Out With The Bad?

It’s only been a couple of days. I just wrote, Thursday, about Fox Not-News showing a chyron that said “Wanna be dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.” A headline in this morning’s Guardian says, “Fox News (sic) producer behind Biden “wanna be” dictator resigns.” Apparently, (according to Tucker Carlson so, take that with a grain of salt) he offered to stay for the customary two weeks but management told him to clear out his desk and get out.

Fox Not-News still stands as the Everest of bullshit mountains but they’re pretty clearly being more cautious about how they spread their manure. It looks like they’re trying to be 787.5% more cautious about the blatancy of their baloney… Good.

I STILL say we need the Fairness Doctrine back – equal time for responsible, opposing opinions. Yes, there ARE so many outlets out there people could easily check out the information from the “other side” – but people don’t. If one just puts on lying Fox Not-News (or MSNBC, for that matter) and leaves the station there all day, that person comes away with a heavily one-sided opinion of events with no pushback or balance from the other side.

There’s a reason cons think Biden didn’t win the last election and that pursuing criminal charges in response to criminal activity is somehow “weaponizing” the DOJ, or that ALL outgoing Presidents steal and stash thousands of classified documents or that Joe Biden is a senile, bumbling, totally inept fool who is, nevertheless and at the same time, the brilliantly successful mastermind behind the persecution of his political rival – and it’s not stupidity. It’s propaganda.

EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY in which Fascism has ever taken hold, started off with the general, national belief that “it can’t happen here.” But it’s already happening here, in the United States of America, and the tentacles of authoritarianism are slowly closing around the throat of our once-great nation – and propaganda is one of the primary tools of the Fascists…

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The Associated Press is running a story about how there are now more supermajorities in state legislatures than there have been in the last 40 years. A supermajority happens when one party is so heavily represented they can override a gubernatorial veto with no help from the opposition. 19 are Republican (commonly achieved by cheating – gerrymandering, that sort of thing) and nine are Democrats. I’m struck by what these all-powerful state legislatures are doing with their power.

Across the board, the cons are working tirelessly to strip rights from everybody they can while simultaneously harming as many people as possible. (Lovely people, the cons…) The Dems are working to support workers and other people and protect the environment. This is not what they’re saying, it’s what they’re doing. Keep that in mind…

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Peculiar observations:
Thinking Americans oppose what cons want to do because of how stupid the cons act. Conservatives oppose progressive measures because of how smart Dems think they are.

I think standing against stupid is better than standing against smart.

Just my opinion…

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Daniel Ellsberg died this week. He’s the guy who (kind of accidentally) released the Pentagon Papers that exposed the lies and machinations of the Vietnam War.
“What? America fought a war based on lies and fraudulent information?”
A war? No. If you know your history, you know that America has fought most of her wars based on lies and fraudulent information.”
“Okay, so what do you mean ‘kind of accidentally?'”
“Well, he gave the report to a reporter on the condition the reporter use it on background only and then the reporter printed the whole thing.”

Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 along with other charges of theft and conspiracy (sound familiar?) and faced a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison. The prosecutors so messed up his prosecution, though, that, instead, his case was dismissed. I suspect that’s why Jack Smith is moving so carefully against criminal traitor and sexual predator 45. A glitch released a man who was, basically, if accidentally, doing the right thing. Thinking Americans would hate to see such a glitch free the guy who engineered the coup and betrayed the nation he swore to protect…

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There’s a show out on HBO called ‘The White House Plumbers.’ I recommend it. It’s all about what was once the biggest scandal this country had ever faced: the break-in at the Democratic headquarters located in the Watergate Hotel, known now colloquially as ‘Watergate.’ (How quaint.) It includes another guy from that era (along with Ellsberg) who ended up getting credit as a stand-up guy: John Dean.

The thing is, John Dean was the Michael Cohen of his day. He was all-in with Nixon and on the break-in and continued to support and protect Nixon from consequences until his own ass was on the line. THEN he became Mr. Standup Guy. Uh-huh. To this day, John Dean is trotted out from time to time to explain this or that political scandal. It has been pretty much a complete recovery from scandalous shame to shining “hero” for Dean.

If ‘Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In’ was still airing (they’d be VERY old), Dean would definitely have won a ‘Flying Fickle Finger of Fate’ award and now Cohen will be trying for his own. I’d be happy to give either one of them the finger…