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…