Month: November 2023

X, X, X…

by MyBaconPress

So, Elon Musk, ostensible boy genius but really just opportunistic business shark, bought a famous brand, Twitter, and has steadily done one thing after another to make sure he never, ever gets any of his $44 Billion dollar investment back. He even eliminated the brand identity he paid so much for and replaced it with the famous generic, Brand X. He has slowly (or rather quickly in business terms) removed any and all guardrails keeping the site anything like an honest public discourse. He happily welcomed back disinformation and outright lying, not to mention bullying and just general public obnoxiousness. Like all good conservatives, he claims he wanted to create an absolute free speech zone. Then, like any good conservative, he also tries to limit what people say when they say things he doesn’t like.

He even tried to bring Donny back but Donny’s investors over at his failing Truth Social site make him post there in a desperate attempt to protect their investment, instead. As people watched Musk “save” Twitter by bleeding it to death, users started looking for alternatives – and leaving for those alternatives. (There’s still nothing out there rivaling Twitter, including Twitter…) Once the exodus of disenchanted users began, so did the exodus of advertisers. Now Elon is mad at them, too.

Elon supported an anti-Semitic X. (They used to be called ‘Tweets.’) Advertisers pulled advertising. Elon complained that pulling the advertising over supporting an anti-Semitic post amounted to “blackmail” and suggested said advertisers engage in humanly impossible physical acts of attempted reproduction. Yeah, that’ll bring ’em back.

Musk bought the company in 2022. Now, near the end of 2023, he has almost completely devalued the company with his oh-so-many, oh-so-stupid decisions. He has done just about everything wrong that he could do wrong. But he’s trying to pretend that advertisers fleeing the metaphorical carnage Musk has done will be the downfall of the site. The advertisers, not the guy who created such a toxic nightmare in the first place. Blame anybody, everybody but yourself for your own failings? That seems like classic, conservative “leadership…”

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The GOP (God-Awful, Obnoxious People) plan to move forward with their impeachment of Joe Biden. As nearly as I can tell, they don’t have any charges, which is good, since they don’t have any evidence to support any charges, either. Yes, I know, they claim they have all the evidence anybody could ever need – ever – but nobody ever sees any of it. It’s all very hush-hush, super-duper secret stuff nobody ever gets to see. Based on previous actions, I’d bet they won’t even present their “evidence” during an impeachment hearing. It’s too super-duper, hush-hush, super secret to ever be presented to anybody ever. Very convincing legal stance, yes?

Meanwhile, over where the sane people live, there are detailed lists of very specific charges against their beloved, Donny, all backed by actual evidence that has been, is being, and will be presented in court, supporting the charges against Donny. Cons see guilt in Joe with no evidence and innocence in Donny despite mountains of evidence. Cons are not rational people and they’re certainly not qualified to be in such important positions. They just aren’t…

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Listen, I’ve been a third-party voter most of my voting life. I mean, I’ve always been willing to consider a third-party candidate when the pretended “two-party” candidates were so uninspiring. I get it. I even support it. But not now. I really hate even writing these words. As Americans, we’re supposed to get to vote for our preferred candidates. If the offerings we get from the parties stink – as is so often the case – we cast a “protest” ballot. It’s called that because it will NEVER accomplish it’s goal, electing a third party candidate, but “sends a message” the parties pretty much just ignore.

This country should never have been a place where pollsters can declare five or seven states the only states that matter because all the rest are “locked.” We’re not supposed to have locked states. In my constitutional rewrite, I require electors to vote in accordance with the majority in their district. None of this “winner-take-all” junk. That, alone, would make preference voting relevant again instead of this, vote-for-your-life desperation we’re forced into. But forced we are, like it or not. And I do not.

But the two major parties have locked up control of the voting process and then offer such undesirable candidates, they’re basically daring you not to vote for “their” guy. That’s been the game for some time, now, but with Donny as the GOP threat, we’ve reached bottom. I know, it has felt like the GOP reached bottom over and over again for a long, long time, but this is different. If Donny goes back to the Oval, the US is over and it really is that simple. If you want your “protest vote” to be the last vote you ever cast because you wanted to make some vacuous point that starts off moot and then becomes somehow less relevant, stick to the third parties…

Isn’t It Ironic?

by MyBaconPress

One of old Sleepy Joe’s very first moves as President, (you know, when he beat the crap out of Donny-the-Incompetent in a free, fair, and honest election) was to eliminate the Keystone XL Pipeline, cancel 9,000 leases, and revoke drilling in ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Meanwhile, during Donny’s last year in office, OPEC announced they were cutting back production. Adequate production had lowered the price too much for Saudi tastes and anybody who was paying attention to journalism knew the prices at the pump were on their way up again. That was the goal.

None of those projects Biden cancelled had produced (or moved) one drop of oil yet Biden was excoriated in the conservative misinformation bubble, and, as predictably as sunrise, the rank and file cons were told the increase was Biden’s fault and directly related to the things he cancelled. Cons are STILL out there screaming “drill, baby, drill.” They honestly believe it would lower gas prices in America because that’s the lie they were told (even though it wouldn’t and couldn’t) and, as a cherry-on-top feature, they like that it bothers people concerned about climate change.

Now there’s a report out there showing that the United States is poised to extract, in 2023, more oil and gas than we have ever extracted in any single year in our history. And, apparently, the US Government expects the trend to continue right up until 2050. That’s good news for the oil companies. Bad news for the cons, though they’ll never know about it. No one will ever tell them. Oh, it’s also bad news for the biosphere, the place where all life exists on Earth (for a little while longer).

At the upcoming COP28 summit in Dubai this week (where Biden will NOT be), countries around the world will be pushing for a reduction in fossil fuel usage, it being so damaging and dangerous. If we truly were an “intelligent species” (which, we’re not so I should stop there but…) if we truly were an “intelligent species,” we would be moving heaven and earth to get off of fossil fuels, at least burning fossil fuels, as fast as we can.

I feel like we’re all in a car, racing toward a VERY solid brick wall and our speed is only increasing. No matter how much most of the passengers shout “Stop!” the driver just keeps going faster and faster (because of that one jerk that keeps yelling “Faster, faster!”), the driver promising he’ll hit the brakes once we’re about, oh, say, two inches from the wall. (I suspect that once we’re traveling 140mph, we’re going to need more than two inches to slow down.)

I’m not enjoying this ride at all…

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The guy who murdered George Floyd demonstrated to the world that he believes that when someone is in desperate physical danger, the proper response is to sit on that person’s neck until he stops “complaining.” Recently, the guy was stabbed in prison. Turns out? Nobody sat on his neck as a treatment. They took him to a medical facility and fixed him up and he’s going to be fine.

No, I don’t really advocate for letting the guy die, but I DO wonder if the irony has struck him that all he had to do was that same, exact, right thing and he wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place…

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George Santos, if, indeed, that is his real name, faces an expulsion vote from Congress this week. He said he expects to be expelled. The guy lies like a trump so it’s hard to know what he actually expects, but he IS likely to be booted. You’ve got to do a LOT to get expelled from Congress. Hell, Lauren Boebert went to a public play being enjoyed by families – children included – maybe got a little high (we only know she “vaped”) and made a spectacle of herself before (and then after) engaging in a little public, slap-and-tickle foreplay with her date and SHE didn’t get kicked out of Congress.

But George is out. Don’t get me wrong, he should be out. He should never have been in. Had he not lied, lied, lied, he wouldn’t be in. But he did and he was and so now he’ll be put out. Good. And the BEST thing about it? The crazy caucus just got a little bit weaker. New York is going to have to hold special elections to replace him but I doubt the voters are going to be quite so complacent in this vote.

It’s a good step forward. One MAGA crazy at a time – at least until the upcoming elections where we can, hopefully, get rid of a bunch of them at once…

Meandering to the End…

by MyBaconPress

We have all noticed the rise of the far right. I mean, how could we miss it? They’re LOUD! And they’re mean. And they’re angry. And there are a LOT of them. In the U.S. alone, there are something like 110 million of them, none of them working with factual information, all of them deceived. They’re actively working to destroy this Constitutional, Democratic Republic and replace it with a Fascist authoritarian – because they actually believe that would be better.

But this is not just a U.S. phenomenon. It’s happening all over Europe, too. In one sense, I can understand how America might be deceived. We have no actual, personal experience with fascism. Yes, there was a strong fascist movement in the U.S. in the 1930’s but fortunately, (really? fortunately?) okay, fortunately for the U.S., Europe was already WAY ahead of us in going down the fascist rabbit hole and when America saw what fascism looked like in practical application people either dropped the idea entirely (most), or went underground (one percenters who still think the one percent should rule everything outright.)

But Europe? Europe is the place Americans got to watch fascism play out, the place we learned from. Europe lived through it. Europe lived through the hatred and the fear and the death camps and the wars and STILL – they’re embracing far right, fascist policies, again, and at an incredible rate. That just defies logic. Or, it should. But then, one remembers.

The internet. In the history of all mankind, there has never been a propaganda machine so widespread, so ubiquitous, so effective. In Europe, they know, from experience, the dangers of propaganda and a lot of those countries have laws preventing news outlets from knowingly broadcasting false or misleading information. But the internet isn’t regulated that way, anywhere.

I think of the loner, the angry little guy standing out on the street corner handing out flyers. How many people is he going to reach? It’s nearly impossible to overcome reality in such a circumstance. With the advent of radio, the reach of the wretched expanded and the rise of the Nazis coincided with the spread of radio signals. It took awhile to catch up to that type of propaganda but after a little over a decade, billions of dollars of destruction, and the deaths of 50 – 60 million human beings – along with the maiming of countless others, the species managed to get the lid back on that box.

But we can’t stop the internet. We can’t even slow it down. Propaganda is going to spread and there is little to nothing we can do to stop it. People who are ill-equipped to defend themselves from propaganda are going to fall for it and, once they believe it, they desperately believe it. The propaganda they consume quickly becomes dogma in their belief system. And the internet never stops. It just churns out garbage story after garbage story and people inclined to fall for those get a full plate of fraudulent information, all day, every day. And all of THAT plays out before we ever even introduce Artificial Intelligence. It’s really quite depressing.

To me, it looks like we’ve managed to get all the pieces in place to become a statistic in the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation is just kind of a rhetorical equation intended to try and estimate the number of intelligent species in the galaxy that have advanced far enough to broadcast signals into space, either intentionally or otherwise.

But a key variable (every element is a variable) is this: the lifetime of the civilization that rose to broadcasting-to-space level. That is, how long did a civilization last AFTER it’s first, usually unintentional, broadcast into space? Marconi invented radio in the mid-1890’s. That was humanity’s entrance to the modern, technological age. That puts us at about 128 years in. A commonly used number for this variable is 304 years. I have serious doubts about humanity’s ability to make it that far.

There’s a movement out there to refine the original Drake Equation, developed in 1961, to include the number of civilizations who figured out how to survive their entrance into the technological age and therefore become, essentially, “immortal.” (The civilizations, not the individuals.) That’s the variable humanity is standing on right at this moment, and, from my point of view, we’re in trouble.

We, the species, have the answers we need. This doesn’t have to happen. Climate change threatens the entire biosphere. We know to change out behaviors and exactly how but we won’t do it. That would interfere with profits. We know the most successful form of government: Democratic Socialism. But we won’t do THAT, either. It’s far too fair. Oh, and it interferes with profits. If we didn’t have wrong-thinking pressed into our little brains as children by religion, we might have overcome more of our social ills, as well but, no. That would interfere with profits. So…

Pull up a chair. Every person on the planet, these days, has a front row seat to the end of the species. I suspect the process is going to suck. It’s frustrating beyond comprehension because it’s all so unnecessary. This doesn’t have to happen, but it’s going to. It turns out, the few CAN ruin it for the many. Easily, in fact. We’re a species that developed enough intelligence to see our own destruction coming AND know what to do about it, but too stupid to actually do anything about it because doing the necessary things would interfere with profits.

I’ll tell you this: I don’t have an answer. I don’t know how to stop rampant propaganda, nor help those who fall for it. All I have is an appropriate epitaph for humanity: ‘For a short, wonderful while, there, we maximized shareholder value.’ What a stupid reason to die…

There, now try to enjoy your Sunday, after reading that. (Sorry. I don’t mean to be so depressing. I just calls ’em like I sees ’em…)

“They Ain’t Honest…”

by MyBaconPress

Have you heard about Georgia Republicans? They’re trying to create a “commission,” whose job it would be to “discipline and remove state prosecutors.” In the U.S., laws are written to apply to everybody, even a law aimed at a single person or group. The “state prosecutor” Republicans want to “discipline and remove?” Why, that would be Fani Willis, the Fulton County D.A. who brought charges against Donny for his alleged crimes against the United States (or in this specific case, Georgia).

Georgia Republicans don’t care that Donny’s a traitor. They love the guy. The Georgia State Supreme Court, basically, refused to issue a ruling, saying the work of District Attorneys is outside of their purview, which has stopped the commission for now. SO, the Georgia Republicans are trying to remove judicial oversight of their actions so they can proceed with their nasty, whiny commission anyway.

I’ll tell you this: NOTHING says, “We know he’s guilty” more loudly that trying to keep him from even being tried because you know in your shriveled little heart of hearts that he did what he’s accused of doing and if he goes to trial, he’s also going to jail…

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Well, sanity is available for the world’s viewing pleasure in the Middle East for the next four days. (Hurry! Only three days left!) They’ve taken a pause in the killing and dying to release hostages and bring in some humanitarian aid.

Not to worry, though. Even as the pause was being announced, Netanyahu made an appearance to assure the world this was just a pause and ONLY a pause and as soon as the agreed pause time was over, Israel would get right back to killing and bombing.

It’s like paying off an over-charged credit card. You pay it down and pay it down until you reach a point where, with one mighty push, you can pay it off! That’s how Netanyahu seems to me. He can see the end of Gaza, once and for all, with just one mighty push – and he’s planning to push hard.

But yeah, let’s focus only on Hamas rhetoric about pushing Israelis into the sea…

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I’ve decided I want to start a GoFundMe page. I’m trying to raise money to purchase guide dogs for the officials in the NFL. Normally, I’m a big fan of putting disabled people to work, if possible, but I think hiring blind people to officiate games may have been a poor execution of the concept. If it happens they’re not blind, there’s no rational explanation for the calls they’re making, week in and week out. At least, there’s no honorable, rational explanation.

You know what you can find on YouTube every week now? A summary of that week’s bad and questionable calls in the NFL. Every week. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was like, two or three plays but these videos are often as long as twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of bad calls, every week? And it’s not just me and the guy making the videos. The videos, themselves, offer no additional commentary but the broadcasters usually offer their own – and they tend to agree the calls make no sense and are clearly just…bad. Twenty minutes of “What the heck was that?” Every week. (As a sidebar: I’m expecting the NFL to crack down on broadcaster commentary any moment now. It doesn’t help when even the broadcasters are publicly questioning the questionable calls…)

It’s a very subjective area, though, exactly what the NFL counts on to get away with it. Sometimes, the videos show a call in one game that officials handle differently in another game. To me, that’s just a different set of officials, demonstrating that this is a tough thing to quantify. Bad calls have existed in every sport for as long as sporting has included officials. They are, after all, only human and mistakes happen. But I wrote at the beginning of this season that I suspected they would increase, now that the NFL has announced it’s “partnership” with Fan Duel, the sports betting web site. It seemed like tin-foil hat stuff, at the time, but just prescient now.

Gambling was removed from ALL sports in America (theoretically) when the 1918 Chicago White Sox got busted accepting bribes to throw the World Series. Yeah, the whole team, except for one player. The powers that be in the sporting world at the time worried that an association with gambling would hurt the integrity of their “product,” the games. Of course it does. Who cares who’s playing whom if the outcome is a foregone conclusion, decided in secret by a small handful of people?

I watch football to see the games unfold. Imagine the damage done to the overall game if it comes out that the games “unfold” in New York before they ever even start. It’s not like the bad calls have to change the outcome of the game, either, although they do that, too. Sometimes, in betting, all they have to do is control the spread and they control who pays whom and how much.

Okay, still tin-foil hat stuff. I have no evidence to prove the NFL is rigging games. All I can point to is the huge number of inexplicable bad calls that do, actually, change the games, an admittedly subjective measure, and how often those calls are happening. Combine that with the NFL’s now well-established, easily demonstrated, and sadly infamous greed, and the idea that the NFL might rig games to increase their own revenues cannot be dismissed as paranoia.

I’ll tell you this: I’d rather just watch the games play out naturally leading to an honest and fair outcome. But in this day and age, in this once-great nation, what chance does honest and fair have against a little more money in someone’s already overstuffed pocket?

Nothing Heavy Today…

by MyBaconPress

Well, we finally have an example. An actual case of voter fraud from Iowa. Not these trumped up lies, an actual and honest case. Not some thing presented in Media and on the internet but never in court, either. This case has gone to court and the perpetrator has been convicted based on the available evidence. She awaits sentencing. Now I guess we’ll have to listen to a loud and ongoing chorus from the Republicans of “See? We told you so! Neener, neener neener!”

Wait, what? They won’t? What do you mean, ‘never even hear about it?’ Of course they’ll hea– Oh. Republican, huh? A Republican woman was trying to help her Republican husband win the Republican nomination to Congress so she stuffed the ballot box? Isn’t that what cons are constantly complaining about, people stuffing ballot boxes and how easy it is to get away with it? But when push comes to shove, it’s Republicans stuffing ballot boxes? Of course it is! Oh, and remember, she got caught, tried, and convicted. Apparently, it’s not so easy to get away with, after all…

Looks like progressives were right – again!

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I’ve long held that porn drives technology. Perhaps “erotica” might be a better word. One of the earliest known photographs was a nude woman. One of the first ever “movies?” A woman taking off her clothes. Before that, painting techniques and tools improved so painters could paint a LOT of nude women. Sculpture of nude people were everywhere and one of the first known wood carvings on earth? A nude woman.

When the internet went public, people wanted greater speed. Why? Downloading photos (now “pics” because “photo” took too long to type). It might take two and a half hours to download a pic back in the day. Do you know what kind of picture someone might wait two and a half hours to download? Okay, yeah, sure, sometimes the new grand-baby, but mostly? Nude women. I actually and honestly believe there will come a day (assuming humanity survives long enough) when people will not only be able to see and hear on the web, but “taste” and “touch” as well. And people are NOT working on that technology so you can “taste” grandma’s Hungarian Goulash from thousands of miles away – though, I suppose, it will work for that, too.

I mention it because, despite the calls and warning one hears about the evils of erotica and porn, it’s everywhere – and it always has been. Even after the Christian church decided sex was dirty, dirty, dirty, one could find nude women and men in paintings in Cathedrals. Apparently, you surround them with hell-fire and those boobies become art. Who knew? But it really is a double-edged sword.

A woman named Susanna Gibson ran for the Virginia State House on the Democratic ticket. She lost. I suspect at least part of her loss was to be found in the fact that she had also shared porn videos of herself and her husband having sex at the now infamous website known as ‘OnlyFans.’ According to it’s creators, ‘OnlyFans’ was founded to offer artists a place to display their talents in private channels for money. The founders claim they had NOT considered some of the “talents” that immediately began showing up on a private, for-profit website. These days, I suppose it’s possible to find painters hawking their landscapes, but mostly, it’s a porn site now.

Mrs Gibson said she thought exposing her porn videos was the “worst gutter politics.” That suggests that she might be too naive to be in a State House. Then again, these days, that might make her perfect for Congress. So maybe she lost because of the videos. Maybe she lost because they weren’t any good. Maybe she lost because her policies didn’t appeal, who knows? My attitude? If you choose to put yourself on the internet engaged in sex acts for other people’s viewing pleasure, I have no objection. In fact, thank you! But please, don’t pretend you didn’t realize it was going to affect your life.

Her mistake, as nearly as I can figure, is that she put the porn on the web before she ran for Congress. She should have taken a cue from Lauren Boebert. You get elected, THEN you put your video porn out for all the world to see…


(I received this on the web. I have no idea who owns it…but I wrote a whole bit just to tease Ms. Boebert…)

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Yeah, you got me. It’s Thanksgiving and I didn’t want to darken anybody’s door this morning so…some less serious stuff for the the big day. I hope you all have a wonderful, healthy, and happy Thanksgiving…

Empty words…

by MyBaconPress

Donny’s basis for appealing the gag order? It interferes with his campaign. He says (my words) the gag order violates his free speech rights and is intended to stop him from talking on his campaign tour. That says a lot, doesn’t it?

The gag order issued was very specific. Donny couldn’t talk about or threaten court staff, witnesses, other defendants, or anyone else associated with that case. Very specific. Yet, somehow, if Donny can’t threaten people associated with the trial, he has nothing to talk about on the campaign trail?

He could talk about the economy and how – no. According to all of the metrics, the economy is doing pretty well, right now – under Biden. MAGA cons are wrong about everything, though, and that’s just one more thing. THEY think they live in a dystopian hellhole, despite what they see with their own eyes when they go outside so, I guess, he could bitch about the economy. His acolytes would never know the difference.

He could also talk about foreign policy. That’s something presidential candidates are supposed to have thoughts about. Donny never says much on the topic, anyway. He thinks he can solve any world problem by looking at the other guy and saying, “Look you son of a bitch…” He’s never added to that sentence as far as I know, so I think HE thinks all it takes is just those six words to solve any international crisis.

He could detail his plan to create jobs for people who don’t have them. He could talk about addressing homelessness. He could even go into detail about exactly which aliens, “enemy” politicians, judges, generals, and commie liberals he’s planning to lock up in his camps, the perfect place to concentrate people, yes? He could talk about that in great detail but, no. If he can’t use his podium to threaten people associated with the fraud case he lost in New York, according to him, he just has nothing to say on the campaign trail…

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Apparently, John Roberts, chief Kangaroo of the Supremely Kangaroo Court thinks ALL Americans are MAGA dumb. He thinks he can issue this new “Code of Ethics” for the Joeys and the majority of Americans will relax about his team raking in bribes faster than they can rob Americans of their rights and protections. Basically, it asks the Joeys to, if they wouldn’t mind too much, please, would they please, in future, consider maybe not taking that bribe? Hard-hitting stuff…

Of course, there’s no enforcement mechanism, so if they DO decide to go ahead and accept the bribe, the worst they face is, “We said please…twice!” I heard Clarence Thomas was so happy, he stopped shoveling bribe money into his pockets long enough to clap…

Doing the Wrong Thing…

by MyBaconPress

Mega MAGA Mike the Johnson has started releasing video from January 6th. Lovely. The estimate is something like 44,000 hours of video. That’s a LOT, something like five years worth of time. The violent part of the insurrection Donny started lasted just over three hours. If you count the whole day, video could show up to seven hours including the violent rhetoric during the speeches in the ellipse, but I think they’re just video from the Capitol. So let’s think about this a moment.

How does one get 44,000 hours of video from a three hour event? Hell, Gilligan didn’t get 44,000 hours from his “three hour tour” and it went on for years. The answer is, it’s ALL the video from every camera in the Capitol, likely for most of the day. THAT means, in turn, the vast majority of what they have on video is empty hallways and normal, work-a-day stuff. I suspect it ALSO means that some clever sod could put together a map of the Capitol building based on the various camera angles. That seems like a bit of a security breech, to me, but it’s kind of off-topic from where I’m going with this.

The last time MAGA released some of the footage, we started seeing video of quiet hallways and normal business functions released by cons under headlines like, “What insurrection?” It’s easy, really. All you have to do is show the video where a crazy mob is NOT trying to break windows, smash doors, attack police officers, or anything else and pretend that’s all there ever was to see. A nothing-burger. Move along, Johnny, nothing to see here…

I’m very aware that there have been FAR more hours of video in the Capitol in which there is not an aggressively violent mob trying to murder the Vice-President of the United States and steal the election for dystopian Donny. The idea that one can show the normal stuff is in no way going to convince me that what I saw didn’t happen. But it WILL convince MAGA. But MAGA already works 25 hours a day to maintain their pretended beliefs so they don’t need no stinkin’ convincing.

So, in essence, nothing changes. Thinking Americans will continue to understand what actually happened in the Capitol that day and America-hating MAGA will continue to pretend it was just an unauthorized tour, reinforced by very selective showings from those videos. But I’ll tell you this: Any position one has to lie about to defend, doesn’t deserve to be defended…

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If you are, like I am, a victim of Pacific Gas and Electric (aka PG&E), you might be torch-and-pitchfork pissed off at their management (please leave the rank-and-file workers out of it), the PUC, and Governor Newsom right about now. This whole thing flows from conservative wrongheadedness about…well, everything, really, but in this case, business operations. In a nutshell, at some point, CEO’s began to be compensated with company stock, a practice once prohibited. The “thinking” was, if the CEO’s net-worth is tied to the stock value, he’ll do everything he can to increase the stock value. End of “thinking.”

That turned out to be true, in a horrifying way. See, CEO’s across the land realized that ANY stock increase made them richer, no matter how the increase came about. CEOs started decimating their companies, the content and quality of the services they provide, and the number of employees available to do the work. Most large corporations are trying for the ‘top-prices-for-as-little-as-possible’ model for the same reason: enhancing the CEOs take-home pay.

In the case of PG&E, they cleverly realized they could increase their bottom line – and, in turn, the stock price – by not maintaining their system. But PG&E’s “product” can be very, very dangerous, if not handled correctly. PG&E started deferring maintenance. It sounds very professional, doesn’t it, “deferred maintenance?” It means “we’re not doing the necessary maintenance anymore.”

The results were impressive. PG&E’s CEO made a killing, metaphorically. But then, PG&E’s “deferred maintenance” blew up a portion of San Bruno. PG&E deferred maintenance started the 2017 Tubbs fire that burned down a large portion of Santa Rosa, CA. PG&E deferred maintenance burned down Paradise, CA. PG&E deferred maintenance caused one fire after another. PG&E deferred maintenance killed many Californians, literally. PG&E deferred maintenance eventually got them sued, sued, and sued again. They lost in court, over and over. Now they owe billions of dollars in pay-outs to their victims. (California.) They’re not paying them, but they owe them. (It’s good to have connections and those connections are VERY well maintained…)

In an effort to stop the lawsuits, PG&E started “undergrounding” their electric lines. My whole life, I’ve wondered why they didn’t do that in the first place. The story was always the same: too expensive. Now? Not too expensive and a great opportunity to run a PR campaign showing how dedicated PG&E is to doing the right thing. “We’re undergrounding our lines – because it’s the right thing to do.” Fuck you, PG&E. You’re undergrounding your lines because you hope it will prevent future lawsuits and everybody knows it.

When the fines started getting handed down, we the rate-payers were assured (uh-huh) that we would not be on the hook for charges. The costs were to borne by PG&E and PG&E shareholders. The undergrounding of the lines PG&E should have been doing all along? That cost, too, was to be borne by PG&E and PG&E shareholders. But how does a company absorb all those payments without the CEO’s share price going down? I mean, if you actually hold the company responsible for their chosen actions, it risks a downturn in profits and, obviously, stock price. Can’t have that.

Each of those fires happened fast. People lost everything they owned fast. People lost their lives in fast-moving firestorms. But the payment? No, those are coming out slow. The repairs to the system we’ve all been paying to maintain for all of these years? “Hey, it takes time, we’re working on it. We’ve got PR commercials to make, you know.” Still, having to correct these horrendous choices (they call them “errors”) is costing the company money, as it should, but the company – and the shareholders – don’t like it. They’re trying to maintain shareholder value they created artificially by NOT maintaining their equipment in the first place – and they’re getting away with it.

This all gets very complicated but the short version is, PG&E is supposedly regulated by a group called the PUC, the Public Utilities commission. The PUC is presented as an independent body that oversees PG&Es operations but in reality, the PUC is owned and operated by PG&E to put a nice, clean face on PG&E’s crimes and deadly greed. What that means is that whenever PG&E wants a rate increase, they “ask” the PUC. The PUC pretends to hmm and haw over the thing for a little while and then? “Well, we’ve decided to grant the request.”

Governor Newsom could – and should – step in. But ole Gavin is running for President. (I know. He says he’s not but actions speak louder than words.) When one is running for President, one must curry favor with big bucks bankrolls. It’s the Capitalist way. PG&E falls into that category, perfectly. So Gavin protects PG&E over the citizens of the state he runs because it’s in his financial interest to do so.

California citizens paid PG&E to maintain their system all along.
California citizens paid the price when PG&E chose to disregard their responsibilities for profit.
California citizens are paying the fines and penalties for PG&E’s reckless operations.
California citizens are paying still more to maintain PG&E’s network.
California citizens pay…and pay…and pay…and pay some more.
And STILL, I get to wake up to condensation on my counters because I dare NOT turn up my heater to keep my house even slightly warm and liveable like I might do if I lived in a first world nation…

I’ll tell you this: I feel like a prisoner in this so-called “free market…”

Good for Trump, Bad for America…

by MyBaconPress

Well, I was certainly surprised to hear that the President of the United States of America is NOT an officer of the United States of America. Are YOU surprised? Is the CEO of a company NOT an officer of the corporation? What IS the President’s classification, if NOT an officer of the country? But, apparently, that’s the case.

People in three states that I know of (Michigan, Minnesota, and Colorado) have filed suit trying to keep Donny off the ballot via the 14th amendment, section 3. It 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.”

So, then I looked up ‘Officer of the United States.’ Admittedly, I used Wikipedia. This is what it says; “An officer of the United States is a functionary of the executive or judicial branches of the federal government of the United States to whom is delegated some part of the country’s sovereign power. The term officer of the United States is not a title, but a term of classification for a certain type of official.”

So, this Judge, Sarah Wallace, has ruled in the Colorado case that Donny did, indeed, engage in insurrection but said the 14th amendment does not apply to the President of the United States because the President of the United States is not an officer of the United States. Sure, he’s a functionary of the executive branch and he certainly has been delegated some part of the country’s sovereign power – more than anybody else in the country at any given moment – but he doesn’t fit the description. Both Michigan and Minnesota have also ruled that he can stay on the ballot but they limited their decisions to the Primaries and not the General election.

It should be noted that the judge was appointed by a Democratic governor, but conservative brain-rot can hit anybody, at any time. It should ALSO be noted that the Chief Kangaroo in our corrupt Supremely Kangaroo Court, the dishonorable John Roberts, has already gone on record saying people don’t vote for Officers of the United States. Officers are merely hired workers. That’s why Senators and Representatives are named specifically. All of this means we already know how the corrupt court will rule once the case gets there. The traitor Trump gets to stay on the ballot.

So, because the Congress Critters of the day failed to write the word “President” in their Amendment, likely because they considered the President of the United States a natural officer of the United States, being the main representative of the United States and all, the tools Americans were given to try to stop known traitors from becoming President of the United States…simply don’t apply. Isn’t THAT lovely? Our once-great nation is going to become a Fascist authoritarian…um…”Shithole,” I believe is the term Donny used, because of a stupid loophole. I don’t like it any more than you do but the 14th isn’t going to keep Donny off the ballot in any state.

I’ll tell you this: The words of John F. Kennedy just keep ringing in my ears: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

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It’s called ‘Stochastic Terrorism.’ Again, from Wikipedia, “Stochastic terrorism refers to political or media figures publicly demonizing a person or group in such a way that it inspires supporters of the figures to commit a violent act against the target of the speech. Unlike incitement to terrorism, this is accomplished by using indirect, vague, or coded language that allows the instigator to plausibly disclaim responsibility for the resulting violence.”

It’s how Donny worked his self-blinded acolytes into a frenzy enough to attack Congress, assault people, and go to prison for him. After his New York fraud trial got going, he started in on a law clerk, Alison Greenfield. The presiding judge in the case, Arthur Engoron, issued a gag order tying to protect his staff.

The gag order was temporarily stayed on Thursday by one Judge David Friedman of the state’s intermediate appeals court, pending appeal. Judge Friedman is apparently more concerned about Donny’s freedom of speech than he is Mrs. Greenfield’s freedom to not be murdered by a nutball. I presume Friedman would have a different understanding if the threats were aimed at him or his family. He could have left the gag order in place while the appeal processed. That was an option. But he didn’t.

Donny didn’t waste one minute. In exercising his “free speech,” he immediately began posting new threats to Ms. Greenfield. Cue the crazies. I wonder if Mrs. Greenfield’s family can sue Judge Friedman if/when some trump-loyal nutball harms her because Donny wants them to. Small comforts, I guess…

Two big wins for Donny this week. Two BIG loses for the United States of America. Rational Americans thought (hoped?) we could resolve this nightmare peacefully, but it’s looking more and more like lawyers are going to keep that from happening…

MAGA Fallout…

by MyBaconPress

Ever since J6, Fascist MAGA has largely taken one of two tacks: the first one they tried was stupid, “What?!? Nothing happened! It was just an unauthorized tour. A peaceful unauthorized tour!” You’ll still hear it, from time to time, but it never did play well. We had all seen the events of the day with our own eyes and we weren’t about to believe MAGA’s lies over our own eyes.

The second story rolled out a bit more slowly but one could see it coming: blame it on Democrats. It was Pelosi who failed to properly secure the building. No mention of why the Congress suddenly needed extra protection, of course. MAGA likes to pretend they’re a bunch of tough guys so MAGA maniac Marjorie Taylor Greene has a new book out that takes tack two. Look for it in the remaindered bins in a week or so. She claims that when a number of House members were trapped in the gallery during the MAGA attack, she saw Republicans stay behind to “defend the chamber” but didn’t see one Democrat.

Fortunately for the Republicans, several Democrats DID stay and help. I say “fortunately,” because the Dems that stayed noticed that many of the members didn’t know how to put on their gas masks – so they helped. AFTER claiming she didn’t see one Democrat left in the gallery, she THEN claimed she saw Democrats “lying on the floor, hysterical.” (It’s part of MAGA de-humanizing efforts. Conservatives are strong, Liberals are weak. The idea is to show how easy it’s going to be to fight and beat Liberals. They did the same thing just before they started their losing effort in the American Civil War, too. Wrong then, wrong now…)

It’s really the bigger picture I’m concerned with here, though. When you first deny an event even occurred, then try to pin blame on someone else, you know what you’re doing? You’re confessing you know what happened. You know it was bad. You know it was wrong, and you know who did it.

Dear MAGA, you want to prove how manly and tough you are? Take responsibility for your actions. WE know what you did, YOU know what you did. Stand up and say so…

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With the help of Democrats, Kevin McCarthy passed a stop-gap spending bill to keep government open while he was still Speaker. So, MAGA fired McCarthy. (How DARE he do anything to help the country?) It was stupid and put them on full display as morons, so they (wait for it) blamed the Democrats. Yes, of course they did. Republicans try to blame Democrats for every stupid thing Republicans do. Then, they finally came together around someone I guess nobody really knew, Mike Johnson.

Now we all know a LOT about Mike Johnson and most of us wish we didn’t. Increasingly, most of us want to know what the hell he’s doing with his money, too. He claims he has no assets and no bank accounts. Nor does his wife. No assets, no bank accounts. How does he cash his House Check? Where does he put the cash? He makes, like $205,000/year, before taxes. That’s $17, 083.33/per month, paid in two monthly checks of $8,541.67. Is the Speaker of the House walking around with $8,500 dollars in his pocket every payday until he can get home and shove it under his mattress? But I digress…

It seems Johnson may have taken the Speaker job essentially just so he could get an investigation started on himself by authorities. Now, he passed a stop-gap spending bill to keep the government open through the holidays. MAGA hates the idea and Johnson got it done with the help of Democrats (obviously, their fault) and some of the moderate Republicans still occasionally found in Congress. If MAGA follows their previous behavior, Johnson now has to be removed. After all, he worked with Democrats for the benefit of the nation. MAGA will not have that. It flies in the face of their motto: “F*ck this country!” (Yeah, not very inspiring. Take it up with them…)

I don’t guess it’s particularly surprising MAGA is made up of people who know little to nothing about nearly everything. There’s a reason Trump “loves the uneducated.” Anybody who had any actual knowledge of the workings and realities of authoritarian states knows it’s a very bad idea and people pushing for it have their ignorance on full, neon display. But make no mistake: these people are dangerous and they don’t have enough information to know just how dangerous their ideas are.

Media’s Messages…

by MyBaconPress

I don’t like clickbait headlines. In trying to get clicks it’s often true that at some point, the highlight of the headline becomes… “less than true.” I saw an article in the AP this morning. The headline? “Secret Service agents protecting Biden’s granddaughter open fire when 3 people try to break into SUV.” Sounds ominous, right? Holy gods, they’re going directly after Biden’s granddaughter?

Um, no. Turns out, Biden’s granddaughter wasn’t even in the van. Neither were the Secret Service agents. Turns out, it was just three car thieves working a potential score. They likely didn’t even know it WAS the President’s granddaughter’s van. To them, it was just another van they could break into and steal or steal from. A Secret Service agent opened fire. Bad guys skedaddled. No one was hit and the Metro Police are looking for the perpetrators. Oh, and AP is left with a credibility hit…for clicks…

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I just finished watching, “All The Light We Cannot See” on Netflix. It’s very good and I heartily recommend it. Here’s how it ends. No, that’s a joke. I won’t do that to you. Just watch it. The reason I mention it is because it’s set in Europe (France, to be exact) in 1944, when the Nazis were in charge. As I watched, I could not stop thinking of the parallels between Nazi and MAGA. It’s really quite frightening.

Handing a bunch of small-minded, little people tremendous power and authority was devastating to the world, then and ever since. Doing it again seems like the dumbest thing in the world people could do do themselves, their loved ones, and their progeny.

MAGA would pretend to be outraged by the comparison, of course. THEY haven’t killed 6 million Jews so they COULDN’T be the same. They’re unable to grasp that while the Nazi’s were rising to power, THEY hadn’t killed anybody, either. One CANNOT compare the end of the Nazi’s with the beginnings of MAGA and declare them different based on outcome so far. ALL of the seeds of “same” are there.

The show is built around radios and at one point of of the Nazis says, plainly, that the Nazis could not have come to power without radio. That character is right. In history, once they gained control of the airwaves, they had control of the narrative and spread misinformation and fear that helped propel Hitler to power. As Mark Twain is sometimes credited with saying, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get it’s shoes on.”

Now we’re watching MAGA come to power through control of their narrative and the spread of misinformation and fear that helped propel trump to power – and threatens to do so again – via the internet. All of it, based on a raft of lies. The truth finally has it’s shoes on, though, so…

I’ll tell you this: the MAGA/Nazi similarities are too scary to ignore. We, the people who still love the actual United States of America, CANNOT let this happen…

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Speaking of tools of evil, Trump! He’s out saying he wants to allow cameras in his Federal trial. No, not that one. No, not that one, either. No, that one’s State. The DC trial. News outlets have already sued to allow cameras in the courtroom. In Federal court, cameras are not usually allowed. Usually. It DOES happen sometimes and, I think, it should happen this time.

I’ve been paying attention to his current NY fraud trial. He’s done everything he can to turn it into a circus. Then, he comes out and lies about everything that happens inside the courtroom. Yes, he knows there are reporters in there who will report the truth but he ALSO knows MAGA will never see those reports. The conservative media bubble will focus on his “statements” (read: lies), instead. MAGA will continue to walk around terrified, furious, and completely oblivious to the truth.

I suspect 45 might be bluffing but it could be true he just doesn’t understand how much harder it is to support his lies when the whole world (except MAGA, of course) watches the trial as it unfolds. In the NY trial, he and his “lawyers” have been as disruptive as they can possibly manage. They’re planning a “defense” of tedium, trying to bring in over 100 witnesses, NONE of whom can change the facts but, likely, ALL of whom will likely try to “testify” that Donny is an innocent angel and won in 2020. The court is busily trying to sift through the “witness” list to see who has something relevant to add and who just wants to posture for their public. All of that without cameras.

So if he gets his cameras, HE thinks he’s going to walk into the DC courtroom and take it over, Chutkin being “only” a woman, as she is. I suspect Judge Chutkin will control her courtroom, and herself, just as professionally as Judge Engoron has done. But what THAT means is that the cameras he’s asking for will simply show him being slapped down time after time after time.

45 isn’t smart but he is clever, in an evil way, and he knows his audience. He sells shirts to these people that show his mug shot taken immediately after his surrender to authorities with the words ‘Never Surrender’ emblazoned on them and his supporter never catch the irony. Perhaps he can find a way to convince those same people – who desperately want to be convinced – that when he’s getting slapped down he’s actually “winning.”

I’ll tell you this: now that she has his “permission” as well as the lawsuit from news agencies that want to broadcast the trial, I hope Judge Chutkin allows the cameras. I suspect they won’t work for 45 the way he hopes they will and it’s better for ALL of America (and the world, for that matter) to watch this thing play out in real time…