Month: December 2024

Jimmy Got His Wings…

by MyBaconPress

Well, I’m sorry to note the passing of James Earl Carter III, ‘Jimmy’ to you and me. Jimmy Carter was a VERY good man. He did many good things in his life and worked every day to make other people’s lives better. It turned out, he was not so good at politics on the national level – most especially the dirty politics of the Reagan campaign. But he spent the rest of his life proving he HAD been the right man for the job and if it hadn’t been for alleged machinations by the Reagan team, he might have had a more successful presidency.

His two biggest problems? Well, inflation was high. He worked to get it down but it was stubborn. Our society was reacting to the return of Vietnam soldiers and the new paradigm of women NOT returning to the home when the men returned from war. For a while, there were too many workers for too few jobs and only time can fix that. The One Percent used it as an excuse to pretend Keynesian economics was dead. THAT allowed them to introduce the new economic “idea,” so-called “Supply Side” economics.

It’s nonsense. The implementation of “supply side” economics in 1980 has led us directly to the economic struggles we all know and hate today. It’s a direct line. It set us on the road to the fascism we live under now. “Supply Side economics” has always been nonsense (George Bush, the elder, dubbed it “VooDoo economics” because the concept was so stupid), so the cons needed someone with charisma to bring the story to the masses. Enter Ronald Reagan. No one can say how Reagan would have fared in the election left to his own devices. All we know is that earlier attempts had failed. But then Reagan got lucky.

Some people, ‘college students,’ we were told at the time, seized the American embassy in Tehran, Iran, and held the embassy workers hostage. Carter tried mightily to secure the release of the hostages. He took every action he legally could as President of the United States. He even attempted a military intervention, though he was philosophically opposed to using the military to solve problems.

What he didn’t know – couldn’t have known – was that the Reagan team was allegedly working behind the scenes WITH the Iranian “college students.”
“Wait, you’re saying an American Presidential candidate was working WITH American adversaries AGAINST American interests in an effort to win an election?”
That’s the allegation. There was much evidence to support the charge, too, but, as we all know now, if you “win,” there ARE no charges. (Kind of, in this case.) “Keep the embassy workers hostage,” the ‘students’ were told, “and the US will provide you with weapons for your fight against Iraq if Reagan wins. You can let them go once Reagan is elected.”

And that’s what happened. Literally one half hour after Reagan’s election, the hostages were released. Of course, we were told it was because of Reagan’s awesome leadership and how the ‘students’ were afraid of Reagan because he was oh-so-tough. We didn’t know about the arms deal until it blew up on them during the administration.

See, Congress had refused to fund arms to Nicaraguan “Contras” due to human rights abuses, but Reagan supported their cause. AND, they had made a promise to Iran. It wouldn’t have looked good for the “students” to come out and describe the deal in detail, so the Reagan team did what they could. You remember, that was when the CIA started IMPORTING cocaine from Central America to the US (black neighborhoods only, please), then using the proceeds to secretly buy and ship weapons to Iran – AND send some of the money to the Contra rebel groups back in Nicaragua.

It’s known to history as the Iran/Contra scandal and it might have brought down the Reagan presidency if one Colonel Oliver North hadn’t fallen on his sword and taken the fall for the scheme. Everybody knew, at the time, North had acted under orders from the West Wing, but nobody could PROVE beyond a doubt that North had acted under orders from the West Wing so North took the fall himself.

He was convicted of three felonies but the convictions were later vacated because he had been given immunity to testify before Congress. He has since been handsomely rewarded for his role in the treasonous scheme by wealthy but low-profile supporters of extreme conservatism.

I sat down to write about Jimmy Carter and his presidency. It ended up being all about Reagan and his criminal maladministration. I almost did a re-write but then I realized, that WAS Carter’s presidency. It was undone and overshadowed by traitorous actions of a political opponent – and that’s what I meant by ‘…he was not so good at politics on the national level.’

Carter couldn’t beat the Reagan team at that game because Carter was too good of a man to play on that level. He would have had to stoop to the same underhanded politics the Reagan team was using and he wouldn’t do that. Reagan and his henchmen got rich – and then ended up in Hell. North should be joining them soon. But Jimmy? Jimmy got his wings…

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I read a piece from ‘The Hill’ that suggested that Democrats haven’t learned anything from their recent campaign loss – because the GOP released the House ethics report on Matt Gaetz. No, it doesn’t make sense (the piece was written by a con), but it DOES show you the direction MAGA is moving on this issue. I WANT to call it ‘Gaetz-gate,’ since every scandal since Watergate has had the ‘gate’ suffix attached to show it’s seriousness, but I suspect ‘Gaetz-gate’ jumps the shark on that practice, being redundant, as it is.

Look, we don’t know, for sure, if Matt Gaetz did or did not sleep with a 17-year-old high school junior when he was 34. We don’t know if he KNEW she was 17 when he did. Possibly, he would have been happy with an 18-year-old high school senior if she had been available. But we DO know he was using illegal drugs and paid tens of thousands of dollars to prostitutes. We also know he was showing photos around the House floor and bragging about his “conquests” – photos and descriptions other people, apparently, didn’t want to see or hear.

In this, um, ‘article,’ the writer wrote: “…the left’s non-stop bloodlust to sensationalize, embarrass, gloat or fundraise off the report demonstrates that not only did they learn nothing from the election results, which embarrassed their candidate and their party, but that they continue to drown out the voices of the two constituencies they were once most identified with protecting: the working class and the disenfranchised.”

Huh. WAS it the left that used poster-sized, revenge porn pictures on the floor of the House to “sensationalize, embarrass, gloat or fundraise?” No, wait a minute. If I remember correctly, that was the GOP using photos of Hunter Biden. Yeah, Hunter had a drug problem, too. But he didn’t – allegedly – hire high school juniors for sex. (I’ve already acknowledged we don’t know but the GOP-created ethics report suggests Gaetz did. Take it up with them.)

The writer also wrote: “it seems as if Democrats instantly went back to their kneejerk strategy of sliming and smearing Republicans…” Yeah, that’s the left. Sliming and smearing. See how it works? When a Republican makes up claims about someone from whole cloth or overstates the importance of some small issue, that’s just good, solid work. When a Democrat reports actual, verifiable facts that just happen to make a Republican look bad, that’s ‘sliming and smearing.’

Here’s how you’ll know it was all performative BS. Sooner or later, someone will find Gaetz’s form from when HE bought guns and we’ll ALL see the check mark in the ‘not using drugs’ box. You know, the one that Hunter checked that caused MAGA such outrage. You just watch how ho-hum MAGA pretends THAT is…

Cons won’t think twice about this. They’ve been conditioned to see the left as “angry and even hate-filled” and see themselves as merely “concerned.” So, revenge porn on a private citizen as a cheap mechanism to embarrass a sitting President was simply good work, but referring to ‘President-elect Thirty-Four Felonies’ is an out-of-bounds slur?

I’m not sure ‘righteous indignation’ is the right position for MAGA. It calls to mind Matthew 7:5, “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye…“

Contemptible Fools…

by MyBaconPress

Okay, so here’s how it works. An employer is allowed to use an H1B visa if they can’t find workers to do a job they need, as described, here in the United States. So, employers ask for, say, a computer programmer. You must know every programming language ever written. You must have never made any mistakes. You must have decades of experience. AND, you must be willing to work for, say, one third of the pay your contemporaries make.

The company can “adjust” the expectations of the requirements, so long as they stick to the pay demand. Then, they insist they can’t find the people they need, as described (because of the pay difference). THEN, they get to bring in foreign workers at lower cost using H1B visas. It’s a pretty clever trick and President non-elect Musk has been using it to his financial advantage for a long, long time. To be clear, there ARE Americans who can do his jobs – just not at the salary he offers. He doesn’t want to pay Americans, so he uses foreigners.

Well, the heat is turning up on the President non-elect. He has made clear that he intends to continue to use these foreign workers because of the cost savings. Of course, he doesn’t mention the cost savings. HE says Americans just aren’t good enough. Hell, his billionaire buddy Vivek Ramaswamy got caught up in the debate and said it out loud, “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Musk is STILL fighting for his position. He has vowed “war” over getting to use his cheaper labor. He said, “I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.” But MAGA has an entire ethos built around how bad foreigners are. They seem really very upset that their new leader is going to deport some foreigners but allow those who benefit him, and they started saying so in social media. Interestingly, they started saying so on X, where Musk had his team cancelling and demoting accounts that criticized him. You know, because of his dedication to free speech.

He’s trying to, get this, correct MAGA – by calling them “contemptible fools”! Musk wrote on his X page that “hateful, unrepentant racists” should be removed from the Republican Party, “root and stem.” Uh-huh. So much for MAGA. You’re going to remove Donald Trump, root and stem, from the Republican Party? I’m laughing, Elon.

But it appears, even MAGA can see the hypocrisy this time. They can see that even as he calls THEM racists, he continues to support far-right groups around the world who embrace racism, like Germany’s AfD. They remember when Musk Defended Scott Adams of ‘Dilbert’ fame, after Adams declared black people a “hate group” by telling white people to “stay away from them.” And NOW they see that he wants to just ignore the “foreign” status of HIS workers because THOSE foreigners benefit Musk? (Hey, isn’t that the SAME attitude Trump is taking about HIS foreign wife?)

Meanwhile, Trump tried to avoid this whole thing by playing golf. But, he finally weighed in on the conflict, and MAGA might not be happy – OR, they’ll be changing their position overnight. Trump, it turns out, likes the H1B Visa program and admits he makes regular use of it at “his properties.” It seems Trump doesn’t MIND giving jobs to foreigners instead of Americans, so long as it saves him money.

I feel like MAGA got sold a bill of goods on this one. But give them a short time to change course and they’ll all be onboard with foreigners coming and taking American jobs. Hell, in a few days, MAGA might be screaming about how we need to open the border for cheaper labor!

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Many of us have been watching to see who’s actually in charge, going forward, Trump or Musk. As it stands right now, it’s looking like Musk, but the future is hard to see. Here’s a hint, though, of whom MUSK thinks is in charge. During his dust-up with MAGA about how he gets to keep using foreign labor, someone posted on X, “Never insult the monarch,” a comment Laura Loomer shared. Musk’s reply? “I’m constantly insulted on this platform!”

To me, that feels very much like Musk sees himself as “the monarch.” That doesn’t leave much room for Trump, does it?

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This is funny. Trump promised he was going to bring down prices and he promised it would happen fast. He said he could end the war in Ukraine easily, before he even took office. He said his tariffs were going to fix the American economy. He said these things many times, in many places during the campaign. His supporters believed him, so they voted for him.

Oh, but NOW, he’s back-peddling. FAST. No, prices won’t come down, quickly or otherwise. “It’s hard,” he said. No, he can’t end the war in Ukraine easily. Maybe he won’t even DO tariffs, now. On the left, we see those as campaign lies. He said things that weren’t true and he almost certainly knew they weren’t true, but he said them anyway. His campaign though?

They’re saying he’s just “shifting away from the sales pitch rhetoric that is typical of campaigns.” Shifting away from the ‘sales pitch rhetoric?’ That’s some fancy language for ‘lying on the campaign trail.’

Wasted Efforts Waste Time…

by MyBaconPress

Oh. Em. Gee. Would you PLEASE stop? I keep seeing all these posts on the left suggesting that Trump can’t be President because of wording in the Constitution. Two things; One, true, the Constitution DOES say – in the 14th Amendment – that “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. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

We all remember January 6th and Trump’s insurrection. MAGA pretends it was something else, but Americans remember. One can tell from the language of the amendment that the paragraph is self-actuating. It’s automatic. Take an oath, then engage in insurrection and you’re no longer qualified to hold public office at any level – unless Congress specifically goes to the trouble of removing such disability.

But, two, The Roberts Supremely Corrupt, Kangaroo Court of the United States has already ruled exactly the opposite of what the amendment actually reads and determined (after the checks cleared, of course) that Congress has to pass a specific law to KEEP someone from taking office if they’ve engaged in insurrection. Of COURSE it’s a bastardization of how the law actually reads. Hell, it’s literally the exact opposite of the text. But the corrupt court has ruled and that corrupt ruling will stand until a better court overturns it.

So now, desperate people on the left are pretending that if they can JUST get Congress to pass that law needed to disqualify Trump from ascending to his throne, they can stop him. Once and for all: no, they can’t. Sure, the Supremely Kangaroo Court is corrupt. Sure, their ruling IS wrong. Absolutely, you could stop him with a law – if you could get Congress to pass it. The Senate would be on board, I’m sure.

But not the House, okay? The House is as corrupt as the Supremely Kangaroo Court and they’re loyal to Trump. Several of them gave speeches after the attempted coup denouncing Trump’s efforts. They pointed their crooked little fingers right at the guy and declared his behavior unacceptable. But that was only a few hours before reappearing and apologizing for telling the truth and re-asserting their absolute, undying devotion to the insurrectionist.

No rational person wants Trump to take the power he’s about to assume. But wishful thinking on our part isn’t going to change anything. “IF we can get Congress to…” Yeah, well, you can’t, so move on…

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Have you ever wondered how Romans knew what was going on in the world? I don’t mean modern Romans. They just open their newspapers and read. I mean ancient Romans. They knew what was going on in the world. They knew what was happening in Rome. They could follow actions of their Senate. Ancient Romans were QUITE cosmopolitan, as a people. So if you can’t just go into your living room and turn on Walterus Cronkiteurous, how DID ancient Romans get their news?

It turns out, ancient Rome had newsreaders. Romans would collect in designated places at designated times and a person would just read the news for all to hear. It kept Romans informed. Well, for a while, it kept Romans informed.

When Julius Caesar seized control of Rome, the newsreaders kept on reading news. It just wasn’t the news the people needed to make quality decisions. The newsreaders switched from informing the population, to misinforming the population. Nobody realized. Why would they? The newsreaders were still reading, right?

Well, turn on your TV. The newsreaders are still reading. But they’re reading what the One Percent-serving, corporate media want them to read and nothing that doesn’t serve the One Percent. Why, it’s almost as if allowing the rich people to buy up all of the media outlets wasn’t such a good idea, after all.

Back in Better America, we used to stop crap like that. We had rules that limited the number of outlets any one entity could control. AND, the rules covered multiple platforms. If you owned a television station in one market, you might not be able to own a radio station, too. The idea was that leaving control of media outlets in different hands created different points of view. It worked, too. That’s WHY the One Percent had to get rid of it by consolidating (or closing down) the outlets.

We should go back to that rule. We should break up the media conglomerates and eliminate monopoly control over the national message…

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Would someone please go and find the form Matt Gaetz filled out when he bought HIS guns? DID he check the “Nope, not using drugs” box, even though we know he was using cocaine, “molly,” and probably other things? We KNOW how MAGA feels about that. We saw them with Hunter, demanding his head on a pike for checking that box. I’m sure MAGA will apply the exact same standard to Matt Gaetz, right? And according to MAGA, that should mean years, maybe decades in prison. (Yeah, they’re okay with the statutory rape thing but, by the GODS you will not check that box if you use drugs…)

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It’s looking more and more like President non-elect Musk has a different agenda than his puppet, Trump. Trump ran around telling people he was going to round up and deport any and every (non-white) person he could find if they were here illegally – OR if they’re perfectly legal but they’re family of an undocumented person. Wouldn’t want to break up families, eh? Trump wants them ALL gone and he has sworn to get rid of them.

President non-elect Musk, on the other hand, thinks bringing in foreigners to do jobs Americans could do is perfectly a-okay and he plans to keep doing it. “Yeah, we’ll get rid of your immigrants who keep your food costs down, but we’re NOT getting rid of MY immigrants who keep my payroll down.”

MAGA hasn’t responded well. There was a LOT of push-back. Some of the MAGA faithful were foolish enough to push back on X. You remember X, right? That’s the failing social media site some billionaire overpaid for so he could turn it into a total and complete free speech zone – only to bird-dog, “moderate,” and censor the site so heavily people have been fleeing to better places. But those who stayed?

Well, if they criticized the unelected would-be king’s position, they found their accounts shut down or demoted. But THAT, in turn, has caused them to turn on the unelected would-be king. It’s turning into an all-out civil war between MAGA and Musk.

Far right-wing, um, personality Laura Loomer is angry. She thinks, maybe, Musk and Ramaswamy only infiltrated MAGA for their own purposes. (It’s a dim light, but it’s a light…) She wrote, “I have been more loyal to President Trump and his agenda than ANYONE. And I have only been punished for it. Pay attention MAGA. This is how you will all be treated now that Big Tech has infiltrated MAGA. “President Musk” is starting to look real.”

Then, X sent out a message to all of her subscribers, telling them that SHE had shut down her account and cancelled all of the subscriptions. She insists she didn’t do it. (But, in fairness, MAGA is full of stunts.) She’s not the only one being punished by ‘Mr. Free Speech, so long as it’s not aimed my way.’ Dozens of other accounts criticizing Musk and Ramaswamy’s position also claimed that their checkmarks and badges had been taken away.

Maybe Trump needs to reiterate – again – that HE’S the king. Of course, Tywin Lannister is still there: ‘Any man who must say ‘I am the king’ is no true king.’

Revivals and Exceptions…

by MyBaconPress

Have you noticed? He’s staffing his administration with a LOT of the losers he endorsed in various campaigns. No, let me say that differently. He’s staffing his administration with a lot of the people he endorsed for various political offices who went on to lose their races. Think Herschel Walker. Yeah, the guy CAN carry a football. No, he doesn’t seem able to carry a thought, but if the US finds itself in a fourth and short situation in the Bahamas, we’ve got our guy.

It’s almost as if Trump has a pathological need to try to prove that the people he endorsed deserved to be endorsed and that Trump was right and the voters were wrong. But I remember some of the people he endorsed. I think Trump was wrong and the voters were right. Time will tell. But it’s not just failed people he’s re-introducing.

Trump seems to be recycling bad ideas from the first assault, too. He thinks the US should own and control Greenland. Apparently, in his mind, that also means Denmark should just hand Greenland over. They’ve already had to respond to his “thought” with a stern, “No! Greenland is not for sale, barter, or trade. Nor are we just going to hand it to you. Just, no!”

Maybe he can send Herschel over to discuss the matter…

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The thing I had not heretofore considered about President non-elect Musk? Most Americans have been waiting and watching for the clash of the outsized egos. The thinking has been that those two egos cannot exist in the same space for any length of time. Sooner or later, the thought goes, there will be a clash and Trump will show Musk the door. But then I remembered something: Putin.

In all the world, there’s one person on the planet Trump has never said one negative word about: Vladimir Putin. Trump has something nasty to say about everybody, no exceptions. Okay, ONE exception. Putin. No matter what Putin says or does, Trump just bends the knee. Putin seems to have something on Trump that, well, trumps Trump’s ego. Donald does as he’s told by Vlad. And now, maybe Musk, too.

It’s entirely possible Elon has the same kind of control. Musk put up a LOT of money to help get Trump “elected.” We can only guess at the other kinds of things he did, but whatever it was, it put Musk in the driver’s seat. That could explain why Musk gave an order and Trump jumped to deliver…

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On the one hand, we’ve got Puppet-elect Trump out there, threatening the American people with high prices on everything because of his tariffs. On the other, we’ve got President non-elect Musk, who has massive business interests in China, one of Trump’s favorite targets.

If Trump slaps his promised (and threatened) tariffs on China, Musk feels it. Musk’s Chinese Tesla plant can make nearly one million cars a year. That’s quite the investment. Do you think Musk is going to let Trump impose tariffs when it will have THAT kind of impact on Musk’s businesses?

Maybe he can carve out an exception for Musk’s cars – or Ivanka’s purses – or all the cheap-ass crap he has made in China, then sells to his gullible supporters here. By the time he finishes his carve-outs, the only thing the tariffs will hit – again – will be soy beans. The soy bean farmers should be used to that by now. He already put them on the government dole once with his policies – then bragged about getting the farmers the money they needed to get by…

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Oh, and speaking of Tesla, like everything Tesla puts out, the so-called “Cybertruck” is quite the little death machine. Well, okay, it’s not that little. It’s not a truck, either. For whatever reason, in a crash, Teslas have a tendency to burst into flames. Do you remember when Musk tried to show how the windows couldn’t be broken on a Cybertruck? The window DID crack – Musk seemed embarrassed – but it didn’t break. Ooh, aah! Oh, wait. What happens with you NEED the window to break because it’s the only way out of the burning Tesla?

Yeah, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I think those Cybertrucks are beyond ugly. Oh, also, you get to pay around $119,000 dollars to own one of those butt-ugly things! (I mean, how tiny IS it?) Oh, AND, that little bugger WILL kill you, given the chance. They just started rolling off the assembly line in November of 2023 and Tesla has already had TWO major recalls on the things. And, yes, they HAVE killed people who couldn’t get out of the burning vehicle after a crash. I’ve long thought of Teslas as rolling crematoriums.

The Ford Pinto killed far fewer people before being pulled from the market because of their tendency to burst into flame in an accident. I wonder how many more have to die in burning Teslas before we take appropriate action…

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Okay, this is not so much a “correction,” per se, as an update. It was way, way back, oh, some four days ago now, I wrote about how when Elon ordered the Continuing Resolution (CR) killed, the GOP ALSO killed funding for research into cancer in children. The reason it’s not a correction, exactly, is that the statement is technically true – it’s just misleading.

See, the House passed a separate bill to continue the funding – way back in May of 2024. The leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, sat on the House’s bill for awhile. That is to say, Schumer could have brought up and passed the funding back in May, but he didn’t. He sat on it and put it into the CR, instead.

How do I know this is true and not just MAGAGOPCORP, Inc propaganda? The actions. Actions speak louder than words. Musk order the CR killed, the GOP obeyed. (That “killed” the cancer research funding.) The GOP tried to pin the impending government closure on the Dems but it was FAR too clear to anyone and everyone that this was all GOP, all the time. Hell, even MAGA could see it.

So, the GOP basically ended up passing the original bill at the last minute with a few minor things changed. One of those “minor” things was the removal of the funding for research into cancer in children. Oh, how the Dems crowed about that. “They killed cancer research for kids! They killed cancer research for kids!” The left, predictably, got upset. I wrote about it.

THEN, the very next day after the modified CR was passed, the Senate passed the funding for research into cancer in children bill the House had passed back in May of 2024. (Interestingly, that didn’t get NEARLY the coverage on the left the ‘killed the funding’ narrative had received.) But the Senate couldn’t have passed the bill if the House hadn’t already authorized it. That’s the way that works.

The ONE thing Schumer can point to in response to the charge that this was all a cheap political manipulation is that the CR bill included $190 million for the research, while the previously approved House bill only covered the original $120 million. When the Senate finally passed the House bill, it was for only $120 million, but if I were MAGA, I’d suspect (by which I mean ‘know without question’) that the attempted increase in funding was, itself, a cheap political manipulation.

Why, I wonder, would the One-Percent-serving, corporate media make such hay about the funding being “killed” when, in reality, the funding just got handled differently – which, itself, was only sparsely reported? Why, it’s almost as if the One-Percent-serving, corporate media WANTS to see the left and the right fighting and used – I’m sorry – abused their power to foment a little discord. We ALL need to be careful about what we read in our oh-so-corrupt society…

Too Much, Too Long…

by MyBaconPress

Have you noticed the force around Luigi Mangione as they move him from place to place? It’s like every cop in New York is needed to escort this oh-so-dangerous man. Really, it’s one hell of a show. Yeah, he shot a guy in the back. Now, because the guy he shot was a CEO and, more importantly, rich, officials are charging him with terrorism – so they can put him to death.

Mangione was a very specific shooter. He’s not a threat to all of society. It’s not like he randomly shot up a school, killing anybody unfortunate enough to be in front of his barrel. Because he had – and achieved – a goal, I’d say he’s LESS of a threat. But 30 cops surround the guy like he’s Public Enemy Number One with a long list of murders to his name every time he gets moved.

It’s all a show. The masses are being “discouraged” from following his example by seeing the treatment Mangione receives as a result of his action. Expect it to be harsh. Publicly harsh. Expect it to end with Mangione sentenced to die. Hell, they might fast-track him to the gallows, just to make their point.

The message is, ‘don’t attack rich people’ but I’m not sure that’s the takeaway the public will go with. I haven’t seen any waning in people’s support for Mangione or his choice, despite the fact that we ALL think murder is bad. People see this killing as a kind of retribution, not murder. When they DO kill him, I suspect he’ll become a martyr, a rallying cry…

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Have you heard about this? A congresswoman from Texas, Kay Granger (R), has been living in a care facility for dementia patients at least the last six months. Her son tried to downplay the situation: “There’s nothing wrong with someone wanting to live in a community with other folks their age,” Brandon Granger said. He’s right. There IS nothing wrong with that. More, there’s nothing wrong with battling dementia. It’s sad, but it happens.

It’s the ‘battling dementia while holding a House seat’ part that concerns me. She hasn’t voted on the House floor since July. She hasn’t shown up at all, except for one photo op pretending she was a-okay. She has stepped down from her committee assignments. Oh, and she HAS continued to accept that sweet paycheck…

I’m not ripping on Granger, herself. We see this from time to time. We last saw it from Dianne Feinstein, who was no longer aware she WAS Dianne Feinstein much of the time, but maintained her position in the Senate. Useless, possibly even dangerous to her job, but holding the seat. The thing is, in Congress, this can only be about money, right?

Had Feinstein stepped down due to health issues, Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom could be expected to replace her with another Democrat, so the balance of power would not be affected. That’s the exact same situation with Kay Granger. Her Governor, Greg Abbott, would likely have appointed a Republican, so, same outcome. But they stay. And stay. And stay.

Yes, it appears Joe Biden is battling some age issues, himself, and Ronald Reagan, famously, no longer knew he was Ronald Reagan by the end of his term. It just comes up from time to time. People get old and they don’t have control over dementia. Once it hits, it hits. But they don’t leave their offices.

Theoretically, their teams take care of them by keeping them out of public view and occasionally issuing statements in their candidate’s name but it’s essentially a seat held hostage in Congress. I might go so far as to assert it’s a kind of theft. EVERYONE is getting paid – from tax dollars – but nobody is doing the job they were hired to do. It’s no different than if you went to work every day but never did your job. Well, there IS one difference. Once your employer found out you were accepting the check but never contributing, you’d be let go.

I’m not normally an advocate for age restrictions but I think I’m leaning further and further that direction when it comes to Congress critters. For one thing, FAR too many of them are FAR too old, even if they’re NOT battling dementia. One gets out of touch with things as they age. The world moves pretty fast, these days, and it gets harder and harder to keep up.

Since people clearly can NOT be trusted to just gracefully step aside when, say, health conditions demand it, there should be a defined upper age limit. I genuinely appreciate the wisdom and perspective that can come with age but it’s not guaranteed and some people end up with dementia, instead. They shouldn’t be allowed to continue in such important roles.

What if we say 70? It’s a random, round number. 70 is old, but one is still likely to be in command of one’s faculties. Yes, we WILL lose some good people early but we have an obligation to protect ourselves from being governed by people who don’t even know who they are, let alone that they’re supposed to be governing…

A “Christian” Example?

by MyBaconPress

Wow. When President non-elect Musk decided to stick his privileged nose into the business of America, he DID create some upheaval. Cons had to cut something to try and make him happy. The thing that made Musk happy to cut? Cancer research for children. Yeah, that’s real.

A young lady, 10-year-old Gabriella Miller, died of an inoperable brain tumor. In 2014, an Act was passed in her name that funded research. It offered up $126 million over the following decade toward pediatric cancer research. It had to be re-authorized in 2024. The 2024 plan was to allocate $190 million for the next 10 years.

Pay attention to the kinds of numbers Congress talks about. Really, $190 million dollars over the course of 10 years is a drop in the bucket. It’s nothing. Here, let’s do a comparison. The average salary of a Congress critter is currently $174,000/yr. That’s base pay. They get perks and benefits and the leadership positions all get premiums, but let’s use that number. There are 535 voting members of Congress between the House and the Senate. Ready?

$174,000 x 535 = $93,090,000 per year.
Multiply their oh-so-generous annual salary by 10, the number of years the cancer research bill would have covered. It comes to $930, 900,000! We’re going to give those useless pieces of, um, politicians $931 million dollars over the next 10 years to do little more than posture and pose, but $190 million dollars to research cancer in children was just too much – a bridge too far – for Musk, so it had to go.

Here’s the real key. It was an easy target, low-hanging fruit. How many voters have kids with cancer? Personally, I think ONE is too many, but the hard truth is, whatever the number, there aren’t enough voting parents of kids with cancer to be a threatening bloc. So, maybe the cons can just quietly dump research into cancer in kids and save a few bucks.

Just like Jesus would have wanted. You know, because of “Christian morals…”

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My favorite thing about the pseudo-Christians (which is most of them, these days) is the unintended consequences of their oh-so-pure attitudes combined with their complete LACK of knowledge as to exactly what is in that book they pretend to revere, the Holy Bible. But in Texas, Canyon Independent School District Superintendent Darryl Flusche has announced that the Holy Bible, as a whole, is not suitable for inclusion in school libraries due to a Texas law intending to protect schools from sexually explicit content, though some individual stories from the Bible remain.

The law he cites, House Bill 900, defines sexually explicit material as “any communication, language, or material” that describes sexual conduct in a way that is “patently offensive” according to the Texas Penal Code. He didn’t specify which sexually explicit material he was referring to. Was it the rapes? The Coitus Interruptus? The incest? Who knows?

Apparently, NONE of those things, all of which are actually in the Bible, are deal-killers. Listening to the pseudo-Christians squeal about it is quite telling. One parent, a woman named Regina Kiehne told school officials, “It seems absurd to me that the Good Book was thrown out with the bad books. It just makes sense to have the Word of God in our school library. After all, it (the Bible) is the book of wisdom.”

In other words, the kids NEED to read the story of Lot’s daughters getting him drunk and sexing him up, right? I guess it helps explain why Uncle Daddy gets to do those things to the young girls. Did Ham sodomize Noah? Texas school kids need to know. Oh, maybe they get their examples of “morals” from Moses!

Oh, c’mon, you remember. It was that time he told his soldiers, “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. Hubba-hubba.” (Numbers 31:17) (I may have added a bit at the end, there.) That’s when the Israelites had been commanded to commit genocide against the Midianites. They had already killed all the men. So now they just needed to kill the rest – even babies, if they were boys! But not the virgin girls.

“Christian morals,” indeed…

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I live by a basic adage. It goes like this: When your out-go is greater than your income, your upkeep will be your downfall. It’s a good rule. It has the advantage of being undeniably true. The GOP has been working as hard as they can for the last 40+ years to convince everybody that the government of the United States is overspending and the ONLY way to address that problem is by cutting spending. Guess what? That’s wrong!

As it happens, there are TWO ways to address that problem, not one. Yes, one IS to cut spending and we should ALL want to be on the lookout for wasteful spending. (Pentagon, anyone?) It IS, after all, OUR money they’re spending. But there’s a better way. They could raise revenues. Think of it as getting a better job. (That’s what working Americans do when they want more money and can’t get it where they’re at.)

That involves tax increases. It’s clear that much of our society can’t face another tax shift from the wealthy. The rich really need to participate at a rate commensurate with the rate they extract from our society. That’s reasonable. It’s possible for the country to increase it’s revenues to address our financial woes. Financial woes, by the way, that have been artificially created by the very self-same greedy people who think they deserve more than others because they steal more than others.

Whenever I write this kind of thing, I get push-back about how the rich pay the most taxes, so how is that fair? Yes, the rich pay most of the taxes, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, but they control the vast majority of the wealth. They SHOULD pay the most taxes. Just looking at the hard-dollar amount they pay is insufficient information. One needs to consider the rate they extract and the percentage of wealth they control.

Here’s a fact: high taxes on high incomes causes the wealthy to actually do that which they pretend low taxes might someday encourage them to do…

President-non-elect Musk And His Puppet…

by MyBaconPress

By Wednesday, MAGA Mike the Johnson had come to an agreement to keep the government open. It was just a continuing resolution (CR). MAGAGOPCORP, Inc can’t pass an actual budget. (That’s hard!) Still, it was a deal. The government would keep functioning. BUT…

President-non-elect Musk ordered his pet, puppet-elect Trump, to shut down the CR – and Trump did as he was ordered. Let me repeat that: Trump told the House to shut down the CR because Musk told him to. Okay, so, first, I’m feeling for MAGA, right now. You’all voted for Trump because you thought he would do a good job. Hell, I’d bet you thought HE was going to DO the job. But you GOT Musk. On the left, we’re disappointed we didn’t get our candidate. MAGA should be disappointed they didn’t get their candidate, either.

Obviously, team Trump is out already, trying to reinforce the idea that Trump isn’t taking orders from Muck, immediately after Trump obeyed an order from Musk. It’s a hard thing to sell right after so publicly doing the thing you claim you’re not doing. Musk orders Trump to kill the bill, Trump kills the bill, then Trump insists he doesn’t take orders from Musk.

Musk tried to maintain the cover as well. “Oh, shucks, I’m just pointing things out,” is a paraphrase of his words. “If Trump does as he’s told, well, that’s his choice.” Uh-huh. And if Trump doesn’t do as he’s told? Stay tuned. Eventually, Trump will forget he’s supposed to bend the knee to Musk and he’ll do something off-script.

Trump says he’s okay if the government shuts down. Trump says if the government is going to shut down, it should happen while Biden is still in office and not him. Trump thinks, get this, that Musk can order Trump to kill the CR – which he does, the Republicans in Congress dutifully obey, and Americans and even MAGA will think it has something to do with Biden? Americans aren’t that stupid. Is MAGA?

This threat is being reported even in MAGA media. Now, to be sure, MAGA media is claiming it’s because Democrats won’t agree to the sudden, newly re-written agreement. Democrats were good with the first agreement. THAT’S the one they’ll sign on to. But this shut down is clearly happening because Musk made a call, Trump followed instructions, and the GOP in Congress obeyed, regardless of the fallout. It doesn’t really matter who is sitting in the Oval Office today. Everybody knows, Musk called for it, Trump endorsed it, the GOP in Congress DID it. Sure, blame Biden…

Of course, shutting down the government won’t have any effect on the billionaires forcing the shutdown. They have plenty of money. They’ll be fine. Millionaires will be fine as well. SO…are you a millionaire or a billionaire? No? Well, your “savior” is turning his back on you right now, because Musk told him to. He’s not even President yet. (And I’m not even sure which one of them I mean.)

Cons and the corporate media are going to work overtime to try to convince the world that the shutdown is the Democrat’s fault. But it isn’t. The Democrats made a deal. They were on board. The government would have stayed open. The Republicans balked and walked away – because Musk ordered it.

Do you remember when the left started saying about the right, “Hey, that looks like fascism!” and the right pretended to get all upset and “offended?” “Oh,” they said, “we HAD to vote for Trump because you said we were acting like fascists.” Uh-huh. It turns out, the House of Representatives taking orders directly from a not-elected, not-appointed billionaire is pretty much the definition of fascism. Oh, and I don’t CARE if you’re “offended.”

A government shutdown just before Christmas? That probably won’t harm the economy at all, right? I mean, how could it hurt? WHO could it hurt? But do you know what? Musk doesn’t care. Trump doesn’t care. Neither one of them will even feel it. MAGA rank and file? The vast majority of actual Americans? They may not be able to say the same.

UPDATE: At the last minute, the GOP went with the first deal. Well, there were a couple of minor changes but it was essentially the first deal, the one the Dems had already agreed to. The government stays open for now, much to the chagrin of incoming ruler Musk and his puppet Trump. I’ll tell you the truth, this is one of the last stopgaps we can hope for in the incoming insanity. It’s easy for Musk and Trump to insist upon harmful damage to everyone so they can benefit themselves, but asking Congress to inflict that damage willy-nilly might well result in some push-back.

Trump had demanded the removal of the debt ceiling. Do you remember when cons were dead set against ever raising the debt ceiling? Now, Trump KNOWS he plans to blow up the national budget and he NEEDS that debt ceiling gone – thus the demand. GOP passed the CR without removing the debt ceiling. I might put that this way: the first confrontation of the incoming Musk/Trump maladministration resulted in a resounding failure for the incoming Musk/Trump maladministration.

My, that’s an awful lot of chaos Musk and Trump caused, especially when one considers the total nothing they got out of it. I’d say this particular stance did more harm than good. It exposed Trump as beholden to Musk. It exposed Trump AND Musk as completely indifferent – perhaps hostile – to the needs of the American people. It introduced instability to economic markets for no reason at all.

Merry Christmas, MAGA. It looks like you’re getting what you voted for…

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Okay, so economic rule number one is this: the Dow Jones Index (there’s no such thing as the Dow Jones Industrial Average anymore) is NOT the economy. I tend to think of it as a CEO happiness index. When CEOs are happy, like they have been under Biden, the Dow goes up, just like it has been under Biden – to record levels, in fact.

When CEO’s are worried about something or outright unhappy? Well, the Dow goes down. Have you noticed, yet, that each day we get closer to Trump taking over, the Dow is going down? TEN straight days, the Dow has ended down. On the 17th of this month, the Dow lost 1,123 points. That was just ONE DAY! Friday, finally, there was a little bargain hunting and the Dow recovered a small amount, preventing a record one-week falloff.

When the Dow is doing well, you see it in a little box in the corner of your television screen on every local news program. You don’t see it right now, though, do you? It magically disappears when the Dow is tumbling. CEO’s don’t seem happy with Trump’s plans and that concern is being reflected in the Dow. But, hey, drones over New Jersey, right?

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As it happens, the decline of America has coincided perfectly with the rise of right wing media. It might be comforting to know that right wing media has not ONLY infected America. It’s on the rise in Europe, too, and suddenly, the far right is having a heyday there, as well.
“Why would that be comforting?”
“Yeah, I guess that was a poor choice of words. How about ‘informative?'”
Whichever. Either way, it turns out propaganda works very well and a huge swath of gullible people are falling for it here AND abroad.

It ALSO turns out that President non-elect Musk is intruding in German politics as well as American politics. Musk is exposing himself – which makes him a hero to cons. No, I mean he’s exposing himself AS a far-right nutball con. Musk IS the meddlesome funding king of the right the cons always pretend George Soros is on the left.

So, Germany is angry at Musk, right now. Musk has tried to include himself in their functions by supporting far right political group, ‘Alternative für Deutschland’ (AfD). In Musk’s opinion, “only the AfD can save Germany.” In some ways, the fact that Germany is fighting off a far-right, fascist movement concerns me more than the same fight we’re fighting here, in America.

Germany has experience with this already. Their experience was NOT good. They effing KNOW better! But the propaganda works very well. As the saying goes, a lie will get halfway around the world before the truth can get it’s shoes on. (It’s commonly attributed to Mark Twain but may not actually be his…) It doesn’t matter who said it first, it’s correct. Stack lie upon lie upon lie, like the far-right media does, and one gets lost in the lies and it’s very hard to get out.

Musk interfering with Germany AND the United States at the same time? Inconceivable! Oh, here’s a probably completely unrelated thing that has nothing to do with anything. Tesla is currently recalling over 700,000 of their god-awful, death-trap ‘Cybertrucks.’ Their motto? ‘The Tesla Cybertruck: for when even the biggest pickup won’t compensate for your tiny, tiny penis.’ Perhaps the Tesla CEO should pay more attention to his company and spend less time chiming in on politics he clearly doesn’t understand. (The very worst thing that can happen to a rich person is when they start believing their own hype. They’re not geniuses. They’re thieves. Nothing more, nothing less…)

Phantasms…

by MyBaconPress

Oh, those wacky Dems. Every once in a while, they get attached to a candidate and then push that person, even though that person’s record is one of losing. I remember it with that guy in Texas, Beto O’Rourke. He did manage to get elected to the House, but in 2018, he decided to run for Senate. He ran a good race, but he lost. He didn’t lose by much, though, so we had to endure a period of the Dems telling us what a competitor he is. Then they kept running him for things, because he only loses by a little. After losing for Senate, he ran for President because that makes sense. Nope, lost there. So, he ran for governor of Texas. Ooh, just missed the goal and, well, lost again. It was close, but he lost.

The Dems celebrated the losses because they weren’t resounding defeats – just a close losses. In MY mind, a loss is a loss and close doesn’t matter. You don’t get consideration for losing, whether by one point or a hundred. So now, the Dems are floating the idea of trying Kamala again in 2028. First, how cute, thinking there’s going to be an honest election in 2028. I’m glad they’re preparing for the possibility, but I don’t think the country has yet internalized the depth of corruption that has infected this once-great nation.

But second? How does losing prove you’re the one to carry the banner? I like Kamala. I thought she ran an okay race. I don’t think her lack of time was as big of a factor as some would have you believe. I voted for her. But it wasn’t her first run for President so it wasn’t the first time she has lost a race for President.

Oh, AND – she effing lost to Donald Trump. (In fairness, I believe the “election” was stolen through chicanery, but, officially, she still lost.) I’d like to propose a New Rule: anybody who loses to Trump MUST leave politics immediately. If you can’t beat Trump, how bad of a candidate are you?

C’mon Dems. Try Gavin, or some other Dem from a large state you haven’t tried, yet. Younger, fresher faces are far more appealing. We’ve SEEN the Democratic establishment and we find it kind of “ho-hum.” Either way, it’s STILL a fools errand to think there will be a fair election in 2028. Now that the cons have perfected the art of stealing elections (likely with Putin’s help) why wouldn’t they do that from now on?

Besides, under any circumstances, the only thing that gets Trump to leave office is his death. No, that’s not a threat, nor an invitation to violence. Trump managed to slither out of his Federal charges but he is still on the hook for state charges. New York is either going to sentence him for his 34 felonies, with the sentence to be served after he leaves office (so he won’t), or they’re going to delay sentencing until after this term (so it will never end). The hamburgers have to get the guy because the law certainly won’t.

I think he benefits from that obvious advantage to being the antichrist…

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I feel like we’re all being led around by our noses by the One-Percent-serving, corporate media. Specifically, we’re hearing a LOT – tons and tons – about things Trump intends to do once he re-infests the Oval Office. Some of the threats come directly from Trump, himself, some from surrogates.

Each time a new desecration is promised, Americans react – along with the rest of the world. I’ve started to suspect that’s the goal: outrage exhaustion. We, on the left are NOT MAGA. We haven’t been conditioned to get furious on cue and STAY angry. We’re not practiced at ginning up faux outrage – and REAL outrage just makes a person tired all over. It’s hard. So here come the flood of threats from the incoming maladministration – and, right on cue, here comes the outrage.

How about if we hold our outrage for the things he actually tries to do?

Look, he’s going to do some damage. There’s no avoiding that. But will it be the clean sweep, the scorched Earth policies he’s promising? I’m not so sure. For one thing, he’s a moron and he’s surrounding himself with morons. As we all know, even a stopped clock is right twice a day – a phrase losing it’s meaning as we lose analog clocks. They’re going to succeed in some things, like tax cuts for the rich. They ALL agree on that one and they collectively don’t CARE about the damage those cuts will do. But they’re bound to lose their way to simple incompetence in other efforts.

For another thing, Trump may never have to run again, but Congress critters do. They’re going to be concerned with their political future. Again, some of the dumber ideological positions WILL carry forward – I don’t pretend this isn’t going to suck. But I’m less certain that Congress critters are going to end their own careers in favor of Trump. Even with Muck out there threatening them with his stolen lucre, their actual choice is to certainly lose because they screwed their own constituents or maybe lose because Musk financed an opponent. One might as well try to do the right thing in that situation, yes?

A third, possible help, is that the cons didn’t get the huge majority they need to simply steamroll their way through legislation. In the House, the Dems need only 2 cons to join them to block many announced, planned evils. Although the One Percent have seized power in most areas of government, there are still some decent Republicans, more interested in doing the right thing than appeasing the mad king.

Finally, on the side of hope, there’s genuine outrage. There are masses in the streets. There’s push-back from millions of people, probably as they find themselves in the crosshairs of some Trumpian dysphoria.

It seems clear he’s going to do damage, we all know it. We’re all on edge about it, worried and wondering. But it’s a waste of time and energy to react to every shadow on the wall. I’ll tell you this: It makes more sense, to me, to react to actual threats as they unfold, rather than the specter of threats as they’re announced…

A Proposal I Can Get Behind…

by MyBaconPress

Trump and his people are floating the idea that they might eliminate Daylight Saving Time and keep the country on standard time. That’s a good idea, if you ask me, but someone at ‘The New Republic’ doesn’t like it at all. I just read this sentence from one of their articles: “His promise would make Standard Time, which we are currently in and which people overwhelmingly hate due to the increased darkness, permanent.”

So, how stupid is that? I hate to break it to the writer, but the “increased darkness” she’s experiencing is because it’s late fall and nearly winter. See, the days get shorter and shorter in North America (therefore, ‘darker’) because of Earth’s angle relative to the position of the sun. Then, on one very special day we call the ‘Winter Solstice,’ the days start getting longer again – because the angle of the Earth relative to the sun shifts a bit. It happens that way EVERY SINGLE YEAR and will continue to do so long after humanity has wiped itself off the planet. It has nothing to do with clocks. It turns out, if we don’t change our clocks, the days will get longer anyway.

That’s the kind of ignorance people are up against, these days. Changing the clocks twice a year is just stupid and dangerous. It serves no functional purpose. Oh, and leaving the clocks on Daylight Saving Time year round actually kills people. That’s not a theory. The US tried it once, in 1973. We set up a two year program and left the clocks on Daylight Saving Time. So many people died – kids, mostly – the program was cancelled after the first year.

But that was leaving the clocks permanently on Daylight Saving Time. (It made it too dark for kids to safely walk to school or the bus stop so moms started driving their kids to school. So much for saving energy, which it doesn’t do, anyway.) Trump is proposing to leave the clock on Standard Time – and that’s a proposal I can get behind…

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One of the things MAGA has long-since been conditioned to gripe about is all the people who work in government who weren’t elected. I don’t mean the day-to-day functionaries, though they bitch about them, too. I’m talking about, for example, the so-called “Czars” (or Tsars or Tzars. We probably should have asked them how to spell it before we eliminated them.)

These are high-ranking, high-profile political appointees put into position by an elected official, but they’re not elected themselves. Right up until this last “election,” MAGA has known, without question, they hate, hate, HATE the czars – specifically because they’re high-powered appointees who were NOT elected by the people.

It’s just a wild, random guess, mind you, but I’m thinking that, suddenly, now that Trump is appointing Czars, MAGA is going to be on board – every one of them. Yay, let’s hear it for high-ranking, high-powered, not-elected appointees!

MAGA is a very easily manipulated, re-directed group…

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I have to confess, I’m a little irritated that ABC has settled with Trump. Trump sued ABC because George Stephanopoulos said he (Trump) had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll. Technically, you see, Trump has only been found liable for sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll. The ruling didn’t include the word ‘rape.’

People didn’t start applying that word until the judge sitting in the case clarified that, yes, forcible penetration with one’s fingers is a form of rape. Nevertheless, ABC is going to pay $15 million dollars to the Trump museum/foundations AND air an apology for “mischaracterizing” the E. Jean Carroll verdict.

ABC didn’t have to pay. They could have relied on the Judge’s words to defend themselves. I suspect ABC settled because Trump is about to seize power and they’re afraid of what he can do to them from the Oval Office. That is to say, they KNOW he’s likely to abuse his power and they don’t want to be on the receiving end of it. Yeah, okay.

I’ll tell you this: the ONE thing we know, now, is that we shouldn’t trust ABC going forward. We KNOW they’ll tailor their “news” reporting to whatever makes the mad king happy – and that makes them an untrustworthy source…

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Man, you don’t see it very often and there’s a reason. A football player named De’Vondre Campbell was on the Forty Niners NFL team. The team needed him to go in and play. He said, “No.” Apparently, he was irritated that he had been demoted for a better player. When his number came up and he was called to play, his tantrum caused him to refuse – and then leave the field.

If there’s one thing the NFL won’t stand for, it’s a player who refuses to play. It takes a LOT to even get in to the NFL. Most of the players there are grateful for the opportunity. There’s another guy on the Niners, Fred Warner, playing with a fractured ankle, fercrissakes! Campbell won’t play because he feels slighted.

Campbell will be off the team as quickly as they can arrange it. I seriously doubt any other team in the NFL will pick him up. Campbell’s tantrum cost him what’s left of his career but, hey, maybe that’s the point. He has played for nine years and his game has dropped off. Maybe he’s done, anyway, and this was just a high-profile way to leave the league. Whatever he intended, it IS a high-profile way to leave the league. And don’t let the door hit you…

It’s the Free Market, Stupid…

by MyBaconPress

Capitalist: 1) An investor of capital in business, especially one having a major financial interest in an important enterprise. 2) A person of great wealth. Then, thrown in to try to keep the rest of us on board, 3) A supporter of capitalism. (Uh-huh…)

It’s one of the greatest deceptions of all time. Capitalists have their victims (that’s you and me) declaring themselves capitalists and defending capitalism. And we do, too. If you ask anybody in America, odds are they’ll tell you they’re a capitalist and they believe in capitalism. You can see that one of the definitions is ‘A supporter of capitalism.’ That makes us feel like we’re ‘on the team,’ as it were – but we really, really are not.

Those first two definitions – rich people who have major financial interests in important enterprises – are FAR more accurate descriptions of capitalists, but do you know what THAT means? That means that, far and away, most Americans are NOT capitalists. (We’re the victims of capitalism.) We’re not rich and we don’t own enough to have “major financial interests in important enterprises.” We just get up and go to work, creating the wealth the capitalists keep – and then use against us…

Suddenly, I feel a need to make this point. There are NOT only two systems, Capitalism or Communism. I don’t support communism, either. It clearly doesn’t work – based on the idea that it has never worked anywhere in the world, any time in history. But this so-called ‘Free Market Capitalism’ ain’t working so hot, either, wouldn’t you say?

I support the middle road, once known as New Deal Capitalism. I call it ‘Social Capitalism.’ The rest of the world calls it ‘Democratic Socialism.’ That’s too bad, too. Americans have been fully conditioned, brainwashed really, to believe that the word socialism describes one thing and one thing only: communism, so the instant they hear that word, many Americans crap their panties and dive for the covers to hide their heads. But despite the stupid name, it’s really just managed capitalism, the kind that fights back against capitalistic abuse. It’s better for everyone – even rich people.

Right now, the poster child for the failure of ‘Free Market Capitalism’ is Luigi Mangione, the guy who gunned down the current poster child for capitalistic abuse, Brian Thompson. Mangione shot Thompson in the back, just gunned him down in the street. As of this writing, it appears Mangione shot Thompson as a symbol. That is, he had no personal beef with Thompson. Thompson became the poster child of capitalistic abuse because he was the CEO of the health insurance company that denied more claims than any other company.

Nobody seems to care. I see memes out there of Luigi superimposed by Photoshop into various work environments with comments about how he was there on Dec 4, on-site all day and right next to other workers. Never out of their sight, even for a moment. Why, the memes insist, Luigi couldn’t have done it. Alibi established. Obviously, it isn’t. It turns out, the police have a few photos of their own – and theirs aren’t Photoshopped.

Truthfully, when the shooting occurred, my first thought was “Someone who got denied.” I wasn’t alone. I felt badly that I didn’t feel worse about the shooting. I felt guilty that I was kind of happy to see a little guy get even for a change. As it happens, I’m not alone in THAT, either. I expected the party to end a few days later, as people got past their bubbling anger and re-connected with their humanity. So far, that hasn’t happened. Instead, there’s a “Free Luigi” movement starting.

Do you know who IS showing signs of concern, though? Corporate media. The media owned and operated by the capitalists. The message coming from both sides of the dial is the same – it’s poor form to shoot capitalists. Don’t do it. That’s not working, either. I suspect we’ve all noticed that NONE of them are promising to change their ways. They just don’t want people shooting them for the abuses. But people are really angry and most of us seem quite happy that a rich guy got his, for a change. And that’s the key.

Thompson’s program of denial likely killed thousands. THAT was just “good business.” HE was getting bonuses for increasing the bottom line so nicely. Families were planning funerals that didn’t have to happen. We ALL know this. We ALL know we COULD have decent health care in this country. But the capitalists don’t WANT us to have decent health care. They can’t profit if they can’t insert themselves into the process and all they care about is profit.

So, after forty years of living the ‘Free Market Capitalism’ life, one guy has reached the point of shooting someone and the rest of us are cheering the act. There’s even a new movement out there called ‘Board rooms, not classrooms.’ It takes the position that, if you’re going to be a random shooter that goes out and kills someone for fame – at least kill someone whose death benefits society. Don’t kill six-year olds. Don’t shoot up classrooms. Kill CEO’s. Shoot up board rooms. Go out a hero, like Luigi. (I’m only describing, and not endorsing, the movement, here.)

I think Luigi was trying to start something and I think he has. Somehow, this single act of defiance has loosed a torrent of anger at the way our economy works (or doesn’t, in so many cases). I suspect Luigi wanted other people to start shooting right away. That part didn’t happen but the anger is now at the top, not being hidden anymore, perhaps bubbling over. In fact, it’s being celebrated. There WILL BE other shooters.

And now, just to put the icing on the cake, we’re getting the richest political Cabinet in history. We’re already hearing messages from billionaires like, “You Poors are going to have to suffer,” and comments about how Joe Six-pack has it way too easy. Trump has admitted, now, that he isn’t going to bring the price of groceries down and he can’t guarantee his tariffs won’t raise prices. “Yeah, I lied. Whaddaya gonna do about it?” Hey, ask Luigi.

Consider this: So-called “Free Market Capitalism” has created a world in which people cheer when a capitalist is gunned down in the street – and all the while, there have been entities in place pushing back against the abuses of the Free Market. Now, the One Percent (and Putin) have managed to install the richest group of people in history, none of whom have even the slightest idea of what life is like for a working person. Corruption has mostly eliminated the restraints the held them back in the past – even the recent past.

Now? The brakes are off. The capitalists – the true capitalists, not the “supporters of capitalism” – are about to have their way with the economy without restraint. Do you think that’s going to be better or worse for the Small Folk? If we’re already at, “Yes, kill them!” and the capitalists are about to turn the screws even harder – and I guarantee they are – I expect blood.

To be clear, I don’t WANT blood. I wish every self-absorbed, self-serving, self-described “important” blowhard would get visits from three ghosts and see the error of their ways. But John Kennedy’s words are about to explode in front of us. The capitalists are making violent revolution inevitable…