individual states. Some states can absorb that cost – to a degree. Other states (largely red, noticeably) can not. Or, perhaps WILL not. Either way, it’s possible entire states will leave the program. I think we had better get ready for an increase in crime. It will be low-level stuff, but it’s coming.

Mostly, the cons try to hide their evil doings until AFTER the mid-terms, and, indeed, SNAP gets an even harsher gut-punch after the election. But they’re starting in on SNAP now anyway. That seems like a bit of an oversight, to me. Maybe the idea is, they can start cutting now and the public won’t find out about the consequences before the election. But here’s the point I think will rule the day: people need to eat. Once assistance is no longer available, those same people STILL need to eat. Do the cons really just think those folks will curl up and die? They won’t.

What they WILL do is engage in petty thefts and other low-level crimes in an attempt to eat and/or feed their families. What choice do they have? “Well, they could get jobs,” sneer the very comfortable pols. Mostly? They HAVE jobs. The US is a huge nation of what are called “working poor,” because what else could you expect from the ‘Richest country on Earth?’™ Many people in this country work their asses off all week and still can’t make ends meet in our brutal and selfish society.

These creepy cons in Congress WILL cut SNAP benefits, but they WILL NOT increase the minimum wage to ensure the workers get enough pay to survive. In short, they’re leaving people no choice but to do what they’ve got to do to survive. Brutal America sucks and it will become an increasingly unpleasant place to be for anybody NOT in the One Percent…

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The next time you’re talking to some Israeli sympathizer who thinks anybody questioning Israeli tactics is antisemitic, point them to the current news that Israel is building MORE illegal settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. My read on the entire situation focuses on these actions. Encroachment after encroachment. The Palestinians know it’s happening every day and they get mad about it.

Nobody will (or, perhaps, can) stop Israel and so Israel doesn’t stop. But they’re stealing the land and the people they’re stealing it from don’t like that. Israel’s constant, relentless, slow-moving invasion is why I support the Palestinians over there. It has nothing to do with Judaism. It’s all about the actions of a government, not a religion, and those government actions stink. You’d think so, too, if it was YOUR home being stolen…

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Okay, so I understand it’s a game of the media to find the very worst examples of “the other side” and then pretend they are just standard representations of that side. But some of the messages going out to some of the weaker thinkers in our midst are proving dangerous in unexpected ways.

Take the case of Andrea Shaw, a woman who stands accused of murdering her two children. Twins. They were suffocated. I don’t know who did what but I know her defense isn’t going to work. She says it was vaccines that killed her kids. Can you imagine being SO enthralled to fake news you’d try to blame the murder of your children on a conservative talking point? I’m thinking Mrs. Shaw isn’t exactly the most dazzling star in the sky.

This, um, person (and I use the term lightly) really thinks she can make a case that she got her kids vaccinated and then they died – eight days later! She actually believes vaccines are SO deadly, she could hide a murder behind them and nobody would even question it. But the whole vaccine story is just pure unadulterated horse dung. It’s not going to hold up in court because vaccines aren’t dangerous in the way the right pretends – and they don’t suffocate babies eight days later. I suspect Shaw is looking at a couple of life sentences because she believes conservative propaganda. That’s a pretty high price…

An Address in Prime Time…

by MyBaconPress

Oh, gods, his prime-time address. Look, Donald J. Trump is a liar. He lies about elections, among other things. That lying piece of human waste never, never, NEVER presents even a shred of evidence. That’s because there IS no evidence to support his stories, and THAT is because his stories are lies. He’s desperately trying to convince somebody, somewhere that American elections are untrustworthy because HE tried to steal 2020 and lost anyway.

He’s been telling these lies for years. The charges do NOT just spew into the wind where everyone ignores them. They get investigated. Extensively. Over and over – every time he starts accusing someone, somewhere of meddling, another investigation. He filed lawsuits but never presented any valid evidence. His election lies have been investigated by the intelligence community, the FBI, DHS, DOJ, bipartisan state election officials, audits, recounts, and the courts.

Never ONCE have they found evidence of extensive cheating – the level one would need to change the outcome of a national election. In fairness, each election DOES usually turn up a Republican or two who tried to vote more than once. But a single vote, here and there, doesn’t have much effect on the outcome.

So trump is definitely lying. Well, I suppose he could be delusional. Maybe he really believes he was cheated. Some people really believe they can see six foot tall, pink rabbits, too. That doesn’t mean they can. Mostly, though, I think evil Donny is crazy like a fox. He knows the elections were secure. He didn’t like the outcome. And now, he’s terrified there’s going to be another fair election.

By every measure, Donald J. Trump has been a terrible President. He has done more harm to America and her reputation around the world in a single year than anybody could have imagined. There’s not a single metric to which one can point that shows positive results for the largest number of people. In fact, he’s hurting as many work-a-day Americans as he can, as badly as he can, as quickly as he can.

Cons like to point to the border and pretend that’s a success but even that effort has resulted in American law enforcement gunning down innocent people – including Americans – in the street with no charge, no trial, and commonly, no crime. People are dying of maltreatment in detention. The program is brutal and cruel and actually and honestly dangerous – AND, it’s damaging the economy! I’m not ready to call that a success.

By now, even MAGA knows this. I know, they’re telling pollsters they’re still fully on board. They’re still, mostly, not ready to confess their disappointment publicly. But they know. They buy gas. They buy groceries. They pay rent. I’ll tell you this: even if all of that WAS Joe Biden’s fault – which it absolutely is not – Donny is still in the driver’s seat now. Whether he likes it or not, it’s his responsibility. He doesn’t get to ignore that responsibility based on the idea that Joe did it.

It’s Donny’s job to address and correct problems. Who did it isn’t relevant. That’s what his supporters voted for him to do. That’s what he promised. Then, after he’s in office and the money starts flowing into his personal pockets, suddenly “affordability” is a made-up word? He’s really just going to TELL you inflation is down and you’re supposed to believe him, despite actually going into grocery stores?

Although he’s failing completely in Iran, he lied. He said (again), “We are…winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly.” Uh-huh. Let me guess. In about two weeks, right? Right after you release your new and improved health care plan? Should we hold our breath?

The economy is struggling and headed down. The food supply is threatened, thanks to all of that beautiful deregulation. Once-eliminated illnesses in both humans and livestock are making grand comebacks, thanks to the anti-science stance. We’re voluntarily, unilaterally, surrendering any/every lead we had in technology because he prefers yesterday’s technologies. His ill-advised war continues. We’re paying millions to bomb a foreign, sovereign nation for no discernible reason – and these Bozos on Team Evil are laser focused on – sperm counts and algae blooms?

Yeah, a terrible, terrible President. And he’s being supported by terrible, terrible people, all of whom hope to profit, personally, from the corruption – and all at the expense of the work-a-day American people. The vast majority of the American people want this guy stopped and elections are our ticket to do that. But he doesn’t WANT to stop. He has literally made BILLIONS of dollars, grifting from the Oval Office. Worse, he faces criminal charges already and there’s a long and increasing list of new charges just waiting for him.

He knows that. He knows he’s looking at a shellacking at the polls and he knows that means taking responsibility for his actions. He HATES that more than just about anything. He simply can NOT afford a fair and secure election. He’ll lose, and he knows it. So he’s lying. He has cooked up a scheme. All he has to do is convince MAGA to ignore their own eyes and listen to him instead. Some actually will, or they’ll try. Some will know better but support him anyway. <Shakes head.>

I suspect everyone knew this was going to be nothing more than a tantrum. MAGA watched, anyway, just to get a glimpse of their glorious Precious. Most of the world looked away, unable to look at that ugly mug or hear that grating voice for one more second. Even most of the major networks refused to air the thing. They put it in their social media feeds, but not the airwaves. He whined about that, too. He just whines about everything. But, really, who needs to listen to more lies? And, really, that’s all this loser has…

47 Wants To Dismantle The ICC? Of Course He Does…

by MyBaconPress

Well? I guess now we know Donny understands his liability on the international criminal stage, as well as his domestic crime spree. HOW do we know? Marco Rubio has launched an effort to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC). Rubio pretends the court interferes with American sovereignty. It doesn’t. It only deals with international problems and the US is not a signatory. Generally speaking, empires don’t sign on to oversight.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch responded, “Rubio is dressing up his quest for impunity for American war crimes under the label of national sovereignty, which ignores the sovereign right of other nations to invoke the ICC for crimes committed on their territory.” He added, “Trump wants to be able to commit war crimes on the territory of countries that have accepted the court’s jurisdiction – that’s what this is about.”

From the criminal point of view, if you’re going to commit crimes, it would be best to get rid of law enforcement first, right? We know Donny. He’s GOING to commit crimes. He can’t help himself. Hell, he probably already has, just like his dear friend Bibi Netanyahu. Netanyahu has already been the target of an arrest warrant from the ICC over his crimes in Palestine.

I suppose getting rid of the court is one option. I suggest that not committing crimes is a better option, but then I remember who we’re talking about. THAT ain’t gonna happen. These criminals are going to crime. It’s what they do. So they’re getting rid of legal oversight. It really sucks living in a corrupt country…

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“The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the parties and counsel from its filing make plain that this was an attempt to use the court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the president and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law…The court finds that this matter was brought for an improper purpose – to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact.”

That’s the ruling from the bench issued by US district judge Kathleen Williams in the southern district of Florida against the “settlement” between the Drumpfster and himself. See, he sued himself because his government allowed his tax returns to be improperly released. Everyone knows that’s stupid. Our National Embarrassment tried anyway, because of course he did.

This ruling legally kills the trust fund for the J6 insurrectionists AND it kills the tax audit immunity arrangement that had been handed down. Well, for now. The Republicans corrupted our court system by posting toadies as judges. But they were smart enough to do it at the appellate level. More power there. A lower court can – and does – get the law right, but the corrupted loyalists appellate courts just overturn the lower court ruling. All they need is an excuse. And they don’t mind making those up.

Curious. I wonder why a guy like trump would need tax audit immunity for himself, his family, and their businesses. Surely they run clean businesses and file honest tax returns, right? Why, oh WHY would he need immunity going back decades and more immunity going forward? Hey, wait. You don’t suppose Donny is considering committing a crime, do you? Nah…

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Apparently, music CD sales are up. I count that a good thing. I suspect people are starting to realize that if they “buy” some streaming feature, they don’t really own it. At best, they’ve rented it, potentially long-term. You can “buy” it, but if the streaming service removes it, you’re out of luck.

On the other hand, if you buy a physical disc, a CD or a DVD or even vinyl, you get to keep that. Yeah, you’ve got to take care of it and move it from house to house from time to time but it’s yours for as long as you like. I count that as better. Apparently, I’m not alone…

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The Dotard is planning to steal more of our lives this evening. He’s “addressing the nation” tonight at 9 ET. The story I saw said he was planning to speak on the subject of elections and may discuss the war in Iran. Of course he will. He’ll also spend inordinate amounts of time bitching about how unfair life is to him, why people won’t just let him do whatever he wants (um, have you SEEN the Reflecting Pool?), how people holding him responsible for his actions is SO unfair, and how everybody who disagrees with him must hate him completely and how he’s going to get even with his political enemies. So, you know, same ole’, same ole…

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I don’t know. Maybe there’s some YouTube school that teaches content creators how to get clicks. My YouTube feed has really devolved, of late. I mean, it’s YouTube. It’s always been bad but now it’s getting worse and I don’t think that’s on YouTube. It’s on the creators.

I pay attention to certain political thinkers, like everyone else. I prefer people who work with facts and evidence. But recently, the left has gone a little bonkers with click-bait headlines and over-the-top claims. A judge rules against something 47 wanted to do (or has done) and the lefty headlines blare, “Trump Collapses As Courts Rule Against Him.” He didn’t collapse. “Trump Runs And Hides As His Plan Is Revealed” He doesn’t run and hide. It’s just clickbait.

Worse, someone told these people the videos need to be a certain minimum length so there’s more and more padding in the videos. The content creators have something that might take five minutes to cover but they need their videos to be twenty minutes. They’ve learned that if they put the stuff someone wants to hear at the beginning, the viewer can stop the video when they get the information they came for (IF they get the information they came for), so they put the message they want to deliver at the end. THAT means we get to sit through fifteen minutes of drivel just to get the message – and the message, increasingly, is NOT what was indicated in the clickbait headline.

That kind of garbage irritates me and I’m watching less and less. I presume I’m not alone. I wish the content creators would just give us honest content but apparently, that doesn’t generate enough clicks…

Reality Bites Back…

by MyBaconPress

You DO realize, do you not, that the worst, most harmful effects of the GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill” are set to kick in AFTER the mid-terms, right? They passed the bill and it contains some real ugly stuff. They KNOW it’s ugly stuff and they KNOW it’s going to infuriate it’s victims (i.e., the American people). So they delayed it. Oh, to be sure, they DID it, but they delayed it so you wouldn’t feel it until AFTER the elections. The Republicans were trying to protect Republicans from the actions of the Republicans…

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Ah, rats! McConnell still pollutes Earth. He stuck his head out from his shell yesterday to explain that he fell down. Oh, AND he had a “mild case” of pneumonia. He says doctors have no explanation as to WHY he passed out. He just did. Actually, I suspect he’s on blood pressure medication and he stood up too fast. That gets REAL as you age. I once stood up too fast and blacked out. When I fell, I banged my head on a door, putting a nice little head-shaped dent in the thing.

This could be like a ‘Christmas Carol’ moment for him. Maybe he could read most of the stuff written about him by people who thought (hoped and prayed) he had died. Maybe he could understand how people feel about him, the legacy he’s leaving behind. Maybe he could reconsider being the evil jerk he is and do a personal “reset.” I mean, he won’t, but he certainly could.

It’s important to note that many people are pointing out potential flaws in the photo his team released. Even people on the far right are questioning the validity of the photo. They say – correctly, in my view – that McConnell should have released a short video instead of a photo. People ALSO want to know why all of the metadata has been stripped from the photo. That’s a fair question.

Perhaps the photo and statement are AI. People are also pointing out that rescuers were performing CPR on McConnell when he was taken to the hospital. Does one do CPR for a fall? Does pneumonia respond to CPR? It’s possible the cover-up continues. It’s possible McConnell can’t make a current video. It’s possible he really is dead. I wish I could know for sure. I’d like to know if I should be celebrating or just still disappointed…

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The thing about McConnell is that he might have fallen down as a result of the polio he contracted when he was a kid. He had only a minor case. His mobility was impaired but he got away without much worse. Another victim, Martha Lillard, contracted polio when she was five. SHE had to use an iron lung while she slept for her entire life. She just passed away June 26th. She was the last known polio survivor who used an iron lung. She was 78.

I imagine people like Lillard and possibly even ‘The Bitch’ McConnell were happy when a vaccine was introduced, so nobody else would have to go through what they went through. Then we get RFK, jr with his message of, “Heck yes we can stop it. We just don’t thing you should.” I can’t believe people – young mothers – started lining up to avoid the vaccine for their child. So long as stupidity rules the day, professionals should keep a few of those iron lungs around. We’re still going to need them. It’s very embarrassing to be an American, these days…

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This is just a passing thought, but the ONE thing I regret about Graham Platner having to drop out of the race in Maine is that we’ve missed the opportunity to listen to MAGA bitch and moan about how terrible, horrible, disgusting, and incomprehensible it would be to elect a person accused of sexual assault.

They wouldn’t even notice that their Precious has to pay E. Jean Carroll the five million he owes her for defaming her after he sexually assaulted her, and they’ve certainly “compartmentalized” the Trump/Epstein files. “OUR raper is okay. YOURS is an outrage!” That’s a hell of a case to make. American politics just ain’t what it used to be…

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Sad! Donny can’t get out of his stupid war-that’s-not-a-war in Iran. It’s got me wondering: how come he claims to have “solved” a bunch of wars nobody can see or knows anything about, but he can’t solve any of the active wars the entire world knows about? It’s almost as if he’s just lying.

Expect gas prices to jump again. The Strait of Hormuz is closed still/again/still/again. OPEC has increased their output but that takes a little time to affect the market. Missiles in the Strait take no time at all. I’ve got to tell you, I liked it better when the United States had competent Presidents…

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The GOP is considering a vote to end Daylight Saving Time. I support that. Their actual goal is to KEEP Daylight Saving – that is, to stay on that schedule instead of locking in on standard time. I do NOT support that. I only have evidence to rely upon, here, and we all know how cons feel about evidence, but I’m going to mention it anyway.

California tried that once, staying on Daylight Saving. It was a test program, intended to run two years. The first year was SO disastrous, they ended the program after the first winter. Too many dead kids. That’s real. It turns out, staying on Daylight Saving for more light in the evening, means more darkness in the mornings.

You know mornings. That’s when kids walk to school or to school bus stops. Making sure it’s extra-dark during those hours got lots of kids killed by drivers who just couldn’t see them. There’s no reason to assume the same thing won’t happen again.

Besides, Daylight Saving doesn’t provide any benefit. Americans live by clocks, not sunshine. Let’s stop the time changes, but stay on standard time. Americans lose nothing and school kids are safer. I call that a win-win…