‘Deeper and Deeper’ sounds like the latest law firm he’s hired. So far, his legal Offenses suck and his legal Defenses are worse. That’s a bad combination. Oh, sorry, 45, I mean. He sued CNN because they called his Big Lie a Big Lie. He thought speaking truthfully about a thing likely constitutes defamation. He just learned, very recently, that defamation can have a big pay-out and I suspect he was looking for a new infusion of cash.

Turns out, according to trump-appointed judge Raag Singhal, telling the truth isn’t “defamation.” He threw the suit out. 45 had also accused CNN of comparing him to Hitler. The judge said “bad rhetoric is not defamation when it does not include false statements of fact.” In leading up to his comment he said, “Like Trump and CNN personalities…the court finds Nazi references in the political discourse (by whichever ‘side’) to be odious and repugnant.”

45 lost his case but his team had their spin: “We agree with the highly respected judge’s findings that CNN’s statements about President Trump are repugnant.” I guess, Singhal didn’t NOT say that so…kind of true?

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Meanwhile, on the other end of his legal woes, those that ARE sticking, Jack Smith just filed an update charging that Trump, himself, ordered the destruction of surveillance video that likely showed his flunkies moving the boxes of stolen files he was trying to keep. He ordered it, but they didn’t DO it. Apparently, the security expert didn’t know how…

So much for any attempt at “It was all my minions and I knew nothing of any of it.” (I mean, he’ll SAY it, sure, but evidence indicates he’ll be lying.) He’s not going to be able to distance himself from the crimes if evidence can show him giving the orders…

I’m struck by the reported quote (according to the indictment) in which 45 says, “I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes. I really don’t. I don’t want you looking through my boxes…” Funny, that. If you killed someone and hid the body in the trunk of your car, you probably wouldn’t want anybody looking through your trunk. If you were cooking meth in your basement, you probably wouldn’t want anybody looking through your basement. So, naturally, trump didn’t want anybody looking through “his” boxes. They were full of classified (but lots of unclassified through mental magic but not ALL declassified, mental magic or not) documents that implicated him in a crime.

Wait. Was he trying to mentally-magically RE classify them? TEO (Trump’s Eyes Only)? Okay, more likely, TPEO (Trump/Putin’s Eyes Only…) Actually, based on the evidence, it sounds like his new “classification” was TAWHSTTEO (Trump And Whomever He Shows Them To Eyes Only). Absolutely secret – except when they’re not, so have a look at this document which you should never be allowed to see…

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Meanwhile, Fani Willis is about to bring charges in Georgia. Barricades have been set up around the Atlanta courthouse. Nearly a month ago, she gave the court a heads up that they will likely need to reduce or suspend activity there for a week or two due to the high-profile nature of an impending indictment. (No, she didn’t say whom…)

I hear Georgia is going to be a RICO charge. Racketeering. As I understand it, 45’s threatening phone call to Brad Raffensperger telling him to “find” 11,780 votes was one crime, but there was another crime being committed in the furtherance of trump’s traitorous behavior. Cult 45 loyalists elsewhere in Georgia were copying and distributing information from voting machines in the hopes of “proving” how the whole voting machine “scam” went down. That, of course, didn’t prove anything but it DID provide a second crime associated with trump’s larger crime and, in Georgia, that makes it Racketeering.

At some point, I began to wonder if the dumbass knew exactly how many laws he was breaking when he was arranging this whole thing. It’s quite possible he didn’t. His elite, privileged life has protected him from consequences since day one. It probably never crossed his teeny, tiny mind that he even could get in any trouble from any of his criminal behavior. That would certainly explain the deer-in-the-headlights look he’s been sporting between rants recently…

I’ll tell you this: It’s a sorry commentary on this once-great nation that there is STILL a question as to whether or not this national, very high-profile, traitorous criminal will ever see the inside of a jail cell, first hand, for the epic-level crimes he’s accused of committing…

You know what MAGA cons hate? They hate it when some rich person tries to hide or eliminate data that might be used in a court of law from electronic devices. I know this to be true because of how upset they were when Hillary stood accused of deleting emails. They spent a LOT of time chanting, “Lock her up!” It must have been great fun for them. NOW they get another chance to revive their preferred chant, with only a slight variation.

Another rich person tried to hide data that might be used in a court of law from electronic devices . In THIS case, it’s the guy who initiated the chant in the first place, Donald Trump. This will be easy, even for a MAGA. All they have to do is change “her” to “him” and they’ve got their favorite chant back – AND for their favorite reason! “Lock him up!”

I wonder when we’ll start to hear it at the rallies…

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I heard 45 say he’s not going to let his indictments or trials or even possibly convictions turn him from his goal of becoming president again. He said there’s nothing in the Constitution that prevents it. He’s right, too. (One doesn’t get to say that very often.) There was even a guy, Eugene Debs, who ran for the office of President from a cell. (He lost…)

Well, there IS the 14th amendment. If he gets convicted of the January 6th insurrection he planned, organized, called out, and instigated, he could be barred from ever holding public office again. It prevents him from ever holding any military position, too, but we all know there has NEVER been any danger a trump might get anywhere near the military – except for the photo op.

Just as a reminder, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says, “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

And so the race begins. Can the United States protect itself from a would-be, wanna-be dictator by prosecuting the offender before he gets sworn in? Or does a once-great nation suffer yet another insult from a criminal defendant who becomes President and throws the country into yet another Constitutional crisis by issuing a pardon for himself?

It’s pretty exciting, isn’t it? What’s it gonna be, a Constitutional Republic or an authoritarian dictatorship? I’ll tell you this: I’m actually quite surprised at the still-formidable number of once-loyal Americans now pushing for “authoritarian dictatorship…”

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Speaking of dumb people breaking things: X. Elon Musk’s destruction of Twitter seems nearly complete, now. Dumping the name everyone knew? Why, that’s a master stroke – if your goal is alienating yet more of the remaining users and advertisers. Replacing it with a letter? Awesome. Do you think he’ll be able to trademark the letter X? I don’t. Maybe he’ll spell it differently? No, he’s already gone for the single character. He’s even in trouble with the city of San Francisco for changing the signs without the proper permits.

I heard that his seemingly impulsive decision to just…change the name (BAM!), immediately cost the company billions (with a B) in name recognition and value. At $44 billion dollars, most people think he overpaid for Twitter as it is, but then to take every step you can think of to destroy the value that DID exist? I’m just going to say he’s not looking, to me, like the “genius” he purports himself to be. And his investors must be thrilled…

The truth is, I was never a twit and I won’t miss it. But I AM having fun watching this guy who believes a) he has the “Midas touch” and b) that’s a GOOD thing (read the actual story) turn a once-shiny platform into a wasteland of lost riches. Bye-bye, birdie…

Looks like it’s the Republicans turn to have a member openly suffering the slings and arrows of age or, perhaps, some other damage. Have you seen the video of Mitch McConnell just…stopping? He was in the middle of a sentence. He got to an “uh…” and then just…blanked out. He stops talking, stares off into the distance, and doesn’t move. Finally he’s ushered off by his colleagues. (He came back a bit later and declared himself “fine” with no further details…)

This is one of the problems with our rigged system. These guys just stay…and stay…and stay. The rest of the members cover for one of their own so they get to KEEP staying, too. Strom Thurmond was something like 100 years old before he decided to step aside. Diane Feinstein doesn’t even seem to know which state (or district) she’s in from time to time but she still gets to decide on matters of national importance and only she can decide on when she’s too far gone to trust her own judgement? But what if she’s SO far gone she shouldn’t trust her own judgement? Now Mitch the Bitch is just…blanking out. But he’ll get to decide how long is too long as well. Even if he can’t remember what he was…uh…

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Floriduh, of course. This has GOT to be intentional, doesn’t it? These guys MUST be sitting in a small, dark, smokey room somewhere working to come up with the most stupid possible position on just about every subject. The latest I’ve heard (so far) is their recent adoption of a curriculum item that teaches children in Floriduh that slaves gained “personal benefits” from their condition of servitude. You see, as slaves, they “developed skills” they could use for their own “personal benefit.”

This is one of those cover stories racists like to float from time to time. It’s a classic case of trying to put lipstick on a pig. I’ve also heard that those “lucky” slaves got “free clothes” and “free housing.” I’d bet at any time any enslaved person would have traded their “free clothes” and “free housing” for some real freedom, given a choice, which, of course, they weren’t.

I don’t really understand the end game to the stories. Certainly, they’re not going to bring back slavery no matter how much they want to. (And they DO still want to, make no mistake.) Are they just trying to assuage their guilt for having participated in the first place? That can’t be right. They’d have to feel guilty in the first place. Ah, reputation repair, America’s national pastime. “Yeah, we did it. We’d do it again, too. We just don’t want to be judged for it.”
“Well, why not just acknowledge it, maybe apologize, and learn from it?”
“What do WE have to apologize for? Slaves had it great. *I* should be so lucky. THEY should apologize to US for rejecting our generosity.”
“But you don’t want to be judged for it…”
“Well, not unfairly!”
“Fear not. The vast majority of us, I think, judge bigots QUITE fairly…”

So now Floriduh’s children will be taught that slavery – if indeed it actually happened at all – was a lovely and benign institution that served both master and slave well and benefited the slaves in ways most people don’t even know about. Yet another conservative GIANT step backwards.

From a reputational point of view, Floriduh really can’t afford this. Based on news stories that come out of Floriduh on a regular, kind of startling, basis, the state seems to be struggling – a lot – with, you know, mental competence. How the hell is teaching children wrong information in school supposed to combat THAT problem?

Here’s a key to understanding how YOU can know when the bigots are lying: I’ve never heard ONE of these guys seeking to become a slave because of how awesome the “institution” was and I’m sure I never will…

Many, many moons ago (2002, to be exact), I read a book by a guy named David Brock called ‘Blinded By the Right.’ Brock made his career as a right-wing “investigative reporter.” (That means he wrote unprovable hit pieces for the right, smearing the left.) He also happens to be gay. According to him, many people used to ask him about working for the far right in view of their attitudes about gay men. Brock said he’d never had a problem. That makes sense to me.

For one thing, lots of these “conservative” guys are closeted gay men, or at least bi-sexual. Brock wrote about going to gay bars with prominent cons. It’s just a personal opinion, but I usually suspect that the outsized, over-the-top reactions of many prominent conservatives to homosexuality is to make the gay sex they, themselves, are having hotter. Forbidden sex is hotter sex. For another, the cons don’t care about anything other than trashing their opponent. If you write vicious articles that harm a lefty, you’re good. They can just…overlook everything else.

At one point, Brock was assigned to write a hit piece on Hillary. (The right launched a sustained attack against her the minute they realized she had a real chance of, and an interest in, being president one day.) For some reason, he wrote a balanced, fair piece. That was more than they could stand and he was out…and suddenly, the gay thing mattered. Go figure.

So, Brock went on a reputation clean-up campaign. He wrote his book, a kind of mea culpa and founded a media watchdog group called ‘Media Matters for America.’ Suddenly, he was embraced by the left. As long as he attacked right wingers, everything he had done TO the left would be overlooked. For some reason (no one knows) he left Media Matters rather abruptly in November of 2022.

For my part, I never really trusted the guy. He would have stayed on the right as long as the right would have him, given the chance. He only switched teams when he didn’t have any other choice. The right wasn’t hiring him, being a risk he might write something fair, so the left was his only option. That’s not seeing the light. It’s seeking a paycheck. It’s desperation, not “reform.”

Now we’re getting the same thing again with the ever loud-mouthed Michael Cohen. Cohen was Trump’s “fixer” and he seemed to enjoy the job – and the paycheck – very much. He worked for 45 for years, doing dirty deeds for the dumbass don. Then he got busted for tax evasion and campaign finance violations.

As he does with virtually everybody around him, Trump gave Cohen a kind of ‘ho hum’ attitude and let him dangle. THAT irritated Cohen who started singing like Lucille Bogan. (Literally.) Trump abandoned Cohen, who understood he was on his own and so sought to protect himself. Enter the reputation clean-up campaign, the mea culpa, and the turn-around attacks on the person HE used to do the attacking for – and still would be to this day had he not gotten caught.

But, there he is, on lefty shows saying nasty things about Trump. It’s been awhile since he brought any new information to the table. Prosecutors now know pretty much everything Cohen knows and it’s all coming out in a drip so all Cohen has left is to go on camera and call Trump names. (Yes, I’m aware I have, sometimes, called the Orange Moron, CheetoJesus, Donnie the Dumbass names, too. But nobody’s paying me to do it. It’s just my honest assessment of 45 based on the way he is and the things he does.)

I’ll tell you this: Cohen isn’t “reformed.” He’s an opportunist and I wish the left would just let him fade quietly (please…stfu!) into the background…

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OMG, have you heard? It’s outrageous. It’s outlandish. It’s unbelievable. It’s probably racist. A MAGA con country singer sang a…a…oh, I can barely say it…a SONG! The left is very unhappy about it but I imagine the left hasn’t taken the time to listen to the song – so I did it for you. (You’re welcome.)

It’s not a great song but it doesn’t suck. It takes up a couple of MAGA talking points and talks tough. You know, country music stuff. It would have come and gone without much notice had the left just let it go. But no. If it’s entertainment related, people are talking about the song. Apparently, they even argued about it on ‘The View.’

Look, Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That In A Small Town’ (Aldean didn’t write it) is a fictional vision of small town life. The right LOVES to paint the left as out-of-control lunatics hell-bent on civil disruption and then pretend that they (the right) are the arbiters and saviors of all things good. None of it is true, of course. That’s a picture right-wing media paints for the rank and file to make them feel good about all the harmful things they’re supporting. (It’s right up there with the ever-popular, “Secretly, you’re the smart ones” fluff…)

The left says it glorifies guns. His grand-daddy gave him a gun he hears you’re gonna try and take. ‘From my cold dead hands’ is his message (but not the actual words). Nothing new there. He also says much of the crime found in big cities isn’t found in small towns. Um…yeah, okay. Not really Earth-shattering. Aldean insists that people in small towns take care of each other but even THAT is a prettied-up view of small town life. Try living in a small town as a person the right vilifies. See how well they take care of you…

Okay, so if the song is just a re-hash of MAGA talking points, what’s the problem? Oh, the video was shot at a place where a lynching took place and it uses stock video shots of social unrest to try to prove it’s point. There IS social unrest in cities. That’s just low-hanging fruit. As to the lynching, it’s the south. If you can’t take photos of a place a lynching might have happened (or definitely did happen) in the south, you can’t take photos of the south.

Me: “I’ll tell you this: MOSTLY, I just wish people who don’t like the song would just do what they do with every OTHER song they don’t like: ignore it and wait until it goes away.”
You: “Um…didn’t YOU just write, like, five paragraphs about it?”
Me: “Damn, it!”

The always wrong MAGA cons get very close to accidentally being correct about a thing when they whine that prosecuting their criminal idol is just a meanie-pants thing to do that has never happened in the history of this once-great nation. They have a point. This has never happened before. But, they’re right for the wrong reason.

They fervently pretend, like a wildebeest being eaten by a lion, that this ain’t happening. It isn’t real. Trump never stole documents, sexually assaulted women, orchestrated a coup, stole from a kids-with-cancer charity, manipulated his business books, threatened government officials if they couldn’t “find” 11,780 non-existent votes, nor fleeced his true believing followers out of millions of dollars. Hundreds (thousands?) of people are just lying for…reasons and the accused, their poor (rich), little (very much NOT little), victim (perpetrator), boy (grown man) – the ONLY benefactor of the deception – is the ONLY one telling the truth. I mean…obvs… What criminal would ever claim innocence? (Um…all of ’em?)

I agree, this has never happened before. We’ve NEVER had a criminal president (and possible Russian asset) on the scale of 45 in the Oval Office. As a result, we’ve never needed even one post-presidential criminal prosecution, let alone prosecutions for a national crime spree that stretches up and down the eastern seaboard and across the nation.

I’ll tell you this: The idea that we EVER had such a low person in such a high place is simply mind-boggling. But not nearly as mind boggling as the reality that he might actually make it back there…

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45’s team of “lawyers” went to “judge” Aileen “loose” Cannon and said the date suggested by the prosecution for the trial of the guy accused of stealing all those classified government documents MAGA cons are always pretending were just paper airplanes – December 11 – was just too quick. Apparently, reading is hard. So they suggested their own date: never.

Yeah, it’s stupid but it’s stupid/clever, you know? Her predisposition to accommodate the desires of her idol has already been established. Why NOT ask her to just never schedule the trial? Maybe she’ll bite. She didn’t. She seems to know reading is hard, too, so she set the date for May 20 in Ft. Pierce, Fl, a quick 20+ minute drive from her home. They get nearly a year to shine up their “but my client doesn’t want to go to jail” defense. It makes one wonder why other accused criminals have never tried that oh-so-clever response to charges.

That’s going to plop the trial right in the middle of what this country euphemistically calls the “campaign season.” (I call it a euphemism because – really – when aren’t American politicians “campaigning” and taking bribes…er…raising funds “for their next campaign?”) 45’s team said it just wouldn’t be fair for the accused criminal and known sexual predator to have to defend himself in court AND run for president – so they should just let the whole “court” thing go. They seem never to have even considered letting the whole “run for president” thing go, but they could do THAT, too.

By the time they get to that trial date, trump could already be sporting an orange jumpsuit for his myriad other crimes. If he wins the “election” – and never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups – do they perform the oath of office by having him stick his hand out between the bars to put it on the Bible? (I suspect he uses a ‘Bibel.’ I suspect that if he ever touched an actual Bible, he’d burst into flames…)
“Repeat after me: ‘I, inmate number 6732185, do hereby solemnly swear or affirm…'”

I’ll tell you this: I’ve never been more proud to be an American… (cough!, cough!)

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You could receive these lovely little thought pieces directly to your email inbox! All you have to do is go to ‘MyBaconPress.com‘ and click the button at the bottom that reads: “Follow.” A little pop-up appears asking for your email address but you aren’t joining anything and, as far as I know, you don’t get a bunch of spam if you do follow. It’s just the only way to deliver the thing to your email inbox. That way, you’d never miss an issue again. Wouldn’t that be great?

I woke up yesterday morning, started reading the news, and realized: Jack Smith is smarter than me. See, I’ve been very concerned about Aileen “loose” Cannon overseeing the classified documents theft case, since she so clearly holds trump as dearly beloved. I kept wondering why Smith didn’t object. I know now. She’s going to do whatever she can to help her idol. That’s a given. But if she goes too far, Smith can object to her failure to recuse in view of her obvious bias or use her terrible rulings as a basis for an appeal. Moreover, I think she’s a bit restrained by other events so she can’t go TOO far off the rails – at least, she can’t go too far off the rails without absolutely devastating her reputation as a judge.

Truth be told, I wasn’t sure we, the people would EVER see any actual indictments for our very criminal ex-president, the sexual predator Donald J. Trump. Now? Now they’re coming so fast and furious I’m having trouble keeping up! We’ve already got Florida. We may get Washington DC next and we’re all expecting Georgia to drop in August. There’s still New York state. (No, not that case, the other one.) Peripherally, the slates of fake electors are starting to reap the rewards of their malfeasance, too. Michigan just dropped indictments on the people who insisted that THEY, and not the actual electors, were the real electors, and there are several other states waiting in the wings. Hundreds of people have already been convicted of answering trumps call on January 6th.

None of this even counts the civil defamation suit he’s already lost – twice – and the next one he brought upon himself by doubling down after losing the first one. (Trump’s psychopathy isn’t helping him one little bit…)

Did you hear about the time(s) Donald Trump, when he was infesting the Oval Office, initiated IRS investigations on people who gave him answers he didn’t like, actually weaponizing the government? And that’s just 45. His deluded sycophants are lining up to defend him by trashing everything and everyone connected with the investigations. That’s a lot of people and organizations since there are so many investigations over so much criminal activity. Cons just don’t seem to grasp that a government THEY twist for their own purposes might well, once twisted, be used against them just as easily – so they dismiss all accusations against 45 as conspiracies. Sure, thousands of people are “in on it” and the ONLY honest one is the target of all of these investigations. Of course! If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. But it makes MORE sense if you don’t think about it…

MAGA cons in the House are “investigating” Hunter Biden and using their above-the-law rules to protect themselves from things that are crimes for anybody else to do. MTG just showed large photos of Hunter, nude and in compromising sexual positions, to the House. (Your tax dollars at work!) Outside of Congress, that’s called “revenge porn.” Please bear in mind, being nude and/or having sex? Not a crime. But if someone posted nude photos of MTG having sex with Kevin McCarthy without their consent? THAT would be a crime. MTG gets away with it – on the floor of Congress, no less – because it’s a “vital” part of some House “investigation” of some kind. Really, it was just an opportunity to try to embarrass the White House.

So, just to be clear…
– Which party worked very hard to present fake votes and fake electors? Republicans.
– Which party lied to courts in an attempt to disqualify actual, honest votes? Republicans.
– Which party tried, and is STILL trying, to steal an election? Republicans.
– Which party has “weaponized” the government? Republicans.
– Which party actually, physically attacked the Capitol in an attempt to interfere with an election? Republicans.
(I’m sensing a pattern, here…)
– Which party is conducting fake, unnecessary, wasteful-spending “investigations?” Republicans.
– Which party is aggressively defending a multi-indicted, sexual predator? Republicans.
– Which party keeps screaming about defending “freedumb” all the while stripping freedoms from every vulnerable group they can figure out a way to attack? Republicans.
– Which party denies climate change, even as the world burns and/or drowns? Republicans.
– Which party insists that, because oil was once the best answer for energy, it must ALWAYS remain the only answer – even long after it isn’t the best? Republicans.
– Which party hates journalism and embraces the conspiracy theories and conjecture of Bullshit Mountain? Republicans.
– Which party pretends a fetus must be brought to term (because they’re “innocent”), but a six year old who gets shredded by bullets is an acceptable loss? (Because, what? Not “innocent”? At six?) Uh-huh. Republicans.
– Which party corrupted the Supreme Court by diabolically manipulating the advice and consent process? Republicans.
– Which party wants perfect freedom for themselves but also wants to control who you love, how you love, what you read, what you think, what you wear, how you look, where you go, what you do with your body, what you learn, how you earn, what gets banned, and what gets burned? Republicans.

Those are just off the top of my head. I’d bet that if I gave it a little thought, I could come up with more. But I’ll tell you this: Republicans these days are bad for America, bad for Americans, bad for the world, and bad for humanity. Those seem like real vote-getting traits. It’s no wonder they have to cheat…

George Santos (R-NY), if, indeed that is his name, originally got elected to the House of Representatives through lies. He “inflated” his resume beyond the breaking point. He has become the punchline of jokes. Since he has claimed so many outrageous accomplishments, people took to assigning him new accomplishments. His “legend” grows, just not in the way, maybe, he had hoped. People were SO impressed with this amazing and accomplished young man they sent him to Congress. Then people found out he lied about, well, everything, really. (There really IS the possibility George Santos is not even his real name.)

Now the good people of New York are interested in sending him to jail. He could have avoided it, possibly, by just stepping down. He refused. Criminal charges were preferred. (Basically, he collected lots of money under false pretenses. Classic con job from an unusual con…) But George doesn’t know when to quit any more than the Dumbass and, instead, he’s running for his seat again! (Just like the Dumbass.)

I guess I’m not surprised. With access to lying conservative media, lying is part of the game and why wouldn’t he (and trump) guess that he’ll get away with it? The part that surprises me? In this campaign season, Santos has raised what AP referred to as a “paltry” $138,000, most of which he used to repay himself for personal money he contributed for his first campaign. Paltry? He’s the most outrageous, egregious liar since Donald Trump (though not as good at it, I submit) and he STILL raised $138,000?

Knowing what we know now, who would give this guy bus fare, let alone a campaign contribution? It’s one of those situations where I find myself wondering what the hell is wrong with people? If that “paltry” money isn’t from his family, it likely came from people contributing to the “R,” no matter whom that may be. People do it for the “D,” too, but the “D” doesn’t have anything like George Santos or Donald Trump. Those guys seem detached from reality, at the very least, and the Dems would have booted them, had they gotten that far in the first place…

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Have you heard this? The temperature of the water off the coast of Floriduh was measured at 97 degrees Fahrenheit! For comparison, hot tubs tend to run around 103 – 104 degrees. After years – no, decades – of “debate” about the existence of Climate Change, we’re ALL going to get what the deniers deserve. Thanks, cons. Your corporate loyalty was…killer…

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We might have seen this coming. As part of their campaign to “own libs” the always-wrong cons decided expertise was for idiots. If you listen to your buddy rather than your doctor, you might well shorten your life. If you let some talking head re-roof your house, you’ll likely spend the next rain storms running around with pots, trying to catch the drips. Ask a toddler to fix your car. See how long it takes… Hey, at least they’re not experts, right?

The Republican Party of at least two states, Michigan and Arizona, looks like they eschewed the services of expert accountants and financial managers. Now they’re broke, or nearly so. At $98,000, the Michigan GOP has almost as much money as George Santos raised. Suddenly, party members want to know where their money went. The party is breaking into factions and in Michigan, a violent brawl broke out. Cops were called. Looking good, GOP…

Despite appearances, there are STILL some smart Republicans out there. One guy in Michigan donated over $4 million dollars but won’t anymore because he questions “whether the state party has the necessary expertise to spend the money wisely.” (Spoiler alert: they don’t. Why would they trust experts?)

Apparently, the two states backed trump’s play to overturn a legal and proper election (aka, traitorous coup). They’ve also supported trump-lite candidates who do not appeal to the general population so much as the radical right and, therefore, have decreasingly slim chances of success as the nation finally catches on to the national GOP campaign of bunk and braggadocio. Curiously, seemingly inexplicably (if you’re a MAGA con), the red states that did NOT support the ridiculous, moronic claims of the traitorous, sexual predator Donald Trump are not suffering the same fate. It’s a mystery – to MAGA cons…

There’s an old adage: a fool and his money are soon parted. MAGA GOP decided to put the concept to the test. Bad idea. (Just another in a long line…) The smart money dried up and the foolish money is running out.

I’ll tell you this: I expect the GOP will figure it out. In our vicious Capitalist society, the money has spoken so I expect the parties to start moving left again as they seek more mainstream appeal. MAGA doesn’t sell anymore. Expect the “movement” to go the way of the pet rock…or at least the way of the Libertarians…

I think it’s common knowledge that insurers don’t make money paying claims. They’re very careful to pick and choose coverage they offer from place to place. The more likely you are to need coverage for something, the less likely the coverage will be available (or affordable). Now insurance companies have taken that standard strategy one step further: they’re simply not selling insurance in some places. Clearly the idea of some “visionary” CEO somewhere…

Several companies have abandoned California due to fires and earthquakes and sinkholes and crop loss due to drought and, well, the odds an insurer might have to actually pay out are just too high. Then I learn that they’re starting to do the same thing in Florida. That seems an odd strategy. “Hey, let’s just not sell any more policies. That should strengthen our business!” Will it, though?

It’s a tough spot for insurers. If they sell a policy, they may have to pay out and that’s bad for business. If they DON’T sell policies, they certainly won’t have to pay out but there will be no revenues and that’s bad for business, too. It seems climate change has been – and will increasingly be – hard on the insurance companies.

I’ll tell yo this: If they hadn’t been such manipulative, corporate jerks through the years, I might be able to muster some sympathy for them…

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There’s an old joke: if “pro” is the opposite of “con,” then the opposite of “progress” is “congress.” It turns out, though, it’s not much of a joke. Our Congress Critters have LOTS of ways to NOT do their jobs – all “procedural.” One such is the ‘hold.’ A hold isn’t a formal procedure. It’s something the Critters started doing as a courtesy to some member who couldn’t make a scheduled debate date but wanted to participate. It pretty quickly became a weapon to stop things from happening. A hold isn’t exactly a filibuster but can be used the same way in some cases.

Senator Tommy Tuberville, the bigot-supporting Republican (of course) from Alabama has a hold on military promotions and nominations. See, he has realized that women in the military STILL have control over their own reproduction and he effing HATES that. So? No more military promotions or nominations until Tommy says. The result? The Marine Corps doesn’t have a permanent leader for the first time in 100 years and the Army, Navy, and Joint Chiefs are all looking at the same fate in the next few weeks if he doesn’t stand down. Currently, he’s blocking more than 270 positions from being filled. So much for supporting the military…

It’s not ALL Republicans, though. My boy Bernie Sanders (D, Vt) has a hold on Biden’s nomination to lead the National Institute of Health along with other nominees to the health department until the administrations sends over it’s comprehensive plan to lower drug prices. (Biden should write Sanders a note: “My plan is to get Congress to do it’s effing job…”)

I don’t like either one of the holds, but at least Sanders’ goal is help people by lowering drug prices for ALL Americans – or at least highlight the problem. Tuberville wants, maybe needs, someone to suffer. It’s STILL the Republican way, these days.

Last month, Senator J.D. Vance (R-Oh), placed a hold on all Biden nominations to the Justice Department in “protest” of the indictment against Donald Trump, proving, once again, cons are caught up in a delusional fever-dream that pretends crime is okay if committed by someone on their team. Cons are always on about “slippery slopes” but never seem to realize when they’re actually on one…

Last year, Senator Rand Paul (R, Ky) put a hold on additional approval for $40 million in aid to Ukraine until the bill included language for an Inspector General to scrutinize the spending, which is laughable in view of the fact that military spending is sacrosanct to both parties and the Pentagon – by FAR the worst offender of “fraud, waste, and abuse” – has never once passed an audit.

I’ll tell you this: these guys – all of them – should just do their jobs. I DO NOT LIKE that one person can hold up ALL business of Congress on a given subject just by saying “Hold.”

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Every Republican accusation is a confession. The cons are out, in force, claiming the Biden Administration is “weaponizing” the government by allowing the Department of Justice to investigate the many, many, MANY crimes of the trumpster. Turns out – and you may want to sit down for this – it was the TRUMP administration that weaponized the government. When people gave trump an answer he didn’t like, he had the IRS open “investigations” into them. These were simply harassment cases, the very definition of weaponizing government.

I’ll tell you this: Of COURSE cons are screaming. They would HATE it if someone did to them what they do to people on a daily basis…

I didn’t used to believe them. The cons, I mean . When they spouted all of their drivel about how everybody is out to get them, I dismissed it. I thought THEY thought it was a winning rhetorical strategy of politics and nothing more. Now? Yeah, I believe they actually believe the words coming from their mouths.

Ask ’em, they’ll tell you. You CAN NOT fool a con. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it sure as hell AIN’T a duck. In fact, it’s probably a scheme Joe Biden cooked up to distract from Hunter’s legal troubles. And don’t try to fool them with facts. Facts are folly.

Everything, everything, everything, is conspiracies and paranoia. Liberals, Democrats, the “deep state,” Hillary (of course), Sleepy Joe (natch), “mainstream media” (except lying Fox Not-News), Obama (if you didn’t spit that, you didn’t say it right), anybody with facts and/or evidence, lawyers, doctors, the butcher, the baker, AND that lyin’ candlestick maker. Everybody who doesn’t agree with them, anybody who knows better than them? In on it. Obviously. Clearly, a deep state operative or mindless rube, blindly following along for…reasons.

Do you know how you can tell who’s in on it? They’re the people saying things like, “Climate change is a real and present danger.” “Cops shouldn’t kill unarmed suspects.” “Maybe there should be a little gun control.” “Working people should be paid a fair wage.” “Maybe rich people should pay their fair share of taxes.” “WOW! The mountain of evidence against lying criminal, sexual predator, and alleged traitor Donald Trump is huge!”

They’ve got “answers” for all of those, of course. “Huh-uh!” “They should comply.” “What part of ‘…shall not be infringed’ don’t you get?” “They should get a better job.” “Rich people already pay ALL the taxes.” “Every bit of so-called ‘evidence’ – all 482,593,678,912 pounds of it? Made up – oh, and planted.”

Is there a single issue on which the cons have the correct position? Honestly, I can’t think of one. I used to commonly refer to “always-wrong cons.” I kind of moved off of that position for a time. I thought, “There must be something they’re right about.” Alas, (hey, when do you get to use ‘Alas?’) nope. Not one thing. And it’s not just this week, either. Cons have been wrong about everything for the last 40 years or so. Even when they get close to right on something, “Hunter Biden’s laptop is a problem…” they get there for the wrong reasons, “…for Joe Biden!”

It’s not entirely their fault, of course. Not entirely. They’ve been led astray by conservative media, designed and built to lead them astray. But they’ve had 40 years to catch on to the con and it just eludes them. They’re having so much fun “owning libs,” they don’t notice what it’s doing to them or their reputations. Nor do they much care. Their “true” friends, those who know that, say, Hillary is a master of “wet work” for the CIA and just murders people for fun, will support them. And if they don’t? In on it.

Just think about John Durham. Durham was supposed to find all the big, bad, evil evidence that would put Hillary and Obama and every other Dem in prison for life for trying to frame Donald Trump for dealing with Russians during the 2016 campaign. They KNOW it was a set-up. Durham came in, spent millions of dollars, took YEARS investigating, TRYING to find proof of malfeasance, and, finally? Nothing. Crickets. No evidence of crimes.

When one of their own, hand-picked guys, well-established in conservative circles looks into the charges for years, spends millions on the investigation, and turns up nothing, the cons, obviously, shrugged. “Oh, well,” they say, “we thought we had something there.” Ha, ha! Don’t be a rube! Clearly, Durham caved…or was bought off…or threatened. Either way, RINO and deepest of deep state operatives. All they need, they insist, is the right guy to find and present all of the totally incriminating evidence they’re just sure must exist somewhere.

I’ll tell you this: I’ve spent years trying to point out to them, very much against their will, that wild-eyed accusations only hurt their credibility rather than making them appear as intrepid sleuths. But Maya Angelou was correct: when someone tells you who they are, believe them. The cons keep insisting they don’t understand things. ANY things. I’ve come to believe them. Look for a return of the “always wrong cons” moniker soon…

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California has long suffered the greed of the oil companies a the gas pump. We pay higher prices than most places and there has never really been a good reason for it. I mean the oil companies have a list of “reasons.” They just always seemed…contrived. As an example, California requires a different gasoline blend for summer driving. Every year, this meant a huge price increase at the pump as the industry “re-tooled for the summer driving blend.” Even though they had done it every year since 1996, each year seemed to catch them off guard.

“Well, we didn’t know we had to do that again THIS year so we have to raise prices at the pump, say, oh, I don’t know…how about a dollar a gallon?”
“A dollar?”
“Dollar ten, bitch.”
“Wait, I was just asking…”
“Dollar twenty.”
“Okay, okay, here you go. Thank you for making the gas, oh great lords of petroleum.”
“That’s better…”

The oil companies pressed and pressed and pressed. Prices at the pump regularly flirted with $6.00/gallon or more. It did serious damage to the California economy and was a money tap the oil companies could open and close at will. Californians got sick of the charade pretty quickly. California politicians FINALLY caught on to the problem a year or two ago and in March of this year, passed a gouging oversight law. With the exception of one lone Democrat, the bill was opposed by always-wrong cons. (<– See? There it is…)

Since the passage of SBx1-2, gas prices (mostly) have not risen higher than $5.00/gallon – even as we entered the (gasp!) summer driving season! Despite all the doom and gloom guaranteed by the cons, the bill worked. For now.

I’ll tell you this: I’m sure the industry is raining money on politicians in an effort to attain “carve-outs” and other work-arounds to have a free hand in price gouging again but, for now, I’m glad the bill was passed. It seems to be working. It’s a good start…

I’ve long felt that the best way to reduce abortions (yes, really) was early education and easy access to birth control. Teaching children about where babies come from, and how, best arms them to deal with what becomes one of the most important aspects of their adult lives. Shouldn’t we at least offer them some guidance, like we do before we let them drive cars?

No, apparently. Not if you’re religious, anyway. Teaching children how babies are made isn’t, to them, “arming them with information.” Not at all. No, it’s “condoning sex” and, for some reason, “condoning sex” is a bad thing. There’s not a single human being alive today anywhere on the planet who didn’t get here because some guy went “ugh” and it’s supposed to be a secret? Oh, and, not for nothing but the sex is happening whether you condone it or not. The only question is: is it a blind, risky behavior or is it well-educated, better protected behavior?

So I was happy to learn that OB/GYN’s have taken to TikTok to present videos on the entire spectrum of the subject. LOVE. IT! Anything someone wants to know can be found there. FINALLY, the internet steps up for something good. It’s not a perfect solution and I, for one, am certain that if actual doctors get out there and pass along sound information, some ideological schmuck will start making them, too, supporting all the wrong, deceptive things. It’s the conservative way. Can’t make a valid case? Well, then, make up a lie! (It should be the Republican slogan these days.)

I STILL think we should teach children about human reproduction in school starting at about age 9 – is that Fourth Grade? – and for all the cons who can’t believe I might support telling children truthful things, I think every lesson should include the idea that abstinence is the ONLY way to ensure no babies and is a perfectly reasonable choice. And, no, I wouldn’t teach 9-year-olds about what ‘The Joy of Sex’ called, ‘Sauces and Pickles’ until later. But I live in the real world where real people do real things and one of those things is the big “it.”

I’ll tell you this: Since I’ll never convince always-wrong cons that schools are the best place for such education, I’ll have to settle for the work-around of doctors on TikTok. Thanks, docs…

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Okay, that’s it for the good news. Back to paranoid Cult 45. Kevin McCarthy recently told lying Fox Not News “Someone has lied here. If we find that Garland has lied to Congress, we will start an impeachment inquiry.” Well, he’s right, someone IS lying. Um, that would be the CheetoJesus himself, Donald Trump. Of course, Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan tend to lead the pack. There are LOTS more. It’s just that none of them are Merrick Garland.

The cons really don’t like worshiping a criminal. Their “solution?” Destroy the evidence! Handcuff the prosecutors. Muzzle the whistleblowers. Fervently pretend thousands of people are in on the “conspiracy” – all of them jealous of what a great job the trumpster did as President. (Yeah, that sounds right.) They tightly close their eyes, shove their fingers in their ears, and shout, “La, la, la” as loud and as long as they can. They seem to think it’s not a crime if they don’t confess it…

The closer the walls get as they press in around trump, the louder Cult 45 screams. They don’t care if you’re a long-time con and full supporter of the dumbass who also happens to believe in the law. Nope, definite RINO. The “party of law and order” (I’m not kidding. That’s what they used to call themselves.) now wants to eliminate the FBI (still led by a Trump appointee) and maybe even the DOJ. After all, who needs justice? All in an effort to protect the lying, criminal, sexual predator, alleged traitor, Donald J. Trump. (Though Jim Jordan might have some more…personal motivations as well…)

I’ll tell you this: I’ve often wondered what it takes for people to so completely deceive themselves – and what it does to them over time. It looks like the final answer to the second part is? Madness…