Hooray, the politicians in charge seem to have reached a deal on the debt limit. Maybe. You know, pending approval from the entire Congress. We’ll see. It may still prove to be not-yet-cruel-enough to the most defenseless Americans. I guess, no surprises, here. I wrote a little while ago, I felt they’d come to some agreement and I’ve written that said agreement would inflict harm on the most vulnerable Americans so…I feel vindicated. Um…yippee? Details are sparse, of course.

They’ve agreed, in principle, to cap non-defense discretionary spending at 2023 levels for two years. Keyword? Non-defense. Actions speak louder than words. The cons are a-okay with borrowing and spending – so long as said spending is going toward killing somebody, somewhere. Kevin McCarthy pitched important euphemisms when he said it includes “historic reductions in spending” (again, non-defense spending) and “consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty and into the workforce.”

The cons have been pushing for increased work requirements for people who receive food stamps and other Federal aid programs. (No! NOT subsidies to mega-corporations! THOSE “Federal aid programs” are essential…and sacrosanct!) Poor people. They mean poor people. The victims of the ‘Greatest Country on Earth.’

Did whatever you were digging for run out or become unprofitable so your job went away and nothing ever came in to replace it? Suck it up, buttercup, get a (non-existent) job anyway. Why – and this is important – WHY are certain people just…allowed to lounge around in their wheelchairs all day? Get ’em on an assembly line, somewhere. Listen, we’re conservatives in Congress. It’s not our job to get you jobs. It’s our job to punish you for not having one – NO! Keep your “reasons” to yourself – by cutting as many holes in your safety net as we can. And we LOVE our job…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve been listening to the cons go on and on (and on and on and on and ON) about how they looooove freedom. Nothing, but NOTHING, is more important than freedom. Freedom this, freedom that. They want their freedom, freedom, freedom. They wrap themselves in the flag, paint half their face blue, look directly into the camera and shout “FREEDOM!” like they really, really love freedom.

The thing about cons and their “FREEDOM!” is that they don’t really mean freedom for all. They’re not really interested in freedom beyond themselves. They’re interested in their own, perfect freedom. No, not you. YOU don’t get freedom, you get to do as you’re told. But me? “FREEDOM!” I know a lot of cons who would try to argue the point with me, but they lose before they open their mouths. Actions STILL speak louder than words. So, let’s set the rhetoric aside for the moment and look at what cons actually DO with their “FREEDOM!”

You want to marry someone I disapprove of? NO!
You want to read a book that scares me? NO!
You want to vote? NO!
You identify in a way I think is weird? NO!
You want to highlight social injustice wearing a sports team’s uniform? NO!
You want control of your own reproduction? Oh, HELL No!
You want the sperm donor to take responsibility for his “Ugh?” NO!
You want to teach children actual history? Fuck you, NO! (Conservatives look really bad throughout history…)
You want to suggest that people who don’t look like me may NOT be dangerous? NO!
You want to take action to try and protect yourself from getting shot by a random stranger? No, No, NO!
You want to buy a short-barrel rifle and murder the next 32 random strangers you see? NO…way I’d interfere with THAT glorious freedom!

It can be summed up this way: the cons insist on the freedom to rob other people of their freedoms. I’d like to blame Fox Not-News but this is their pattern going back to at least the civil war. (Yeah, Rupert Murdoch is old but he’s not THAT old…) What, after all, was the civil war about if not slave states “rights” to deny other human beings their rights? And the pattern continues.

There’s a comedian named Jim Jefferies who does a bit on American “freedom.” He makes the point that America isn’t even the freEST country on Earth. (This is a link. Click here to watch him. Seven funny minutes…)

I’ll tell you this: I’ll believe the cons are serious about “FREEDOM!” when they get serious about protecting everyone’s freedom.

Tuesday afternoon
Lying, criminal, sexual predator Donald Trump is a little upset. He saw a judge on Tuesday and the judge set his trial date for March 25, 2024. That, of course, is right in the middle of primary season. The judge told him to clear his schedule for the duration of the trial, which might last several weeks. Every step of the way, Former Guy has done everything he can to forestall these trials.

The general consensus is that he’s hoping to put the trials off long enough to be able to use his political campaign as an excuse. If he can get himself elected again, THEN people will leave him alone until he’s out of office. Since he never plans to leave office if the country is stupid enough to put him back there, he’d be free and clear. He sure is quite the schemer…

But the judge is getting a bit tired of the antics. For example, setting the trial date was only a part of the reason the judge ordered Trump’s presence, if only on a video screen. The judge felt a need to tell the sexual predator Trump he’s not allowed to use discovery information to attack or embarrass or identify any of the witnesses. They had to TELL him – and I’d bet it won’t be long until he does it anyway. I expect the judge has already considered his response when (not “if”) Trump does exactly what the judge told him not to do.

Former tried to pretend he was hearing about the March 25 trial date for the first time but his lawyer confirmed he already knew. Hell, his team worked with the judge to set the date in the first place. But the ever-deceived won’t know any of that. Trump will grunt, “Bad!” and they’ll grunt right along with him. So OF COURSE trump will use the campaign as an excuse to try to avoid responsibility. OF COURSE he will. But that’s not what I sat down to write about.

Sexual predator Donald Trump didn’t have anything to say to the judge but he DID get right to work on social media. The very moment he was no longer under the judges eyes, Trump said the judge had violated his First Amendment rights, claiming his freedom of speech had been violated. He didn’t say how. I’d guess EVERY defendant really HATES getting a trial date. I’m not sure one could make a case that getting a trial date to stand trial for the wrongs you’ve done qualifies as violating one’s First Amendment rights – but you can bet the dumbass “Team Trumpery” will try.

The predator ALSO called it “election interference” and said that nothing like this has ever happened in this country before. THAT part is likely true. We’ve never been faced with a lying, criminal, sexual predator ex-president trying to weasel out of crimes he’s committed before. I guess the Republicans have standards they’ve got to lower and standards absolutely DO NOT get any lower than Donald J. Trump…

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Tuesday Morning:
That particular bit of crazy from the crazy-meister came during his hearing with the Judge but before any of that happened, Former Guy got another little surprise. The day after he was found responsible for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll, Captain Crazy went out and immediately started defaming her again. So, she filed another defamation suit, this one in the amount of $10 million dollars.

Now, to be clear, when the “punishments” are only financial, Former doesn’t care. It doesn’t affect him. His obsequious acolytes will pay ANY amount, at any time. They’ll happily eat cat food for the rest of the month so they can send the stable(ish), genius (not), millionaire (maybe) as much of their Social Security check as they can. 45 never pays these fines. So tell me again, why might he care about fines?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wednesday Evening:
Ron DuhSantis FINALLY, officially threw his hat into the ring for the race for the White House. He decided he wanted to do it with technology and thought announcing on Twitter would be a clever idea after watching Elon Musk’s masterful handling (so far) of Twitter. It might have been a clever idea but, hey, it’s Elon Musk using Twitter. The thing kept crashing. Do you believe in omens?

DuhSantis has been working feverishly to prove to the world he hates women, he hates freedom of thought and he effing HATES Mickey Mouse – so of COURSE you should vote for him for President. Listen, he DID manage to run off a $1 BILLION dollar business development in Florida and dispense with the possibility of up to 2,000 jobs for Floridians, too, so we all have a great idea regarding his business acumen.

DuhSantis is NOT the Trump-killer. I didn’t think it was possible to be dumber than a trump but DuhSantis seems to be making his case. The cons don’t care about stupid, though. Hell, they admire it. The reason DuhSantis isn’t going to win is FAR more superficial: he’s short. I know, that sounds unkind but it’s a weird fact of America that Americans tend to vote for the taller person. It’s not an axiom, just a tendency. But it’s a dependable tendency and 45 is taller than DuhSantis by several inches…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thursday Morning:
The founder of the traitorous, radical hate group ‘Oath Keepers,’ a real piece of…um…work named Stewart Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years for seditious conspiracy regarding his part in lying, criminal, sexual predator Donald Trump’s attempted coup. It seems like it took forever to get to the meat and potatoes of this whole thing but officials are finally getting to the ringleaders.

It was a bit frustrating watching as one attacker after another got, like, 18 months with lower charges than many people hoped for. (Trespassing?!?) Hell, the so called “Q-anonsense Shaman”, the guy with the buffalo hat and the spear? He’s already out! He got some considerations for good behavior. Stewart Rhodes will get the same considerations but with a starting sentence of 18 years, he’s likely gone for a long time to come.

The courts have started issuing harsher sentences as the trials have focused on the “masterminds” behind the assault. That feels more like justice. It’s my understanding ‘seditious conspiracy’ doesn’t come up very often in courts but with Rhodes going down for it, the portent for the Former Guy is looking worse and worse. If Rhodes got 18 years for his leadership role in the Trump insurrection, how much time do they give the insurrection’s namesake?

Actually, it won’t be that long. 45 has a few years under his belt (he’s old) and the prison system isn’t really equipped for geriatric care so they tend to release older inmates. But it DOES make prison for Donald Trump look a little more like a possibility…

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Friday evening:
Jessica Watkins was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for her role in the insurrection with the Oath Keepers, as well. She was not convicted of seditious conspiracy but she’s going away for awhile. She’s transgender. She tried using her identity confusion as an excuse. The judge sympathized, then issued the sentence. Buh-bye. Don’t let the door hit you…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ll tell you this: It’s been a rough week for the cons. It turns out, one can only out-run truth, facts, and reality for so long – then they catch up and BOY do they bite you in the ass. A bad week for conservatives, though, is a good week for America so…fingers crossed…

Apparently, the University of Chicago did a study last year reporting that just 18% of Americans said they had a great deal of confidence in the Supreme Court.

How could 18% of Americans be so stupid?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, speaking of the Kangaroos, the Democrats are out, up in arms, opining that we need to expand the Supremely Kangaroo Court to balance out the extremist ideologues now in control. I agree that the partisan, activist, ideological rulings of the court are VERY bad news for America (and, likely, human beings everywhere) but expanding the court seems like it will just cause problems down the road.

It started with seven Justices. Now it’s nine. In order balance out the crazy, the Biden administration would have to add four more seats. Thirteen Justices? Then, say 45 does manage to buy his way back to the Oval Office. What do you think he’d do? Would he add just one to give the cons power again? Would he add four to ensure a solid majority? Would the maniac add five, just to be able to brag that he added more seats, more beautiful, perfect seats than anyone ever? (And, by the way, it’s all a witch hunt…)

Yes, the conservatives on the court have dispensed with integrity. They’ve abandoned any and all pretense at neutrality. ‘Citizens United,’ alone, has done so much damage to America, it seems likely thinking people will never be able to recover the American experiment, and I hate that. But a 30 Justice court? 40 maybe? How many is too many?

The thing is, it’s all just showmanship. The Dems can’t expand the court unilaterally. It would take legislation. They MIGHT have been able to do so when they controlled both houses of Congress but there’s not a path to do it with Republicans in charge of the House. Republicans hate America. They LOVE the carnage they’re inflicting on the most vulnerable people and there’s NO WAY they’re going to relinquish the power they have voluntarily.

It’s pretty much the same thing I wrote yesterday. If we want to save this once-great, now submerging nation, we have to eliminate every Republican we can. (With votes. Put that powder away…) If we can, we might be able to save the nation. If we can’t?

I’ll tell you this: The conservative fever dream is ugly, horrifying, damaging and dangerous. It’s not going to be a pleasant ride…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Listen, I liked Dianne Feinstein, I really did. I voted for her several times. Later, as she aged, she started sounding more and more like a con, to me, and I started voting against her. The cons have a saying that makes them feel better about themselves: “If you’re not a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative when you’re older, your brain hasn’t calcified.” (Wait, that may not be the exact wording.)

But it does seem to apply to Feinstein. She’s now caught up in full-blown senility of some kind. It seems as though she doesn’t even know where she is at any given time, anymore, but she keeps clinging to that seat – and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

It reminds me of when RBG refused to step down when she was “invited” to do so by Obama. Her choice to stay on, combined with predictable conservative treachery, contributed heavily to the packed crap court we suffer today. One can only wonder what damage Feinstein’s refusal to accept, or possibly understand, reality is doing in the background.

I’ll tell you this: I think we need a mechanism to remove politicians who are clearly suffering cognitive impairments. I understand why SHE can’t face the facts. Who the hell wants to lose their mind to age? It should not be her call, particularly when she can’t even say where she’s been over the last three months…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I watched the Warriors lose to the Lakers in the NBA playoffs. I have a friend who is a dedicated Lakers fan and we talked about the games. I’m only a casual fan so I don’t take it too seriously but I didn’t really say to him what I was thinking while I watched. It didn’t look to me so much like the Lakers beat the Warriors. I mean, it looked more like the Warriors lost than the Lakers won. Same difference when the Warriors went home and the Lakers moved on but my perception seems to be playing out correctly in this round where the Denver Nuggets now have a 3-0 lead over the Lakers.

I think the Warriors played badly – and they STILL nearly won. There were a couple of games where the Warriors couldn’t hit a basket to save their – well, their season, for sure. At least two games, nearly the entire team shot 0 for double-digits. (That may not be technically, perfectly accurate. I didn’t check because I don’t care enough, but it’s close.) I suspect the Warriors dynasty might be in it’s waning days. It’s too bad. They were fun to watch.

By the way, I won’t be taunting my Lakers-loving friend. I passed on the opportunity to tell him I expected them to get bumped before the series began and it doesn’t seem right to retroactively smack-talk him, now. But I can’t honestly say I’m bummed to see the Lakers get bumped…

When it comes to conservatives, every accusation they make is a confession. Case in point? We’ve been listening, like it or not, to cons complain about election rigging and stolen elections and just about every kind of election chicanery they can think of. No, there’s never proof, just words. Cons don’t need no stinkin’ proof…

But now, Ron DuhSantis has signed into law a bill releasing him from obligations under Florida law regarding running for office while holding a different office. The idea, apparently, is to either focus on your job or your campaign but don’t try to do both. NOW, suddenly, that’s okay if you’re, say, the Governor and you want to run for, oh, I don’t know…say…President of the United States. Because, really, how important is the job of Governor anyway? That particular bill also included a bunch of new voting restrictions because conservatives HATE that people get to vote. Well, some people…

Oh, he ALSO signed a bill that allows him to avoid reporting who visits him in his office or mansion or who travels with him AND he doesn’t have to report past or future travel anymore, either. Why, after all, would anybody need to know who travels or meets with the Governor of the Grating State of Floriduh? Transparency, Smansparency! (My spell check is hating this bit…)

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This is just my opinion but I think it’s time to relegate the Republicans to the same trash bin as the nation once – correctly – relegated the extremist Libertarians. Americans like the euphemism “two party system” but America is NOT a two party system. (I actually agree with Noam Chomsky that America has only one party: the Business Party with two factions, one called ‘Republicans’ and the other called ‘Democrats’ but that’s a different bit…)

America has lots of political parties. It’s just that most of them represent extreme views and most Americans aren’t really into extreme views so those parties don’t get much attention or traction. There was an extremist arm of the Republican party called the John Birch Society that thought the Republicans had become too centrist. There ideas were eventually picked up by what became the Libertarian Party and broke away from the Republicans. But they were too extreme.

David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket in 1980. He knew he wasn’t going to win but he pumped over $2 million of his own dollars into the campaign anyway. Predictably, he got his ass handed to him. So his brother Charles conceived a plan. They began using their vast wealth to undermine American values at every turn.

They funded seats in colleges and created pseudo-think tanks (better called “stink tanks”) to inject misinformation and disinformation into the body politic. They started buying news outlets and having those outlets deliver their anti-American information. They enlisted help from other wealthy fascists and spread the money around, always in the service of promoting wrong ideas. Then, they re-infected the once-respected Republican party and, well, you likely know the rest.

Now the Republicans represent pretty much the very worst of humanity, the very problems this country had largely overcome, and are moving us backwards at an alarming rate. Honestly, I can’t, off the top of my head, think of a single positive thing the cons say about America, these days. I mean, sure, they wrap themselves in the flag and SCREAM “patriotism” but those are just words. Based on their actions, they hate everything about the US Constitution except the 2nd Amendment, which they don’t understand.

They talk “freedom” but the freedom they want is the freedom to deny YOU freedom. No, you don’t get to manage your own reproduction. Leave that to rich old men in Washington, DC. No, you don’t get to express your authentic self. Too scary. No, you don’t get to read what you want to read. You don’t get to learn what your college professor thinks is important for you to learn.

You don’t have the freedom to pursue life, liberty nor happiness, lest you interfere with some gun rights advocates freedom to kill you where you stand for the “crime” of needing milk or going to school or whatever other daily activity in which you might engage. You don’t get to let your children BE children. Get their little asses to work. And you, too. You DO have the “freedom” to produce wealth for the boss for whatever pittance the boss feels like handing out in his largess. (Say ‘Thank you…’)

These are all things prominent on the conservative agenda. None of them are paranoid rants – the Republicans are doing, or trying to do – ALL of them. I haven’t even mentioned their dedication to tax cuts for the wealthy or “deregulation” – the conservative euphemism for “let corporations do whatever they want.”

Thinking Americans have been watching the process play out, slowly and in stealth, for over 40 years now. But it’s not in stealth mode anymore. The evidence is everywhere and it’s undeniable and there’s only one way to stop it: never vote Republican. The Republicans have proven, beyond question, they are opposed to the American way of life and they want something worse, something FAR more brutal to the majority.

I’ll tell you this: The MAGA cons don’t know any of this but then, these are people who think 45 did a good job and Biden is doing a bad job so…what do they know? They’ll vote Republican. But no one else should. Ever.

There’s quite a bit of chatter about CNN’s decision to host a town hall featuring lying, criminal, sexual predator Donald Trump. The bit that seems to chafe is that they ALSO packed the audience with Trump-adoring bootlickers, the kind of people who LIVE to adore the Former guy. I, for one, am a-okay with hosting a town hall for an “opposition” candidate, though I ALSO hold that news agencies shouldn’t be so biased as to have “opposition” candidates. If the outlet is journalistically neutral, Trump should just be a candidate.

Packing the audience with sycophants, though? Not a good look. There was a time when I considered CNN a solid news outlet. No longer. It wasn’t the town hall, though. They’ve been getting weirder and weirder over there for quite some time. For a long time, every time a truck backed up they broke out their “BREAKING NEWS!” banner, making it seem like something was happening when nothing was happening. Scary sensationalism is a lying Fox Not News thing. It doesn’t belong on CNN.

So, I don’t know what they’re trying to do but I know what they’re NOT trying to do: provide solid, objective news. I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’m going to stay away from CNN going forward. That’s the problem with selling one’s integrity. It sells pretty easily but once it’s gone, it is difficult to impossible to get back.

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The Antioch police department is all roiled in a scandal in which the cops on the beat have been caught exchanging racist texts. Right now, investigations are under way and some of the cops are sidelined. Meanwhile, every lawyer of a convict imprisoned because of testimony from one of these cops is searching through the transcripts looking for ANY sign of racism in the trial.

Some guilty people may well go free because some cop couldn’t keep his lesser angels under control and that’s a concern but a bigger concern to me? I wonder how many actually innocent people might be sitting in jail under false pretenses because of these racist cops. The “crime” of being a darker shade of brown than the majority can be very dangerous in this once-great nation…

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California is wrestling with the question of reparations to descendants of slaves. The current proposal is for affected people to receive checks of up to $5 million dollars. Maybe that will quiet the crowd. Certainly it will salve the consciences of some. Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea. THAT payment, not the reparations.

I confess, I used to have a bit of a smug attitude about reparations. I thought, sure, let’s give something to anybody still alive who experienced slavery, fully aware that if there ARE any people still alive who experienced slavery, there are precious few of them. Turns out? I was a dolt on the matter. I got on board with the idea after watching this woman, Amber Ruffin, make the case that reparations are due for more than just slavery in her video ‘Reparations are due for more than just slavery: the Amber Ruffin show.‘ That’s a link. You should click it and give it a watch. Six minutes of your life and she’ll address any questions you might have on the topic. Oh, and she’s funny…

Still, I don’t like the idea of just handing people a wad of cash. People who struggle to make ends meet are very good at stretching a dollar over two weeks but they’re crap at managing millions of dollars. How could they not be? When have they had the chance? It’s a weird reality of people who win the lottery that many of them blow through their winnings and end up just as broke as before, often worse off. The problem is not an inherent failure. It’s lack of skill, the direct result of lack of experience.

Simply handing over $5 million dollars is nothing more than a short term band-aid. It won’t put people back on path to “generational wealth.” It will give the economy a short term boost as people blow through their windfall and then leave them back where they started – but with a nicer television.

I’ll tell you this: It’s a tricky question. How does one make up for decades, no, generations of oppression and denial? America was supposed to be the land of opportunity but we’ve had entire classes of people denied any and every opportunity the society could get away with blocking throughout our history. Stopping that would be a good start…

Wendy’s – the fast “food” chain – has announced an intention to employ Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the order-taking process at their drive-throughs. They said exactly what they’re supposed to say. “No, it’s not about getting rid of human employees, don’t be ridiculous!” Those are weasel words – words used to weasel out of something. They won’t “get rid of” employees. But if this works, and they desperately hope it does, they just won’t hire any more people to do that job. See the difference?

The other “reason” they offered was that order-taking would now become more accurate. No more mistakes! Lovely. Look, Corporate likely knows more about those mistakes than I do, but it seems to me the breakdown between order-taking and delivery happens somewhere else. I think some human employee hands out the wrong bag. Two cars get accurately recorded orders – just not the order they placed. That’s a little different and the AI won’t fix it. THAT will be up to the coming robots who ALSO won’t “replace workers.”

There are already fully automated fast “food” restaurants. Did you know? It’s a kind of a wet dream of corporate overlords everywhere; work without workers. Think of what THAT will do to fatten the bottom line and the CEO take-home pay. Glorious! I spent several years working as a corporate accountant and I can say with some certainty that, commonly, the largest single line on any Profit and Loss Statement is “Employee expenses.” Corporations ALWAYS want to reduce that line – especially if they can reduce the employee expense at the expense of some other employee.

Look, I know this is coming. It seems inevitable. I just wish they didn’t try to get public buy-in by claiming the machines that replace us will enhance our customer experience. Just ONCE, I’d love to hear the truth from them: “Replacing expensive, whiny employees (except ourselves, of course) will enhance our profitability experience!”

At least that would be honest…

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A while back, I was watching ‘Real Time with Bill Maher.’ Bill (can I call you ‘Bill?’) posed a question: What’s the difference between equality and equity? He and his panel all spent a moment considering the question, looking at each other with confused, Carlson faces, pondering the depth of the challenge and putting on their best “serious person” expressions. Finally, all agreed. They didn’t know and couldn’t say. Apparently, it’s just some undefinable, unknowable thing. Who knew?

I can’t explain why a supposedly left-leaning show would make such a transparent effort to pretend it was some unanswerable, cosmic question best left to philosophers and scholars. I CAN tell you this, for sure: it always irritates me when people pretend to be stupid in an effort to discount a thing. So, here, let me help. In the context, equality is when everyone gets the same, regardless of need or resources. Equity is when everyone gets what they need. Simple, eh? Here, I can even show you a picture:

(Full disclosure: I don’t know who drew this or owns it but I love it.)

Obviously, the “problem” with that cartoon – to the wanna-be autocracy – is that the tall guy (think of him as the rich-ass, fat-cat) doesn’t get a handout the others get. Sure, he doesn’t need it but greed is greed and it will not be denied. What I LIKE about the cartoon is that it puts the lie to one of the worst conservative positions currently on offer. “They” (probably the government) took the box from the tall guy and gave it to the shortest guy. It graphically depicts how the tall guy wasn’t hurt by what he gave up but the short guy benefited tremendously. You know what that is? Democratic Socialism, known better in America as the New Deal. It was a good thing. It’s what made America great in the first place. Don’t ever let them convince you otherwise with their weasel words…

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Has anyone besides me considered that when lying, criminal, sexual-predator Donald Trump says he doesn’t even know who E. Jean Carroll – a woman he sexually assaulted – is, he’s telling the truth? She was merely an employee at a department store – exactly the kind of person who exists, in his pampered and privileged, twisted little mind, expressly for his amusement. The idea that he might meet her, sexually assault her, and leave without ever knowing her name or who she is or even recognizing her as a human being doesn’t surprise me at all.

But the fact that he didn’t count her “worth” remembering doesn’t mean he didn’t sexually assault her.

Trump never ceases to amaze me. When the Access Hollywood recording was released – you remember, that’s when he bragged that stars can just grab women by their, um…let’s say, inappropriately, and get away with it, I defended him – much to my regret. I didn’t believe it was anything more than braggadocio, locker-room talk between a blowhard and a sycophant. THEN, he repeated the claim during his deposition! He even doubled-down when he added, “…unfortunately or fortunately.” His all encompassing ego COULD NOT allow him to dismiss the concept under oath or even deny he saw himself as exactly that kind of privileged “star.”

Now he has to pay Ms. Carroll $5 million dollars. The thing that irks me is that HE won’t pay a dime. His ever-faithful, foolish followers will pay the fine for him. Sure, he’s forever stuck with the moniker, “sexual predator,” but I suspect sexual predator Donald Trump will count that as a badge of honor. Certainly he’ll use it in his “poor me” tour to rally his ever-shrinking fan-base. “Why, oh why do they keep prosecuting me for my crimes? It’s the Democratic agenda!”

Oh, yeah, that damned thing. I’ll tell you this, I fully support the Democratic agenda item that says, ‘Prosecute criminals’ and I expect to continue to fully support it for the foreseeable future…

Once upon a time, a group of lawmen raided the Manhattan mansion of a suspected child molester named Jeffery Epstein. At the time, they found a cache of DVDs, each labeled with the name of a prominent person (okay, “man”) and the underage woman he was with. They didn’t take those at the time because their warrant didn’t cover the discs. When officials returned to collect the discs, they were gone.

Later, though, other discs were discovered in other Epstein-owned locations and those were picked up. Before photos of the cache were released, the names written on them were redacted. The judge ordered that action because the names identified “information for third parties.”

Just a question, here, but are they not “co-conspirators” and not just “third parties?” Shouldn’t they have been arrested too? Doesn’t the public deserve to know which of our rich and powerful “leaders” like to diddle underage women on the side? We know about Prince Andrew cause he’s a brit but we also know that Bill Clinton and Donald Trump used to pal around with Epstein, too. Are they on a DVD somewhere?

What? The FBI lost them? Well, that doesn’t pass the smell test.

I’ll tell you this, I don’t really believe the FBI loses evidence unless it intends to lose evidence – and that stinks…

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198, as of yesterday. Mass shootings, I mean. 8 dead, 7 wounded – three critically – in Texas. The shooter is among the dead. In this case, he actually was stopped by a good guy with a gun, a cop who happened to be on site.

I used to argue that conservatives are not really stupid people. My position was they they are so woefully deceived by their preferred media, they simply don’t understand what’s going on around them. But when push comes to shove, these people are failing at basic cause and effect. At best, adults who can’t understand basic cause and effect are not displaying brilliance.

Personally, I didn’t need 198 mass shootings to understand that taking mental health care away from the masses while making it easier for an increasingly angry people to get assault weapons designed to kill humans was a perfect recipe for disaster. In fact, I’d label it SO predictable, it seems it might well be someone’s intention – keep ’em scared, keep ’em angry, give ’em guns. What could go wrong?

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“The following is a rebuttal to a KRUD editorial denouncing the legalization of marijuana. Speaking FOR the legalization of marijuana, is Ashley Roachclip, President of United Heads for Hemp.” If you know Cheech and Chong, you likely know that bit. It’s a send up of editorial rebuttals that tended to show up in public broadcasts when some station issued an editorial opinion. They were a regular occurrence through my teens. Then?

I guess I should start at the start. Back in 1949, the FCC introduced a rule, called the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ that dictated broadcast license holders offering editorial opinions had to provide equal time to responsible opposing opinions. They usually DID start off exactly the way the Cheech and Chong bit did: “The following is a rebuttal to…” Then, as one of his many assaults on the United States and “the American way,” the Reagan administration eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in 1987.

I sure miss the Fairness Doctrine. We really need it. All those mass shootings so many Americans don’t understand? That’s because we don’t have the Fairness Doctrine anymore. (Perhaps a bit simplistic but stay with me, here.)

To my mind, there’s just too much evidence that the destruction of the United States was an intentional and well-planned act. The planning began in the 1970’s and was implemented by Ronald Reagan beginning in 1980. It was clear to those who prefer Fascism that the Fairness Doctrine was causing problems for them, so it had to go.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a person who asked me if I thought all of the legal rulings going against the trumpery might have tarnished his image with his worshipers, even a little bit. I said no, I don’t think so. Not because they wouldn’t be outraged if they knew but, worse, they don’t know. If their preferred outlet doesn’t tell them, they just don’t know it happened.

I mention that to say this. When the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated, the argument in favor was that there were SO MANY outlets out there, people could simply tune in elsewhere to hear opposing views so it wasn’t necessary to force broadcasters to provide opposing opinions. These days, I call such arguments “philosophical” arguments. They SEEM correct but they have no practical application. (The position seemed stronger at the time because Fox Not-News had not yet weaponized the First Amendment.)

Yes, it’s true, people could switch from station to station to gather opinions. But you know what? They don’t. Fox Not-News viewers are not tuning in to, say, CNN to get both sides of the story. They stick to Fox. Period. (CNN viewers DO, sometimes, tune in to Fox from time to time, sometimes on a lark but always a mistake, just to see what the crazies are saying but it’s not common.)

Worse, the conservative bubble tells it’s consumers NOT to check other sources. They control their followers the exact same way fundamental churches control their adherents. “Don’t listen to outsiders. They only want to pollute your mind and disrupt your “walk.” See? It’s disloyal to Jesus if you listen to someone ask a question. In the same way, it’s disloyal to conservatism if you consider some other point of view on any topic at any time. (I’m one of those people who used to tune in to conservative broadcasts for short bursts of b.s. I once heard, with my own ears, Rush Limbaugh tell his audience they didn’t need to think. That’s what they had him for. HE would read the news and tell them what to think.)

That’s why we need a return of the Fairness Doctrine. Fox Not News runs nearly all editorials all day long and, from what I hear, it’s an on-going diatribe of fear-mongering and hate that keeps conservatives terrified and angry. They NEVER hear anything Fox doesn’t want them to hear and if someone does share a fact here and there, they react badly and reject the input. Can’t disrupt the “walk.”

There used to be a radio station around here, KGO News talk. Conservatives killed it. It was pretty much all opinion, too AND it operated under the watchful eye of the Fairness Doctrine. How? Well, they put on a liberal host in the morning and followed him with a conservative host. Then a liberal, then a conservative, etc. In broadcasting both sides, they were in compliance with the doctrine and the listeners got to hear competing opinions just by never touching the dial. Fox could do the same thing but I’d bet you three quarters of a billion dollars they never, ever will – not without being forced.

I’ll tell you this: We need a return of the Fairness Doctrine. Thanks to Citizens United, we’ll never get that done but after the revolution? Keep it mind. Accurate information is the life blood of democracy…

How IS that deregulation thing working out?

My eyes burn…
I lost everything in an investment scam…
Is the news only lies these days?
I just got shot…
My daughter, Lucy, is…Oh, gods, where is Lucy?
Oh, she had to get to work.
Work? She’s SIX!
Yeah, I don’t know why she waited so long to be productive, either. Lazy, maybe?
I just got shot…
My bank collapsed so I found another one and IT collapsed, too!
Do we really have to trust criminal minds to do the right thing?
My taxes just went up again so rich people could pay less…
I just got shot…
My insulin is now $1.5 million dollars – per dose.
I can’t get my kid into that “privatized” charter school…
I just got shot…

I’ll tell you this: I liked it better when the lesser angels of our fellow Americans were restrained by rules and regulations. This “winner-take-all” and “survival of the cruelest” is a horrible way to live…

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Do you think the politicians are actually going to default on the debt? I don’t, not really. The cons scare me – more than just a little – but their financial fortunes are tied up in the American economy just like everybody else’s. The scary part is, they spend their time living in a delusional fantasy land where things happen just because they want them to. That makes them difficult to predict.

Crashing the economy would fly directly in the face of the conservative mantra, “Screw you, I got mine.” These days, I actually and honestly believe conservatives hate America. I know, that goes against their flag waving and proclamations of patriotism but, setting the show-pieces aside, everything they stand for is anti-American. They might really crash the economy just to do it.

But mostly, I think their own “motivated self-interest” (read: greed) will get them to pass an extension so we can all live on the edge again in about six months.

It’s a really stupid system…

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So…they’ve convicted some of the Proud Boys for seditious conspiracy. That’s good. One of them wasn’t even in Washington DC on January 6th but prosecutors were able to show enough evidence that he was in on the conspiracy to get the conviction anyway. It’s a very good sign and a portent of how they plan to go after Former Guy.

He wasn’t at the Capitol that day, either. Now, though, they’ve established the idea that he didn’t need to be. All they have to do is show he coordinated with them and they’re good to go…and maybe he’ll be good and gone…

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Speaking of the Dumbass and the massive criminal caseload he’s facing, things seem to be going poorly for him in the rape trial, just like all the other trials. Barring jury nullification, I’m guessing he’s going to be found guilty.

It changes something I said in the past. When that grab them by the…well, you know…recording came out, I really thought it was just locker room talk. I think of trump as FAR too cowardly to be so direct but, once again, I underestimated just how horrible a human being he really is. His ego overpowers his cowardice. He believes himself entitled to assault women (they are, after all, only women) and so he does. Okay, allegedly. (Gotta say ‘allegedly’ until the conviction…)

It’s too bad he won’t go to jail for it. I think I’ll start using his name again when I can write “the rapist Donald Trump” every time. Maybe “lying rapist Donald Trump.” How about “criminal, lying rapist Donald Trump?” Technically, I guess it should be “traitorous, criminal, lying rapist Donald Trump.”

Yeah, it’s a lot to type each time I write his name but he’s earned those distinctions and I would be the last person on Earth to deny him his proper titles…