Author: MyBaconPress

Out? Already?!?

by MyBaconPress

Less than a month and one of the so-called PotUS’ top advisors steps down in disgrace for “misleading” the “President”.

First, I’m going to give credit to Michael Flynn for his loyalty.  I have no proof but I simply don’t believe he spoke about lifting sanctions imposed on the Russians by Obama without talking to the so-called PotUS first.  But he fell on his sword to protect the Oval Office and that deserves respect (because it’s what you’re expected to do in those situations…)

Okay, but consider this: Flynn – the National Security Adviser – got caught because he didn’t realize national security agencies monitor foreign official’s communications in the US.  Let that sink in.  The National Security Adviser didn’t realize national security agencies monitor foreign official’s communications in the US!

So how much damage is this maladministration going to be able to do if they spend all of their time replacing disgraced Cabinet members?

I’ll tell you this: that’s a rhetorical question.  I don’t want to find out how much damage these bozos can do…

Driving the So-Called PotUS Craz(ier)…

by MyBaconPress

I have an idea.

What if we all – and I mean everybody, real or imagined, who didn’t vote for him – what if we all joined Twitter, followed the so-called PotUS, and every time he tweeted something everybody tweet back “STFU, Donnie!”

Just that, nothing else but EVERY time.  What’s he going to do?  Would his overblown ego allow him to block us all?  Wouldn’t it be fun knowing he would actually try?

Who’s in?

On Deregulation…

by MyBaconPress

It looks like we’re in for another round of deregulation coming from the corporate puppets running the country.  We’re told that regulations make it more difficult, more expensive to run businesses and that regulations stifle innovation.  Well, yeah.  They do.  In the same sense that laws make it more difficult for armed robbers to rob people at gunpoint, sometimes rules get in the way.  Do we care that our laws prevent an armed robber from “innovating” by switching from a .38 to a .45?

Despite what you might have heard, there’s one thing that people need to remember about business.  A business exists for one reason and one reason only: to make money.  They are not, by nature, moral or ethical entities and they do not make moral or ethical decisions.  A properly run business will make money by any legal means available.  That’s a key phrase “…any legal means available”.  This means that the society in which a given business is operating not only has the right to regulate business activity, it has an obligation to do so.

A business may consider moral or ethical positions when making decisions but they may not and if the people running the operation decide to put those considerations aside they’re still operating within the framework of what should reasonably be expected of a business.  But declaring business inherently evil is as incorrect as declaring them inherently good.  “A business would never do that” is a false argument as displayed by the many, many times in which business do exactly the things defenders say they would never do.

For example, the Great Depression was kicked off by an artificial housing bubble.  The Savings and Loans crisis of the 80’s was kicked off by an artificial housing bubble.  The most recent economic disaster was kicked off by an artificial housing bubble.  Clearly, business will do things that shouldn’t be done in the name of profit and they’ll do those things over and over again.  But they’re still not inherently evil.  They’re just doing business.

The thing is, when any entity is operating without any moral or ethical compass, it’s behavior will move into immoral and unethical areas eventually.  This is inevitable.  They don’t plan it but they don’t plan against it, either.  That’s not their jobs nor their concern and I would argue it should not be.  That should be, by rights, where society steps in.

For the most part, society doesn’t make rules or laws for no reason.  Somebody has to do something – often unimaginable prior to their doing it – before we react.  Prior to the Great Depression, for example, people mostly didn’t worry about investment banks and commercial banks blending their business because it would be foolhardy to take risks that might damage their own businesses.  But some clever sod saw an opportunity for profit and did it anyway.

Enter Glass-Steagall, the law that prevented such behavior by commercial banks by controlling their behavior.  Commercial banking became stable until President Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999.  (Please note, that is Phil Gramm (R), Jim Leach (R), and Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R).  Just sayin’…)  The masses were told Glass-Steagall had mostly been worked around, anyway, so this just finalized that process but it’s notable that the banking industry remained stable from the time Glass-Steagall was instituted until it’s provision were eliminated in 1999.

In the meantime, financial havoc was inflicted on an area of banking called Savings and Loans by a bi-partisan group that came to be known as ‘The Keating Five’ who blocked regulation in that industry in the early 1980’s, allowing financial players to inflate an artificial housing bubble in the Savings and Loans.  The Reagan administration saved the institutions that could be saved, heavily regulated their behaviors, then spun them off back into the private sector as Credit Unions.

Go ahead, take a guess at which segment of banking was spared the ravages of the 2008 meltdown.  Did you guess the heavily regulated Credit Unions?  That’s just one example, of course, and it’s certainly simplified for this purpose but the basic information is correct and the point is, we regulate when we discover we need to, not just to make it more difficult for businesses to do business.

There’s a caveat, here. For several years, now, there have been outside groups writing laws.  Groups like ALEC (I think that stands for ‘Assholes Legislating Evil Crap’ but I could be wrong…) write blanket laws and then work to have state legislatures enact them.  These are literally boilerplate, fill-in-the-blanks-with-your-information type laws.  They rarely, if ever, address actual situations that need to be addressed.  Instead, these laws are typically about expanding corporate powers and/or protecting corporations from interfering government intrusions.  I can see eliminating these rules as quickly as possible…

I’ll tell you this: as we prepare for the coming onslaught of deregulation, it’s important to remember that most regulations are put in place for a reason.  Yes, the regulations might slow profits and they certainly might interfere with innovations but the goal is to protect society and even the businesses themselves from their own avarice – something they should not be expected to do for themselves…

The So-Called Corner Office…

by MyBaconPress

Today, just for today, I’m kind of laughing at our so-called POTUS.

It struck me in the wee hours of this morning that what we’re seeing with this flurry of poorly written, not vetted Executive Orders is the result of decades of false information that government should be “run like a business”.  It doesn’t bother me that the conservative rank and file buy into that fraudulent message but the President is supposed to know better.

Government isn’t run like a business and it shouldn’t be.  That’s because government has a different role in civilization than a business or even a household.  (I used to run my kids out of my favorite chair using the term ‘Eminent Domain’ but a household still runs more like a business than a government…)

Now, I know that when the corporate media feeds the ‘government like a business’ message into the conservative bubble, they only mean that government should have a balanced budget.  But even that’s not as important in a government as it is in your business.  (No, I’m not arguing in favor of deficit spending, merely pointing out that a government can get away with spending more than they have easier than a business…)  The fact is, the main thing business and government have in common is the word ‘budget’.  After that, pretty much everything is different.

But the so-called POTUS doesn’t seem to know it.  That might explain why he keeps issuing edicts – apparently scribbled out over in the corner by his little racist sidekick – and expecting them to be carried out.  (It does not explain why he then holds them up like a five-year old showing off his macaroni art.  Perhaps he’s expecting praise for successfully writing his name?)

Apparently, he actually sees himself as the CEO of a company called The United States of America, inc.  He expresses “his vision” and expects people to do as they’re told.  He doesn’t care if his orders anger people and he doesn’t expect to be challenged.  (Hmm, come to think of it, there IS a form of government that operates that way.  It’s called a dictatorship.  Not good, bigly…)

In what appears to be an attempted return to Nixon’s “when a President does it, it’s not illegal”, this maladministration actually argued before the Ninth Circuit Court that the judicial branch has no right to second guess the executive.  Well, guess what, Cubby?  Not only do they have the right, it’s their job.  (Please have someone read you a little thing called the Constitution.  And I mean it.  Please.  Have someone read it to you.)  Turns out, business is easier than governance…

The GOP controls both houses of Congress and they don’t seem inclined to “notice” the violations of precedent, protocol, the law, or even logic emanating from this White House so long as it’s “their team” in control.  For his part, the so-called POTUS hasn’t seemed to notice the giant rubber stamp sitting just up the road and it seems it hasn’t crossed his so-called mind that he could use Congress to get what he wants.  Let’s hope nobody tells him…

I’ll tell you this: I’ve been a bit butt-clinched since January 20 worried about the next crazy thing the so-called POTUS might pull out of his…um…the air…amid concerns that our checks and balances seem to be on life support while a set of tiny little fingers tries to pull the plug once and for all and I was pretty relieved to see the courts do their job.  So today, just for today, I’m kind of laughing at our so-called POTUS…

Republican “Ethics”…

by MyBaconPress

Republicans silenced Elizabeth Warren because #ShePersisted in trying to tell the truth about Jeff Sessions.  What is it about the truth conservatives have such a difficult time with accepting?

It’s a disturbing pattern.  The White House has tried to shut off information by shutting down government websites and issuing orders to various agencies not to make comments (or, more likely, corrections).  Now Republicans in Congress invoke an unusual maneuver to force her to sit down when she tries to repeat an unpleasant truth about an unpleasant Senator.  Rule 19.  So, he should be protected from his own history by an obscure rule that indicates, basically, that if one speaks truthfully about him it impugns his character?  The truth impugns his character?

If speaking the truth about a person impugns the character of that person, neither the  speaker nor the speech is the problem: it’s the person.

But this is the Republican way.  If the truth makes one’s position less defensible attack the truth.  But the truth doesn’t go away just because Republicans are willing to try to manipulate reality.

We need a new rule.  If a person who currently works for government is nominated for a Cabinet position and accepts the nomination, they must resign their current position before their confirmation hearing begins.  Sessions’ confirmation was scheduled AFTER De Vos’ confirmation so he could vote for her as Senator, THEN sit for his own – apparently carefully scripted – confirmation “hearing”.

What honest and honorable things are the Republicans doing that they dare not allow to be seen?

I’ll tell you this; it’s cowardly.  If they have to lie about their nominee, how are they NOT confessing knowledge that their nominee can’t bear up under scrutiny?

A Little History on ‘States Rights’…

by MyBaconPress

There is much talk these days about “states rights”.  (In fairness, there has been much talk of “states rights” since the country was founded.)  It’s a very popular theme from the conservative sector of this country.  Basically, the concept is that the states should remain sovereign with the Federal Government acting as little more than the final arbiter of disputes between the states and handling military needs.  I suppose when the phrase is thrown casually about without much thought it sounds good but in practical application it doesn’t work.  That’s history, not hypothesis.  I know it doesn’t work because We, the People started off with that very form of government…and it didn’t work.

Essentially, the colonies declared independence and formed a new government under the Articles of Confederation.  The states remained sovereign.  Congress could settle disputes between states, make treaties and alliances, maintain a military (in theory) and coin money backed by the full faith and credit of…well, faith but that was it.  They had no real authority over the states.  Even in the ‘settle disputes’ part, they could rule but not enforce.

Have you ever seen any of the paintings of George Washington at Valley Forge?  Look closely at the men and you’ll see they lack pretty much everything one needs to support an army.  Do you know why?  States rights!  See, under the Articles of Confederation, Congress could ask states for money but couldn’t compel them to pay.  The states would promise money, men, and resources but then, focused on their own, local concerns withhold some of what they promised.  In short, each state acted in each state’s individual interest.

You can see the problem.  The name “United States of America” was first coined in the Articles of Confederation but we were not so much a “united states” as a loose alliance of independent republics, emphasis on “loose”.  During the revolution, Washington and Hamilton came to understand the need for a central government with authority to tax and to compel states participation because they were on the receiving end of “states rights”.  The loose alliance nearly cost us the war.  Then, it nearly cost us our nascent nation when soldiers who had deferred their pay for the war effort came to collect – and the states still couldn’t be compelled to pony up.

The Articles of Confederation – the first form of the United States – lasted about 10 years before it’s shortcomings became obvious.  Then it was replaced by the Constitution that became the Constitution we all know and love (and hate and fight about) today.  You and I might talk about Federal overreach and find agreement.  Certainly, there are areas of the document that could use some tweaks here and there.

But I’ll tell you this; every time I hear the phrase “states rights” I think back on the birth of this once great nation and how “states rights” almost ended us even before we got started.  It doesn’t make any sense to me to revert to a form of government that has already been tried and failed.  So why do I keep hearing about “states rights”?

Agent Provocateur, Not Just Lingerie…

by MyBaconPress

An “alt-right” (newspeak for “white supremacist”) speaker gets invited by campus republicans (of course it’s republicans) to speak at Berkeley University as part of his – according to the Guardian – “Dangerous Faggot” tour.  About 1,500 progressives, predictably, had fallen out to protest.  By all accounts the protest was peaceful.

Then, a band of about 150 people – all with faces covered – come in from off campus and pretty much attack without hesitation.  No, not the protestors, the building the speech is scheduled for.  They set fires and break windows and just generally riot until the event is cancelled.

I suspect agent provocateurs.  According to Wikipedia, an “agent provocateur (French for “inciting agent”) is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act. An agent provocateur may be acting out of their own sense of duty or may be employed by the police or other entity to discredit or harm another group (such as a peaceful protest or demonstration) by provoking them to commit a crime, thereby undermining the protest or demonstration as a whole.”

I can’t say for certain, of course.  All I can do is look at the situation surrounding the events of that night but what I see is a peaceful protest in full swing.  Everything is going according to plan and everything is remaining peaceful.  Then a bunch of hidden faces show up and just start rioting with no provocation?  No.  For me, it just doesn’t pass the “smell test.”  Who benefited?

Well, the speech was cancelled.  But a speech that might have reached only a small handful of bigots now gets reported on a national and even international scale.  The peaceful protestors were made to look bad and the far right was handed just what they want as a propaganda tool.  Photos and stories of the violence can be – and will be – used to show that the left isn’t all that inclusive, after all.  The action undermined the demonstration – and to a larger extent the anti-Trump movement – as a whole.

I can’t know, for certain, that the violent actors were agent provocateurs.  I just know they fit the profile.  I could stubbornly insist they were but I can’t really know.  The right can’t know, for certain, that the violent actors were not agent provocateurs.  I presume they will, nevertheless, stubbornly insist they were not but they can’t really know, either.  The rioters showed up on campus with faces covered.

The only way to know for sure would be to identify the rioters.  Not the peaceful protestors, mind you, but the mob that showed up from off campus.  I can’t really recommend that peaceful protestors suddenly try to restrain the provocateurs for certain identification but that would be the best answer.  After all, the rioters came prepared for violence.  It’s why they’re there.  For sure, peaceful protestors should try to remove the face masks of the rioters and photograph their faces.  Let’s find out who these people are…and who they work for.

I’ll tell you this; people are going to be falling out for peaceful protests many times in the next few years.  All of those efforts are going to be undermined by agent provocateurs if we can’t find a way to identify the rioters.  The result will be that the actual message of whatever is being protested in the moment will be lost, again and again.  I could use a little help, here.  Any ideas on how peaceful protestors might identify the rioters without getting themselves injured in the process?

How Can We Know Who Won?

by MyBaconPress

I’ve been hearing a LOT since the most recent “election” about all the ballot stuffing going on in California and New York.  Common knowledge says Clinton won the popular vote but Trump won the Electoral vote.  Trump, apparently the most insecure person ever, insists – despite available evidence – he also won the popular vote.  It’s his way.  If he doesn’t get a result he wants he simply insists he DID get the result he wanted.  (It may be his way but it’s delusional…)

If you live outside of the conservative information bubble you see it as quaint – the idea that people are still using ballot-stuffing as the preferred method of rigging.  But if you live inside the bubble, as does 45, ballot stuffing is just a given.  After hearing this several times, I began to wonder why, as in, why would the corporate media feed ballot stuffing into the conservative bubble as the preferred method of election rigging?  Ballot stuffing is so…twentieth century.  But then I realized: so are conservatives.  Well, a huge swath of them, anyway.  Old people.  (I want to call them the ‘calcified brain’ set but I’m told I should be nice…)

Back in the day, if you wanted to rig an election you had to add ballots for your guy or “lose” ballots for the other guy.  These were physical, paper ballots you had to create or destroy accordingly.  Sometimes, this would include a guy voting in a blue hat, then coming back in and voting again in a red hat.  More commonly, it involved taking the five ballot boxes from the polling place and dropping all six off at the registrar’s office for counting.  Alternatively, one might simply switch one or two of the boxes with previously prepared boxes offering much more favorable results for your candidate than might be expected from actual turnout.

That’s the way it used to be done and it’s the way old people still understand, so that’s the way it’s presented.  The presenters even offer “evidence”.  Look, they say, at the number of people on the voter rolls who are a) registered to vote in two places or b) dead.  But I’ve moved house.  I’ve moved between districts, cities, counties, and states.  Never once have I included on my ‘things to do’ list “Update voter status in place I’m leaving”.  (Perhaps an oversight on my part…)  So far, I’ve never died but when I do, I’m guessing the people around me are going to be much more concerned with getting rid of the body before it starts to smell than making sure my voter information is updated and to-the-minute.

So, newsflash to my conservative brethren or, perhaps, to old people: that’s not the way it’s done anymore.  When one has to actually manipulate physical ballots there are significant problems to be worked out, namely, how to get “acceptable” fraudulent ballots into the system and/or what to do with the “unwanted” ballots.  But Diebold solved those problems for “election” overseers with the introduction of electronic voting machines.

Now all one need do is dial in, alter the results to those you prefer, and back out.  Internally, it’s just a spreadsheet.  Sometimes, they simply switch final tallies between candidates.  Sometimes, they add or subtract as needed.  The beauty part is, there’s no paper trail, no evidence of the tampering, no proof of the outcome and no independent way to verify the results.  Well, almost no way.  Around the rest of the world, elections are verified by exit polls.  In America, the land of “Alternative Facts”, we’re told exit polls are untrustworthy.

That’s comforting because when I look at exit polls vs results in America I see that Bernie beat Hillary in the primaries…but I also see that Hillary beat the Donald in the general.  For clarity, I’m saying Hillary should have won more electoral votes than Trump.  Look, I have a chart:

2016-presidential-election-table_nov-17-2016

Clinton “won” in the exit polls in four battleground states (blue highlight) but the computer vote total went against her (red highlight).  There are enough electoral votes associated with those four states that had the official outcome matched the exit polls in any three of the four – as they should have done – Hillary would be sitting in the Oval Office.

Surely, the parties know the machines are vulnerable to hacking…no, built to be hacked.  My suspicion is that they count on it.  Rather than eliminate the machines and return to the days of paper ballots to ensure the integrity of the vote, I suspect each side tries to use the machines to their own advantage.  I have this image in my mind of a room full of geeks furiously hacking away altering results for the Democrats while another room full of geeks is furiously hacking away altering results for Republicans…and the best hacker group wins!

I can almost envision my conservative brethren reading this, seething, preparing arguments explaining exactly how and why I’m wrong while my progressive friends glom on as proof that Trump is not, in fact, a legitimate President.  Here’s the thing: either side could be correct.  The point is, nobody stuffs ballot boxes anymore.  It’s just too much trouble and the risk too great.

I’ll tell you this: as long as America uses these machines for “elections” no American – whether your “team” wins or loses – can actually be confident in the outcome of American “elections”…

It Will Be…Revolution!

by MyBaconPress

I know, writing that puts me in great danger from the powers that be so let me be clear at the outset: I’m not CALLING for revolution.   I don’t support revolution.  (Honestly, I’m not well-suited for revolution.)  But I know history and I think the immediate future it promises is not bright.  History clearly shows that We, the People, now face one common future – violence.

Right now, conservatives are having a great time.  They got “their man.”  The more radical among them are out on social media teasing progressives and gloating over their “big win.”  But how long is that going to last?  As taxes on the rich go down, daily cost of living for everyone else goes up and/or basic services once taken for granted simply disappear.  How bad will their situation get before they realize “their man” was never really “theirs” at all?  And then what?

Progressives are crying in their tea, trying to figure out what to do.  There’s been an absolute media blitz from writers loyal to the Democrats (rather than America) trying to convince the world that Democrats didn’t do what they did – put Trump in power by rigging the Democratic primary.  But DNC interference left us a choice – Clinton vs Trump – that was so distasteful, people started joking that a giant asteroid crashing into Earth would be preferable.  (Sorry, rest of the planet…)

I’m sure I’m not alone as I survey my options.  I can’t go right because conservatives in this country support policies that history has already shown don’t work in practical application.  Repackaged garbage is still garbage.  I can’t go left because, basically, no “left” remains in American politics.  We choose between far right and center-right…then off to the left somewhere is Bernie and me.

So…I’m expecting the GOP to unravel the New Deal.  Reading history, not tea leaves, Americans find themselves once again with no social safety net for the masses, no more control over the wealthy.  The wealthy press their myriad advantages, the masses become increasingly poor, increasingly desperate.  Crime and violence increase and the wealthy respond with heavy handed control tactics.  Eventually, the masses get fed up.  They’ll take all they can take – and then some – but at some point…the scales tip.  One little “normal” thing, one more “little” outrage in a parade of outrages and…BAM!  Explosion.  Violence.  Bloodshed.  It’s inevitable, really.

The American colonists did a pretty good job of managing the violence and setting up a new functional government to replace the one they had just shuffled off.  The French rioted for several years, lopping off heads (good and bad), actually lived through a period known to historians as the ‘Reign of Terror’, and gave rise to Napoleon Bonaparte before finally settling once again into something akin to a civilized government.

So which do we get, revolution or riots?  No one can say.  No one knows and we won’t know until we’re in it.  But I find myself still pulling for ‘Huge Asteroid, 2016’…

So, Here’s What We Do…

by MyBaconPress

There has been much hand-wringing and rending of clothing over the outcome of the recent “election”.  How did this happen, people are asking.  How can we stop them?  There are a lot of possible answers as to how it happened – some of them even true!  How do we stop them?  We don’t.  We can’t.  I mean, I don’t mean to be a downer, here, but they own the government and they’re going to do what they’re going to do.  So I propose a two-step plan which is really quite simple.  One, make the Republicans own every vicious thing they do and, two, prepare for the mid-terms…

Conservatives are great at evading responsibility for their own actions.  They have had thirty years to perfect the deflection.  Anything good that happens in this country can easily be traced – in their minds – to the previous Conservative administration and anything bad that happens traces easily to the previous “libtard” administration.

43 crashed the economy?  Clinton’s fault.  Obama put the economy back on track and headed in the right direction?  43’s policies finally coming to fruition.  It’s always wrong, of course, but try convincing them of that…and good luck to you.

Trump keeps promising big ole’ tax cuts for corporations and other privileged elite.  This will mean another crashed economy and more brutal cuts in services for the needy.  Unless we’re prepared to use violence – I don’t recommend violence – it’s going to happen.  So what we can do is document, in real time, the actions of the Cons in Congress.

It is the Republicans who think ethics oversight is a waste of government resources.  It is the Republicans – alone – who are attacking the American people by eliminating what little access they had to health care.  It is the Republicans who intend to dismantle every aspect of the social safety net.  The result will be rampant poverty and increased crime, both property and violent.  It’s going to suck.

But how LONG it sucks may well be up to the majority.  We need to take back at least one chamber of Congress during the next mid-term “elections”.  Listen, I know that most of the damage will have been done by then but it’s our next – quite probably our only –  opportunity to stop them.  If we spend the next two years arguing over whether Putin forced Hillary to use a private email server, we won’t be ready.

It’s three seats in the Senate.  Three.  My recommendation would be for every thinking person to use paper ballots, if possible.  The machines make it FAR too easy to dial in and set whatever result the powers that be prefer.  Vote absentee.  You can still drop the ballot off at your polling place if the sticker is important to you.  There are rumors that absentee ballots don’t get counted.  They do.  Those are just rumors, likely intended to discourage the use of absentee ballots.

But the absentee ballots create a paper trail the machines don’t.  It’s pretty much the only thing that can help us overcome our pretend “elections” and start to have our voices heard again.  So let’s stop talking about the Electoral College and the Russians and start to spread the word – today – to vote on paper via absentee ballots.

Three seats in the Senate and the attack on the American people can be…contained.  Make sure Republicans own every piece of brutal legislation they push to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the masses.  Then, make sure every thinking person votes absentee – that is, on paper.

I’ll tell you this: if nothing else, having ballots that can be counted and verified would be the worst nightmare of our ruling class…