Marjorie Taylor Greene has given up the game again though, as usual, doesn’t realize it. She has taken to calling anybody to the left of her (that is, most Americans) “communists.” She has confessed that her crowd, whom she mistakenly calls the “silent majority,” has two emotions: fear and anger. Okay, two things. One, the cons are anything but “silent” and based on the pasting Former Guy took in the 2020 elections, they’re hardly the “majority,” either. The second thing is true, though. The loud-mouthed minority really DOES have but two emotions, fear and anger, and the conservative media bubble exists entirely to stoke those two emotions as often and aggressively as possible. It keeps ’em riled up. More importantly, it keeps them from thinking.

Emotions regularly overpower rational thought, especially the most primitive emotions. You know, like “fear” and “anger…”

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When Former Guy predicted – based on nothing, it turns out – that he was going to be “arrested” this coming Tuesday, March 21, he also called for protests. I’m not sure who’s left to fall out for such a spectacle. I thought any supporters willing (read: dumb enough) to come out and support him through protests were already serving time in prison for the last time he called for violence…

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Biden flew halfway around the world and made a surprise visit to Ukraine recently. It was a ballsy move. You can tell, for sure, because cons called it “irresponsible.” Apparently, Putin admired the move, though. Now HE has made a surprise visit to an occupied territory in Ukraine, Mariupol. One might have imagined Putin would have stopped by sooner to support his troops, given his much closer location. Biden had to fly halfway around the world and got there first. That’s forever, Vlad. Biden’s a braver boy than you…

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There’s an awful lot of chatter about the “trump-era” deregulation that allowed so many banks to set themselves up to fail causing them to switch immediately from staunchly Capitalist to definitely – if temporarily – Socialist. Well, except in the conservative bubble where they pretend the banks collapsed because that sexy, sexy green M&M put on flats instead of heels. (I guess it’s a fair question: who wants to have sex with an M&M in flats, fercrissakes?) These days, though, I find that sometimes, when a story breaks, the spin naturally aims at political enemies. But sometimes, the so-called “good guys” (our team) have participated, too. So I went checking.

A bit of background. Through irresponsible and unpunished criminal behavior, Wall Street crashed the American (then the world) economy in roughly 2008. Congress responded with new rules known collectively as “Dodd/Frank.” Dodd/Frank sort of forced banks to behave a bit more responsibly, so, of course, banks effing hated it and lobbied to change it.

As it happens, the Congress at the time of this particular deregulation (2018) was controlled by Republicans. Seventeen Senate Democrats DID join their Republican counterparts in the process, though. Worse? Barney Frank, the “Frank” part of “Dodd/Frank” supported the deregulation. Barney has gone on to other things since serving in Congress. He became a director of Signature Bank. He supported the loosening of his own regulations. Then, and you might want to sit down for this, his bank collapsed because it wasn’t properly Capitalized – the very deregulation he wanted.

So, yeah, it was Former Guy and it was mostly cons but some of the Dems played along. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, regulations are how society dictates the limits of avarice. Without regulations, as we’ve seen, the few with market power (meaning they control most of the money) will take more and more from those without market power (meaning you).

I’ll tell you this: I know things can be over-regulated. Of course they can. But when regulations are enacted in direct response to some previous market abuse, we should be very careful about rolling those rules back…

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There’s a little town near where I live called Sonoma. Sonoma is currently feeling assaulted by a couple of rich guys who are going around buying up the town one property at a time, using a variety of shell-companies to try to hide the fact that it’s just two guys.

This is the inevitable and direct result of the 2011 deregulation that allowed rich people to buy up all the single family homes. These guys own something like 100+ properties now and they’re still buying.

I’ll tell you this: we’d better put an end to this practice once and for all. Lack of affordable housing driven by corporate ownership of single family homes will very likely become a trigger point that unleashes such a backlash of fury I won’t be surprised when the Guillotine makes a re-appearance…

I can just imagine the behind-the-scenes texts between the various hosts at Fox Not-News:

Hannity: “Hey, just told the rubes that bank crashed because it was woke!”
Carlson: “Ha, ha. LOL”
Hannity: “No, really. It just popped into my head and I said it”
Ingram: “Well, how is a bank ‘woke’?”
Hannity: “What, you want me to tell them it’s the direct result of deregulation?”
Ingram: “Of course not. Tucker’s already made clear that if we tell them the truth we lose viewers.”
Carlson: “Yeah, we couldn’t tell them the truth even if we wanted to.”
Kilmeade: “Which we don’t.”
Hannity: “Right. ‘Woke’ is as good a whipping boy as anything else.”
Liasson: “What if we just told them it was deregulation and poor decisions in the corporate board room?”
Carlson: “Someone get that bitch fired right now! I can just feel the stock crashing!”
Liasson: “No, I’ll keep to the script on air, I was just wondering.”
Bartiromo: “Well stick a pin in it, pinhead! That bank was woke!”
Ingram: “You think they’ll believe that?”
Hannity: “Of course they’ll believe it. They believe anything I tell them.”

They do, too. I don’t know how stupid a person has to be to keep watching an outlet that has been proven in court to be pants-on-fire liars but it looks like we’re all going to get a chance to find out…

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I’ve got to say, I’ve always like the idea of the International Criminal Court (ICC). I wish it was real. I mean, I know there really is such a thing. I just also know that it has no teeth and no power and is therefore a concept art piece more than any kind of actual court. The papers are making a big deal (or trying to) about the ICC issuing an arrest warrant for that putz Putin for war crimes in his invasion of Ukraine. That’ll show ’em.

Remember when the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Bush 43 for his war crimes in Iraq? I’m not sure George has even noticed and I know he’s still running around, perfectly free, down there in Texas somewhere.
“Hey, Vlad. It’s me, George. Are you worried about that warrant?”
“It fell out window…”

Oh, well. Thanks for trying, ICC, but it looks like the world is going to have to find some other way of stopping Putin…

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Speaking of arrests not made, I’ve been hearing a LOT of chatter, recently, about just how close various law enforcement agencies are to, you know, maybe, if you wouldn’t mind, perhaps considering possibly actually charging Donald Trump with some of the crimes he’s committed around the country? If it’s not too much trouble, I mean…

Every thinking American knows most of the details of the crimes of Former Guy. We’ve watched him, over and over, stall, scapegoat, and slither out of harm’s way so many times, I’m not sure I believe they’ll ever bring him to justice. Sure, they could. But there has to be the will to do so and, so far, I haven’t seen it.

I mean…I understand. There’s a process to building a case. Sure, if one is about to indict an ex-President one needs to be very, very careful about their information in a way said ex was not. These things take time. But…OMG! It’s been over two years since Former committed his crimes, in public, on video, in front of the whole world. (Also in private on tape during phone calls.) From time to time there’s a flurry of speculation about indictments being just around the corner. So far? Crickets. (Apparently, it’s a LONG corner…)

You can file me perfectly in the ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ file. But maybe, just maybe, 45 believes it. He apparently made a post on his stupid social media platform that suggests he thinks he’s going to be arrested this coming Tuesday. Not indicted, arrested. (He may not know the difference…)

I’d be happy with either one but like I said, I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ll tell you this: every day that goes by and this guy walks free is another day I lose faith in the so-called ‘rule of law…’

Okay, quick question.

Why TikTok?

I mean, I’ve heard the talk about how TikTok is tracking it’s users and collecting data. Yeah? So? As I understand it, every website is tracking it’s users and collecting data. Some of them are turning their data – your information – over to the NSA and ALL of them are using it to sell you some piece of crap you just really do not need/want/care about until they convince you you should. So the question stands.

Why TikTok?

“OMG,” I’m told, “TikTok is owned by an element potentially hostile to the health of America – the Chinese – who might use it to inject propaganda into the American paradigm with harmful intent!” Might, right? At this time, there’s no evidence that they have done, they just might. Okay, hold that thought, “might,” just for a moment.

A week or two ago, I wrote about a website called RT.com. The “RT” in RT.com used to stand for ‘Russia Today.’ It might still. Rebranding and all, you know. It turns out, RT.com is wholly owned by by an element potentially hostile to the health of America – the Russians – who absolutely ARE using it to inject propaganda into the American paradigm on a daily basis with harmful intent – and effect. It’s WHY the cons think mighty, mighty Putin is defending his country from Ukrainian aggression. I haven’t heard anything about banning RT.com. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s one “Might” and one “Absolutely Is.”

What about Fox Not-News? Fox Not-News is an element proven hostile the health of America. They’ve just been caught red-handed and dead to rights injecting propaganda into the American paradigm all day, every day with harmful intent and effect, as well. As much as I’d love to ban Fox Not-News, I haven’t heard word one on the topic. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s one for “Might” and TWO for “Absolutely Is.”

Elon Musk just spent $44 BILLION dollars to buy Twitter for the specific reason of wanting to once again allow various high-profile cons to inject propaganda into the American paradigm all day, every day. “Might,” one, “Absolutely Is,” three.

If you add in all the other major (and, likely minor) websites and social media outlets like Facebook and Google and Instagram and even Pinterest that track user behavior, the score becomes ridiculously lopsided at “Might,” one, “Absolutely Is,” all the rest. So why are we singling out TikTok?

Seems like a fair question, doesn’t it? If we KNOW RT.com is injecting propaganda into the conservative bubble all day, every day – and we do – and we KNOW the conservative media bubble is a cesspool of propaganda and misinformation – and we know that, too – what might TikTok do that the others are not doing?

Okay, so keep it off of government phones. But then, shouldn’t you already be keeping social media sites off of government phones? People are meant to be working not surfing the web. Besides haven’t you ever had a casual conversation about, say, learning to surf someday and suddenly ads for surfboards and surfing instructors start showing up on your phone and in your social media feeds? You think that’s coincidence? It’s your phone…or your smart tv…or your “virtual assistant” – ever present, always listening, always recording, ostensibly for your advertising pleasure. Uh-huh. So, please, help me out, here.

Why are we singling out TikTok?

I don’t know if you recall (of course you do) when pre-45 bragged to Billy Bush that he could just kiss beautiful women and grab them by their…um…inappropriately, without their permission and he could get away with it because he’s a celebrity. I never really believed it was anything other than braggadocio. 45 was riffing and Bush was laughing which fed 45’s desperate ego so he kept going and upping the ante, so to speak, until the now infamous line spewed forth and…scandal. Well, for Bush. 45 still got to be President.

I’ve never believed he would actually do something like that because I see him, fundamentally, as a coward. However, I DO think that he sees himself as so magnetically attractive that no woman, once involved, could ever tell him ‘no.’ The result? I don’t buy the Access Hollywood recording as anything more than talk but I can actually see him forcing himself on women depending on the circumstance.

One of the many, many, many, many…okay, many legal issues 45 is currently facing is a civil rape charge from a woman named E. Jean Carroll. She claims he raped her. He denied it but he didn’t just deny it, he said he never knew the woman and claimed she was “not his type.” (Later, he thought a photo of Carroll was actually a photo of his wife, Marla Maples, so it seems likely that, like everything else he says, he lied but that’s up to the courts, of course…)

Now, a judge in the case, Lewis Kaplan, has ruled that the Access Hollywood recording can be used during the trial. He wrote that a jury could reasonably find that in the recording, 45 admitted to having “contact in the past with women’s genitalia without their consent, or that he has attempted to do so.”

To be clear, pre-45 apologized for the comment and dismissed it as “locker room banter.” If you’ve ever been in a men’s locker room, you know that translates directly to “b.s.” but wouldn’t it be sweet if 45’s own, vile mouth did him in?

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The Biden administration released it’s budget proposal recently. The GOP immediately pronounced it dead in the water. I like that Biden said he doesn’t expect his budget to pass. It’s really about the fight. He’s going to force the cons to come out against the best interests of the population, though the con rank and file won’t know anything about that. They’ll be focused on gay penguins, or whatever. Biden’s budget does things the GOP likes to pretend to like. It increases the already bloated Pentagon budget and allocates more money for border protection. It even decreases the budget deficit by nearly 3 Trillion dollars. But…

It does these neat little things by asking the wealthiest among us to pay a bit more in taxes and the cons will have none of it. Even if they might, they’re not allowed. Thanks to the horrifyingly stupid Citizens United ruling of the Roberts Supremely Kangaroo Court, our Congress critters are owned and operated by the very people who might be asked to pay a little more.

Most people don’t realize that tax cuts for the rich mean tax increases for everyone else. By “everyone else,” I mean YOU. YOU get to pay more so Elon Musk can pay less. Nice. In the long game, though, the actual goal isn’t just to make a cushy life a bit more cushy. The actual end-game is to so financially starve the Federal Government of operating capital, it crashes. It’s working, too. You see it everywhere, all the time.

You’re told a wide variety of reasons for the various failures of the government but there’s really only one truth, the government has to keep cutting functions because Congress keeps cutting it’s own income. The Federal government is a huge operation and in any huge operation, there’s going to be some dead weight so, initially, the cuts were probably okay. But now bridges are falling down because nobody has the money to fix them, sinkholes open up around failed water mains that can be as much as a hundred years old, municipalities don’t have enough cops to enforce traffic laws, we all get health insurance but there are STILL huge numbers of Americans with no health care. Everything gets handled in emergency allocations and the national debt just keeps going up and up and up. Generally speaking, the place is filthy, failing, and falling apart.

But, hey…rich people don’t have to pay taxes so, there’s that…

You want to make American great again? High taxes on high incomes is what did it in the first place and high taxes on high incomes is what will do it again, if that’s really what you want. Everything else is smokescreens and mirrors…

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Yeah, it wouldn’t be Daylight Saving Time without me bitching about having to change my clocks just so energy companies can extract a bit more money from the populace and add to their already disgusting profits. So…there. I did that.

Oh, since we’re here, Congress is apparently working on trying to adopt Daylight Saving Time year round. That would be a stunningly stupid example of refusing to learn from our own experience. Of course, “stunningly stupid” seems to be the stock-in-trade of the US these days. We tried year-round Daylight Saving once. In summary, it kills kids. Nice. That’s not hyperbole. It really does. So many kids were slaughtered so quickly, the “experiment” was ended in less than a year. (It has to do with the kids going to school in the black as pitch darkness…) Now we’re going to do it again? How very, very…VERY stupid.

I’ll tell you this: I’m all for putting the clocks on one schedule and leaving them there. But let’s put them on standard time and drop all of this Daylight Saving crap once and for all, shall we?

Quick show of hands, please. Who among us did NOT expect what we got from the proven liar Tucker Carlson and the sleazy, lying Fox Not-News? Anyone? No, of course not. We ALL knew the reason House Kinda-Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave Carlson the security footage was so Carlson could twist the truth and re-start the whole “debate” about 45’s coup attempt and the assault on the Capitol building. Carlson, lying sleazeball that he is, did not disappoint.

In case you missed it, Carlson and Fox Not-News cherry-picked a few, seemingly peaceful moments from the January 6th insurrection and then pretended those carefully curated, isolated moments represented the entirety of the event. People from across the spectrum have been calling out, condemning the fraudulent commentary. Even some Republicans in Congress have dismissed Carlson’s crazy claims as misrepresenting the day.

NOBODY but MAGA cons believe any of the narrative anymore – but because of McCarthy, Carlson, and Fox Not-News, we get to start that fight all over again. How obnoxiously boring. At some point, one must admire the chutzpah, though.

I’m currently reading a book called ‘The Book of Vice’ by Peter Sagal. It’s an interesting little tome about the kinds of vice people engage in – and how. I’m currently on the chapter about lying. Appropriate, considering the topic at hand. The author provides a helpful list of the steps needed in a successful lie. (He also points out that, no matter what, sooner or later, the lie tends to be found out but if you lie successfully enough, it could be some time before that happens and you might well, essentially, get away with it.) Here are the steps, without his more detailed explanations:
1) Affect a reasonable and neutral demeanor.
2) Teach the “controversy.” Ignore the fact that one side – the liar’s – is completely made up…
3) Project your motives and methods onto the other side.
4) Your arguments are specific and seemingly verifiable; the opponents’ are broad and assertive.
5) NEVER GIVE IN. EVER.

Any of that sound familiar? Have you ever had to sit through a segment of Fox Not-News? You’ll recognize the steps with perfect clarity. It’s exactly what Carlson is doing right now with…well, with everything he says, really, but in this case, that’s his exact playbook for his lies about January 6th and what happened when the cons attacked the Capitol based on a whole slew of other lies.

It’s no surprise that people will lie for money and Fox Not-News has now been caught red-handed and dead-to-rights doing exactly that. They admitted it in their deposition. They knew they were lying about the election but did it anyway because they didn’t want to alienate their base and lose viewers. Keep the ratings up, keep the money coming in. They were free to admit it because they know their own, loyal viewers might well never even know they admitted to it under oath. Fox Not-News is certainly not going to tell them. They’re going to focus heavily on the “social controversy” about whether the green M&M is sexy enough to be using Hunter Biden’s laptop to read to children during gay pride week. Or whatever.

Even if they do find out, the author also happens to mention that, oftentimes, when people discover they’re being lied to – they go along with it anyway for fear of looking like they had been deceived by a liar. In other words, they double down on their pretended belief rather than confess they got conned.

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I don’t know if Dominion is going to win their suit or not. They’ve certainly laid out a convincing case and proven to thinking people everywhere what thinking people already knew. But Fox uses a technique that allows them to slither out of these things with a bit of ease. They simply pretend they’re not a news operation, at all. Whoever told you that? No, these are just actors, playing a part, reading a script.

Was Carrol O’Connor a bigot because he played Archie Bunker on television? Of course not. Could Sally Field really fly if she put on the right nun’s habit? Don’t be silly. No reasonable person assigns the actor playing the part with the character a person plays and if the actors on Fox Not News engage in the Method and just stay in character at all times when visible, well, that just shows their dedication to the craft.

I’ll tell you this: I wish I knew more about the law so I might have some idea about how a good lawyer might address that. I really would like to see these evil little dogs pay a price for the damage they’ve inflicted – and continue to inflict – on our once-great nation…

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was at the G-20 summit in India. Russia hasn’t been welcome in very many places since the criminal invasion of Ukraine but…India’s Observer Research Foundation invited them to this meeting, so they showed up. Nice. Lavrov started off well. He accused the West of having a double standard when they decry Russia’s invasion of Ukraine after the US’ own illegal invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. (I’d say he has a point.)

But, then he turned to his comedy routine and said about the war in Ukraine, “…which we are trying to stop, which was launched against us using Ukrainian people…” The audience groaned and laughed out loud. Straight into his face. Some, still loyal to (or dependent upon) Russia didn’t – but I bet they wanted to.

This war in Ukraine was ALL Russia’s doing. Ukraine is NOT harboring Nazis. Most of the world knows this without question. American cons don’t know it, largely because they like to read ‘Russia Today.’ These days it goes by the name of RT.com but that’s what the RT stood for originally, ‘Russia Today.’ You might not be surprised to hear RT.com has a pro-Russian bias, being state-owned as it is. That’s why so many cons want the US out of Ukraine. US weapons are making it more difficult for their backup dear leader, Putin, to capture and imprison Ukraine back into the old USSR.

I think it’s past time for Russia to pack up what’s left of their gear and go home. I also think Russia should have to hand Crimea back over to the Ukrainians in compensation for all the trouble and damage they’ve done in Ukraine for no good reason. Besides, I suspect Russia was emboldened to try for all of Ukraine after they were allowed to finesse Crimea on threat of war in 2014…

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I had one big reason for not wanting Hillary to be the candidate in 2016. No, that’s not right. I had several reasons but one of the biggest was this: since husband Bill was President, the right-wing insane machine has been trashing her name and everything about her. Cons hate her with a white-hot passion and nothing, and I do mean nothing, would inflame the right to come out and vote against their opponent like running Hillary. (Please note: that’s exactly what happened, too.) But, Hillary had purchased the nomination fair(ish) and square(ish) and, as a direct result, the world was subjected to “President Trump.” Nice job, DNC.

45 is still frighteningly popular among the cons. It’s true, they have no idea about his true record or behavior or crimes or mendacity or failures, faults, or fabrications. On the right, the conservative media bubble ran interference for the Former Guy to near-perfect effect and the cons were never allowed to see anything other than the strong, capable leader he never was, never has been, never will be. But the rest of us did.

On the left, we couldn’t believe that the embarrassing moron who had moved into the White House was really our “President.” As he began to monetize his presidency, the shock began to wear off and the left started getting angry. As he failed at one task after another (something the con media bubble papered over nicely), I’d say anger on the left increased exponentially as the next four years unfolded. At the end of four years, as the left was all muttering into our masks about the complete incompetence of the Feckless Fuckup, we were sick and tired of it – and we were furious. And not the faux outrage so beloved on the right, this was true rage. We had come to realize that he had to go and, in the same way Hillary had brought out the right to vote against her, every person on the left fell out to vote against trumpery. I’m not sure anybody was actually voting FOR Biden. Every thinking person knew 45 had to go and we banded together to do the right thing, dump trump.

We did, too. The largest voter turnout in history left him on the outs and then, in response, he was kind enough to remind us all of the actual and honest danger he represents to our once-great nation by launching a temper tantrum the world will never forget in the form of the January 6th insurrection. It’s a heartbreaking reality that he has never been held to account for his traitorous ways and likely never will be. These days, ‘Rule of Law’ is little more than a catch-phrase in out submerging nation. Because the Democrats refused to prosecute and failed even to implement the 14th amendment prohibition against a person ever holding public office again if they’ve participated in an insurrection, he’s back – and threatening the nation all over again. He told the crowed at this year’s CPAC (I think that stands for ‘Conservative People Acting Crappily) conference that he is their “retribution” and that the country will be “lost forever” if he doesn’t win. But we all know, when it comes to cons, every accusation is a confession.

But THIS time, the white-hot hatred of one’s opponent is owned by the left. Will Rogers once famously said, “I don’t belong to any organized political party. I’m a Democrat!” But I think the Dems and progressives will fall out in large numbers to vote against him again. (He was shellacked last time because his pandemic had run wildly out of control and most people were forced to vote on paper. DO THAT AGAIN. Vote on paper.) I suspect the visceral hatred of the man will inspire the left to move heaven and earth to get out the vote. I hope so.

I’ll tell you this: The danger hasn’t passed and the threat is real. Make sure your voting registration is good (cons are forever trying to disenroll Dems) and vote – on paper – in this next election. Since the legal and political apparatus of this once-great nation seems unable to stop him, we, the people must act on our own…

Well, here we go again. A recently released US Intelligence report said that three researchers in the Wuhan lab got so sick they sought treatment at a hospital in November, 2019, before Covid was officially recognized. The fact sheet said that the workers had symptoms consistent with Covid-19 and common seasonal illnesses. Okay, so…maybe it was Covid. Then again, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the workers got sick from accidental exposure to the virus in the lab. Then again, maybe those workers are friends and went to a bar or movie or shopping together after work and got exposed to a bad flu. While most of the scientists around the world lean toward species jumping, either idea could be correct and, truthfully, I don’t know any more than anybody else. Oh, you know what else? I don’t care.

I mean, if it turned out to be relevant to something, I might care, but it seems to me that “accidental release” or “species jump” makes no difference. We all know it originated in China in or around the Wuhan province. We also know that the previous two Coronaviruses, MERS and SARS, moved from animals to humans. After that? Nobody knows anything, for sure. Well, except the cons. They KNOW, without question, it escaped from a lab. Period. As a sidebar, you know the thing that surprises me most about how the cons keep bringing it up? I, for one, can’t think about the beginnings of Covid-19 without also thinking about how the administration in charge at the time failed so completely, so spectacularly in responding (along with everything else Former Guy did that helped it gain a foothold). One would think the cons would rather allow the story to fade than keep reminding the world of how useless Former was/is…

Anyway, for me, the key is “accidental release” or species jumping. If it was the lab, and it was an accident, it’s not much different than if it was an inter-species thing. We all know there are labs around the world working on these kinds of things. That’s nothing new. Something “escaping” is a bit of a concern, obviously, but in this case it was “only” Covid-19. Mostly, the world will never know because the Chinese are notoriously closed-mouthed about things like that. In fairness, any government would try to downplay and deflect such an event. Nobody wants the entire world “tsk-tsking” them but the Chinese got that anyway, didn’t they? In fairness, I might accept Chinese efforts at deflection as supporting the conservative position but I believe the Chinese would act that way no matter how the pandemic came to be so it’s hardly proof.

For me, the only real concern is that it might have been in intentional release but that position is fraught with difficulty. Consider, an intentional release of a potentially deadly virus is certainly a belligerent act, if not an act of war. Also, it’s a very high-risk act. If anybody ever found out it was intentional, the world would NOT just “tsk-tsk” the thing. Assuming such a release didn’t come to war, it’s very likely businesses would be pressured into moving their factories to other emerging nations so the desperately poor children living there could start assembling our iPhones, or whatever. The economic impact to China would be incalculable. Also, there’s no evidence the Chinese people themselves were spared any of the challenges, deaths, or difficulties associated with Covid. At the very least, if the Chinese were going to launch a potential war on the world, I imagine they would want to use a far deadlier virus that wipes out anything it comes into contact with, not just people with so-called “co-morbidities.” Also, wouldn’t they have an antidote for themselves? To this day, the Chinese vaccine is known to be less than effective.

I really don’t understand why the cons are so hot to prove Covid-19 came from a lab. I don’t see what they gain. I don’t understand how it helps them. Four years after the fact, I don’t understand why they still care. Then again, I rarely understand the “thinking” of a con…

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I think I’m going to enjoy watching the power play between Former and Rupert Murdoch, the lying owner of lying Fox “News.” If lying Fox “News” starts sneaking in little facts about Former that tell the truth about him, his base might start to figure out he’s nothing but a paper tiger. On the other hand, lying Fox “News” DID lie because they were so afraid of losing viewers (and therefore revenue) to more extreme media outlets. So I don’t think lying Murdoch can simply turn lying Fox “News” and have them start reporting truthfully. He has no choice but to start sneaking in facts. Maybe he can get lying Tucker Carlson to put on that “confused” face that is his stock-in-trade and just “ask the questions.”

When Former announced his candidacy for this run, I saw many one-time supporters now saying they didn’t want Former to run again. They all wanted Ronda Santis. (No, that’s Ron DeSantis.) But the trumpsters are turning back to their CheetoJesus. I guess DeSantis isn’t quite crazy enough. We ALL know Former will go as crazy as he needs to in order to regain support from the MAGA con base.

If you’ve spent any time reading my work, you may have picked up hints – here and there – that I’m not a real fan of Former Guy but his control over the weakest thinkers in our once-great nation is undeniable. Sure, he may be a drooling moron but the cons love him and he must be considered a Titan. Then again, so is lying Fox “News.” A Titan, I mean. Most of the MAGA cons wouldn’t think of Former the way they do if it hadn’t been for the facade created and supported by lying Fox “News.” So the question of who might win such an epic battle remains open.

I’ll tell you this: There are no good options. It’s like trying to decide how one prefers to die between, say, cancer and Ebola. I’m not sure a “winner” is possible. But it should be fun to watch the fight as we continue our submergence back to international irrelevance…

Have you ever wondered why the cons are so, absolutely wrong about Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine? I mean, these guys actually believe (or pretend to) that Russia is the victim, bravely defending itself from Ukrainian aggression – in short, the exact opposite of the truth. Obviously, it’s a disinformation campaign, but whose? Who is doing the misinforming?

One likely candidate is a website called RT.com. It’s a website owned and operated by the Russian government. RT originally stood for ‘Russia Today.’ As an accurate information source, it’s rated extremely low in reliability so, of course, it’s very popular with the cons. (It’s a kind of Stockholm syndrome, I think.) It’s no wonder they’re rooting for the wrong side.

I’ll tell you this: critical thinking should be required education in school starting at a very young age. I believe we would have FAR fewer poor thinkers in our submerging nation…

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By and large, when one hears someone pretending renewable energy is, overall, a bad idea, the speaker repeating that tale is conservative. MOST of the pushback against fossil fuels comes from cons, in fact. One of the stories one hears about wind farms, those installations where windmills produce power, is that the farms are devastating to birds. To hear them tell it, there are piles of dead bird bodies at the bottom of every windmill.

But, of course, while the rank-and-file cons are out there, dutifully spreading their renewable energy misinformation, the red states are leading the pack when it comes to renewables, according to an article I saw in this morning’s Guardian called ‘Red States leading the US in wind and solar production, new report shows.’ Texas has more wind generation capacity than any other state. California leads in solar but Texas is second and Florida is third.

It’s really no wonder those rank-and-file people are so confused. They’re constantly being told about the horrors and evils of renewables, while simultaneously watching their “leaders” building out renewables at a rather remarkable rate. How crazy-making is that?

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It’s always a bummer to find out someone you once thought well of is, in fact, a “less-than” person. Scott Adams, the creator of the ‘Dilbert’ comic, has taken just such a tumble in the world. He went on his podcast to warn his listeners that black people are “a hate group” and that white people should stay away from them. He even admitted to moving house in order to get away from blacks and recommended all whites do the same.

Newspapers across the land are dropping ‘Dilbert.’ Adams says he expected that. He says that “most of my income will be gone by next week. My reputation for the rest of my life is destroyed. You can’t come back from this.” Nor should you. What a di…uh…Dilbert…

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Thinking people everywhere know that union shops are better than non-union shops. It’s a simple, factual reality that when one hears someone lament the loss of “good jobs” in the US, they weren’t “good jobs” because of the particular work being done. They were “good jobs” because they were union jobs. The owner class really hated paying workers a fair wage so they shipped all the good, union jobs overseas to sweatshops and prison-like factories who often “employ” children and have fences around the factory compounds so the workers can’t leave. Oh, AND to where the workers took pennies a day in pay (and glad to have it, truth be told), rather than pay Americans a fair wage. That left only “service” jobs in America.

Service jobs can’t be off-shored. Your waiter cannot bring you more water in San Francisco from Shanghai. Service jobs were also, largely, non-union, and the wages of those workers reflected as much. It was a kind of paradise for the parasite class. The parasite class has been really sticking it to the workers who provide them with so much for a long, long time and the working class is tired of it so unions are making a comeback. Or trying to.

The parasites are pushing back using every trick and technique ever used by the owner class to harm workers. Illegal? So what? Do it! These greedy prigs even go so far as to close stores that successfully unionize, foregoing profit for a short while in order to discourage unionization. (They can easily make it up elsewhere on the backs of other workers.)

I haven’t, yet, seen stories about physical confrontations or outright riots related to union activity, but, as we know, history repeats – especially if one is too stupid to learn from it – so I have no doubt the violence is coming. My position? If it comes to that, it comes to that. I hope it doesn’t but this country needs unions.

Unions will prove a huge step forward for ending the economic imbalance in our submerging nation and the parasitic owner class knows it. That’s why they’re pushing back so hard. So, all true Americans need to support the unionization effort. (Cons will oppose it. Count on it. It’s the “contrarian” part of “con.”) If enough Americans close their wallets to the union-busting companies, the companies will have to relent or go out of business. Either answer is better than what the workers are getting today…

Will lie for money…
Well…now that the entire world knows, without question and in absolute terms, that Fox “News” lies to it’s victimized viewers, I considered – for a short wonderful while – that, perhaps, the US might be rid of the lying titan once and for all. In case you missed it, lying Former Guy started his on-going whine about how the election was stolen from him (and, by the way, what an effing baby. Man up and accept your loss, Donald). Fox “News” went all-in on supporting the story. The talking heads on that station repeated the stories as if they were true and regularly brought on guests who also repeated the stories, allowing those guests to spread and/or support the various and sundry lies without challenge. In a rare misstep, they singled out one company, Dominion Voting Systems, and pointed their fingers at how Dominion “rigged” the election. Dominion sued. After depositions and investigation, they were able to prove the talking heads, behind the scenes, had only disdain and ridicule for the tale they were telling. Dominion proved Fox talkers KNEW they were lying…but did it anyway.

I imagined the victimized viewers would be angry at having been lied to and seek out other sources of misinformation and the loss of revenue might spell doom for lying Fox “News.” But if I may quote the Bard (in the guise of Hamlet), “Aye, there’s the rub.” I enjoyed my fantasy for a few hours before I asked the most important question: who’s going to tell them? I mean, how much air time do you think lying Fox “News” plans to dedicate to telling the story of lying Fox “News” intentionally deceiving it’s own viewers?

When you get right down to it, it shows the horrifying beauty of conservative conditioning to keep con viewers from even considering any information that doesn’t come from the conservative bubble, led by lying Fox “News.” The Lying Fox has already made “editorial decisions” about which hard-hitting stories deserve their air time and they are using it on the important stuff: Are the cartoon candies sexy enough? Should schools put litter boxes in the bathrooms for students who identify as cats? Who, moving among us with apparent impunity, is (omg!) “Woke?”

After spending forty minutes on each of those in-depth tales, who has time to tell the ‘Fox “News” lies to it’s own, gullible viewers’ story? So the victimized viewers will continue to plod along with Fox, never realizing or allowing themselves to believe, The Fox “News” bullsh*t factory intentionally lies to them for money…

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Just trying to help…the lie…
In a totally related unrelated event, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy handed over some 40,000 hours of surveillance footage from the conservative assault on the Capitol on January 6th to…uh…it looks like one guy; Tucker Carlson, one of the most notorious liars at lying Fox “News.” I wonder what he’ll do with it. To be clear, McCarthy did NOT hand the footage over to actual news outlets, only the Lying Fox and specifically, to Carlson.

McCarthy lied that he had to. He had promised as part of his humiliation tour when he was giving away the store to become Speaker in the first place. He lied that he wanted to give Carlson exclusive access because he thinks “sunshine allows everyone to make their own judgements.” McCarthy lied that he might release it to other outlets later. He won’t. He’s a MAGA con trying to protect the MAGA bubble and the actual truth never, ever supports lying MAGA con positions. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Democrats – along with thinking people everywhere – have decried the move as a breach of security. The footage allows people to discover the locations of cameras and other security details the public really shouldn’t have. Minority leader Hakim Jeffries said he considered the release a “grave mistake.”

I’ll tell you this: I wouldn’t use the word “mistake.” I’d go with the far more accurate “betrayal” or maybe “perfidy” or even “act of treason.” It was a calculated act intended to allow lying Fox “News” host lying Tucker Carlson to cut together preferred parts of the footage to “prove” the insurrection was really just an unauthorized tour of the Capitol…

NOTE: An earlier version of this piece misspelled the House Speaker’s name and has been corrected…

I suspect Jimmy Carter was the last honorable President the United States ever had. I do not hold he was great or poor but he was honorable. I think he might have been a bit out of his depth. But he really tried to do things to help the American people and he tried to set good examples. He put solar panels on the White House. It was mostly a show. There weren’t enough to run the whole building and the technology was in it’s infancy. But the gesture… It was awesome. It pointed America toward the future. And, coincidentally, apparently scared the heck out of the oil industry who understood the meaning behind the gesture immediately. Ronald Reagan had them removed as one of his very first acts as President. (The oil companies were happy. The US would NOT be moving forward any time soon. Thank the corporate gods…)

Carter also tried to convert America to the metric system. You know, just to join the rest of the world. Standardized, I believe is the word. That got as far as road signs with miles AND kilometers posted on them. That effort, too, was abandoned when he left office.

His administration was brought down by the Iran hostage crisis, in which a group of Iranian students seized the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 American staff and citizens in the compound for months. Carter tried everything he could to end the stalemate and get the hostages free but the Iranians wouldn’t budge. As an interesting side note, there was, at the time, some evidence that, working behind the scenes with the students, the Reagan campaign had promised the Iranians weapons if they would hold the hostages until Carter was defeated.

The hostages were released literally about 1/2 hour after Reagan was inaugurated and you can read about how Reagan kept up his end of the bargain in a fancy little transaction that became the scandal known as Iran/Contra. Col. Oliver North fell on his sword and took the fall for that one. He got rich and became a darling of the right for his efforts so, I guess he’s happy. But I digress…

I’ll tell you this: I can’t say, for sure, whether or not Carter was a good President but there’s no doubt in my mind that Carter is a good man and it saddens me a bit to think he’ll be leaving us soon…

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I suppose stories like this were inevitable after the Roberts Kangaroo Court struck down Roe based on their personal ideology. There’s a couple in Florida who are being forced to deliver a child into this world even though everyone involved knows the child will die a miserable death shortly after being born. How lovely for everyone involved, most especially the ideologues who cheered the court’s arbitrary decision and don’t have to be anywhere near that suffering family as their baby dies.

The “no choice/no option” crowd really doesn’t seem to care about the realities involved. They just want what they want and so decided that late-term abortions were super easy to get (they aren’t) and that women regularly use that “option” simply because they randomly decided they didn’t want to be pregnant any more (they don’t). But, once you’re all-in on the faulty thinking, faulty “solutions” follow. And, since crowning seems to be the moment when the Anti-choice crowd stops caring, they can ignore all of the suffering they’re inflicting on people afterward. Sweet deal…for them…

But these parents get to watch their newborn suffocate within hours of delivery in a struggling, painful death…

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Biden had his regular physical the other day. HIS doctor, the guy who did the actual examination, said he’s in fine shape – presumably for a man his age. The right has gone nuts. Each and every one of them are certain that Biden’s doctor is covering up…well, everything, really. They started right in with the “questions.” Where, for example, is the mental acuity test? Apparently, he didn’t need one. Mental acuity tests are NOT part of a normal physical. Former Guy took one, a very simplified pre-screening, by choice. That doesn’t stop the right, though. Former’s old “doctor,” Ronny Jackson, the guy who once declared Former the very picture of perfect health, pretends to think the White House might be covering up.

The right, you see, has convinced itself that Biden is locked in full-blown dementia. He isn’t. Yes, he has some “senior moments.” That’s not dementia. That doesn’t matter, though. They’ve decided and don’t need no stinking proof. They know what they know and will now move forward with their preferred belief with or without evidence. I’ll tell you this: I can’t decide if that’s comforting or frustrating. On the one hand, they get to live in a world of their own creation. On the other hand, it seems contact with reality must be inevitable and that occasional contact must be frustrating when it doesn’t match the fever-dream.

They should probably put together a committee and launch and “investigation…”

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According to USA Today, there had been 71 mass shootings, including the Michigan State shooting, in the US in 2023. Now we get to add Mississippi, so…72 mass shootings in the US…so far this year. As of today, there have been 50 days in 2023. The headline I saw in the Guardian read “Biden pleads with Congress to pass gun control after six killed in Mississippi.” Pleads. Just like the vast majority of Americans. Please do something! “Sorry, no can do,” say the Gun Rights Advocates (GRAs). “The Second Amendment clearly says, ‘…shall not be denied.’ Nothing we can do!”

From time to time, I mention that I’ve re-written the US Constitution to correct some of it’s more egregious errors. It’s a fascinating exercise, even if it is a bit arrogant. When I did it, the question of the Second Amendment had to be addressed. I gave this one Amendment probably more thought than any of the rest of the work but, in the end, decided to leave it just as it had been written originally. The basis for that decision was that the Second, taken as a whole, says exactly what it should say. “Well regulated” is a key phrase. Just because a small, ideological minority are capable of misinterpreting the Second by reading only half of it – more than happy to, in fact, doesn’t mean the Amendment is wrong.

I no longer feel that way. In today’s edition of “Things We Could Fix and Should Fix – but Won’t Fix”? The gun question. This is not an easy fix but it is necessary. Philosophically, I have no problem with people owning guns. From a practical standpoint, though, gun ownership endangers all of society at all times and that, to me, seems to be the larger of the two problems. The minority’s right to own guns tramples the majority’s right to safety. Sure, the GRAs would argue that logic sets the truth on it’s ear but the facts are too clear to be denied unless one’s only goal is to deny them.

I have a proposed bill I’d would like to see introduced called the “Keep Your Gun Act.” As you can tell by the name, it requires gun owners to keep their guns but keep them safely – and assigns consequences for failure to do so. I came up with it because, again, I don’t really have a problem with people owning guns. But this whole thing has gotten out of control and we’re ALL in danger now based on one of the dumber pieces of ideology floating around in this world.

72 mass shootings in 50 days. (49, really. I write these pieces early in the morning and the nation hasn’t yet has it’s opportunity to come out blasting today.) There can be no question, in any rational person’s mind, that the gun problem is out of control. We all know that the tool being used by the GRAs to justify the ongoing carnage is the Second Amendment. When push comes to shove, that means the Second Amendment, as written, has to go.

I’d be okay with ‘Repeal and Replace,’ an ideology the right mentions a lot. (Sure, they mean health care but it’s still their own policy…) It could be simple. We could just add “…without due process of law” at the end. That, at least, would provide a mechanism to keep guns out of irresponsible hands. The problem is, one never knows when someone might “break.” A person could be normal and sound of mind but face daunting life-challenges that push them over the edge just long enough to murder a large number of people going about their day.

I’ll tell you this, though. I’m fed up with these day-after-day shootings and if the GRAs won’t let society manage the problem of guns because of the Second Amendment, it becomes the duty of that society to eliminate the Second Amendment…