I have to start by saying my heart goes out to Southern California. We, here in Northern California, have been through what they’re going through, now, and I know, without question, there are no words. I remember the panic of people in the moment. It’s all just a confusion of “Where do we go?” and “What, now?” I remember the stories people told, after, of how they made it out. I remember the stories about the people who didn’t.

I remember the wreckage. I remember the smell of the burned buildings lingering in the air for a long time. I know how they’re going to react to even the faintest smell of wildfire smoke in the future. And I was one of the lucky ones. I didn’t lose anything. I STILL react. They will, too. The buildings can be, will be, rebuilt. The precious mementos are gone forever. But Nor-Cal DID come back and SoCal will, too.

Stay strong, SoCal…

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When a Special Counsel finishes their job, they’re supposed to issue a report explaining, in detail, why they did what they did. That is, why they prosecuted (or declined to) and the details behind those choices. Jack Smith has written his report and turned it over to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Apparently, it’s in TWO volumes. The first is about the election interference charges 34 negated by getting back to the White House. The second is about the Classified documents he stole, I suspect to give to Putin. The question now is, should AG Garland release the report for public consumption.

I haven’t seen it, of course, but MY guess (and yours, I’d bet) is that the report just says something to the effect of, “We were GOING to prosecute because we have evidence enough to fill three trucks, but then The Felon “won” the “election” and is expected to abuse his authority to protect himself so we had no choice but to stand down.”

Puppet-elect Thirty-Four Felonies doesn’t want people to know what’s in the report about him, presumably because it says, “Oh, yeah, he’s as guilty as can be and here’s the evidence!” So, he judge-shopped. It didn’t take long. He knows he has Aileen “Loose” Cannon in the bag and, oh, hey! Lookee, here. He took his case to his corrupt, loyalist judge and she put a temporary injunction on releasing the report. She protected him again – and just in time.

It will buy him time, which is the loophole he used to slither out from under the charges in the first place. Once again, with the help of a corrupt judiciary, he’ll get away with it. This is what the “law” is going to look like going forward in this once-great nation. Sometimes, I think this whole thing is going to get very ugly…

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I read an article in the ‘Motley Fool’ about Social Security. It pretended Social Security is low on funds because of an imbalance in the difference between paying in and taking out. It didn’t mention politicians “borrowing” from the fund for other purposes, then not paying the money back as promised. Nor did it mention the cap rich people enjoy that protects some of their income.

It pointed out that, in an effort to confront the shortfall, Congress started taxing SS benefits. Again, nobody ever mentions eliminating the cap rich people enjoy as a solution. (YOU pay in to Social Security on 100% of your earned income. Rich people pay a tiny fraction of that percentage from their income. It is generally understood that lifting that cap funds Social Security nicely.)

I noticed Congress started taxing SS in 1983. Guess who was President, which party, in 1983. Go on, guess. Did you guess Reagan and the Republicans? That’s the right answer. In fairness, the taxes were adjusted to get more in 1993. Clinton was President. I know, he ran as a Dem, but I’ve long held that Bill Clinton was one of the most effective Republican presidents in decades. He got away with it by hiding in plain sight, as a liberal. But he signed and supported NAFTA. He “reformed” welfare. He killed the free press. He increased taxation on Social Security. There’s more. He was a con, like it or not.

The point, here, is that Social Security can be fixed easily by simply removing the cap rich people pay from their checks. If they pay into SS on 100% of THEIR paychecks, like everyone else does, we don’t really have a problem. No, of course the politicians are just going to tell you there’s no more money and nothing can be done so you lose, but they’ll just be serving their rich paymasters…

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Musk bought Twitter claiming he wanted free speech, then turned it into an insulting conservative misinformation machine that regularly censors speech. Zuckerberg, apparently, likes what he sees in Musk’s example and has decided to follow suit and eliminate the guardrails on Facebook, as well. First he eliminated news feeds almost entirely, then, when they come back, he has opened the door to conservative misinformation to flow freely?

I don’t call for boycotts, per se, because they’re dumb and don’t work dependably. (Besides, who would listen to ME?) But we CAN avoid doing business with companies we don’t like or trust whenever it’s possible, if we choose. My advice? Pay attention to who still advertises on X and avoid them if you can. As Facebook declines, it would be a good idea to do the same with whoever keeps advertising there.

The ONE thing we can count on about a fascist nation is that money rules the day. Always. Most of the Small Folk KNOW they’re Small Folk and don’t think of themselves as able to have an impact. But we can. Collectively. By all means, flee X for Bluesky, but pay attention to who keeps advertising on X (and now Facebook) and direct your dollars accordingly. If nothing else, we can keep them from gaining some of the money they’ll eventually use against us…

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MAGA doesn’t seem to have noticed, yet, but The Felon is already setting the stage for the expected economic collapse that will accompany Trump policies. As we all know, they see Biden as old. VERY old. (He is, too. No argument, here.) They see him as senile. (I’m still sitting quietly.) They see him as incompetent. (He has actually done a very good job…)

They ALSO see him as a mastermind genius capable of some very detailed, intricate, and complex planning. It really depends on what they need at any given moment. According to The Felon, the senile, mastermind, incompetent, genius has set an “economic time-bomb” meant to blow up at a precise moment. Specifically, the moment the inauguration ends.

We all know how trump works. He’s been bitching about the horrid state of the economy for four years. The minute he’s inaugurated, he’s going to start claiming Biden’s successful economy for himself. It will go from “Horrid!” to “Hurray!” in moments. If he was smart (yes, I SHOULD stop there) he would simply not touch anything and let the economy hum.

But, he’s not smart – and he doesn’t plan to do that, leave well enough alone. According to him, he plans to reduce government revenues while instituting a shiny new program that STARTS with an $80 billion dollar stake. That’s going to do some damage. He knows it. But he doesn’t want to be seen as doing the damage he plans to do. He NEEDS that blame to fall elsewhere and, of course, he chose Biden. Curiously, the damage won’t happen until Trump takes office and starts doing his thing.

By definition, that is NOT a time-bomb. A time-bomb goes off at a specific time. If one sets a bomb to blow up at, say, 2 pm on December 31st, that bomb blows up on December 31st at 2 pm – because it’s on a timer. It’s a “timed-bomb,” see? A bomb that waits for a specific trigger, like, say, moronic policies triggering an economic meltdown? That’s not a time-bomb because nobody knows WHEN it blow – or even if it will.

It requires a specific act, like tax cuts for the rich, side-by-side with a shiny new, $80 billion dollar deportation program. BOOM! There’s a reason Mr. 34 Felonies suddenly hates the debt ceiling – and it isn’t that he plans to lower the debt. (I’ve noticed the price of eggs has gone UP since the “election,” not down, despite his promises…)

It’s a standard con trick. They ALWAYS blame their own economic wreckage on the previous Democratic administration, and they ALWAYS take credit for the economic successes actually achieved by the previous Democratic administration. Once, they even blamed and INCOMING Democratic administration for their own failures. Yeah, the party of personal responsibility…