Author: MyBaconPress

Threats, Real and Not…

by MyBaconPress

It turns out, I know why the right thinks the left incites violence. At least, I know their story. They know it’s really the right that incites most of the violence but they have to keep the lie going, so they do. Their story is, the left incites violence by saying Trump will usher in Fascism, comparing Trump to Hitler, and insisting he’s an existential threat to democracy.

It’s weird, isn’t it? When the right says all Democrats are existential threats to democracy, that, somehow, is NOT an inciting threat. But when the left says Trump is an existential threat to democracy, suddenly, that’s an unforgivable incitement to violence? If you’re curious about which side actually represents an existential threat to democracy, I’d look at the team that has a 900+ page plan to dismantle democracy.

Okay, technically, Trump won’t be ushering in Fascism. The United States has been a fascist state since the Kangaroos egregious Citizens United ruling which silenced average people’s voices and allowed rich people – and ONLY rich people – to own and operate their government. Trump is just going to consolidate that power and sprinkle in the authoritarianism – all while gutting the treasury and stuffing his pockets.

Is it fair to compare Trump to Hitler? That depends. If the subject is language spoken or which country was corrupted by evil, sure, there’s no comparison. Hitler spoke German. Trump speaks gibberish. Hitler corrupted Germany. Trump corrupted the United States. No comparison. But…

If one looks at the “playbook” the two men used in order to rise to power? Trump’s plan is VERY “Mein Kampf.”
Pick a group to “blame” and lay all of the nation’s problems at their feet. It was the Jews for Hitler. It’s brown people for Trump.
Make SURE the base knows the “threat” the “scary” people represent.
Attack journalism as “fake news.”
Lie so much people start losing the ability to discern truth from fiction.
Keep your supporters angry and scared, no matter what.
Tell your base they’re special and everyone else is out to get them.
Tell your team YOU are the only one “strong enough” to fix the problem.
Promise to fix ALL the problems with easy, simplistic answers but never offer details.
Lie, lie, and lie again. Then lie some more.

If someone exposes some of the…let’s say, darker portions of your intentions, deny it. (Project 2025, anyone?) Lie about it. Downplay it. Sure, trump will SAY he’s pro-America and wants to make America great. But what he DOES and what he says are generally NOT the same. Only time will prove the deception. History now has a clue on offer with Germany’s experience with Hitler, but one has to know history for that to matter.

So, for clarity, the comments that Trump will formally bring us Fascism, is like Hitler, and intends to dismantle our Republic are NOT “inciting calls for violence.” They are simple recitations of things the left understands from the evidence. In other words, facts. Cons hate facts. I’ve just explained why we think the things we think. They’re not conspiracy theories or scare stories. They’re factually accurate. Project 2025 is a fact. I can hold the plan in my hands.

But, the cons insist the comments are incitements to violence. Okay, so here’s the thing. Projection much? It’s just simple human nature that people have a tendency to project their own perceptions to a situation where space exists for it. I mean, let’s agree, shall we, that each of those comments has a spoken part and an unspoken part. Let us further agree that the unspoken part is a call to action of some kind.

When a lefty hears “Trump is an existential threat to democracy,” the spoken part, they fill in the unspoken part with their understanding of what it should be: “…so don’t vote for him.” That’s it. Don’t vote for him. That doesn’t seem violent at all. Cons do the same thing. They fill in the blank, too, but they use their own perception. Cons hear, “…so kill him.” Of course they see those comments as calls to violence. It’s how they see the world.

I’ll tell you this: The very fact that cons hear violence in left-leaning summations of our current situation betrays their allegiance to the very violence they pretend to abhor…

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All Musk’s X’s are moving to Texas. He says he’s taking his Space-X program and his dwindling web site and moving them to Texas. Well, their headquarters, anyway. Thanks, in large part, to subsidies he received from California, he has billions in infrastructure invested in Southern California. Is he going to just walk away from all of that because he’s having a tantrum? (He doesn’t like a law Newsom signed.)

If he moves everything, lock, stock, and barrel, it would harm California, I suspect. But if it’s just the headquarters? That will open up a few parking spaces in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Generally speaking, there aren’t enough people working in a headquarters to generate much impact.

Then again, maybe he moves nothing at all. It’s one thing to announce a move. It’s another to actually do it. It’s expensive. When he’s done, they have to live in Texas. (They don’t. Moving the technical location doesn’t mean they have to physically move at all but then, what’s the point?) I’ve lived in Texas. It doesn’t suck. There are a lot of things I like about Texas but the weather isn’t one of them. It’s miserably humid there.

Meanwhile, Musk says he’s giving $45 million to the Trump campaign every month until the election. To me, that’s stupid money. Because the Dems prefer to lose, the election is already over. We all know it. That’s why the country has fallen into the miasma we have. So why donate to a campaign that has only to show up on election day? (Oh, yeah, more of that ‘rich guy getting into the good graces of the dictator’ stuff…)

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I just want to say this: American pseudo-Christians are running around saying God saved Trump’s life in the shooting. Here’s the rule: if you believe in the Christian God, you must also accept the Christian God’s counterpart, Satan, who, apparently, sports a few metaphysical powers of his own. Quick question, why would God save the physical manifestation of the Seven Deadly Sins? More importantly, why would Satan NOT save him?

No, if there was some theological intervention on Trump’s behalf, it came from Satan, not God…

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Hey, speaking of Satan, one of the Deceivers died! Lou Dobbs has gone on to his reward. Or, in his case, his eternal punishment. One reaps as they sow. The world is better off without him…

A person the world is decidedly NOT better off without is Bob Newhart, who also passed this last week. He was a funny man. He did one of the best TV shows on the air in the 1970’s and then had another hit show in the 80’s. The finale of the second show had Bob waking up in bed next to his sit-com wife from his FIRST show. It was a brilliant callback to a device they had used regularly in the first series, an in-joke for his long-term fans. A joke at least ten years in the making. I laughed for several days. Really, genius. I’m sorry he’s gone.

Misrepresentations From The Right…

by MyBaconPress

I’ve got two sentences buzzing around in my head. One is a line from a Paul Simon song, ‘The Boxer.’ The other is a comment from Ayn Rand, of all people. Here, let me put them side by side for you:
‘A man hears what he wants to hear and he disregards the rest…’ (Simon)
‘You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.’ (Rand)

I think those two sentences go together quite well to form a near-perfect warning. We’re about to enter what will likely be an ugly period brought on by people who chose to hear what they wanted to hear while disregarding the rest. Then, and only then, everyone will get to see, feel, and live the consequences of avoiding reality. There won’t be anything anyone can do about it.

MAGA is openly gleeful about it. They’re about to win and they know it. If I was excited about the end of our country, I’d probably be gleeful, too. But I’m not. History has already shown those of us who were paying attention where we’re headed. Most of MAGAS excitement is based on a reality that never existed and never will. They’ve been living in a world of illusion, brought to them by internet-based MAGA media that never hesitates to lie to them.

Do you know they think the LEFT has been responsible for the rise in violent rhetoric and actions in this country? The LEFT! It’s easy, see, if one just ignores, well, reality. Only one presidential candidate told his followers to “Knock the crap out of protestors,” promising to pay their legal bills (until he withdrew that promise). That was Trump during his 2016 campaign and political violence has been increasing steadily ever since, according to people who study such things.

The right planned to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. The right made jokes when Paul Pelosi was smashed in the head with a hammer. One of theirs intentionally crashed his car into a crowd, killing one and injuring several at Charlottesville, the ‘Unite the Right’ rally. We all watch whenever there is some headline grabbing shooting, waiting to hear which team THIS crazy comes from. By a wide margin, the crazies come from the right. So? The right lies. ‘When the truth doesn’t work for you, ignore the truth.’ What a stupid mantra.

Oh, yeah. J6. The right pretends it was just an unauthorized tour, a peaceful gathering so they simply don’t count it as political violence. The rest of us saw the video and believe in reality. According to Reuters, since the documented violence of J6, “Of the 14 fatal political attacks since the Capitol riot in which the perpetrator or suspect had a clear partisan leaning, 13 were right-wing assailants. One was on the left.”

You know what? This is stupid. I could keep noting political crime after political crime, each attributable to right-wing ideology for a long time. The list is long. But thinking Americans already know the right is lying about who is responsible for the upsurge in these types of crimes and MAGA doesn’t care. I mean, they know, too. They just won’t admit it. And when they feel like they’re in a “safe space,” they’ll even make jokes about it.

I’ll tell you this: The right promoting and engaging in violence but pointing the finger at the left? Why, that’s classic MAGA. All they ever have to work with is lies. Ever. That’s okay with them. They’ll lie. The part that bothers me so much is how easily they’ve been deceived – and what it’s about to cost us all…

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OMG, have you SEEN the bandage? Look, I know Trump got hit by a bullet, but he wasn’t “shot” in the sense most Americans think about when thinking about “shot.” Trump is among the LEAST “shot” people who have been shot by crazies with guns. He was “grazed.” Yeah, his ear got cut. I’ve seen worse injuries from shaving nicks.

But Trump is playing it for all he’s worth. (I don’t blame him, mind you. He’s a politician.) He’s got a bandage on about the size of a postcard. It looks dumb as hell but the point of it is to BE seen. “Ooh, remember when he got shot?” Now MAGA is wearing similar bandages in “solidarity.”

I’m sure there was a smaller, less intrusive covering that could have been put over his owie. That’s what a man would do. He wouldn’t go looking for sympathy by highlighting the injury. I’m surprised Trump didn’t put on a florescent bandage that glows in the dark with blinking lights that spell out “shot.” I guess he couldn’t find one in time…

Coming For Our Guns…

by MyBaconPress

Here’s a funny thought I had. For years, nay decades, we’ve been listening to gun rights advocates (GRAs) whining that the left is trying to take their guns. We’re not. We’d like to control which crazies have access to guns but I haven’t heard any serious calls to repeal the Second Amendment.

Trump, rather infamously, insisted during his J6 ‘Wind-Em-Up Rally’ that the Secret Service should remove the weapons detectors at the gates. When told that there were many credible reports of armed people in the crowd, he (again, rather infamously) retorted that they weren’t there to hurt him. Trump felt safe around all those armed people because he felt like they were all on his side. But now, one of HIS people has taken a shot at him.

Even Trump might well figure out that his reasoning on J6 may have been less than perfect. Loyalty is an unpredictable thing in crazy people. You know who Donald J. Trump loves more than anything or anybody? Donald J. Trump! On July 13th, he received instant information that, despite his preference, people with guns could, very well, constitute a threat to his oh-so-beautiful self. How do YOU think a self loving, paranoid, megalomaniac authoritarian is going to react to the possibility that some gun nut might use one of those guns to try – again – to kill him?

So guess who I predict will be coming for people’s guns. Go ahead, take a guess. If you said Donald J. Trump, you win. (There is no prize so, nice job!) Only Nixon could go to China. Only Trump can take the guns. I suspect it won’t be too long after he’s installed that he feels the paranoid need to remove the threat – that is, the guns. Especially if there’s a second attempt.

Remember, it was a gun nut conservative who took the shot. Trump may well realize that ANY gun nut, left or right, could become a serious threat – to HIM – with little or no warning. After all, the guy who kills Trump gets to live in history forever the same way the guy who killed John Lennon did it to live in history forever. It turns out? There are twisted people out there…

My head will spin as I watch MAGA media denounce gun ownership and see the new laws banning guns imposed by MAGA from sea to shining sea – all to protect their dear leader. It’s going to be fascinating watching GRAs try to decide how to respond. Will they just turn their weapons in? Some will. Will they go all “from my cold dead hands?” Maybe. Will they withdraw support from Trump? (Too late, guys. Once he’s in, he’s in – and you will be, I predict, disarmed.)

I guess the Lord DOES work in mysterious ways. Sure, the entire world suffers and burns under another Trump maladministration – but at least we will have finally managed the gun problem in this once-great nation…

Terrible is Still Terrible…

by MyBaconPress

So, yesterday, I wrote about Trump getting winged. I speculated on possible reasons, since nobody knew anything substantial at the time I was writing. One of the possibilities I mentioned was that it was NOT a political hit. It was just another in a long line of MAGAGOP/NRA shootings in which crazy people compete with each other to try to get the most horrific mass shootings and stand atop the crazy shooter pile. It turns out, this was that.

MAGA thinks the Dems have to tone down the violent rhetoric, though. Yeah, cause Dems are the party of shooting beer to protest an ad they don’t like. Wait, is it the Dems who run political campaigns by shooting… anything they can think of that they relate to liberalism? No, that’s right. I mean, that’s THE right.

MAGA also thinks their god protected their guy. Apparently, their god didn’t give two figs about the others who got shot. Quick question, if god is out there protecting certain people from becoming victims, why does he allow innocent seven-year-olds to be cut to pieces but saves the life of the personification of the Seven Deadly Sins? I mean, which “god” are you people praying to? Because it seems to stink of Sulpher…

At least one guy suggested BIDEN should be arrested for attempting a political assassination. If he would tune in to reality for even a second, he would know that a) Biden had nothing to do with it and b) even if he had, Biden enjoys perfect immunity for official acts, thanks to the conservative Kangaroos on the way-high court.

All Biden would have to say is he was “testing the effectiveness of the Secret Service” as part of his official duties. You know, the same story Trump tells about his attempt to steal the election. Besides, if Biden was going to attempt an assassination, do you really think he’d send a poor shooting kid? Biden has access to the best snipers in the world, people who know how to account for windage. Why would he send that failed human being?

But, alas (because when does one get a chance to use ‘alas’) it was just a run-of-the-mill standard conservative nutball trying to make the record books…

So then the other question is, how is this going to affect the race? Did Trump just win? If anything, Trump won on debate night. I don’t think getting winged is going to offer him much, long-term. Sure, he’ll play it up as much as possible. (Be honest, Dems would, too.) MAGA will rend clothing and clutch pearls and swoon but now that we know the shooter was just a standard crazy doing MAGA-endorsed crazy stuff, we’re kind of back to normal.

I saw an article in the Guardian suggesting some of Biden’s talking points were now muted. I disagree. Trump is still an existential threat to democracy and to the health of America. Am I really not allowed to say so because of some conservative crazy? Are we on the left not allowed to mention the Trump inspired violence of J6 because of the MAGA enabled violence at ONE political rally?

Yeah, sure, MAGA is going to try to blame the left. MAGA always blames the left. MAGA has not proven itself a very well informed group. I can’t see standing down on facts because of one event. Especially when (with respect for those who were seriously hurt or killed) it’s a such a non-event for MAGA. The only one who counts for them is Trump – and he was only scraped.

Of course Trump will see a bump in his support. I hear shares of his struggling media venture have gone up in value. Polls might bump in his favor for a short time. But Trump is still who he is. He has still done what he has done. Having a bullet whiz past him isn’t going to change that and there’s still time to remind everyone of the threat.

As an example, on the same page where the Guardian is doing the inevitable post-shooting stuff, there’s an article from leading economists warning that Trump’s proposed economic plan is going to do FAR more harm to the US than not. One guy is even from the far-right conservative stink-tank American Enterprise Institute, so it’s not just lefties ripping on their opponent.

I have to confess, he DID get a pretty good photo out of it. He did. But he’ll plaster it on T-shirts and mugs and sell it for way too much money and the photo will become as hackneyed as his “never surrender” surrender photo. Yes, MAGA is going to get a little “chubby” every time they look at it but the rest of us?

Since, like everything, it was NOT what MAGA will say it was, to my mind, it’s already yesterday’s news. I don’t think people will jump aboard the crazy train because of a cool photograph and his policies still suck. Saying the shooting won Trump the election is like saying the shooting made women comfortable about losing bodily autonomy and that, maybe, rampant, outright racism isn’t so bad.

I’ll tell you this: Terrible is still terrible, cool photo or not…

A Republican Shot At Trump…

by MyBaconPress

I just finished a book called ‘Blink’ by Malcolm Gladwell. It takes the position that sometimes one’s first impression is far stronger, and more correct, than in-depth analysis and study. As strange as it is to say, based on that thinking, I feel like there is something amiss in yesterday’s “assassination attempt.” I can’t put my finger on it. It just doesn’t feel right.

There’s something about the angle that confuses me. As the shooting started, Trump’s head was turned nearly 90 degrees. That means the shooter had to be on the sides of event for the bullet to whizz past (or through) his ear. Otherwise, it would have gone into his head. The thing is, I didn’t see any buildings to the side of the rally in any of the photos. I’d like to see a better map of the area. I also thought the blood looked wrong – too red. But what the hell do I know about blood? Note: I’ve since seen a better map. The shooter was, in fact, to the side of event…

Like I say, it’s just a feeling and a bit of a paranoid one, at that. Did they stage a rally shooting that actually killed someone and seriously injured others just to boost Trump’s standing in the polls? No. That’s too cynical, even for me. I still can’t shake the feeling, though, that Trump wouldn’t hesitate to kill some “little person” he doesn’t even know if he thought it would win him the White House.

I know. It’s insane thinking. Then again, look at who this is about. Insanity, personified. Honestly, do you really think Trump is beyond staging a shooting and cutting his own ear for political advantage? I wish I could say, for sure, that he would never – but I can’t.

Then again, Trump likely won the election the night of that disastrous debate. He didn’t NEED to stage anything like this. Besides, will anybody vote for Trump just because someone tried to shoot him? I don’t think so. Trump is STILL an existential threat to the United States and everybody who lives there, let alone the world, and thinking people still know that and MAGA still doesn’t care. I doubt even a stunt like this would win him any new supporters.

Maybe all of that is just me, expressing my ongoing inability to grasp the death of our once-great nation. I’ve been writing and trying to warn people about what I see coming for a long time. I’ve had very little success convincing anybody of anything. These days, with the end in sight, I find myself walking around in a kind of a fugue state, operating but not fully in charge, you know? It’s a kind of low-grade shock. I would never have believed Americans would let this happen at all, let alone that so many Americans would so gleefully cheer it along.

Trump took to holding rallies outdoors, I suspect, because it was cheaper than lining up indoor venues and his campaign is trying to save money for his many criminal trials. They even held some in Arizona (rallies, not trials) and it was so hot several of his devotees passed out in the heat. (Old people just don’t tolerate heat like younger people.) Having the rallies outside, though, is what allowed this shooter to get into position in the first place. I’d guess, going forward, future rallies will be strictly indoor events…

It’s also possible this was just some random, nut-ball shooting. We’ve seen them at all kinds of events from schools to concerts. Why NOT a political rally? He’s dead, now, so we’ll never get to ask him why he did it or what he was thinking, but the shooter was a 20 year old boy. He used an AR-15, the preferred gun of mass murderers around the nation, thanks, ironically, to the MAGAGOP and the NRA. He didn’t get a lot of shots in before he was “eliminated” himself.

He was a registered Republican but gave $15 bucks to a progressive political group in 2021. Those two events likely happened in the reverse order, though. Based on his age and the timeline, he would have given the money when he was 17. Then he turned 18 and registered Republican. Law enforcement and the media will be tearing into this guy’s life for the next few weeks so we’ll know everything about him that it’s possible to know in a short time.

I don’t want violence. I have to condemn this shooting in the strongest possible terms. You may have noticed, I don’t like Trump, even a little bit. I don’t support violence against him or anyone else. Maybe the shooter was trying to kick off the “culture war,” once and for all. You know, make it look like some “libtard” tried to kill Trump so the right would pick up their guns and start shooting, too. They still might.

Trump and his MAGA followers have been advocating violence for a long time, now. Their voices have been calling for another civil war. They are the people advocating retribution and revenge on their “enemies.” (Read: fellow Americans) It can’t be a total surprise that it’s coming out and it shouldn’t be surprising that it is, perhaps, coming home to roost. Violence is rarely a one-way street…

I’ll tell you this: I fear this will not be a one-time thing. I think those shots were just the first shots. JFK’s words are screaming in my ears, now. “When you make peaceful revolution impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable.” We the people still have a choice about which way this whole thing plays out. Here’s hoping we choose more wisely than that 20 year old boy…

You Know, Speaking of Old…

by MyBaconPress

I think, I hope, (okay, I desperately pray) that enough thinking Americans still recognize the danger that is Donald Trump to come out and vote against him. The media is focused like a laser beam on Biden’s slips but not paying much attention to Trump’s. Why not? Trump doesn’t do much better than Biden when he’s speaking. They’re both old. They both show signs of decline. Only one of them, Trump, is a criminal, sexual molesting, liar.

How can he be winning? I’ll tell you this: if he is the best America could put on offer, I’m pretty sure our ethics have fallen SO far we don’t deserve to be the leaders of the free world anymore.

I still wish the Dems would replace Biden, though. He’s facing a tough, uphill battle. Under the best of conditions, he’d be fighting MAGA with the Dems supporting his efforts. But now he’s fighting the Dems, too. They want him out, he won’t leave. It’s very Ruth Bader Ginsberg of him.

She, too, had a chance to do the right thing and step away with dignity and grace, allowing Obama to replace her with a younger option. She said no. I suspect she was one of those relentlessly optimistic people whose relentless optimism blinds her to certain realities. Like, being an 87 year old woman battling cancer – and just…randomly deciding that was no problem at all. Her choice gave rise to the end of Roe. I’m sure that was not her intention but that was the result.

Biden’s relentless optimism seems to blocking his view, too. The fallout from his self-imposed blindness will likely be the end of the Republic. Yeah, yeah, they say that about every election. Only this time? The opposition is openly floating plans about the best way to end the Republic. Project 2025, anyone? If you think it’s only hyperbole this time, you’re simply not paying attention.

Biden and/or Biden’s team have done a pretty good job in the White House. Even with dementia, I’d rather have Biden in there than the usurper. Biden’s team could keep things going. But Biden is suffering an enthusiasm gap that may keep people from coming out. A younger person wouldn’t scare so many people, wondering if he or she can do the job. Then, it would just be a younger, competent person, against the feckless, felonious, fibbing fraudster who gropes women for fun.

But the media seems to be trying to pick the winner by focusing on Biden’s gaffes while mostly ignoring Trump’s. Biden has difficulty saying things but the things he says are truthful. Trump has difficulty saying things and can’t say truthful things at all. Biden has mixed up some names. So has Trump. Biden loses his train of thought. So does Trump. Trump speaks a little more smoothly – not a LOT more smoothly – a little more smoothly – and that’s only because it’s so easy for him to lie. He doesn’t CARE if what he says is accurate. That gives him less to stumble over – but he still stumbles.

For both men, age is ever-present and taking it’s toll. But only one of them has a proven and irrefutable record as a moral reprobate. What does it say about MAGA that they continue to support him?

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Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy dodge has come to an end. He was trying to use the bankruptcy court to protect him because he has been ordered to pay $150 million dollars to the two women he defamed while he was out lying about the 2020 election that Joe won. You remember. Those were the lies he told, sometimes in court, that got him disbarred.

Mostly, he’s been stalling. He didn’t want to pay (who would?) and thought he could hide from the consequences of his actions in bankruptcy court. But the creditors got tired of the stalling and filed for a dismissal, which the judge granted. Now the two ladies, and all of Rudy’s other creditors, are free to come after him for their money.

You can add Rudy Giuliani’s name to the long, long, oh my god, oh-so-long list of people who put their faith and trust in Donald Trump and ended in ruin – and Trump didn’t even pay him for it afterwards…

The Irony of the MAGA Mind…

by MyBaconPress

Sometimes, when I write about someone passing away, it’s with sadness because the person was good and did good things in the world. Willie Mays was like that. But sometimes, when I write about someone passing away, it’s with happiness because the person was an evil blight on humanity and did damage for money. People like Jim Inhofe.

Inhofe was definitely in the second camp. He was a Senator, a Republican (of course), and a staunch defender of the oil companies’ battle to boost climate change. Inhofe helped win that fight. Now the world will suffer increasingly hotter winters, more violent tropical storms and hurricanes, more floods, droughts, crop failures, and all the other horrible things science has been trying to warn us about since the 1950’s – only to be ignored. Or, more accurately, shouted down by people who refused to understand.

Inhofe was the moron who brought a snowball, a weather event, into the Senate chambers to show that climate change, a climate event, wasn’t real – because snow still happened. 89 years the planet suffered under the weight of this man’s stupidity. Thanks, in part, to him, we STILL get to suffer but HE shuffled off and avoided the worst of his actions. Classic con move.

Oh, well, at least I can take comfort that where he went is (reportedly) much hotter than where we are…

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Do you know what I find ironic? With the help of compliant conservatives, the one percent is right on the precipice of winning their class war. I know, it’s been presented (by the one percent, remember) as a “culture war” but it’s been a class war since the start. They want to be an official aristocracy and FDR made that difficult. Sure, FDR also made the country the financial envy of the world and created the largest and strongest middle class the world had ever known but rich people couldn’t get AS rich AS fast under his rules so those rules had to go.

But they couldn’t have done it alone. They needed a mob. They found one in conservatives and they led the cons around by the nose through fraudulent (and very scary) broadcasts that looked real enough to fool people not paying too much attention. The one percent seduced the cons with easy answers. Trump’s main gift is his constant promises of easy answers to complex problems. That’s why they love him. Easy answers.

No, none of that is the ironic part. That’s just background. One of Trump’s easy answers is yet another tax cut or worse. He has actually floated the idea of eliminating income taxes altogether and replacing them with tariffs on goods. Every competent economist has blasted the proposal but “smart” and “MAGA” simply do not go together.

All of these tax cuts are a one percent wet dream as well. They just get richer and richer but, have you noticed? The country keeps having to cut services and opportunities because we can’t afford them. “Cut more!” is all we ever hear. They don’t talk about it like they used to. These days, they pretend it’s all about stimulating investment but there was a time they said the quiet part out loud.

There was this conservative Bozo known as Grover Norquist. He once held the Republican Party in his grip with nearly perfect control. He had them sign a pledge that they would never, ever raise taxes nor allow them to be raised. If they didn’t sign, they didn’t get any support from the GOP. If they DID sign, he could wave that promise around at them any time one of them seemed about to act for the good of the country instead of rich people.

Old Grover said a lot of things over the course of his career but, to me, his most famous quote is “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The “reduce it to the size” part is the tax cuts. They seem designed to bankrupt the nation.
“Hey, it feels like we might be getting to the ironic part, here, pretty soon.”
“Yeah, it does.”
And so we are…

I became curious about how all of these tax cuts would affect people when the government is, finally, bankrupt. Do you know who it looks like is going to suffer the most as a result of conservative mantras? Why, mostly, that would be conservative states! Isn’t THAT ironic?

The cons only think about welfare recipients (the easy answer) and except for themselves, think ALL welfare recipients should be cut off immediately since the other ones are “only committing fraud.” But the government does a LOT more than just welfare. When one bundles all the money the Federal government gives to states that need help, the most Federally dependent states are mostly red.

Okay, there ARE a couple of blue states in there but it seems likely that, as blue states, they’ll vote against red for the good of the nation and, frankly, themselves. There’s nothing ironic about that. But if we look at the top fifteen states that are Federally dependent, we find Alaska (1), Louisiana (2), Montana (3), Arizona (5), Wyoming (6), Kentucky (8), Mississippi (9), Texas (10), West Virginia (12), and Tennessee (14).

That’s ten of the top fifteen Federally dependent states that can be counted on to do serious damage to themselves in support of the richest people in this once-great nation. Even more ironic? They’ll do that financial harm to themselves, chanting their mantra about voting their own interest – all while voting against their own interest and in rich people’s interest, instead…

Hold on to your hats, folks. It’s going to be quite a (terrifying) ride…

Can’t Decide?

by MyBaconPress

Do you know what I’ve noticed? I’ve noticed that, to a small degree, some of the voices calling for Biden to stay in the race and predicting disaster if a younger person replaces Biden are coming from the right.
“Wait, the right?”
Yes, the right. I presume they’re just being “helpful.”

Mostly, the cons are staying out of it. If the Dems want to shoot themselves in the foot (or the face, for that matter) let ’em. It’s just good strategy. But they clearly don’t mind adding just a touch of input, “supporting” Joe as the candidate. “Worrying” about the “damage” a change might do to the party’s chances. It’s really very considerate of them.

Quick question, why would MAGA suddenly think leaving Biden at the top of the ticket is a good idea? They’ve been talking about his down side for a long time – likely because of how successful his presidency has been. Now, suddenly, they want to keep Biden in the race? Yeah, that make perfect sense.

Biden really HAS had a successful administration. No, not perfect but pretty good. Literally, the ONLY rap one can honestly hang on Biden is his age. Unfortunately, that’s a pretty heavy burden for the old guy, largely because it’s true. And, no. My position is not “ageism.” Getting older takes a toll. There’s no getting around it. Nobody likes it. We all try to ignore or even deny it. But…wait, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, Getting older takes a toll…

So, in one corner, we have Trump, the worst President in American history, a serial criminal, adjudicated rapist, a bigot, a liar, an embarrassment to humanity, a “one man crime spree” who is only slithering away from justice because he so corrupted our government in his first effort that he’s being protected by toadies. In the other corner, we have a decent guy who seems interested in helping Americans and who has done the job pretty well – but he’s old. And the ‘old’ bit is holding sway.

Yes, if you replace the old guy, the (younger) replacement can’t run on the successful record. But what kind of record do we need to beat the worst President in American history, a serial criminal, adjudicated rapist, a bigot, a liar, an embarrassment to humanity, a “one man crime spree” who is only slithering away from justice because he so corrupted our government in his first effort that he’s being protected by toadies?

Is America really SO corrupt, SO lost in a moral morass it can’t decide between a decent person and the personification of the Seven Deadly Sins?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If I had ever considered buying a Tesla, I wouldn’t now. Paying their CEO $56 Billion dollars in compensation? Where does that money come from? How much of the cost of the rolling crematorium goes simply to cover that obligation? More importantly, to me, what makes anybody worth that kind of compensation? Do you really believe that if Elon Musk disappeared today, Tesla would just dry up and blow away?

That, right there, is a good example of “greedflation.” We’ve been told by cons, who don’t really understand things, that inflation is terrible and all Biden’s fault. The problem is, there IS no systemic cause for the price increases we’re all feeling. There was. Things really DID get screwed up by Covid-19 and Trump’s mismanagement of Covid-19. But the corporations have been raising prices and pretending “supply chain issues” ever since.

The thing is, the supply chain issues have been managed. The prices keep going up because people in corporate boardrooms WANT prices to keep going up. It’s pure greed, plain and simple. It’s not inflation in the traditional sense. It’s price gouging. And price gouging is NOT Biden’s fault, nor doing. It turns out, the President of the United States has very little say in corporate boardrooms.

The bit that really gets me, though, is this: out current economic problems are being blamed on some failing of Joe Biden when they are largely caused by conservative policies that have been enacted through the years under the heading of “deregulation.” Deregulation has been great for large corporations but terrible for average citizens. It turns out, if you tell a corporation they can do pretty much anything they want to do, they will.

That’s not an indictment of corporations. Corporations exist for profit. It’s what they do. The responsibility for setting the boundaries of corporate options should be, properly, borne by the society in which the corporation exists. But cons have abdicated that responsibility and now we’re ALL suffering from it.

I preferred a regulated market along with a progressive tax system. It was better. And I mean, better for everyone, even the corporations. People still got rich under the old rules, just not “harm the economy” rich. In fact, the rules and regulations protected the economy and created the largest and most powerful middle class in history. That middle class is quickly fading away as corporations are deregulated. Yes, the two are directly linked.

But you know what never happened when the government set the standard and regulated behavior? Airplane doors didn’t fall off of airplanes in the sky. Planes didn’t just…crash because some piece of software inadvertently told the plane to crash. Boeing is about to plead guilty to fraud for that one. 346 people died in those crashes. Boeing will be made to pay a fine. Nobody will go to jail because one cannot put a corporation in jail.

Theoretically, it will be harder, now, for Boeing to get government contracts because the company will, technically, be adjudicated a felon. They’re going to have to (OMG!) spend a little more money ($455 million) on safety and compliance programs they SHOULD have been observing already. I’d bet they booked more than $455 million from their loosened policies so, a win for the company.

I guess it’s just me but I prefer regulations that attempt to keep these kinds of fraudulent activities from occurring in the first place, rather than relying on lawsuits after the fact that may or may not cause the company to change it’s ways.

But I’ll tell you this: as long was we have a deceived segment of the population out there championing corporations and chastising any government role in regulating their activities, this crap is going to keep happening and will inevitably, get worse. Hold on to your hats, folks…

Tacking Left…

by MyBaconPress

Trump seems to be tacking left a bit. He has, of course, sewn up the votes from the dangerously extremist far right. Now he has to try to convince some rational, non-cult members to vote for him, too, so he’s starting to pretend all that “pander to the crazies” was just something special he did for them. He’s really a centered, down-to-Earth guy, right? To that end, he came out disavowing Project 2025. He claims he knows nothing about it. HE didn’t write it. He has no idea who is behind it. (Like he’s never even heard of the Heritage Foundation.) He even said that some of the stuff in Project 2025 is “ridiculous and abysmal.”

I’ve written about Project 2025 a couple of times before. Essentially, it’s a 922-page plan created by the Heritage Foundation and many of Trump’s own former senior administration officials to create a government loyal NOT to America, but to Donald J. Trump. It’s sweeping, and it’s evil. So, Trump is pretending he doesn’t know the plan, never heard of the Heritage Foundation, and doesn’t know any of his former senior administration officials. Yeah, plausible…

Nope. Remember, this is Donald Trump. He’s LYING! He has publicly praised the President of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, twice and his website actually links to the Heritage Foundation under his Section on ‘Agenda 47,’ his own, horrible plan to do terrible things to people, the nation, and the world. Remember, if Trump is speaking, he’s lying…

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I have a friend who is MAGA. That’s true. How do we do it? Mostly, we don’t talk politics. But the recent ‘make the president a king’ ruling from the SKCOTUS was a momentary exception. I started it, I confess. I didn’t mean to. It was just an off-handed quip I made. “No,” I was assured, “the ruling did NOT make the President a king.” Then I heard something I’ve heard before. “Read the decision.” So I did.

No, that’s not true. I looked up the decision. I found a copy in the Guardian. The first thing I noticed? It’s a 119-page decision. My friend is a VERY busy guy. I’m certain HE didn’t read the 119-page decision. But, hey, that seemed an unfair conclusion, based on nothing but the total number of pages, so I started digging in. I didn’t have to go too far. The details of the ‘make the president a king’ thinking are in the summary – on page one, fercrissakes.

Here, for your edification: “Held: Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no
immunity for unofficial acts.”

Based on that ONE short exchange I had with my friend, I suspect MAGA is being told the left is just pearl-clutching and that there’s no such provision in the ruling. I suspect the MAGA deceivers are telling the MAGA deceived to tell people to ‘read the decision’ because the word “king” doesn’t appear anywhere in it. I’m going to stipulate to that. Yeah, they didn’t use the word.

Interesting sidebar: when one is learning to write fiction (like that SKCOTUS decision), one of the lessons taught is that one should not tell the reader a thing. They should use their words to show the reader the thing. As an example, “It was a dark and stormy night” tells the reader it was a dark and stormy night. But better writing is to describe a dark and stormy night – no lights, no moonlight because of the cloud cover, the effects of the wind and the rain. The reader then takes those pieces and puts together the idea, it was a dark and stormy night.
“What the hell is he talking about?”
“Hang on, he’ll tie it together…”

The SKCOTUS didn’t tell us they were making a king. They showed us the power of a king and claimed said power is inherent to the American Presidency. (It very specifically is not.) One had to be able (or willing) to infer and understand. MAGA most definitely, is not. If one reads about lack of light and wind and rain and comes away thinking it’s a bright and sunny day, they missed the point entirely. They clearly weren’t reading too closely. Most likely, they didn’t read the thing at all.

So, if you try to debate with your favorite MAGA on the topic, don’t be too surprised to find they know nothing of the reality of the situation. The Deceived are merely parroting what they’ve been told by the Deceivers…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey, it doesn’t seem like much but maybe, just maybe, it’s a harbinger of better things. We’ve all watched MAGA rise in this nation. We may NOT have noticed the rise of conservatism around Europe in general but, OMG, is it happening. Conservatism has taken hold wherever one finds an internet outlet cons can lie through. The cons aren’t just doing it to the US. They’re doing it to all of Europe, as well. The US is just their biggest prize.

But in the UK, cons have been running things for quite awhile – and running them into the ground. It’s the conservative way. So, finally, after more than a decade of failure, the cons have been replaced by thinking people in the UK. That’s a good thing. I suspect Britain’s future is looking up.

I know. It’s one election. Right across the Channel, in France, the cons are making great strides and claiming a huge segment of the French government. So expect a campaign of cruelty and failure in France coming soon. It’s the conservative way. But maybe the victory for rationalism in the UK can spread in the same way con misinformation spreads.

Hope springs eternal, I guess…

How The Dems Win…

by MyBaconPress

Three. That’s the number of excuses, I’m sorry, “explanations” regarding Joe’s terrible, horrible performance at the debate. Three. The first was that he had a cold. The second was that his prep team overworked him. The most recent was that he had just flown around the world. Twice. He was tired.

The thing is, when Trump ran against Joe and lost in the fair and honest election of 2020, most of us were NOT voting FOR Joe. We were voting against Trump. Most of us had the attitude that we would have voted for a cold ham sandwich over Trump. We need to remember that – and do it again. The threat that is Trump still exists and, in fact, has become FAR more threatening than he was in his first term.

It’s a little funny that MAGA does exactly the same thing for Trump. That is, I’m reminding people to overlook Biden’s shortcomings and vote for him anyway, to block Trump. MAGA, too, will overlook Trump’s shortcomings and vote for him. The difference? Thinking Americans will be voting for a guy who has been a pretty good President and MAY be having “Senior Moments.” MAGA will be supporting a serial criminal – “a one man crime spree,” Biden called him, an adjudicated rapist, a person who lies like nobody has ever seen, the personification of the Seven Deadly Sins, AND the person who experts have agreed was the worst President in the history of this once-great nation.

You remember his first term, right? Those were the years the economy was destroyed, more people lost jobs and more Americans died than any time in our history – including the American Civil War. Yeah, that was great.

Trump inherited an economy that was humming along. He managed to kill it – and over a million Americans – in only four years. “That was Covid-19!” screams MAGA. Yep. His pathetic handling of Covid-19, you mean. Covid-19 was a pandemic, meaning it hit worldwide. NO other nation suffered the number of deaths America suffered.

Then we put Biden in office and no other country recovered from the damage of Covid-19 as fast at the US, either. Biden is better than Trump. Here’s the thing. Biden is better than Trump, even if Biden has full-blown Alzheimer’s. (He doesn’t.) But the point here is, it doesn’t matter what condition Biden is in.

Rational Americans were willing to vote for a cold ham sandwich against Trump last time. We MUST keep the mindset. Every American who loves this country, despite her issues, needs to get out and vote against Trump again. We weren’t enthusiastic about Biden last time and we don’t have to be this time. He was the anti-Trump and THAT, more than any other thing, is what we need to stay focused on. Biden is the Anti-Trump.

You won’t be voting FOR Biden. You’ll be voting against the Destroyer of Worlds, and that’s pretty important…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But the election is just the first hurdle. MAGA has a plan to simply install Trump if he loses at the ballot box. In my last column, I asked for input. If you have any ideas how we might save this country, I’d love to hear it. Then, I had one! Sure, it’s a long-shot. Long shots are pretty much the option left so tell me what you think of this: Right now, today, Biden needs to appoint four more Justices to the Supreme Court. The Democratic controlled Senate could, should, have them all confirmed and ready to go by the time the next Court sits.

The now-rational 7-6 majority would be in charge of overseeing future legal challenges, not the insane, ideological 6-3 bullshit that has done so much harm and is just itching to do more. There would be nothing the cons could do to stop it. The now-rational majority might even be able to bring some past rulings back for review. I don’t know about that one. I’d need to ask a lawyer and I haven’t seen any since I got the idea. It doesn’t matter, though.

It’s no joke about MAGA trying to simply install Trump in the House if he loses at the ballot box. It’s an actual plan and they have all the pieces they need in place to make that happen, should they execute that evil, unamerican plan. And why wouldn’t they? Any legal challenges will, obviously, be taken to the SCOTUS to be settled. If the SCOTUS is still the SKCOTUS (meaning infested by Kangaroos), the decision is a foregone conclusion. “Who cares what the Constitution says? We love our guy!” If rationality has been returned to the court, America has a chance. Otherwise?

Yeah, yeah, MAGA would scream about how unfair it is – exactly the same way the left screamed when Moscow Mitch stole that seat to pack the court with crazies. The difference? Biden would be working to save the country, where MAGA is hell-bent on destroying her. Besides, MAGA is wrong about everything. Everything! Why the hell would any rational person listen to any MAGA about anything political, ever?

Biden has promised not to abuse his new powers as king. I appreciate that, but if USING those powers to save the nation would, well, save the fucking nation, I’d say do what you have to do. In fact, the ONLY way to get enough time to fix what the corrupt court has wrought is to change the structure of the SCOTUS. Not doing so only sets us up for evil king Trump, who will most definitely abuse his power.

But Biden wouldn’t BE abusing his power. Appointing Supreme Court Justices is a core power of the President, defined in the Constitution. He would just be doing his job. Expanding the court might be the only way to save the country. It would likely save his Presidency, too.

I often feel like the left plays the “Washington Generals” against the right’s “Harlem Globetrotters” which is a bit ironic since the Globetrotters are mostly black and MAGA is mostly racist but that’s a different column. (For the uninitiated, the Generals are the “team” the Globetrotters play against in their “games.” The Generals are expected to lose to the Globetrotters…)

I hold that actions speak louder than words. When the Dems could win a fight but don’t? I can’t explain that any other way than they didn’t WANT to win the fight and I honestly believe the left has been throwing the game to the right for decades. They LOOK like they’re putting up a fight but their job is to lose, so lose they do. But I’m STILL suggesting this because it gives America a fighting chance.

In the best tradition of Six Degrees of Separation, if you know a way to get this idea in front of the President, please use it. NOW IS the time.

Expanding the court by adding four more rational people is perfectly legal, and even if some think otherwise, it’s a core power and not to be questioned – according to the very court Biden would be expanding. Such a bold move would, I believe, re-energize the Biden campaign, too. He could save the country AND himself as President. It’s a win-win. The only question is, do the Dems WANT to win?