History in the making…
Well, they’re off and running in Georgia! Early voting began yesterday – a Saturday after a holiday. The GOP in Georgia had tried to limit voting by making a rule that primary and general elections couldn’t include Saturday voting if the Saturday fell after a holiday. I don’t know what the two have to do with each other, but that’s what they did. What they did NOT do during their re-write, was to include “run-off” elections. Initially, Brad Raffensperger, the Secretary of State in Georgia and the loyal Republican who nevertheless stood up to the Dumbass when he begged for Georgia to just make up 11,700 votes, said they could do Saturday voting (based on the wording of the law) then back-peddled and said, no, no voting on that Saturday based on – you know, reasons…

Warnock sued and the Georgia Supreme Court said Saturday voting could go forward since the GOP hadn’t included run-offs in their limitation rule. So, the voting started yesterday and will proceed until December 6. Control of the Senate is already settled but this election could increase the size of the Democratic majority a bit and make their jobs a little easier.

From what I read, the campaigns are off to rather aggressive starts, each side pointing fingers at their opponents. Warnock points to policy positions he has taken while serving in the Senate. Walker talks vampires. Warnock points out that Walker lies about everything. Walker lies about it. Warnock acknowledges Walker’s athletic prowess as NFL running back, kick-boxer, and Olympic bobsledder but also points out that very little bobsledding takes place in Congress and reminds voters that Walker knows nothing of policy. Warnock runs ads that show nothing but trump endorsing Walker. BOTH sides have trotted out ex-wives of the candidates. Warnock’s estranged wife (the divorce is in process) claims Warnock once ran over her foot, presumably with a car (the article doesn’t say). The cops couldn’t find any evidence to support the charge. Walker’s ex claims Walker threatened her with violence, a claim supported by Walker’s own book. Warnock seems a well-spoken, thoughtful candidate. Walker has said – and this is an actual quote – “this erection is for the people.” Come to think of it, in view of Walker’s many children born out of wedlock and those he managed to get aborted, that may be one of the few honest comments Walker has made…

In summary, Warnock seems a man in command of the issues facing Georgia and this once-great nation and Walker is excellent at carrying an oblong ball a few yards. Are Georgia voters really having a tough time choosing the best person for the job? Not a great look, Georgia. Not good at all…

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History not mentioned…
I recently stumbled upon this song on Facebook, of all places. It’s called ‘Rich People’ by Carsie Blanton. (Click here. It’s worth the listen and only two minutes, thirty-eight seconds long.) She does an excellent job of summarizing the assault by the wealthy that started the class war in the 1980’s that have wrought so much damage in this once-great nation and where we are today. The ONE little nit I have to pick is that she repeats a piece of misinformation that is common knowledge in this once-great nation – but not entirely accurate. She sings, “Back in 1979, the western world was in decline…” It wasn’t.

I know, there were economic challenges in the 1970’s. It was portrayed, heavily, as the end – and failure – of Keynesian economics. It was not a “failure” and should not have been the end but the rich people used it to introduce and promote the completely fraudulent “Supply Side Economics” that became better known as “trickle-down” or “voo-doo” economics. (The “voo-doo” term was coined by Bush 41, Reagan’s eventual VP because he knew it was all a smoke-and-mirrors sham.) Listen, as I indicated, this has become common knowledge with just about everybody signing on – including some very respected economics folks – and repeating that story ever since, so everything that follows is my own personal belief and you should keep that in mind while you read it. You see, I don’t believe Keynes failed. I think the problem was much simpler and – given time – would have straightened itself out. Here’s what I think happened…

In order to explain this, I have to digress a bit but I shall endeavor to keep it short. Do you know what started the civil war in Syria? Climate change. In this case, a major drought took hold over most of the southern part of the country where much of the farming took place. So, the farmers, needing money to feed their families, went to the cities seeking gainful employment. But the cities weren’t ready for such an influx. There WAS no gainful employment for them. This left countless people standing around with nothing to do. THAT created feelings of failure in the increasingly desperate farmers which, in turn, led to anger. The anger boiled over and – BLAM-O! – civil war. Okay, got it? Too many workers, not enough jobs equals economic pain, crime, and often violence. Just hold that thought as I get back to my point…

As we all know, the United States of America is a blood-thirsty, warlike nation. Throughout our history, we’ve engaged in every war we could at first on the principle of ‘Manifest Destiny’ and later, just because it enriched the very military/industrial complex Eisenhower had tried to warn us about. (It still does!) Each time rich people sent American troops off to die in some war, jobs were left undone. So, the women left their “proper” place – in the home – and did the jobs. When the soldiers eventually came home, the women went back to their “domestic bliss” and left the out-of-the-home jobs for the men. It was a nice little balance, so long as you weren’t the one doing the actual combat and dying – and the rich are NEVER the people who fight.

But in 1960’s, various social movements had taken place (scaring the holy bejesus out of conservatives) and among them was the women’s movement. SOME of that movement was facilitated by the women doing the work outside the home while the men fought and died in the rainforest. But in 1975, to the dismay of the military/industrial complex, the war in Vietnam ended, slowing profits considerably. All of the fighting men who had been shipped off to die but didn’t…came home again. But by now, women had come to enjoy the idea of having a little jingle in their pockets. They REALLY liked the idea that they had some control over their own lives, having a little money of their own. They made the unheard-of decision to KEEP the jobs they had been doing, leaving the returning soldiers with no jobs.

This left large groups of people standing around with nothing to do. Before long, the economy was feeling the heat of too many workers and not enough work. (See? That’s the Syria tie-in…) It takes awhile for an economy – any economy – to catch up to such conditions and the interim is usually quite painful. The rich people, though, just saw an opportunity. They started the story that Keynes had finally failed and they had to do something different. They brought in an actor to sell their story – Ronald Reagan – and people bought it. Thus began the assault on this once-great nation that has created the country we suffer today. Where once we had plenty (though not well or equally distributed) now we are a nation of shortages, outages, suffering, and dismay. You know, unless you’re wealthy. Then everything is great.

Mine is a simple, straightforward hypothesis that fits all the facts but it’s not told by the American media because, today, the American media is owned by the people who profit from the falsehoods. The successful cousin of Keynesian thinking has come to be known in the world as ‘Democratic Socialism’ and works very well for the largest number of people. But it contains the word ‘Socialism’ which scares the bejesus out of conservatives and is easy to demonize – especially in this once-great nation of gullible fools. So, FDR called it ‘The New Deal’ instead and most people liked the New Deal because it worked. Rich people hated it because it limited their ability to fleece the populace at will.

I’ll tell you this: If we don’t get back to New Deal economics – and do it soon – I suspect Syria is the model we risk copying…and THAT ain’t gonna be good at all…

Well, it’s getting longer every day, isn’t it? The list of Dems the cons plan to impeach, I mean. Kevin McCarthy, the person most likely to succeed Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House (at the moment) said the House plans to impeach the director of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas for…um…reasons.

It’s pretty much clear to everybody except the people who don’t understand things that the cons are planning a revenge tour. They’re upset that their criminal president, trump, got impeached…twice. THEY think it was all politically motivated because they choose to ignore evidence. So, they’re going to “get back” at the Dems by impeaching everybody with a ‘D’ after their name. Personally, I suspect they’re doing it because they don’t have anything else to do now that they control the House but not the Senate. Everybody except the people who don’t understand things knows the cons want nothing more than to make life easier for the richest of the rich and as hard as possible for everybody else. They LIVE to inflict suffering.

But with the Dems keeping control of the Senate, any evil act they intend will have to wait until 2024, at least, since the Dems will just block in the Senate whatever they do in the House. Since they won’t be able to get any of their evil acts done anyway, they might as well spend the next two years impeaching anybody and everybody. Nothing will get done, but the people who don’t understand things will get a good show and the rest of us? Well, we’re just going to get more and more tired of conservative delusional antics. I mean, I don’t know about you but this has been going on – and escalating – for the last 40 years and every time they come up with some new, stupid, faux “charge” I find myself just getting tired all over.

2022 sent a message. Americans dumped the worst of the worst wherever they could. The class of election deniers (rightly called ‘liars’) was mostly sent packing. It’s going to take some time, especially against conservative cheating at the ballot box but it looks like Americans – true Americans, not those flag-humping but Constitution-hating cons, are sick and tired of the craziness. So the cons are going to have to wait until they get a bit more power, if they can, and in the meantime, their “fiddle while Rome burns” behavior will look like impeachment after trumped up impeachment.

My prediction? It will prove to be a MASSIVE waste of time and money. First, you need charges against someone to impeach. Making them up during a fever dream doesn’t really hold water. Second, the Dems still control the Senate where their fraudulent impeachments get tried. The Dems will respond to the evidence – or lack thereof, in this case. The cons voted to acquit the Dumbass despite the evidence against him and they’ll vote to impeach any/every Dem they can think of despite the lack of evidence against them. The Dems presented their case (poorly, I’d have to agree) and the cons just shot them down. Now the cons will present their target and the Dems will respond in kind. The only difference is, the cons did what they did despite the law and the Dems will act in accordance with the law. I like the Dem way better…

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The cons aren’t what I would call smart but they certainly ARE clever schemers. Take Georgia, where the conservatives really hate voting, so they’ve done everything they can to derail the process. One of the things they did was this: they recently changed the law so that runoffs have to take place within 28 days of the general election that necessitated the thing. BUT…Georgia law ALSO says that a voter must be registered 30 full days prior to an election. This means no new voters for the runoff. One cannot stand on the sidelines during the election, realize their voted is needed, then register and help their party – either party. Like I said, clever…

On the up side, though, the Warnock campaign has, so far, prevailed in their attempt to recover Saturday voting for November 26, so, there’s that…

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Pretty much ALL of the people who understand things have lost most or all of the respect they might once have held for the so-called Supreme Court. I’ve taken to referring to it as the Supremely Kangaroo Court as they’ve taken to ignoring law and making ideological ruling after ideological ruling and I don’t think my opinion will change so long as the Roberts Joke Court is packed with activist ideologues. BUT…they did something the other day I didn’t expect. They made a ruling based on law. Hell, I didn’t even know they were capable of doing that.

They ruled that the House Ways and Means Committee does get to look at trump’s taxes, even if they ARE “under audit.” That ruling is perfectly in keeping with a law that was passed by Congress during the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s. That means it’s a law that’s been on the books for nearly 100 years. I’d call it “established.” Still, it was surprising this corrupted court considered it in view of the fact that the case in question had to do with trump’s taxes. My actual, cynical guess is that they agreed with the law in this case because they believe the House Committee doesn’t have enough time to do a proper review of the criminal trump’s taxes before the cons take over and protect their criminal boy. Even when they work within the law, they do it in a way that helps trump as much as possible. I sure hope those returns don’t get “leaked” to the press – who WILL have the time and resources to give them a very thorough review regardless of who controls the House.

So guess who’s upset the corrupted court followed the law for a change? Why, that would be one Donnie “the Dumbass” Trump, who said they had “become nothing more than a political body…” Of course, he ALSO said that handing over taxes was unprecedented. It’s not. Presidential candidates have been releasing their tax information, usually voluntarily but not always, for decades (except for the appointed, partial-term Gerald Ford). I remember when Mr “Promises made, promises kept” promised and promised and promised he was THIS close to releasing his taxes – but he never did. Now he’s mad at the court HE corrupted and turned into a nearly useless, completely untrustworthy, ideological crap-hole because they unexpectedly did the right thing. Good.

I’ll tell you this: maybe I should start calling it ‘Frankenstein’s Court since the creature may have turned on it’s creator…

Since We, the People don’t walk the walk of our awesomeness in reality anymore, we like to pretend by quoting various aspirational aphorisms. In this case, I’m referring to the so-called ‘Rule of Law.’ What the ‘Rule of Law’ is supposed to mean is that no person is above the law. There’s not one law for some and one law for others. It’s all the same law and it applies, equally, to everybody across the board. That’s what it’s supposed to mean and we hear it all the time.

Of course, we also all know that the actual rule of law in America is that there are laws but their applicability depends on one’s wealth, connections, and, sadly, skin color. Studies have shown, for example, that if two people with the same criminal history commit the same crime and one is “black” and the other is “white,” the “black” person will commonly receive a far harsher sentence than the “white” guy. The rule of situational application of law, as America really operates, is often confusing and can be contradictory. That can make it difficult to predict the outcome of some cases.

Elizabeth Holmes was the CEO of a tech company that lied about it’s ability to test blood. They claimed they had a bold, new system that could accomplish the same tests with less blood, in less time, and for less money. It was a lie and the whole company was built on it. They ended up getting busted and Holmes was put on trial and found guilty of fraud. Now, Holmes is blonde, young, and pretty. She’s currently pregnant. Those facts might very well come together to render a lighter sentence for her. Holmes is also quite rich, which, in normal circumstances means little to no jail time. Perhaps she pays a fine, does some community service work (aka, makes a donation to some charity) and provides a public statement in which she declares her contrition and promises never, ever to do that again. That should have been quite an advantage for her. I’d bet she went to trial feeling confident, first that she could be acquitted, then, after the guilty verdict, that the sentence wouldn’t hurt the pretty, blonde, young, pregnant, rich “white” woman too badly.

I think Holmes forgot the other part of the rule of situational application of law. Holmes was accused of defrauding investors. Investors tend to be rich. In many cases, investors were richer than Holmes and better connected. Sure, she COULD have received the “white” person discount, but she forgot the Madoff exception. Like Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes defrauded rich people, the ultimate no-no. Bernie committed the same crime as Elizabeth, investor fraud. Bernie was also “white” and rich but had an additional point in his favor – one Elizabeth could only dream of – a penis. Being a rich, “white,” man, Bernie likely expected a couple of years in prison and a fine. To what was likely his ever-lasting surprise, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison and a $17 BILLION dollar fine. Again, he defrauded rich people. Holmes received her sentence this week. 11 years in prison and a – wait, can this be right? According to CNN, the sentence includes a $400 dollar fine. Four hundred dollars? (Apparently, a restitution amount will be set later.)

Sure, it’s a harsh sentence but it seems to have enjoyed the pretty white girl discount after all, when compared to Bernie Madoff. Still the message is clear: you don’t defraud rich people. THEY defraud YOU and if you defraud them, it upsets the apple cart and they WILL make an example of you. The rule of situational application of law demands it…

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Here’s a weird thing. Rafael Warnock’s campaign is suing the State of Georgia over one of Georgia’s many, many campaign restrictions. For some reason (mostly that Georgia Republicans don’t like actual voting) Georgia Republicans instituted a law that says the state cannot have voting on the second Saturday before an election if there is a holiday on the previous Thursday or Friday. The Thursday before the Warnock/Walker run-off is Thanksgiving and the day after is a generic “State Holiday.” (Specifically, it’s the day Georgia celebrated the birth of the traitor Robert E Lee – who was born in January – but they had to drop the “Robert E. Lee’s Birthday” name during one of the recent political correctness purges so now it’s just “State Holiday.”)

Setting aside the questionable idea of honoring a traitor who took up arms against his own country and shares responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in a failed effort to maintain slavery, the two things, that State Holiday and Saturday voting seem to be unrelated. But the Georgia GOP saw an opportunity to maybe restrict some voting and they jumped on it. The Secretary of State, one Brad Raffensperger, (remember when all the Dems loved him because he stood up to the Dumbass who had asked him to “find” 11,000 votes?) initially said the Saturday voting would be allowed, then backtracked. No Saturday voting, after all. (Hey, he said right after the coup attempt he was still ‘Team GOP.’)

The Warnock campaign seems to be picking at a small nit but I actually think they’re right. The law, as written, says it applies to primary and general elections but doesn’t mention run-offs. One might argue that Georgia simply implied run-offs (as I’m sure the State will) but because they specifically mentioned run-offs elsewhere in the same law, the Warnock campaign argues, it wasn’t implied and because it’s not specifically mentioned, the State should allow Saturday voting on November 26. I can’t find the reference now but I had read that the wording of the law was inadvertently changed during an amendment but leaving out “run-offs” accidentally or on purpose doesn’t matter. They left it out. Whoops! Remember, in America, words might occasionally matter in law. The Jim Crow Georgians messed up. I’m guessing they’re going to have to let people vote on the 26th, no matter how badly they wish they wouldn’t. Bummer for them…

The Dumbass waited as long as he did to announce he was running for President again because the GOP made him. You see, they have been paying many of his legal bills (his sucker acolytes have been paying the rest) and they told him they’d stop if he announced before the mid-terms. Apparently, the party was afraid the CheetoJesus would tarnish the outcome of the election exactly as he seems to have done. But some people have suggested that the reason the loser trump announced his next bid so quickly after the mid-terms was that he thought he could deflect the DOJ from investigating his illegal activities by claiming the whole thing is simply a political witch hunt. You know, exactly like he was doing before he announced.

So far? No good. The DOJ has just announced the appointment of a special counsel – a registered independent named Jack Smith – to determine whether trump gets to commit crimes unpunished or is just like any other citizen. My position? If the evidence supports the charges, he should stand trial – just like any other person. Really, just the fact that he gets a special counsel to make the determination is special treatment. Normally, the DOJ would just move forward with whatever action they determined was the correct move. Although, my guess is that this special counsel will not operate with the narrow parameters that hamstrung Robert Mueller’s investigation.

I DO think the moves signals a concern that the MAGA cons will not accept the results of the investigation. (Really, why would they start accepting facts now?) Add layer after layer of caution, the thinking seems to go, and the next step will be harder for the cons to refute. Kinda dumb, if you ask me. The cons believe what they’re told to believe and they won’t even know about extra layers of caution. They don’t need no stinking trial or evidence to know trump is innocent of all charges – even if he did do those things. But the rational crowd, the people who understand things, will have one more arrow in their quiver when the “debate” begins so it’s not all bad…

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Right now, the left is kind of salivating over the GOP’s conflict within about whether trump should run or not. I say, enjoy the moment. Fox “News” tried to get him to skip this one but he announced anyway. THEN Fox “News” talked about how “Presidential” he looked. As usual with this “holy” embodiment of ALL seven of the deadly sins, they’ll stand against him right up until they acquiesce and back him. Remember, these people operate on positions, not principles. Trump has been counted out so many times in the past and managed to slither past it I’m not prepared to make any predictions. Right now, it looks like his star has fallen. These days, he actually looks delusional. He’s not even talking about the country anymore. It’s all him, him, him. Look what they’re doing to poor, poor me, that sort of thing. We’re clear he feels an abiding pity for himself and is nursing a need for vengeance because he often lists names of people with whom he plans to get even.

Anyone capable of even a modicum of independent thought has heard him quite clearly in his threats to destroy the Republic, dump the Constitution, and name himself President for Life. (January 6th coup, anyone?) Hell, the coup, alone, should disqualify him from public office. But the MAGA cons don’t care so long as they get to keep their second half of the Second Amendment. Absolutely NO understanding that “throwing out the Constitution” includes the Second Amendment but because they don’t believe he’ll attack the Second, they don’t care. So it remains to be seen if the GOP will dump trump or not. You may have noticed, I really don’t like trump and I fear him – or at least what he represents. Unlike MAGA cons, I loved this country and would have preferred to see it continue.

But there’s an outside chance that trump will split the con vote, leaving the way clear for the Dems to keep moving forward. We know trump won’t stop on his own. He can’t. But I also think there’s a difference between MAGA cons and regular conservatives and the MAGA cons are FAR fewer in number than they used to be, likely not nearly enough to carry the con-man forward without mainstream conservatives. Besides, the left hates trump with the same energy the right hates Hillary. So long as trump is a threat (read: on the ballot) the left will fall out in droves to stop him.

I’ll tell you this: He told his base that, with him, they’d get tired of winning. He just didn’t tell them they’d be tired of the Democrats winning. I wonder how long it will be before they figure it out?

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The nice thing about the cons being honest about their intentions to initiate investigations of anybody with a ‘D’ after their name despite not having any evidence of any crime is that the rest of us know what to expect, which, to be clear, will be more of the money- and time-wasting “investigations” like those they ran (and ran and ran and ran) into Hillary, only to find they couldn’t nail her for one little thing. The party of fiscal responsibility, as they like to pretend they are, wasted something like $14 million dollars on those hearings.

I’ll tell you this: They’ll happily waste money on frivolous lawsuits and sham investigations any time they think it will mess with a Dem. Of course, they’ll need to cut school lunches and safety programs and other threads of the social safety net to pay for their scams but cons are never happier than when they’re doing harm to defenseless people. It’s just their jam…

Well, now that the Democrats have secured the Senate for the next two years, it’s a bit of a brighter day, isn’t it? If Warnock wins, they won’t even need Kamala’s tie-breaker – nor Joe “DINO” Manchin. The Democrat in Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto, beat the Trump endorsed con giving the Democrats 50 seats in the Senate. That might end up helping Warnock. Since the cons have nothing to gain anymore, maybe they’ll lose some of their enthusiasm for the run-off. But the truth is, my favorite part is what happened to Trump. I hear – and see supporting evidence – that the party is turning on Trump. Okay so Trump is really just the exemplar. His inability to create the chaos he sought means the Republic survives another two years, at least, and THAT’S the part I find so satisfying. (What can I say? I like the Republic…) Trump led them as far down the Primrose Path as he could but it looks like even some of the cons have figured him out and turned away.

The fight is far from over, of course. The cons STILL hate America and STILL intend to do her harm. Fox “News” and the other conservative outlets in the bubble will STILL press the corporate authoritarian nationalism known commonly as Fascism and the base will keep lapping it up, clueless about what it is they’re actually asking for. Even so, it looks like Trump won’t be “the guy” anymore. Maybe we’ll get to prosecute him for his crimes after all. No, he still won’t go to jail, even though he clearly should (if he’s found guilty) and the vast majority of Americans certainly would. Hell, in 1953 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for doing what Trump stands accused of doing*, passing information to the Russians about nuclear weapons designs. The Dumbass will only pay a fine so he’s still WAY out ahead of the possibilities.

* Sidebar: I guess I have to say this: we don’t actually KNOW what Trump did with all those stolen, classified documents. All we know for sure is that he stole them, mishandled them, tried – and continues to try – to keep them, and some are missing. So the rest is pure speculation on my part, but the idea that Trump might pass Top Secret classified documents to that Putz Putin in a desperate and self-serving attempt to curry favor with the Russians and get another electoral boost from them in 2024 is hardly beyond the scope of possibilities where the traitor Trump is concerned. Just my opinion, though…

Something many people don’t know? The GOP has been paying a large portion of Trump’s legal bills. They forced him to hold off on announcing his run for the White House until after the mid-terms by telling him they were going to cut him off, financially, if he announced before the election. This tells me they already see him as toxic. So, now he insists he’s going to announce this coming Tuesday, Nov 15. That, too, might affect Georgia and help Warnock. Fingers crossed…

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See if you can get your arms around this. The cons have been conditioned to believe that Putin is defending Russia against Ukrainian aggression. There’s not a single fact about Putin’s war that supports such a conclusion, which, I guess, is WHY they’re so darned sure. Sometimes, listening to cons is like listening to a four year old describe the workings of an internal combustion engine. The story they tell is often cute, downright precious sometimes, but never even approximates reality…

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When the Russians got pushed out of Kherson, the Russian government said they had taken all of their equipment with them. When the Ukrainian soldiers showed up, they found all kinds of Russian equipment the soldiers had just…left behind. Reuters has film. The con tactic of lying, lying, lying seems to be failing, failing, failing these days. Finally. And…good. It’s really kind of nice of Putin to supply his enemies with weapons, especially since the Ukrainians are using those weapons to run Russia out of their country. Thanks, Vlad!

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Yesterday, I did a small section that was, let’s call it tongue-in-cheek. It satirized the conservative tendency to believe anything another conservative says no matter how stupid. Then I see this. Kari Lake, the crazy con who might win the race for Governor in Arizona, announced her office had been attacked with an envelope containing a white powder. They turned two unopened envelopes over to the police for analysis. The police have found nothing. Oh, says the campaign, the envelope with the powder was thrown away by a worker who didn’t report the incident until AFTER all the trash bins had been removed.

The whole “suspicious white powder” thing started when Bush 43 was holding the reins. Some guy started sending military grade anthrax to various politicians. As expected, the FBI conducted an investigation. The thing is, the powder was going to Democrats, not Republicans. Oh, and the other thing is, they found the guy sending it. See, it was military grade anthrax. Not just anybody could lay their hands on it and there are only a few places it’s kept, so that narrowed the search. It was ostensibly being sent by a scientist at the government’s Biodefense lab at Fort Detrick in Maryland named Bruce Edwards Ivins. As the government web began closing in around him, he killed himself, which means there was never a trial. But the government DID close the case in 2010 with Ivins being listed as the responsible party.

So…did Ivins return from the grave just to switch sides and send anthrax to a far-right, nut-ball con, Kari Lake? Or did the Lake campaign make up a story in an attempt to drum up support? I’ll tell you this: my money is on the “lie” option…

Well, it could have been worse, right? Dems lost the House but are very near pseudo-control of the Senate. I say “pseudo-control” because Manchin is still in the mix and he’s not a dependable Dem. The cons will have the ability to harass the Dems but not do too much else. Sure, the Dems won’t get much done now, either. So, things won’t get better anymore but they won’t get any worse, either. The very best part? Many, many, many of the Trump-backed MAGA cons – the people swearing to destroy the Republic if they won – didn’t win.

Now all eyes are on Georgia where Raphael Warnock is facing off against Herschel Walker. The cons like the serial adulterer and family abusing and abandoning Walker because he has an R after his name and he has promised to help overthrow the Republic. But they pretend they like him because they believe he’s such a holy guy. Unlike, I guess, the Reverend Warnock, senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. They think Walker would make a great Senator, even though he likely can’t even spell ‘Senator.’ Of course, Warnock is the current, sitting junior senator from Georgia. None of that matters to the cons. Walker is running as a Republican and hates America. That’s good enough for them…

I came across a quote from a Georgia voter who was frustrated by the run-off. The early races were contentious and full of conservative disinformation and standard con BS and now he has to endure another month of it. He said he was frustrated Georgians hadn’t made a better choice because one of the candidates is a sitting, experienced Senator and the other is Hershel Walker…

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I’ve come to believe that not one Republican won their election honestly. They cheated and stole their seats. I KNOW it – for a FACT – because I know a guy who has a friend who knows this dude who was told by his sister’s cousin’s brother that he was driving down the freeway and passed some paper on the side of the road that was vaguely the same color as the ballot envelopes and was probably Democrat ballots the cons had tossed aside. I’m told there was even a sign at the spot ‘Republicans: dump DemocRAT ballots here’ but, apparently the sign was removed right after the election. Fortunately, my source got a picture of it before it was removed so we have the proof. Well, we did. It seems the film inside his phone got accidentally exposed and ruined the photos but, hey, the guy said what he said and that’s all the proof anybody should ever need under any circumstance and for any reason, right? I mean, let’s get to court!

There are NO legitimately elected Republicans. Period. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

(Let’s see how THEY like it…)

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Okay, so do you think Elon spent 44 BILLION dollars on Twitter specifically to destroy it? One wouldn’t think so but, so far, every move he’s made as done more harm than good. FAR more harm than good. Why, it almost seems as if he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing or how to do it. It’s been one misstep after another from firing employees he really, really needs to giving, taking, re-giving, suspending, introducing, then eliminating the verified blue check that suddenly only verifies you paid eight dollars.

Meanwhile, perhaps the best known founder of Twitter is Jack Dorsey who is off starting his new social media venture even as we speak. It’s called ‘Bluesky.’ Dorsey DID help create a very successful social media outlet but seemed to have a tough time of it throughout. It’s a little surprising he would want to dive in again but, I guess there are millions more dollars out there for him to take. Apparently he stayed on as a shareholder in Twitter, though. The way Elon is running things, it looks a bit like TWO billionaires might be in for a serious and substantial fall. Hey, pass the popcorn…

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I’m sure, by now, you’ve noticed that every time that putz Putin gets his ass handed to him in Ukraine, he declares the area he just got pushed out of new Russian territory. His army just left Kherson city. I say they “left” because it’s not like the Russians are fighting very hard. The Russian soldiers don’t want to be there. They sure as hell don’t want to die there. Obviously, there are going to be some hard-core loyalist MAGA type drones willing to do ANYTHING for their chosen one but most of them? They’d rather be home with their family. So, when they see opposition, they drop their guns and go. (I do NOT believe it’s cowardice. I’d bet that if one came across these same soldiers in a circumstance they believed in, they would be a MUCH stronger fighting force than they appear to be today.)

Anyway, the Russians got pushed out of the Kherson region so Putin admitted defeat and – wait, what? No, of course not. Putin just named a new “temporary” capitol of the region. I’m guessing THAT one won’t last long, either. Circling back, though, one of the nice things about the cons doing so poorly in the mid-terms is that they really, really wanted to help their buddy Putin and they were planning to de-fund the American assistance to Ukraine in the hopes that Putin might finally win something, somewhere. It doesn’t look, yet, like they’re going to be able to do that, now. The cons wanted to help Trump destroy America and help Putin destroy Ukraine. Instead, the cons didn’t a chance to destroy anything – yet.

I’ll tell you this: I’ll bet they keep trying anyway. It’s who they are…

Okay, it looks like the cons really are set to claim (and destroy) the republic. No, it won’t fall tomorrow. In fact, I expect things will look pretty much the same as they do now – until 2024. That’s when the hammer falls. The thing that gets me? People are voting against the President’s party ostensibly because of decisions made in corporate boardrooms. Quick question, how many Americans are stupid enough to believe that one of the President’s responsibilities is sitting in the Oval Office setting prices? Sadly, the answer seems to be a LOT.

So the oil companies start gouging the crap out of Americans from sea to shining sea. Somehow, that’s Biden’s fault. Vote against his party. Brilliant. Do you really think things are going to change at the gas pump because of who sits in the Oval Office? The people who don’t understand things seem to really believe that gas prices are up in America because Biden cancelled 9,000 leases the oil companies weren’t using and had no intention of using and cancelled an additional pipeline that was still under construction and had not moved one drop of oil and was not set to move one drop until several years from now. Truthfully, it’s unclear how shutting down those things that were not being used (except to artificially fatten up the companies balance sheets) affected the oil supply at all. Of course, that’s all just factual information and the people who don’t understand things have no use for facts. But, in fairness, I do have to give them some credit on this one.

The oil companies have been gouging the nation freely for quite a long time, now. (Mostly, that’s conservative deregulation in action.) Politicians do NOT set company prices. The companies do that. But the politicians are not completely powerless, either. Recently here in California, to make sure people were angry with Biden, the gas companies shot the price of gas as high as they could and kept them there. It just went on and on, harming Americans and the economy, until Gavin Newsom started using the phrase, ‘windfall profits tax.’ Newsom even called for a special session of the state legislature to consider the idea. The moment the oil barons hear the phrase ‘windfall profits tax,’ the prices at the pump begin to tumble – and so they did in California. The price is still ridiculously high but it dropped about a dollar a gallon in a couple of days.

Gavin could have called for such a tax long before Californians were so very angry – but he didn’t. Hell, the special session he called to consider the question is set for December 5, nearly a month AFTER the mid-terms. I put this pseudo “action” into the category of Democrats pretending to come to the working man’s rescue. It seems fairly carefully timed. Sure, maybe they’ll take action. But even if they do, they waited too long to affect the mid-terms. People were already pissed off about the Supremely Kangaroo Court’s recent activist, ideological rulings but their pocketbooks began to blind them from their principles. Dems promised they’d do something but waited – you pick the reason – FAR too long to defend the mid-terms. I tend to believe that when a person or group CAN do something but doesn’t? That person or group made an intentional choice. Gavin wanted to look like he was “taking on the oil companies” without actually taking on the oil companies. Another example?

A couple of days ago, I heard two pieces of information within a few minutes of each other. One, the cons were set to take back the Congress. Two, Biden called for a windfall profits tax on the greed of the oil companies. Nicely, timed there, Joe. Try to affect the prices at the pump (pretending to come to American’s rescue) but do it only after you know your Congress is going to be controlled by American-hating, business loving cons who live to inflict harm on the most defenseless people they can find. Among the oil companies, the consumers, and the politicians, there’s consensus on the issue: it ain’t gonna happen. Cons only harm Americans. They never – EVER – do anything to help them. Waiting to make a promise to help until you KNOW you’re going to be thwarted by your opponents? That doesn’t look like you’re interested in helping. It looks like you’re interested in making empty gestures for campaign purposes. The people know you’re not going to help in reality and they’re voting accordingly.

I’ll tell you this, though: I still don’t think dumping the Republic was an appropriate response to high gas prices…

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In this special edition of MyBaconPress I was just going to write the above bit but then I saw a story in the Guardian I wanted to highlight. Ostensibly, one of the reasons Elon Musk bought Twitter was because he thought banning people from the platform for saying things other people didn’t like was wrong. In a standard display of his sacredly held principles, Musk has now taken to banning people on Twitter who impersonate him on the site. So…free-ish, Musk-approved speech? Got it…

Daylight Saving Time has taken another powder. Good. I agree with all of the chatter about getting rid of the time changes. I disagree with the suggestion that we STAY on Daylight Saving Time. We tried it once. You know what happened? People died! These days, hyperbole is everywhere with great pronouncements of looming huge, terrible things but this isn’t hyperbole and I’m not guessing. People died. Many of them were kids. Lovely, right? Staying on DST sent kids to school in the very dark during winter. Some got hit by cars driven by people who couldn’t see them. (Supporters pointed out there were fewer accidents in the afternoons.)

Americans don’t live by the sun anymore. We live by the clock. If you have to be a work at a certain time, it takes a certain amount of time to get ready and get there, and you want a certain amount of sleep, you calculate the clock, not the sun – and that’s how most Americans live these days.

Oh, well. I suppose this is all just howling at the moon. The United States has become, more than any other thing, adept at stupidity. We seem always to gravitate toward whichever is the stupidest idea, no matter the subject. ‘Idiocracy,’ writ large. It’s the conservative way and the cons are in charge now…

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Isn’t it exciting, living through the death throes of a once-great nation? Not ‘exciting’ in a good way, of course. ‘Agitating’ might be a better word. It’s really quite a shame. To tell you the truth, I’m lost in a morass of “It can’t happen here” even as it happens here. It’s going to be hard, listening to the cons gloat as they savor their stolen “victories.” By now it’s clear to every thinking person that the cons aren’t listening to anybody bringing facts or evidence. All they want is the “win” – at any cost. It has long been clear, though, the ‘cost’ will be the Republic and listening to them cheer the death of a once-great nation is going to be a challenge. They would tell you I’m wrong, of course. They’ll be able to show a bunch of slickly produced opinion pieces that “prove” all is well and on the up and up but every one of them will be wrong. I’ve never seen a con opinion piece that doesn’t have some error somewhere. Con positions depend on “errors.”

I’m a fan of vindication and there will likely be some small satisfaction as the policies they defended so blindly come home to haunt them. It will be like the guy on the Titanic who knew the ship was in trouble – tried to tell everybody, in fact – watching the other passengers toss the ice around playfully, only to fall into panic as they finally realize, far too late, that the ship is in trouble. Sure, vindication…but since we’re all going down with the ship, it will be short-lived.

Cons love to prattle on about people of color living on the government dime but do you know who lives off the government even more? Red states! White people in red states. Particularly red states in the deep south. Cons and MAGA supporters. They’re going to be surprised to find themselves living with no lifelines, no safety net. They don’t believe it will happen to them any more than I thought it could happen here. But it did happen here and it will happen to them.

I’m not sure I believe all the hype about civil war or battles or revolutions. I know we should fight back. Sooner or later, we the people will have no choice but to fight back. But, as a group, we’ll avoid it as long as possible. The cons will inflict one insult to the system after another and people will get angrier and angrier but actually taking up arms and start killing people? That takes a major push for most. Something far more devastating than, “We stole your government.”

You can skim history at every other nation that failed, falling into authoritarian dictatorship. Look at the photos of the people. If you look closely at the forced throngs of “cheering” people, it’s common to see people in the crowds openly crying, knowing they’ve lost something special. But mostly, they just keep a low profile, hoping to wait it out. They hope, vainly, that some miracle will occur to deliver them. It doesn’t come, though. Still, they don’t actually fight back. People will put up with a LOT for their own reasons. The bloodshed comes later but it comes. We were warned by JFK. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.

I think the part the bothers me the most, in the immediate, will be watching the dumbass take possession of the country, a free man. When the cons complete their coup, he wins. He didn’t have to clear his criminal name. He only had to run out the clock until the Congress could be seized by ideologues. That should be complete this coming Tuesday. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like living in the conservative fever-dream. They think they’re embarking on a new Utopia. They think all kinds of stupid things.

California has a ballot initiative on this year’s mid-term ballot, Proposition 1. Prop 1 is being sold to the people of the state as ensconcing a woman’s right to choose and to control her own body into the state constitution, thereby ensuring reproductive control of a woman’s body to the woman who owns the body. But Federal law supersedes state law. Misogynist red states have had anti-abortion laws on their books for decades. Those laws simply couldn’t be implemented while the Federal government protected women’s rights. They became “trigger laws” that became active only after the activist Kangaroos made their ideological choice. That one-time protection will now become a detriment. The con Feds won’t allow states to decide for themselves. (Cons never really believed in states rights anyway…)

The next logical step, I’m guessing, is for the country to fragment. I don’t just mean ideologically. That has largely happened already. I mean literally. Nor do I suspect it will happen quickly. As I say, most people don’t stand up. They put their collective heads down. But I do, honestly, think the only remaining opportunity to protect progress is for California – and other thinking states – to secede from the conservative fever dream and make a go of it on their own.

I’ll tell you this: California is a “donor state.” California provides the money all those red-state cons take from the government every year. California doesn’t need the Federal government nearly as much as the Federal government needs California…

I was watching the Oct 28, 2022 episode of ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’ when the subject of Elon Musk came up. Bill (we’re on a first name basis, apparently) said he likes Elon and thinks Elon gets a raw deal. One of the guests began to make a point. She mentioned his Starlink system, Bill mentioned Tesla, she added “the reusable rocket.” Bill, defending Elon, exclaimed, “Bad guy, right?” Oh, I see. Musk’s companies have done some beneficial things so he’s automatically on the good list? Hmm…

The Volkswagen Bug. The Autobahn. The V-2 rocket, forerunner to the Saturn 5 that took man to the moon. All created under one Adolph Hitler. As it happens, even after those accomplishments, I’m just not ready to include Hitler on the good guy list. But, apparently, Bill Maher might consider it. Who knew?

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So, how long ago was it? Back in September, I think. Chief Kangaroo of the US Supremely Kangaroo Court, John Roberts, came out sniveling that people might associate the stupid ideological rulings of that packed court with the “legitimacy of the court.” Well, duh… HE, of course, was trying to pretend people shouldn’t do that. Just let them make their “rulings” based on ideology and not the law and never question the court’s legitimacy. But then…

The GOP needs an extra moment this “election.” It turns out, the IRS was about to hand over Trump’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee in connection to an investigation regarding the former president’s tax compliance. There’s a specific law on the books – it has been in place since the Teapot Dome scandal in the early 1920’s – that gives certain members of Congress the legal right to obtain ANY American’s taxes and says the IRS “shall furnish…” the returns. SHALL, not might, could, or if they’re in the mood.

Trump, of course, refuses to let anyone see his taxes. The reason, according to my guess, is that he’d be in even deeper trouble with the IRS than he is now with the State of New York for tax fraud. It seems Trump overstates asset values on loan applications and understates them on taxes. If he did that in New York, why wouldn’t he do it on the Federal level? The thing is, as most people know, Trump has taken on this mythic (read: fraudulent) ethos and his acolytes just (and only) believe everything good about him – whether it’s true or not. Now, theirs is a matter of faith and proof that Trump is a fraud likely won’t affect their devotion to him in any way. But any sling, any arrow might do some damage, especially to the candidates who channel the Dumbass in their own “elections.”

There’s not much question that if Trump’s fraudulent tax returns were turned over, some of the information in them would certainly “leak” just before these mid-terms. There’s a slight, outside chance that such a leak might impact Republican candidates, especially the craziest of them who repeat Trump’s obnoxious Big Lie. The cons can’t have that. Enter John Roberts, who single-handedly stopped the taxes from being delivered before the votes are cast. Sure, it’s directly opposed to a law that has been on the books for 100 years but it’s ideologically sound and helps his beloved GOP. Now, back to Roberts sniveling about “legitimacy…”

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Very few things in this crazy world startle me anymore but the level of control the conservative media has over it’s consumers continues to be one of them. The “leadership” of the Republican Party has dropped all pretense of American ideals – except to confuse the base. Loving America, the idea, is imperative to their long-term goals. But loving America, herself, as she is? No, not so much. These guys are actively trying to elect acolytes who want to choose who wins an election, not based on the number of votes but only on whom they prefer to see in office – and the rank and file have NO IDEA, no effing clue, there’s anything anti-American about that.

Some crazy broke into Nancy Pelosi’s house. He said he was sick of all the lies coming out of Washington DC. Yeah, yeah, politicians lie, call me when something new happens. But these guys have been conditioned to believe that if they don’t like something they hear, if they happen to disagree, well, clearly that’s a lie. They long ago rejected facts and evidence so there’s no using those to help. It’s all just down to their “feels.” They’re actually ready to kill based on how they feel today!

South Dakota has a Republican candidate this year who just got arrested for molesting his daughter. They won’t care. The con bubble will call it a political attack and they’ll vote for him, anyway. Same with Herschel Walker in Georgia. Clearly the guy has been sleeping around casually for decades and paying the bills for the abortions when he can get them and (sometimes) the kids when he can’t. Running as a staunch anti-abortion candidate after paying for multiple abortions is clearly hypocritical. Again, they won’t care. There IS no line. That’s why the dumbass can be called a super Christian and not know one word from the Bible. They want to believe he’s a Christian, so he’s a Christian. (In fairness, he’s no less Christian than many of the other folks who claim the title…)

The right wing media bubble will confirm whatever story comes down the line – until there’s a threat of a lawsuit. They just want what they want – and what they want is to destroy the Republic. They would argue with me, of course. They don’t KNOW they’re being manipulated and used as tools to overthrow the Constitution. Many will never know. Some will come to understand what they’ve wrought at some point, commonly once they see the actual fruits of their efforts. But, of course, by then it will be FAR too late.

The slow motion coup is nearly complete. Reagan was the first tool. (Maybe the first weapon.) Bush 41 didn’t play along so he only got to be a one-term guy. Bill was on-board, though. Clinton’s efforts toward the destruction of a once-great nation resulted in massive wealth for himself and hobnobbing with the wealthiest people on the planet. 43 did as he was told. Halliburton seems to have done the telling. Obama doesn’t get much blame but he DID lock Americans into a corporate medical insurance scam that hasn’t done much to provide actual medial care. And it all led to Trump. Make no mistake. The cons are only the tools the One Percent used to achieve their means. Once the Republic is a thing of the past, the cons will be shunted aside just as easily as the people who understand things. The media will still offer the indoctrination, though. One never knows when the lemmings will need direction…