Author: MyBaconPress

It’s Official, Now. He’s Losing…

by MyBaconPress

Well, that’s a wrap on the convention. Kamala gave a good speech. The energy on the left is infectious. It feels all…possible. It’s a very positive message. The Dems aren’t pretending everything is great, but they’re not in a ‘sky-is-falling-so-panic-right-NOW’ mode, either. It’s much easier to align oneself to a message of hope, don’t you think?

Hers was bigger. She didn’t have to do anything special. It just naturally grew bigger. Her crowd, I mean. At the convention. The live crowd on hand was bigger and the ratings showed millions more people tuned in to Harris’ speech than Trump’s. In fact, each day of the Democratic convention brought more viewers than the same day in the Republican convention.

Trump is OBSESSED with crowd size. He has been since his tiny Inaugural Address crowd back in 2017. I had heard that Trump was certain, absolutely certain, that he would have higher ratings than she had. Yet ANOTHER thing Trump was wrong about. Gees, he’s wrong about everything, isn’t he?

Harris was taking the lead even before the convention. I’m sure she’s going to see a huge bump now. Sure, there’s commonly a bump after the convention but she was already trending the right direction and the convention only sealed the deal. The Dems did a pretty good job, staying positive and advancing their message. It looks, to me, like this is Harris’ race to lose at this point.

Obviously, Donald is upset. The better she does, the more he spins out. He’s kind of flailing. His speeches are getting a bit rambling, even for him. Even MAGA has to notice, right? I mean, they may not care but they must notice the guy is increasingly unhinged. He’s being beaten. He hates that. By a woman. He hates that more. A woman of color. He hates that most of all.

Of course, to hear him talk, he hates everything so, maybe he’s just being his normal, bad-natured, weird little self…

He’s trying every trick he knows. Lying, name-calling, disrespect, NOTHING has worked. Hell, he even tried to deliver an actual message in a speech, although he found himself incapable of focusing long enough to get it done. But the fact that he even tried to focus on a single thing, shows how upset he is by the recent developments.

No matter what he says, Donald knows he’s losing, too. How do I know? He’s challenging her to debates. But he has already made clear that he doesn’t participate in debates when he thinks he’s winning. That was his attitude during the primaries, “Why would I? I’m the front-runner.” Now? He’s tossing out dates and trying to goad her into participating. It’s really bugging him that most people don’t love him the way he needs to be loved.

I’m a little surprised at Donald’s brooding. For a while, I took it as a good sign. I’m very worried about the GOP plan to steal the election in January. I keep wondering, they’ve drafted the plan and put the necessary pieces in place. Why wouldn’t they follow through? But if Trump knows the GOP plans to simply install him, why would he CARE what happens in the election, right? In that situation, he can’t lose.

But then I realized, no. Trump just can’t stand the thought that he might lose this election even if he knows they’re going to install him anyway. He’s being confronted by an unavoidable fact: people don’t like Donald Trump. We think he’s weird. We think he’s mean. We think he’s stupid. We think he’s unprincipled, unscrupulous, and undeveloped. In fairness, the poll numbers don’t show all of that. They only show that he’s losing but most Americans know WHY he’s losing…

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RFK, Jr sure has embarrassed the Kennedy name, hasn’t he? He tried running on his family’s political cachet as a serious guy. He told us his brain was eaten by a worm and that he once posed a dead bear in Central Park as a joke. Way to draw the crowds, there, Bobby.

He started his campaign running as a Democrat. He said he was just offering people a choice. He MEANT he was trying to siphon votes from Biden, in an effort to help Trump. When nobody in the Democratic Party was interested in his very conservative brand of “left,” he left the Democratic Party and became an independent. He thought that might help him attract voters. Then Biden stepped down and Harris became the candidate and the left is ecstatic and having a great time and ready to come out and vote for her and the presences of RFK doesn’t stand a chance of siphoning votes from the left.

In fact, he was adversely affecting his buddy, Donald. So, he’s out. He worked it out with Donald that he would step down and endorse Trump in exchange for a Cabinet position. Trump probably promised, but he’s Trump. RFK had to do HIS part first and he did. That does NOT mean Trump will feel any obligation whatsoever to uphold HIS end of the deal. He’s a weasel that way…

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The cons are STILL trying to convince someone, somewhere, that if Trump sticks to policy, he wins. Um, in what world? We’ve seen his policy proposal, in ‘Project 2025.’ There’s not ONE thing in that horrible plan that average American embrace. Project 2025 isn’t a blueprint of what he wants to do FOR anyone (except the richest rich). It’s a blueprint of what he plans to do TO everyone who isn’t rich. Tim Walz said it best, “When someone takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re going to use it.”

The “issues” Trump focuses on aren’t real. He can say they are all day, every day, but he’s tilting at windmills. The inflation rate is 2.9%. Their hoped-for economic crash they thought they were getting that day the DOW dropped never happened. The border is a non-starter since HE killed the best bill on the topic in a long time, just for political reasons.

I STILL can’t find any place that he has picked up votes. I can see places where he has certainly lost votes but I can’t see anyplace where he gains them. Conventions commonly bring a bounce to the candidate (unless you’re JD Vance, apparently). Trump enjoyed that. Getting shot at give him a temporary boost, too, but even THAT he overplayed. Slapping that feminine napkin on his ear to cover his teeny, tiny, little owie just made him look stupid. MAGA swooned, but MAGA has no self-respect.

At this point, all that’s left is to get out and vote. It’s not enough to have enthusiasm for your candidate. You MUST cast a ballot. We need all we can get. I’m STILL more concerned about what the unethical Republicans are planning to do in January, and having the largest margin of victory in the popular vote will help prove they’re stealing. Nobody (but MAGA) wants Trump. NO patriotic American would tolerate Trump. Let’s prove it with the numbers, shall we?

Unreal…

by MyBaconPress

Trump thinks his best attacks against Harris are inflation, crime, and the border. Meanwhile, he said he thinks abortion won’t be a “big factor” in elections and that it will end up being a very small issue with the voters. High inflation, surging crime rates, and an “open border” are articles of faith in MAGA land. Now, to be clear, the facts don’t comport with the conservative views.

The current inflation rate? 2.9%. Cons will tell you it’s out of control and killing the country. People are not spending, right now, because the interest rates are still up and many people count on credit cards to be able to participate in this society. The Fed is expected to lower interest rates this coming September. Trump is trying to run on an issue he made up – and we all know it’s made up. MAGA doesn’t know and maybe Donald doesn’t know, either, but everyone else knows. Inflation is down.

The crime rate is down, too. Crime always goes down as economies pick up. At least, blue collar crime goes down. White collar crime tends to increase when there’s money to be stolen – and we all know Trump is a primary practitioner of white collar crime. (Why would he want to focus attention on his own criminal behavior?) Yet another scare story come to life for MAGA. So, first he creates the threat, then runs against his own, pretended threat? That seems unstable, to me.

The border? Sorry, Donald, you own the border. When you told your team to kill the bi-partisan but conservative-written border bill, you became the major reason the border is still a problem. It’s such an easy and honest answer to such a silly, delusional charge. “Yeah, you shouldn’t have killed the bill, Donald.” In fact, I would go so far as to say it encourages people to vote blue for Congress, too, so we can pass that bill and get things moving forward again.

As far as abortion being yesterdays news? Oh, I don’t think so. The left is heavily focused on the loss of choice and we KNOW what cons want to do to women, should they get the chance. They’re still trying in various states, even as they try to distance themselves from their own actions.

He’s STILL on “drill, baby, drill,” as though the US isn’t producing more oil and gas than ever before in history. In view of climate change, I’d say, overall, that’s a BAD thing, but it’s a true thing. Yet another windmill to tilt against.

Here’s my question: if Donald Trump can’t tell the difference between real and NOT real, how is he qualified to be President of the United States?

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So, yeah, he’s an idiot but I had no idea he was THAT dumb. Saying the Presidential Medal of Freedom is better than a Congressional Medal of Honor was stupid. Just. Effing. Stupid! Captain Bonespurs thinks a medal someone might get for, say, singing well, is “better” than a medal a soldier earns through sacrifice, often the ultimate sacrifice.

I don’t mean any disrespect to Medal of Freedom winners, but there IS no comparison. And Trump KNOWS the way soldiers get the Medal of Honor. He cited the results as his reason for preferring the Medal of Freedom. He said service members who receive the nation’s highest military decoration are often wounded or awarded the medal posthumously. Yep. Defending our nation, which Capt Bonespurs was too afraid to do.

He is a coward, you know. I suspect that’s why he denigrates Medal of Honor recipients. They outperformed him. They were braver. They, quite simply, did better than Donny, and he KNOWS it. So he’s jealous. And in his jealous pique, he smears people who are far better than him on any day of his life.

Military members got upset by Trump’s outrageous comments. (Clearly, you can count me among them.) So he goes out, where some sycophant tries to give him an out, tries to take Trump’s foot out of Trump’s dumbass mouth, tries to make Trump look less of a fool. And the dumbass doubles down! He said in it public, you see, and he’s incapable of admitting mistakes. He MAKES mistakes all the time, he’s just incapable of admitting his mistakes, a mark of the smallest of small minds.

Our military members make a sacrifice so that cowardly, selfish pricks like Donny don’t have to. They deserve respect. They deserve HIS respect. If you’re military or ex-military, he’s telling you how he feels about what you did, the sacrifice you made, the price you paid. Are you really going to vote for a draft-dodger who thinks YOU are the fool for serving your country?

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Real quickly, I’m going to circle back to Trump’s lies about crime. He was scheduled to do an interview with ‘The Detroit News’ after a speech. When the reporter expected to do the interview asked the Trump campaign for data backing up his claims about crime? Trump ran away. The official phrase is “backed out.” But the reality is, he wasn’t about to face even the slightest scrutiny about his claims.

I’ll tell you this: In a way, it’s comforting. Now we can know he’s not just delusional. He’s lying, outright, and he KNOWS it…

Turn On Your Gaslight…

by MyBaconPress

There’s a movie, released in 1944 and starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, called ‘Gaslight.’ Basically, it’s the story of a man who tried to drive his wife insane so he could steal her estate. He makes things happen, then denies they happened. So, for example, she says she hears sounds from the attic when nobody else is home. He tells her there are no sounds. She’s just imaging them. When the gaslight that lights the house dims momentarily, he tells her it’s in her mind, the gas did NOT dim.

He plays some other nasty little tricks on her, insisting a letter she saw didn’t exist and hiding a brooch she KNEW she had, that kind of thing. After a while, she starts to doubt reality. The name of the movie refers to only one of his tricks, but it became the basis of a term we’ve all come to know: gaslighting.

In modern terms, gaslighting is insisting something didn’t happen that did (or vice-versa). Like the movie, it’s intended to cause one to question their memories or even reality. Like the movie, it’s usually done by bad people intending bad things. Oh, AND it’s stock-in-trade for MAGA. The MAGA mythology couldn’t exist without gaslighting. It’s very important to their ethos.

You see it from them ALL the time. Remember when a group of armed, radicalized cons attacked the Capitol building and threatened to murder the Vice president in an attempt to disrupt the certification process? That’s what happened. But ask MAGA, they’ll tell you it was just a friendly and certainly peaceful but unauthorized tour through the building. (Make America Gaslight Again?)

Trump, himself, recently said in an interview, “Nobody died.” Ashli Babbitt and Brian Sicknick died as a direct result of the events of that day and a handful of others followed. But MAGA will tell you, insist, that “nobody died.” MAGA will insist there was no violence, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary. MAGA is gaslighting you. They know what happened. They just need YOU to doubt yourself.

Remember after 2020, when MAGA started screaming about all of that horrible disarray and mismanagement of the election that never happened? All of their pretended Democratic attempts to steal the election, all of the “abnormalities” that could never be proven? Gaslighting. MAGA KNOWS the election was fair and honest. They just need YOU to doubt yourself.

We’ve all seen Project 2025 by now. We know what’s in it. We know who wrote it, the American Heritage Foundation and a bunch of Trump cronies. We KNOW what the cons are planning to do to this country if they can manage to get it back. But they’ll tell you differently. “What? What is this ‘Project 2025’ you speak of? Never heard of it. Oh, AND it has some terrible things in it, that document I’ve never heard of.” MAGA is gaslighting you. They know what the plan is. They just need YOU to doubt yourself.

You don’t even have to doubt yourself for long. Just long enough for them to accomplish whatever evil goal they have in mind at the moment. Of course, it’s better if you buy into their game and come to question what you saw for real. Pick an issue, any issue. MAGA will try to gaslight you. It’s quite common from them. They do it all the time. And they’re doing it for the same reason the bad guy in the movie did it to his wife: there’s something they want to steal. In this case? It’s the entire effing country!

The bad guy in the movie didn’t expect to drive his wife mad in one fell swoop. It took time. He had to keep coming up with new examples of her “erroneous” thinking to create a deep mistrust in her of her own stability. But he was willing to put in the time because his goal was so important to him. He was patient.

So, too, has MAGA been patient. They started all this whining about unfair elections in 2020 and have kept at it because they have to put in the time. They want and need Americans to question the validity of our elections so that when they start complaining about how unfair the 2024 election was, people might doubt the outcome just long enough for them to steal the thing in Congress.

Don’t let them. The sounds from the attic are real. The gaslight IS dimming. MAGA DID attack the Capitol. People DID die. Our election process is essentially sound. (Generally, when someone IS caught trying to cheat, they’re cons and they’re cheating FOR the GOP.) Project 2025 is a real and present danger to the United States of America. Trust what you know. NEVER take a con’s word for anything. Highlight their gaslight attempts. Oh, and vote for the Democrat. This might be our last chance if we’re not careful…

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Speaking of which, did you hear that the Trump campaign is pretending Taylor Swift has endorsed Trump? Donald released a bunch of AI-generated photos that make it look like Swift and her fans are all-in for Trump. They’re less of a “gaslight” and more of an “outright lie.” She hasn’t endorsed anyone for this election – yet. But in 2020, she endorsed Biden/Harris. With the introduction of these fraudulent photos, Trump might well be unintentionally pressing Swift to make an endorsement, after all. My guess is, that won’t go well for Trump…

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Can we please, once and for all, focus on claiming the entire Congress for sane Americans and not these MAGA “nattering nabobs of negativism,” as Spiro Agnew might describe them? I’d really like a Congress that can get something done and not be constantly obstructed by what Agnew described as “…their own 4-H club—the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.” Agnew described MAGA perfectly and he’d never even met one. I wouldn’t gaslight you…

He’s Gonna Need A Coup…

by MyBaconPress

If she gets in, you’re all going to DIE!
If she gets in, the economy will crash worse than any economy has ever crashed.
If she gets in, every one of you will have to marry a goat!
If she gets in, the planet will explode!
If she gets in, everyone will get health care. (He actually said that one, like it was a bad thing.)

Yeah, yeah, we get it Donald. If she gets in, terrible things will happen. Well, to you, anyway. He wants everyone to think all of those terrible things will happen to everybody, everywhere, all the time. But the entire truth is, if she gets in, the only person who will face “terrible things” is Donald, himself. If she gets in, he goes to prison because of the crimes he committed.

Everyone else will be just fine, thank you very much…

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So, it can be hard to remember, but if you can think back ALL the way to…um…yesterday, you’ll remember I wrote that his team still thinks they can pull out this election if they can just get Trump to settle down, stay focused, and focus on the issues, especially on the issues he is perceived as being the better option. (Sidebar: can you believe somebody thinks Trump might be a better option for ANY issue outside of theft, grift, and adultery?)

All they had to do was give him a carefully written script, put it on the teleprompter (that he never uses), and have him stick to the script. His team set all of that up and put him in front of a rather sizable audience. 8,000 people, reportedly. I mean, it’s no Harris/Walz crowd size, but it’s not nothing. Word is, he started well enough. Apparently, he CAN read. Who knew?

It didn’t matter, though, because he didn’t read. Not for very long, anyway. I suspect he finds talking about actual issues as boring as he found working on actual issues. He can’t DO either one. Oh, but he CAN attack his opponent with lies and promise the worst of all possible outcomes for all people everywhere if he doesn’t win. Chicken Little come to life.

Now seems a good time to point out that he made all the same predictions in 2020 when he ran. If Joe got in the economy would crash. Didn’t happen. If Joe got in, everyone would die. Didn’t happen. If Joe got in the world would take advantage of us. Didn’t happen. If Joe got in the sky would fall. Nope. The sky is still up there. It’s almost like Donny is just making up scary things to frighten his audience. Of course, it’s more likely he’s deranged, making ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ a real thing. Oh, but I digress…

So, he started strong but couldn’t stay on topic for long before leaving the script to chase a butterfly. He called Kamala both Communist AND Fascist, proving he doesn’t know the definition of either word. He attacked her laugh again. He can do that because she does laugh. She seems a MUCH happier person than he is. Come to think of it, I’ve NEVER seen nor heard him laugh. I presume that’s because he’s a bitter old man, terrified of all the specters he creates in his own head.

I think my favorite part was when he started rambling about how he doesn’t ramble. You do, Donald. You ramble a LOT. It’s always the same re-hash about grievances that don’t exist, too. BOR-ING! And it’s not boring only to me. MAGA started leaving the venue early – while he was talking. (In fairness, those who left early might have been the people they pay to attend his rallies.) As soon as they realized he was just doing the same routine, they started to go. They’ve heard all of this before and they have better things to do. But he can’t help himself.

He just wants to re-litigate everything. He asked why, if Harris could become the nominee “without an election,” were Republicans having an election? Couldn’t they just name HIM the nominee, too? “I said, so why are we having an election? They didn’t have an election. Why are we having an election?” Hey, Donny, I don’t want to wake you from your fever dream, but you ARE the Republican nominee.

So, at least at last they know. They WILL NOT get their boy to focus on, well, anything for too long. His ADD, or OCD, or whatever it is with his malfunctioning brain kicks in and he’s off chasing squirrels again. If they’re going to get their boy into the Oval, they’d better get the January 3rd coup ready…

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There’s a place in the city I live in called ‘Caritas Center.’ It provides comprehensive services to homeless individuals and families. They can wash their clothes and get cleaned up but they can get health care and recovery help and pretty much any other service you can think of that people struggling with homelessness might need. It’s an amazing place, doing amazing work.

I had a chance to attend a walk-through for people who participated in getting the program off the ground. (Full disclosure, I was not one of them. I was WITH someone who was one of them.) It’s a truly beautiful facility. I’m told it cost $39 million dollars to build. (It’s a whole city block and includes a dormitory.)

The people and the place provide an absolutely necessary service to the victims of our brutal little society. Interestingly, I learned the same day (from a different source) that only a third of the people suffering homelessness have mental health or drug issues. As it happens, we SEE them the most, so we THINK they’re the primary demographic, but they’re not. MOST are people who have been priced out of the markets by Wall Street greed. The largest growing, single segment? Seniors. God bless America, where we throw old people out into the streets for profit. I’ll tell you this: Capitalists make Capitalism look very, very bad.

I want to make sure this is clear, Caritas is a vital service staffed by people doing very good work for a very vulnerable segment of our society and I’m glad they’re there. Nothing I’m about to write should be construed as in any way denigrating to their good work and what they’re trying to accomplish. But as I was driving home from the event, all impressed by the facility and people, a thought crossed my mind. (Hey, it happens…)

The Caritas Center cost $39 million dollars to build. It employs lots of people. It will be providing tax revenues to the city. This is a model facility and I’m sure they will be springing up all over the place, soon, because I’m sure the need won’t be corrected any time soon. And that’s the source of my concern. Caritas treats the symptom. It can’t cure the disease.

Congressman Mike Thompson was there and he spoke of all the good things people are doing to address the homeless problem, treating the symptom. He did NOT mention the ‘Stop Wall Street From Buying Single Family Homes Act,’ curing the problem.

I’m probably late to the party but it seems to me, there’s an industry developing around caring for homeless people. Why is that a problem? Because in this once-great nation, once an industry develops, maintaining the industry becomes part of the challenge. If one solves homelessness, jobs will be lost, tax revenues lost, and a large, $39 million dollar facility will stand empty with nothing to do. People profiting from the homeless industry will be loath to let that happen. Sadly, it’s the American way.

Think of when conservatives decided that private prisons were just as good as state-run prisons. (They’re not. In practice, they cost MORE and provide worse conditions. Profits, you know.) Private prison contracts require a certain minimum number of inmates at all times. If crime starts going down, the state may not be able to send enough inmates to fulfill it’s contractual obligations. It incentivizes states to criminalize behaviors just to maintain an agreement. How dumb is that?

Now we’re doing something similar with the homeless population. Will the burgeoning homeless industry reduce incentives to solve the problem outright? I know, the question seems stupid, but “stupid” seems to rule the roost, these days, here in America…

Adapting and Adjusting…

by MyBaconPress

“If we can just get him to settle down, stay on message, and act his age, we can still pull this out.”
“Yeah, you’re talking about Donald Trump, here. What are the odds he might do any of those things?”
“He must know how…”
“Maybe, but have you ever seen it?”
“Crap.”

Apparently, he’s going to do more campaigning. Apparently, he thinks only HE can save the day. Narcissism doth make a fool of the narcissist. Is lying and whining going to do it? I don’t know. It’s all well and good to try to knock your opponent down a couple of notches but he doesn’t seem to understand that just tossing out made-up stuff isn’t going to DO anything. And, listen, mispronouncing someone’s name as a put-down? That is SO second grade. Sure, MAGA enjoys it. But let’s be honest, shall we? He could stand up at that lectern farting and crapping his pants (and, from what I hear, may have) and they would just swoon at how amazing he is.

MAGA cannot be the measure of…well, anything, really. Let’s just say MAGA is an undependable source. Oh, and there aren’t enough to get him elected. He needs at least SOME mainstream voters and I think his ‘poor me’ shtick is wearing thin for normal people. It has moved beyond ‘boring.’ Most of the country, no, the world, just wants him to dry up and blow away, already. I NEVER have to tune in to a Trump speech. I saw it eight years ago and it’s been in reruns ever since.

I do get a kick out of listening to a silver spoon-fed blowhard, crying and whining about how unfair life has been to him – to a bunch of people who have actually struggled all of their lives. (They think he’s “one of them.” He is OH, so not, one of them…)

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Polls are starting to break for Harris/Walz, too. According to an Emerson College Poll released last Thursday, even old people are turning to Harris over Trump. It’s not a huge lead. Harris is at 51% while Trump is at 48% but the over-70 crowd has been reliably Republican for a long time, now.

The under-30 crowd has shifted toward Harris by nine points, too. It said that as many as 93% of voters said they were extremely or very motivated to vote in the election on November 5. It showed that black voters who are very or extremely motivated to vote went from 80% to 91% over the course of the last month. If you’re Harris (or a Harris supporter) things are trending well for you.

There’s a lot of time left but it’s looking like America is ready to move on from it’s most extreme edges, move away from MAGA (like one moves away from a crazy person on a bus) and get back to serious matters. (Kids getting cat boxes in schools? Some people will believe anything…)

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Hey, people are mailing abortion pills to states that don’t allow them! I kind of love that. As it happens, most abortions in this country are done with medications, not in doctor’s offices. It’s early days in this round, but it looks like cons might have missed their chance to totally damage women by a little bit. Unless they claim power, of course, and institute a nationwide ban.

It’s kind of like the Underground Railroad back in the slave days. People from free states would help runaway slaves from slave states to freedom. Sure, it was illegal and dangerous but it was the right thing to do and there were people ready, willing, and able to help.

So now, people from free states are helping victims of red states in a similar way. The packages are “discreet.” Sometimes, they’re mislabeled. They’re about the size of a hardcover book. There are organizations springing up and setting up shop to participate. AND, they do it on a sliding pay scale. It means that women and girls in red states won’t necessarily be forced to have babies, after all!

Eight states have passed shield laws to protect the providers of this oh-so-important medication to the people who need it. In simple terms, there are laws that say a telehealth provider has to be licensed in both the state they practice in AND the state they’re sending meds to, but the shield laws protect the providers since they likely would not be able to be licensed in the oppressor states.

I’ll tell you this: I count this good news. I’m glad to know there are people stepping up to help where help is needed. It’s heartening to know there are still good people on this planet…

Maybe/Maybe Not…

by MyBaconPress

Well, I certainly hope I’m wrong about this but it looks more and more like we might find ourselves in yet another conflict over in the Middle East. I don’t mean just supplying weapons. I mean boots on the ground. What can I say? America is a blood thirsty nation. We can’t stay out of conflict for very long.

In October 2023, Hamas attacked Israel over what they perceived as years of abuse and encroachment of their land. 1,200 Israeli’s, mostly civilians, died in the cowardly attack. (Attack the leaders who caused the actions, not innocents just living their lives.) Israel retaliated – is STILL retaliating – and, so far, have killed 40,000 Palestinians, men, women, and children. According to Israel, Hamas, all! Left to their own devices, Israel and the Palestinians would fight until there were no more Israelis or Palestinians to do any fighting – just like their Gods want them to.

But more than once, Israel has attacked people in places other than Gaza, drawing in a larger pool of combatants, widening the war. One time was when Israel attacked the West Bank, challenging Hezbollah, who seem happy to oblige in the fight. Israel attacked the Iranian consulate in Syria. Iran’s response to that was…”measured.” THEN, Israel attacked Tehran, Iran. Now the world is waiting to see how Iran is going to react.

How do you think the US would react if some foreign, hostile power took a military action on our shores? Remember 9/11? One attack, two wars that lasted years. As it happens, other countries feel the same way about military operations in their countries and will respond. The US remains committed to Israel, apparently, no matter what. How long until Israel makes the war so much worse, so much bigger, the US has to field troops to “help?”

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I feel like Kamala is winning this race at the moment. I see her opposition trying to land a punch that slows her momentum, but I haven’t seen anything effective. By all accounts (on the left) Trump is flailing, angry, and depressed. I think he’s going to lose an honest and fair election. I think HE thinks he’s going to lose an honest and fair election, too. SO…one doubles down, gets to work, hits the battleground states over and over and over again trying to drum up support, right? One says the things people want to hear. One settles into professional mode and presents their image of the future and how they intend to make it better, right?

But not Donald. He has some other strategy. First, he took a week off. Just…sat down in Mar-a-Lardo, scratching his fat ass. (Okay, he DID do a press conference and made his situation worse.) Then, he followed up with a rally in (checks notes)…wait, is this right? Montana? Has Kamala made inroads into Montana? If he has Montana in the bag, and he does, why expend resources in Montana?

At first, I found his odd response comforting. I thought he was dazed and confused and flailing for an answer. I thought he was spending time in “safe zones” in an effort to rebuild his oh-so-fragile confidence, trying to get his groove back. But then, I got a cold chill.

I’ve heard (and related) about a plan to simply install Trump in January, should he lose in November. Taking a week off and visiting places where your support is strong are not quality actions for a candidate trying to win an election. But they’re just fine for a candidate confident he’s going to be installed, anyway, so why bother?

I know people who tell me I’m a bit over-the-top on this. Smart people, who could totally be right so take my concerns, here, with a grain of salt – but only a tiny grain of salt. The GOP has already outlined the scheme. They already have the pieces in place. Hell, they’ve already initiated the process. (Every time they claim the election was/is/will be rigged, they’re setting the stage. That’s the lie they need to get the ball rolling – and it’s already rolling…)

I can’t, for the life of me, think of a reason a person would define the game, set the pieces in place, start playing, and then just…stop. One step away from reaching their goal and they just decide not to? In what world? In that sense, Trump campaigning in safe states and speaking to already-gonna-vote-for-him loyalists, concerns me “bigly.”

Untethered…

by MyBaconPress

As it happens, the US has been providing weapons to Ukraine so she could defend herself from a Russian incursion into their sovereign nation. But the weapons came with a caveat. They couldn’t use American-made weapons IN Russia. That left Ukraine fighting a “limited war.” A limited war is a war in which there’s a line one side isn’t allowed to cross for one reason or another.

The side with the restriction cannot win a limited war. The enemy just attacks, then retreats behind the limit line and waits for a bit. Then they get to do it again, using up resources from the limited side. The US tried fighting limited wars in Korea and then again in Vietnam before giving up on the idea. We KNOW it doesn’t work so I don’t know why the powers that be would have shackled Zelenskyy like that.

But we’ve taken off the proscription. Ukraine is now allowed to use American-made weapons in Russia. Russia was making headway in Ukraine because they were able to concentrate their forces in one spot and attack. Ukraine responded by sending troops into Russia at a different point. It was very Sun Tsu. It alleviated the pressure where Russia was attacking by forcing Russia to move some of her troops to repel the attack.

Putin called it a ‘major provocation.’ Really, Vlad? A single incursion into Russia is a major provocation? What the hell does that make sending an army and invading a sovereign nation for more than two years?

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I saw a group of supporters of Palestine protesting the US involvement in the Israeli war. They were insisting they wouldn’t vote for Harris if she didn’t promise to stop sending weapons to Israel. Great. Then you get Trump. Do you think Trump would be better for Gaza and the West Bank than any Dem?

This is America. You don’t GET a “best choice.” You get the least crappy choice you can tolerate. The question is NOT, “Who will be best for Palestinians?” The question is, “Who will be worst for Palestinians?” Vote against that guy…

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A new slogan for Boeing: ‘Maybe we’ll get you there, but we can’t get you home.’

I think this is the first time I’ve ever felt badly for astronauts who made it to space. Thanks to Boeing cost-cutting measures, two astronauts are trapped at the ISS for the foreseeable future. It was supposed to be a few days but the Boeing craft that got them there can’t be trusted to bring them home safely so now they have to wait until they can hitch a ride home with someone else.

If Boeing wants to cut costs, I have an idea. How about the CEO? He made $32.8 million dollars in 2023. Maybe if that greedy SOB had settled for, say, $30 million, the company could afford to buy some quality (or even just decent) equipment. I know, they’ve installed a new CEO. Do you think he’s making more or less?

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I sure am glad all of those conservatives assured me climate change was all fake. Otherwise, I’d be growing more and more alarmed as the “fake” predictions keep coming true, one after the other, like clockwork.

Wait, the conservatives were wrong about something? DO tell…

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I saw a piece out of MAGA media that tried to smear Kamala by suggesting her rallies were little more than free concerts with political speeches at the end. I presume that’s because people are aware that a Trump rally is basically just a bad comedy show with NO political speech at all. Just riffs of his favorite slams, put-downs, complaints, and dire, terrifying, warnings.

We’ll all die! They’re so mean to me. We’ll never make it. It’s so unfair. We’re DOOMED, I just know it. Political persecution. The markets will crash. Keep me in court. Cities will burn. Only I can save you. Everyone will have to learn Spanish! Why do they pick on me? Rapists! Murderers! Drug mules! Terror! Disaster! Destruction! Me, me, me, glorious and beautiful ME!

That’s a scary world MAGA lives in. Imagine what happens to them every time they set foot outdoors. I wonder why those terrible things aren’t happening to everybody, just MAGA? Hmm, maybe they’re just making stuff up, eh?

No One Is Safe…

by MyBaconPress

I’ve long suspected cons are so loyal to Trump because they think AS cons, they’re safe from his attacks. But are they? As he melts down trying to find a decent and not hackneyed attack on Kamala, he has taken to lobbing insults at other Republicans, too. Their sins? Speaking truth about Trump. He hates that. He WILL work to tear you down, Republican or no, if you don’t kiss his ring.

But it’s not just that. He tore into Tennessee Governor Billy, no, Bill Lee, the chair of the Republican Governors Association, for being a “RINO.” (That’s a ‘Republican In Name Only.’ One can be a DINO, too…) What did Lee do? Well, months ago, Lee endorsed a candidate. More recently, Trump endorsed that candidate’s opponent. That puts Lee on the outs.

Meanwhile, the racist, criminal, and very OLD weirdo Donald Trump is trying to distance himself from his Public Display of Racism at the NABJ by calling Kamala “Kamabla.” Yeah, that should work, name calling. How VERY second grade. Except, nobody knows what Kamabla is or means.

I’ve digressed a bit. The point here is, even cons aren’t safe from his attacks – and one doesn’t even have to actually DO anything to him. If he even THINKS you’ve done something he doesn’t like, he works hard to bring you down, Republican or no, and right now, he’s just flailing at anybody and everybody as he falls further and further behind in the race…

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Recently, there was an economic blip, a huge sell-off in the rich people’s casino. The GOP immediately dreamed of an economic crash and started trying to pin the hoped-for economic slowdown on Kamala, calling it the ‘Kamala crash.’ Had it been an actual crash, I STILL think it would be more closely associated with the specter of Trump seizing power in January, after losing the election in November.

The cons CAN steal the election. They want to, they have a plan to, and they can. They’ve put the pieces in place. But would the country just sit idly by and let it happen? Or, would the largest economy on Earth, the one so many other countries depend upon, be destabilized? Are the world markets spooked by the prospect of a Trump return, either in November OR in January?

MAGA lives in a dream world of delusion but the rest of the world remembers Trump’s first term. The rest of the world knows that the American economy was already suffering under Trump’s mismanagement even before Covid-19. His stated plans for his return promise to do even greater damage than he did the last time. Maybe, the closer we get to the possibility of his actual return, the more rich people feel like they need to protect their own positions…

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So, this mystery buffoon (I’ll let you see if you can guess whom) goes on Fox Not News and takes questions from bikers at the Sturgis rally in South Dakota. One person explained that rents are too high and asked what our mystery buffoon (it could be any MAGA) plans to do about it.

His answer? Drill, baby, drill because bacon is expensive! Yeah, you think I’m kidding. You think I’m poking fun at a mentally challenged person. You think I’m treating him like he treats disabled reporters. None of the above. Drill, baby, drill because bacon is expensive.

Okay, so that isn’t an exact, word-for-word quote. But it was absolutely his message. He said energy costs were causing high housing prices. (He’s wrong.) This is one of the falsehoods MAGA holds on to. The US is currently – that means right now, today – producing more oil and gas than we ever have before in the entire history of the once-great nation. But nobody told MAGA and they think we’re not drilling at all. (They’re wrong.) Besides, the US is mostly incapable of refining the oil we take out of the ground under our feet. In short, we HAVE to sell it. Drilling more just improves oil company profits. It doesn’t lower prices at the pump one cent.

The food gouge HAS increased the price of bacon – just like they’ve increased the price of everything else. Greed kills. Greedy grocery chains aren’t the reason that guy’s kids can’t find a decent place to live at an affordable price. That’s Wall Street greed. Totally different.

Drill, baby, drill because bacon is expensive. Dear MAGA, I know you love him. I know you’re going to vote for him, but you’re voting for a moron…

Walz Vs Vance…

by MyBaconPress

When Harris announced Walz as her running mate, most people I know said, “Who?” The more we find out about Walz, though, the happier I think most lefties are. He was a good pick. He was an unknown pick the day he was announced but his approval numbers just keep climbing. Walz is bringing people into the fold, increasing the number of people excited to vote for the ticket.

When Trump announced Vance as his running mate, MAGA said, “What?!?” The more we find out about Vance, though, the LESS people like him. Not just MAGA, everyone. He was an unpopular pick the day he was announced and his approval numbers have only fallen since. Vance is alienating entire voting blocs at an alarming rate, driving voters away. He’s lost women, independents, and Black voters. His approval among college-educated voters has declined 28 percent! By their own words, they prefer the “poorly educated” anyway.

One of my favorite things about Walz is that he’s funny. He’s going to be fun to listen to in speeches. Oh, I also found out he’s not rich. Like, he has no investments and doesn’t even own a home. That sounds like a school teacher to me. LOTS of school teachers can’t afford to buy their own homes these days. Walz really IS just a regular guy.

For reasons I can’t imagine, Trump took almost all of last week off. He just sat at Mar-a-Lardo, perhaps trying to come up with some clever name to call someone, and sent Vance out to do the campaigning. Was that supposed to be a charm offensive? It didn’t work. People don’t like Vance. He’s weird.

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What the hell is it with that weird old guy? Trump held a news conference. He was trying to hit Harris on the fact that she’s been out campaigning and not doing pressers, but first, he had to have a presser himself in order to blunt criticism. But holding a press conference and spewing lies? I’m not sure that’s going to get you anywhere.

I’d sure like to know why he’s so obsessed with crowd size. It goes all the way back to his inauguration in 2017. He didn’t draw nearly the crowd most newly elected Presidents draw and it really frosted him. He has spent years trying to convince somebody, somewhere that he draws large crowds. It’s fairly easy for him, because when he doesn’t, he just pretends he did. Hey, I don’t care. Pretend what you want but I’m not going to pretend with you. During his presser, he claimed he drew more people than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did at his “I Have A Dream” speech. He didn’t. He never has. He never will…

He said no one was killed on January 6th. That’s in keeping with the MAGA lie that the whole thing was a peaceful, “unauthorized tour.” It’s also incorrect. Ask Ashli Babbitt. Oh, you can’t. She’s too dead, having been shot in the head trying to storm the Senate chamber. Maybe you could ask Brian Sicknick? No. He’s the cop that died after battling the crowds at the Capitol – as a direct result from having had to battle the crowds. Let’s set aside the five other cops who committed suicide later. Just one of those names was enough to prove the weird old man a liar.

Cons keep trying to pretend Kamala taking the nomination after Joe stepped aside is some kind of coup. They really need a coup attempt on their side to try and balance the scales from their own efforts, so they call everything a coup. For clarity, there was and is nothing criminal or even problematic about a political party picking it’s preferred candidate. Just because Trump wishes he was running against Joe and with a decent VP pick, doesn’t mean the Dems have to choose Joe or a lower, Vance-level VP pick…

He claimed the economy would be perfect in every way had he been elected in 2020. Easy to say, old man. I’m not sure anybody who knows what they’re talking about would agree with you and since you were NOT elected in 2020, it’s all hypothetical. Since we’re just making things up, I can just as easily say that if you had been elected in 2020, everybody in the country would be homeless and jobless, disease riddled, starving and suffering in every possible way. Go ahead. Prove me wrong in a fantasy scenario. It turns out? ANYBODY can just make crap up…

He said 20 million people came across the border during the Biden administration, maybe more. First, there’s no support for that number. He just made it up. Second, even though the cons keep trying to smear the Dems over the border, it was the Republicans who killed the best bill we’ve had on the topic in years – and they did it on Donny’s orders. Dear MAGA, you can TRY blocking meaningful action on a topic and then blaming your opponents for no meaningful action. But nobody is going to believe you. We all know what happened, regardless of how many times you repeat the lie…

He’s still whining about being caught in his criminal activity, too. He keeps claiming state cases are influenced by the Justice Department. They’re not. In fact, as nearly as I can tell, ALL of his cases were, essentially, initiated by HIM. If he hadn’t sexually assaulted that woman, he wouldn’t have to pay the price. If he hadn’t stolen from his charity, he wouldn’t have to pay the price. If he hadn’t cooked his books to pay off his illicit lover, he wouldn’t have to pay the price. If he hadn’t stolen all of those documents, he wouldn’t have to pay the price. See the pattern? I sure do…

He claimed he “went down” in a helicopter with Willie Brown. He said they had an emergency landing. He claimed, “This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie was, he was a little concerned.” Willie Brown says it never happened. Did Trump confuse his Browns, Willie for Jerry? Nope. Trump DID tour fire damage with Jerry Brown and Governor-elect Gavin Newsom. Jerry says no such thing ever happened with him, either. Newsom confirms Jerry’s account. Does Trump really think it happened? Is he THAT disconnected from reality? Maybe he was just scared up in that helicopter and it FELT like danger to him…

He even claimed to have protected Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign! “I was very protective of her,” Trump said at his press conference. “Nobody would understand that, but I was. I think my people understand it. They used to say, ‘Lock her up, lock her up,’ but I’d say just, ‘Relax, please.’” That’s his actual quote. He claims he tried to CALM the crowd chanting ‘Lock her up!” We were all there, Donald. We KNOW you’re lying, but, hey… Do you?

According to John Bolton, you can’t tell the difference between the truth and a lie. Bolton says you can’t tell the difference because you simply don’t care. You just say whatever you need to say in the moment and trust that no one will challenge you. It works when you’re surrounded by sycophants. Not so much when confronted by normal people who see you only for what and who you really are. I suspect that’s why you get to talk for two hours at one of your rallies but get whisked off the stage after thirty minutes when talking to actual journalists.

So I think the Trump presser has not worked well for Trump. It only exposed him more. He’s flailing. Mr. ‘I can solve everything easily’ can’t even come up with a decent campaign response to Harris/Walz? It’s been two weeks. So far, he’s come up with ‘Kamabla.’ That one is right up there with ‘covfefe,’ Donald. You’d better stay home longer and keep trying…

I’ll tell you this: The strangest election in modern American history continues to deliver. It’s been frightening, exhilarating, scary, comforting, predictable, confusing, exciting, AND boring – and there are STILL just under ninety days remaining…

Losing His Mind In Real Time…

by MyBaconPress

Oh, man is he losing his mind in real time? Trump’s initial response to Harris choosing Walz was “THANK YOU.” Then, as a measure of his weird little dinosaur-like reflexes, he waited five hours before posting again, trying to come up with a good zinger, I guess. When he did post, it was to call Harris/Walz the “most Radical Left duo in American history.” Five hours it took him to come up with that.

THEN, he went after…(checks notes) wait, is this right? He’s still going after Biden? He’s even pretending there’s some massive movement to bring Biden back as the nominee. If there is, it’s coming from the right, and I don’t blame them. Biden seemed beatable. Harris does not. They should be scared.

But then, he just…made up a scenario. He thinks Biden is going to don tights and a cape and just show up at the convention and wrench the nomination back from Kamala, realizing what a mistake he made stepping down. (More Trump projection.) Trump is still campaigning against Biden and I suspect it’s because he thinks Biden is easier to beat. But Biden isn’t running. I’ll tell you what, Don, I won’t vote for Joe, okay? That is some really weird, out-of-touch stuff, right there.

I suspect this goes back to the MAGA tendency to just make up whichever preferred reality you like best. But MAGA icon Ayn Rand warned them: ‘We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.’ To that end, I hope he keeps doing it. He’s not going to make much headway against his opponents, Harris/Walz, so long as he’s attacking his NON opponent, Joe Biden.

Either way, though, I hope he gets some new material soon. I mean, am I the only one who thinks Trump needs new shtick? The cons have a list of grievances. A very LONG list. I mean, gees, they complain about everything. They have treated this list as though it’s plug and play, meaning they could just replace names of potential opponents as needed. It worked, for a while. But suddenly, it seems to be wearing thin.

One of Trump’s earliest reactions to Walz was to pretend Walz would “unleash HELL ON EARTH.” Ooh, that’s some pretty scary, over-the-top, super-hyperbolic, weird-ass nonsense you’ve got going there, Donald. He put it in a fundraising email but the email was SO generic, it seemed as if it had been written days before the announcement and any name that came up could have gone in there. It was all just standard MAGA grievance stuff.

The problem with everything being the most extreme all the time is that it gets old, then boring. I believe Trump’s constant rending of clothes, clutching at pearls and swooning at the terrifying specter of someone who wants to help people rather than harm them has passed it’s sell-by date and gone completely bad. It’s boring.

After choosing Walz over his closest competitor for the role, Shapiro, the cons started suggesting Harris is antisemitic. It’s quite funny when bigots try to smear someone else as a bigot. They’re not very good at it. I’d call the whole ‘Harris as an Anti-Semite’ a swing and a miss. It’s a tough case to make, Harris’ supposed antisemitism, in view of the fact that her husband is Jewish. “So what?” shout the cons. “Our own reality!”

I’ll tell you this: That’s some really crazy, and really quite weird, stuff there…

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Oh, Gods it just keeps getting worse for Musk, doesn’t it? He bought a once very successful social media site known at the time as Twitter. He did it mostly as a political stunt. Twitter had taken to blocking objectionable content. They blocked racism, MAGA lies, fake news, false content, and some of the most egregious lying liars, things like that. Musk didn’t like that. Apparently, he prefers racism and other MAGA lies. So he bought the site.

Then, he started unraveling the site. He dumped the well-known, established name, Twitter, and renamed the site as the unnamed brand compared to the name brands in commercials, X. Then he began allowing racism and other MAGA media content on his site. (Keyword: “his”) Okay, so far, so good.

As a result of his decisions about what content he would allow on his site, advertisers started making choices about what kind of content they wanted their products associated with – and it largely was NOT what brand X was doing. So advertisers also made a choice about where they would spend their advertising dollars. See that? Elon made a choice about content, advertisers also made a choice about content. The advertisers fled the site.

Now Elon is trying to sue them. He says they’re depriving themselves of advertising results. I think they’re depriving HIM of advertising revenues. Elon wants to force advertisers to advertise on his site regardless of the content on the site – and he’s willing to sue over it, as if ‘Pornhub’ could force the Church of Latter Day Saints to advertise on their site. (I know, why would they want to? That’s not the point, here…)

Musk started this whole thing, he said, because he was so concerned about free speech and the First Amendment. Then he started blocking users who said things he didn’t like and insulting advertisers and now he wants to try and force advertisers back? I’m not sure he has a solid handle on the First Amendment – or, perhaps, just reality…