It’s only been a couple of days. I just wrote, Thursday, about Fox Not-News showing a chyron that said “Wanna be dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.” A headline in this morning’s Guardian says, “Fox News (sic) producer behind Biden “wanna be” dictator resigns.” Apparently, (according to Tucker Carlson so, take that with a grain of salt) he offered to stay for the customary two weeks but management told him to clear out his desk and get out.

Fox Not-News still stands as the Everest of bullshit mountains but they’re pretty clearly being more cautious about how they spread their manure. It looks like they’re trying to be 787.5% more cautious about the blatancy of their baloney… Good.

I STILL say we need the Fairness Doctrine back – equal time for responsible, opposing opinions. Yes, there ARE so many outlets out there people could easily check out the information from the “other side” – but people don’t. If one just puts on lying Fox Not-News (or MSNBC, for that matter) and leaves the station there all day, that person comes away with a heavily one-sided opinion of events with no pushback or balance from the other side.

There’s a reason cons think Biden didn’t win the last election and that pursuing criminal charges in response to criminal activity is somehow “weaponizing” the DOJ, or that ALL outgoing Presidents steal and stash thousands of classified documents or that Joe Biden is a senile, bumbling, totally inept fool who is, nevertheless and at the same time, the brilliantly successful mastermind behind the persecution of his political rival – and it’s not stupidity. It’s propaganda.

EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY in which Fascism has ever taken hold, started off with the general, national belief that “it can’t happen here.” But it’s already happening here, in the United States of America, and the tentacles of authoritarianism are slowly closing around the throat of our once-great nation – and propaganda is one of the primary tools of the Fascists…

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

The Associated Press is running a story about how there are now more supermajorities in state legislatures than there have been in the last 40 years. A supermajority happens when one party is so heavily represented they can override a gubernatorial veto with no help from the opposition. 19 are Republican (commonly achieved by cheating – gerrymandering, that sort of thing) and nine are Democrats. I’m struck by what these all-powerful state legislatures are doing with their power.

Across the board, the cons are working tirelessly to strip rights from everybody they can while simultaneously harming as many people as possible. (Lovely people, the cons…) The Dems are working to support workers and other people and protect the environment. This is not what they’re saying, it’s what they’re doing. Keep that in mind…

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

Peculiar observations:
Thinking Americans oppose what cons want to do because of how stupid the cons act. Conservatives oppose progressive measures because of how smart Dems think they are.

I think standing against stupid is better than standing against smart.

Just my opinion…

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

Daniel Ellsberg died this week. He’s the guy who (kind of accidentally) released the Pentagon Papers that exposed the lies and machinations of the Vietnam War.
“What? America fought a war based on lies and fraudulent information?”
“A war? No. If you know your history, you know that America has fought most of her wars based on lies and fraudulent information.”
“Okay, so what do you mean ‘kind of accidentally?'”
“Well, he gave the report to a reporter on the condition the reporter use it on background only and then the reporter printed the whole thing.”

Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 along with other charges of theft and conspiracy (sound familiar?) and faced a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison. The prosecutors so messed up his prosecution, though, that, instead, his case was dismissed. I suspect that’s why Jack Smith is moving so carefully against criminal traitor and sexual predator 45. A glitch released a man who was, basically, if accidentally, doing the right thing. Thinking Americans would hate to see such a glitch free the guy who engineered the coup and betrayed the nation he swore to protect…

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

There’s a show out on HBO called ‘The White House Plumbers.’ I recommend it. It’s all about what was once the biggest scandal this country had ever faced: the break-in at the Democratic headquarters located in the Watergate Hotel, known now colloquially as ‘Watergate.’ (How quaint.) It includes another guy from that era (along with Ellsberg) who ended up getting credit as a stand-up guy: John Dean.

The thing is, John Dean was the Michael Cohen of his day. He was all-in with Nixon and on the break-in and continued to support and protect Nixon from consequences until his own ass was on the line. THEN he became Mr. Standup Guy. Uh-huh. To this day, John Dean is trotted out from time to time to explain this or that political scandal. It has been pretty much a complete recovery from scandalous shame to shining “hero” for Dean.

If ‘Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In’ was still airing (they’d be VERY old), Dean would definitely have won a ‘Flying Fickle Finger of Fate’ award and now Cohen will be trying for his own. I’d be happy to give either one of them the finger…

I’ve had occasion, since the indictment, to speak to some conservatives about it. (As a sidebar, it says something that I can just call it “the indictment” and everybody on Earth knows which indictment I’m referring to…) So far, the answers I get are sadly predictable. Whataboutism is the first choice. That’s an easy one for me. I simply agree, then return the conversation to the CheetoJesus. I mean it, too. My answer, generally? “You bring the evidence, I’ll bring the Prosecutor.”

Thinking Americans have an advantage over cons. We’re not required to support “our guy” under any and all circumstances. That means that should we discover the guy we supported turns out to be something other than what we had imagined, we can change our minds. Frankly, we can turn on him or her and, generally speaking, we would.

For the record, I really, truly, absolutely do NOT want criminals to get away with crimes. That’s pretty much it, for me. I don’t decide the severity (or even existence) of the crime by their political party, how much money they have, or the promises they make. For me, it’s all about evidence and the evidence that criminal and sexual predator Donald J. Trump is also a thief and a traitor is very substantial. Really, you’ve got to read the indictment. It’s easy to find. Just go to your favorite search engine and type in “the indictment.” The charges against Former Guy will pop right up.

Your jaw will drop, not just because of the detail but when you think about the fact that, in the face of all of this the MAGA cons are STILL out there pretending this all about a “weaponized DOJ.” This is all pretty simple. The Department of Justice (keyword: justice) investigates allegations of criminal activity. If evidence exists, they pursue charges. If not, they drop the investigation. That’s not “weaponization.” That’s “doing their jobs.”

“Weaponizing” would look more like, say, issuing a subpoena to someone because you heard from a guy who knew a guy who heard from his ex-wife’s brother that someone did something. Here’s an idea, bring the evidence or STFU. How’s that?

I’ll tell you this: I find it ironic that the cons are terrified of the very “America” they, themselves, are working so tirelessly to bring about – an America where someone is guilty or innocent based on say-so and conjecture. As for me and my house? We’ll continue to embrace evidence…

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

Fox Not News showed a chyron under a split screen of Biden and Trump that said, “Wanna be dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.” But the reference to the “wanna-be dictator” was to (wait for it) Joe Biden and NOT the guy who planned and executed an assault on the United States of America on January 6, 2021 trying to retain illegal control of the Oval Office. Oh, and, for the record: Joe Biden didn’t have Trump arrested. The actions of Donald Trump got Trump arrested. Wanna-be dictator, indeed.

They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means. I can say – for certain – these guys wouldn’t recognize a “wanna-be dictator” if he dyed his skin orange, fluffed up his comb-over, claimed he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any supporters, and then planned and initiated an attempted coup that sent hundreds to prison and caused several deaths and actually did not lose any supporters.

Normally, the conservative blather wouldn’t bother me, much. The cons, especially the MAGA cons, have moved so far outside of reality, I want to treat them the same way I treat a homeless person walking down the street, alone, yelling furiously at invisible people: I feel badly for them, I wish there was something I could do for them, I secretly breathe a sigh of relief that I’m not among them, then, I ignore them -to the extent possible.

But these guys? They remind me of nothing so much as the Brown Shirts of the 1930’s. Yeah, yeah, screw Godwin. History repeats and in this case, the reference to the earliest efforts of the Nazi party in Germany are frighteningly accurate. The Brown Shirts weren’t always a well-oiled machine capable of horrifying atrocities on a mass scale. They started off a small throng of idealistic but moronic loyalists. So when we see the ‘Keystone Kons’ of today, idealistic but moronic loyalists flailing around furiously, arguing against reality, and generally bringing shame to themselves and their family names, we’re forced to take the threat seriously.

In my experience, it’s very common for people on their way to jail to stand outside the courtroom when the process starts, look very serious, and say, “This is a travesty. There is no evidence (or the evidence is all circumstantial) and I look forward to my day in court to prove my innocence.” It’s no different for the Trumpster and he has every right to make whatever claim he wants to make. He’s also going to get his day in court so he can prove his innocence. He’s likely to find that simply shouting, “I’m innocent!” isn’t enough. He’s going to have to answer specific charges and the charges are pretty solid against him.

In his favor? Well, he drew Aileen “loose” Cannon, the judge who tried so hard to help him earlier in this process by throwing in the biggest wrench she could find. It ground around in the process for a bit before the 11th Circuit Court stepped in and slapped her down. Now, like a bad case of herpes, she’s back. On the left, everyone is certain she’ll recuse herself, having been so disgraced by her earlier, obviously partisan support for her god-on-Earth.

I’m not so sanguine. I believe this woman would blow Trump on Fifth Avenue in the middle of the day right in front of her husband if 45 asked her to. I suspect she won’t voluntarily recuse herself because she knows he needs her. She shouldn’t have been involved last time but she stepped in and STAYED in until she was forced aside. They’ll have to drag her away again or she’ll do everything in her power to help him evade responsibility for his crimes. I WILL say this, though; I hope I’m wrong. I hope she displays some modicum of dignity and respect for the law and just graciously steps aside.

Ha, ha! A MAGA con doing the right thing, just because it’s the right thing? Best laugh I’ve had all morning!

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

Ron DuhSantis is taking credit for sending flights full of undocumented workers to California under cover of darkness. (Cons always work under cover of darkness. I wonder why that is?) California Governor Gavin Newsom said he was looking at filing kidnapping charges against DuhSantis for the stunt. I doubt he will, but I wish he would. I also think that when possible, the planes used for the stunt should be confiscated.

The DuhSantis defense might include the video that was shot of the immigrants dancing to the plane and saying “thank you” for the “help.” The video will certainly NOT include the lies the victims were told to put them in that jovial mood. I’m STILL no lawyer but I suspect that if a person is lured into some action through lies and manipulations, their actions cannot be properly portrayed as “voluntary.” (Although, technically, leaving a red state and coming to a decent place means they likely will get the help DuhSantis promised so…tough position…)

The truth is the first time the cons did this I thought it was a mildly humorous political stunt that kind of made a point. Now though? It’s just…mean. MOST importantly, these people (keyword: people) come across the border and request asylum. They’re given a court date and released. Despite what cons lie, most of the immigrants return for their day in court. But…all of that happens where they come into the country. The courts the migrants were likely assigned to are in Floriduh. The people themselves, have been shipped to California or Massachusetts or the like and won’t be able to make their court dates.

I’ll tell you this: sending desperate people away because you don’t want to deal with them is certainly NOT what Jesus was talking about when he brought out his “as you do to the least of these” parable. I suspect DuhSantis is going to find it quite hard to get into the Heaven he pretends to believe in…

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

Speaking of not getting into Heaven, Pat Robertson!

He finally died. It’s times like this I wish I believed in Heaven and Hell. The Bible is pretty clear about taking the Lord’s name in vain. It says, “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain.” See? Clear. Christians get around that one by pretending it’s about cursing but it has always seemed to me to be about using their god to sell tickets, or whatever.

“I received a call from God, last night, and he says you should send me your money so I can have yet another private jet. The two I have already are simply not enough for me to zip around doing God’s work.” THAT is taking the Lord’s name in vain and I’m not sure I ever once heard Pat Robertson speaking that wasn’t a pitch for money or the set-up of a pitch for money – all wrapped up in a package of the rewards (later, after you die) from God or else God’s punishment of you for making Pat buy his own plane.

There’s an ongoing theme in the Christian Bible. The Christian God doesn’t take kindly to defiance. He expresses His loving kindness and Holy Disappointment by – and I’m not making this up – setting you on fire for all time. You know, as you do when a child messes up.

I’ll tell you this: I’d like to see the look on Robertson’s face as God starts spraying him with lighter fluid. “Sorry, Pat. You broke My commandment every Medamned day for the last 62 years!” He didn’t seem any too worried about God’s wrath while he was alive, though…

They say adversity builds character. If we know anything at all about our recently indicted ex-“President,” the criminal, likely traitor, and sexual predator Donald Trump, it is that he has never faced a day of adversity in his entire whiny, pampered little life. The end result is that the Trumpster has exactly two arrows in his quiver: whiny tantrums and bullying.

The bullying he does with lawyers. That guy, using money his grandpa amassed, reportedly running a brothel in the Klondike during that gold rush, can array an army of lawyers against any and all comers. (Okay, almost all.) 45’s main trick in court is to, well, never get to court. He stalls. He obfuscates. He has his team file motions that must be sorted out – and every one of them takes time. He can drag out a case as long as anyone on Earth and, over the course of his nearly 77 years, has become quite skilled at it. It doesn’t really matter if the case you have against him is valid or not, he’ll wait you out. He can field his legal army for months, years, even.

Mostly, though, he has likely managed to get through life with whining and tantrums. I had a cat, once, that liked to be stroked for a few minutes but then would reach the end of his tolerance and let out a kind of guttural growl. If you stopped petting, all would be well. If you didn’t? Well, he’d give you a little nip or a swipe of his paw, claws engaged. I think Former Guy does the same. He starts off in full-on whiny mode. If people back down and give him his way, he quiets down. If not, he gets louder…and louder…and louder. He’s learned over the course of his life that tantrums are successful if you just hold them long enough. Eventually, people will give in just to shut him up.

Until now.

It turns out, one can not “out-army” the Federal government. If you bring 12 lawyers, the government brings 12 as well. Throw on 12 more? Okay, the government has 12 more – and the government’s lawyers are FAR better than yours. Trump has every right to his judicial process and I wouldn’t change that for the world – but the government has the ability to move these cases along for various reasons. I know, it has felt like forever since this all started but Jack Smith was only appointed Special Prosecutor in November of 2022. The Trump indictment was handed down in June, 2023. That’s pretty quick for the prosecution of a former (terrible) President. Trump has done his delay/obfuscation dance, of course, but…have you seen those pictures of the boxes piled all over Mar-A-Loco? I’m not sure how he could have made the prosecutors job any easier – and that was AFTER he was trying to hide them!

I hate to digress (you know I don’t) but I realized yesterday, looking at those damning photos, that his obsequious zealots were seeing the same photos at the same time. The difference? The captions under the photos THEY were seeing said something like, “the boxes the FBI staged just to make our precious look bad because of…reasons…” Mark my words, by this morning, every MAGA con will KNOW they weren’t looking at “evidence of a crime,” they were looking at a frame job. Sure, it will take some amazing mental gymnastics and some quality misleading by their outrage media but the MAGA cons WANT to believe – so all one need do is give them something to cling to and, by the gods, they’ll cling.

Anyway, Trump has also trotted out arrow number one: the whiny tantrum. He started small, his little warning growl. Didn’t work. He got louder. Ho-hum. He got even louder. Still, they persisted. Now he has advanced to FULL-ON CAPS LOCK RANTS OF RAMBLING NONSENSE AND FAUX OUTRAGE WITH NO PUNCTUATION AND MISSSPELLINGS AND BLAMING AND WHINING AND WHATABOUTISMS AND FINGER POINTING WITH NO EVIDENCE AND WOE WOE WOE IS POOR PICKED ON ME THAT OFTEN MAKE NO SENSE WHATSOEVER!!!!!!!!! Oh, yeah, and…WITCH HUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Frankly? He’s looking a bit unhinged, to me. He has tried every tool in his toolbox – crying, whining, shouting, and deploying his bully lawyers – and none of it has worked. He’s looking far less like the strong, resolute leader he’s never been and far more like a quivering mass of fury and fear. What passes for his “mind” simply cannot conceive that none of his previously successful strategies have worked to stop the prosecution.

Turns out? Trump isn’t the first whiny baby the government has ever dealt with. Turns out, the government doesn’t care how much you whine or how loud your tantrum gets. They don’t care how many lawyers you bring. They don’t care how long it takes. They care about evidence. They care about what they can and can not prove in court. They care about the process. So bring your lawyers and SCREAM YOUR SCREAMS but if you can’t make your case in a court of law, you’re going to face some consequences. And it’s about time!

You know what I miss, that I NEVER thought I’d miss? Traffic cops. I know, I can’t believe it, either but…have you driven recently? OH! EM! GEE! A couple of days ago, I was getting on the freeway after the metering lights had activated. I was heading up a two-lane on-ramp in the right lane with a car on my left. I was next to, but a hair behind, my “fellow motorist.” I really don’t know what she was thinking but it appeared she decided she was going to get through the lights faster in the right lane than if she stayed where she was – so she started coming over.

This was not an erroneous lane change attempt immediately aborted when you realize there’s another car there with an embarrassed little wave. This was…aggressive. She wanted the lane I was in, seemed to know I was there, and decided to move me out of her way so she could get what she wanted. She made two distinct swerves, in what looked like an effort to force me to hit my brakes and back off. (There was a car behind me and such a move may or may not have resulted in my car being rear-ended.) It is NOT to my defensive-driving credit that I didn’t yield. My Driver’s Education teacher would have been mortified. (Sorry, Mr. Marzett.)

She dared me not to get hit by her. I dared her to hit me. Thankfully, she didn’t. She retreated to the lane she had started in. This is my favorite part – we happened to arrive at the line at the same time, waiting for the light. (She had that very intentional “I’m not looking your way” attitude.) We only waited a moment when her light turned green! Had she succeeded in pushing me aside so she could move faster, she actually would have slowed herself (and me) down! I laughed at her as she drove off.

Yeah, one story, one time. Oh, you think? I own a small swimming pool service. I drive a LOT. Things like this happen daily. People force their way into lines and make last-minute lane changes that look like nothing so much as an attempt to confuse their fellow motorists. They drive FAR too fast or frustratingly FAR too slowly in the wrong lane. People ignore traffic controls like, you know, red lights and stop signs. There is a sense that not all of our fellow motorists understand (or actually know) the rules of the road. There’s a segment of our population that WILL NOT, under any circumstances nor for any reason, move into a line of traffic at the end where it’s clear and safe for them to do so. Instead, they STAND on their accelerators until they’ve moved in front of a few cars in the line and then force their way in – again, daring people not to get hit by them.

I’ve come to see the decline in the population’s ability to drive safely as a microcosm of the decline in our society overall. People drive poorly out there for two reasons: one, they were never taught to drive here and two, there are not enough cops to root out those who are on the road, but shouldn’t be. BOTH problems exist for the same reason: there’s not enough money to cover the vital functions government used to cover. The result? Steadily increasing chaos.

The solution is simple. I hinted at it in the second paragraph. See, I learned to drive in school. Both the classroom segment and the time-behind-the-wheel part were taken care of during school hours – and everyone who went to school, rich and poor alike, participated. That meant that, by and large, all Californians drove pretty much the same because we were all taught the same. One could know what their fellow motorist was likely to do because we all received the same training from the same curriculum. Then, California’s Proposition 13 passed. Schools were suddenly starved for money and driver training (along with bus service) was one of the first programs to go.

Proposition 13 was one of the wealthy class’s earliest and most successful assaults in their class war. It was a tax trick, a gift to corporations, sold as a tax benefit to Joe Sixpack. EVERYBODY’S property tax was reduced to a previous year’s level, then property taxes only increased with a sale of the property. Single family homes turn over regularly, so tax rates have increased over time as the houses are bought and sold. Large corporations don’t really sell their property, though. If there’s a sale, the property is simply transferred as part of the company assets so no new assessment is ever triggered. This means many corporations in California are still paying property tax at a 1973 rate, while all the homeowners are trying to make up the shortfall.

A new business model was created: driver training schools – but they are expensive. If all of one’s discretionary cash is tied up in food and shelter, there’s nothing for formal driver training. The family teaches their young to drive as well as they can but often were not formally trained themselves. Our roads are now infested with untrained, unlicensed, and uninsured drivers. As tax revenues have fallen, municipalities are forced to pick and choose where their reduced police forces might be most effective – and traffic control took a major hit so there’s no one out there to catch the untrained and get them trained. Chaos.

This is all the predictable and inevitable result of constant tax cuts for the rich and the “cut services” mantra. When one combines the effect of too-low tax revenues with the effect of an economy built to impoverish as many people as possible, chaos on the roadways (not to mention increases in crimes of all kinds) seems unavoidable. ALL of it stems from the conservative fever-dream the country has suffered for the last fifty years. (I don’t really blame cons for this. They’re simply the tools of the wealthy class, but without those “tools,” the rich could not have succeeded so brilliantly, so…completely at dismantling a once-great nation…)

I’ll tell you this: I live by an adage: when your outgo is greater than your income, your upkeep will be your downfall. This is true in a household budget and it’s true for a national economy. The thing is, when one’s expenses exceed one’s income there are TWO possible ways to respond. The first is to cut expenses – which America has done, now, FAR beyond advisability and much to it’s own detriment – but the second is to raise revenue. In governments, that means tax increases and we should focus those increases on the people who, after all, have all the money…

Here’s a nice little side note I hadn’t expected. Many of the January 6th rioters are using fundraising sites to raise money for their defense. No problem, there. They probably need a lot. Collectively, the rioters have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. BUT…they’re not using the money they raise for their defense. They create a “defense” fund, collect the money, then keep the money and use a public defender. I suspect they got the idea from the Former Guy, who did the same thing to them. The difference, of course, is Former put the money in his PAC, effectively laundering it, so no one could reach it. His acolytes? They don’t even HAVE PACs.

These guys sell their need for legal defense based on the notion that they’re really heroic patriots, being persecuted by the big, bad gubmint. I imagine it’s pretty easy to feel persecuted while you’re being prosecuted. I continue to be surprised at the number of people who support the insurrectionists thinking they were, after all, just doing what their President asked them to do. I don’t think that should work as a defense. People are responsible for their own actions. I DO, however, think every time one of those Bozos uses that particular line, it should be added to the evidence against Trump that he was, in fact, the ringleader of the traitorous January 6th coup attempt…

Anyway, I wrote all that to write this: the government (or gubmint, if that’s all you got) is trying to claw back any money these swindlers raise for their legal defense that they don’t use for their legal defense. Prosecutors are asking judges for fines equal to amounts raised, but not used, for defense. Prosecutors think the traitors shouldn’t be allowed to use their notoriety for personal gain. I agree.

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

Ah, June. Summer! After a long, cold, wet winter, a little summer will be nice. But it’s also when the Robert’s Supremely Kangaroo Court recesses for it’s summer break. They take three months off. They need that extra down time to process and enjoy all the bribes they happily receive. But this particular crowd of cowards also manages to issue it’s most disgusting and damaging ideological “opinions” as they abscond. I wonder which segment of Americans they plan to attack as they slink away this time. Last time it was women. This time? It will likely be people of color and children. You know…whomever is most vulnerable.

The cons used to complain about how bad it would be if America suffered under ideological, activist judges who ruled based on personal preferences rather than the law. Since it wasn’t happening when the cons were whining about it, I didn’t pay much attention. Now, the cons are quiet (of course) while it actually goes on but I’ve got to give them this: they were right. Ideological justices who care nothing for the law nor precedent ARE bad…

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

So…the cons fell deeply in love with a sexual predator and “elected” him “President.” Thinking Americans thought that was not a good thing. As usual, Americans were aghast at the depths to which the cons will stoop just to get more stoop-ed. The cons, of course, just like that loving their sexual predator bothers thinking Americans but someone, somewhere realized that sexually predatory behavior could become a campaign issue – so they found a Democrat they don’t like and had someone point a finger at him. They marched out Tara Reade who claimed Joe Biden once pushed her against a wall in a public corridor and sexually assaulted her.

I’ve always been suspicious. Biden is a freaking gaffe machine and we all know about the weird hair sniffing thing but – unlike their sexual predator(s) – there have been no other reports of sexual assaults surrounding the guy. Just one conservative obsequious zealot with no evidence in a she said/she said again. Uh-huh.

You know what else cons think they love? Russia. It’s easy for them, not actually living in Russia and allowing themselves to love their trumped up fantasy delusion of what Russia might be, instead. I doubt they’ve noticed the number of Putin’s enemies who have suddenly “fallen out of windows” or otherwise met unexpected ends. Now the two things have come together.

Accuser Tara Reade has gleefully exclaimed that she has recently defected to Russia. She says NOW she feels “safe.” She also said her dream is to live in both places but acknowledged that might not be realistic. Gee, you think?

I’ll tell you this: At some point, I expect she’ll start to miss US freedom and want to come back. I hope they don’t let her. Or, since they likely will as a public relations coup, tell her that when she defected, she surrendered her Social Security number and all payments made to date. Issue her another one and make her start again.

Jeez, I guess I’m feeling a bit punitive…

Hooray, the politicians in charge seem to have reached a deal on the debt limit. Maybe. You know, pending approval from the entire Congress. We’ll see. It may still prove to be not-yet-cruel-enough to the most defenseless Americans. I guess, no surprises, here. I wrote a little while ago, I felt they’d come to some agreement and I’ve written that said agreement would inflict harm on the most vulnerable Americans so…I feel vindicated. Um…yippee? Details are sparse, of course.

They’ve agreed, in principle, to cap non-defense discretionary spending at 2023 levels for two years. Keyword? Non-defense. Actions speak louder than words. The cons are a-okay with borrowing and spending – so long as said spending is going toward killing somebody, somewhere. Kevin McCarthy pitched important euphemisms when he said it includes “historic reductions in spending” (again, non-defense spending) and “consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty and into the workforce.”

The cons have been pushing for increased work requirements for people who receive food stamps and other Federal aid programs. (No! NOT subsidies to mega-corporations! THOSE “Federal aid programs” are essential…and sacrosanct!) Poor people. They mean poor people. The victims of the ‘Greatest Country on Earth.’

Did whatever you were digging for run out or become unprofitable so your job went away and nothing ever came in to replace it? Suck it up, buttercup, get a (non-existent) job anyway. Why – and this is important – WHY are certain people just…allowed to lounge around in their wheelchairs all day? Get ’em on an assembly line, somewhere. Listen, we’re conservatives in Congress. It’s not our job to get you jobs. It’s our job to punish you for not having one – NO! Keep your “reasons” to yourself – by cutting as many holes in your safety net as we can. And we LOVE our job…

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

I’ve been listening to the cons go on and on (and on and on and on and ON) about how they looooove freedom. Nothing, but NOTHING, is more important than freedom. Freedom this, freedom that. They want their freedom, freedom, freedom. They wrap themselves in the flag, paint half their face blue, look directly into the camera and shout “FREEDOM!” like they really, really love freedom.

The thing about cons and their “FREEDOM!” is that they don’t really mean freedom for all. They’re not really interested in freedom beyond themselves. They’re interested in their own, perfect freedom. No, not you. YOU don’t get freedom, you get to do as you’re told. But me? “FREEDOM!” I know a lot of cons who would try to argue the point with me, but they lose before they open their mouths. Actions STILL speak louder than words. So, let’s set the rhetoric aside for the moment and look at what cons actually DO with their “FREEDOM!”

You want to marry someone I disapprove of? NO!
You want to read a book that scares me? NO!
You want to vote? NO!
You identify in a way I think is weird? NO!
You want to highlight social injustice wearing a sports team’s uniform? NO!
You want control of your own reproduction? Oh, HELL No!
You want the sperm donor to take responsibility for his “Ugh?” NO!
You want to teach children actual history? Fuck you, NO! (Conservatives look really bad throughout history…)
You want to suggest that people who don’t look like me may NOT be dangerous? NO!
You want to take action to try and protect yourself from getting shot by a random stranger? No, No, NO!
You want to buy a short-barrel rifle and murder the next 32 random strangers you see? NO…way I’d interfere with THAT glorious freedom!

It can be summed up this way: the cons insist on the freedom to rob other people of their freedoms. I’d like to blame Fox Not-News but this is their pattern going back to at least the civil war. (Yeah, Rupert Murdoch is old but he’s not THAT old…) What, after all, was the civil war about if not slave states “rights” to deny other human beings their rights? And the pattern continues.

There’s a comedian named Jim Jefferies who does a bit on American “freedom.” He makes the point that America isn’t even the freEST country on Earth. (This is a link. Click here to watch him. Seven funny minutes…)

I’ll tell you this: I’ll believe the cons are serious about “FREEDOM!” when they get serious about protecting everyone’s freedom.

Tuesday afternoon
Lying, criminal, sexual predator Donald Trump is a little upset. He saw a judge on Tuesday and the judge set his trial date for March 25, 2024. That, of course, is right in the middle of primary season. The judge told him to clear his schedule for the duration of the trial, which might last several weeks. Every step of the way, Former Guy has done everything he can to forestall these trials.

The general consensus is that he’s hoping to put the trials off long enough to be able to use his political campaign as an excuse. If he can get himself elected again, THEN people will leave him alone until he’s out of office. Since he never plans to leave office if the country is stupid enough to put him back there, he’d be free and clear. He sure is quite the schemer…

But the judge is getting a bit tired of the antics. For example, setting the trial date was only a part of the reason the judge ordered Trump’s presence, if only on a video screen. The judge felt a need to tell the sexual predator Trump he’s not allowed to use discovery information to attack or embarrass or identify any of the witnesses. They had to TELL him – and I’d bet it won’t be long until he does it anyway. I expect the judge has already considered his response when (not “if”) Trump does exactly what the judge told him not to do.

Former tried to pretend he was hearing about the March 25 trial date for the first time but his lawyer confirmed he already knew. Hell, his team worked with the judge to set the date in the first place. But the ever-deceived won’t know any of that. Trump will grunt, “Bad!” and they’ll grunt right along with him. So OF COURSE trump will use the campaign as an excuse to try to avoid responsibility. OF COURSE he will. But that’s not what I sat down to write about.

Sexual predator Donald Trump didn’t have anything to say to the judge but he DID get right to work on social media. The very moment he was no longer under the judges eyes, Trump said the judge had violated his First Amendment rights, claiming his freedom of speech had been violated. He didn’t say how. I’d guess EVERY defendant really HATES getting a trial date. I’m not sure one could make a case that getting a trial date to stand trial for the wrongs you’ve done qualifies as violating one’s First Amendment rights – but you can bet the dumbass “Team Trumpery” will try.

The predator ALSO called it “election interference” and said that nothing like this has ever happened in this country before. THAT part is likely true. We’ve never been faced with a lying, criminal, sexual predator ex-president trying to weasel out of crimes he’s committed before. I guess the Republicans have standards they’ve got to lower and standards absolutely DO NOT get any lower than Donald J. Trump…

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

Tuesday Morning:
That particular bit of crazy from the crazy-meister came during his hearing with the Judge but before any of that happened, Former Guy got another little surprise. The day after he was found responsible for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll, Captain Crazy went out and immediately started defaming her again. So, she filed another defamation suit, this one in the amount of $10 million dollars.

Now, to be clear, when the “punishments” are only financial, Former doesn’t care. It doesn’t affect him. His obsequious acolytes will pay ANY amount, at any time. They’ll happily eat cat food for the rest of the month so they can send the stable(ish), genius (not), millionaire (maybe) as much of their Social Security check as they can. 45 never pays these fines. So tell me again, why might he care about fines?

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

Wednesday Evening:
Ron DuhSantis FINALLY, officially threw his hat into the ring for the race for the White House. He decided he wanted to do it with technology and thought announcing on Twitter would be a clever idea after watching Elon Musk’s masterful handling (so far) of Twitter. It might have been a clever idea but, hey, it’s Elon Musk using Twitter. The thing kept crashing. Do you believe in omens?

DuhSantis has been working feverishly to prove to the world he hates women, he hates freedom of thought and he effing HATES Mickey Mouse – so of COURSE you should vote for him for President. Listen, he DID manage to run off a $1 BILLION dollar business development in Florida and dispense with the possibility of up to 2,000 jobs for Floridians, too, so we all have a great idea regarding his business acumen.

DuhSantis is NOT the Trump-killer. I didn’t think it was possible to be dumber than a trump but DuhSantis seems to be making his case. The cons don’t care about stupid, though. Hell, they admire it. The reason DuhSantis isn’t going to win is FAR more superficial: he’s short. I know, that sounds unkind but it’s a weird fact of America that Americans tend to vote for the taller person. It’s not an axiom, just a tendency. But it’s a dependable tendency and 45 is taller than DuhSantis by several inches…

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

Thursday Morning:
The founder of the traitorous, radical hate group ‘Oath Keepers,’ a real piece of…um…work named Stewart Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years for seditious conspiracy regarding his part in lying, criminal, sexual predator Donald Trump’s attempted coup. It seems like it took forever to get to the meat and potatoes of this whole thing but officials are finally getting to the ringleaders.

It was a bit frustrating watching as one attacker after another got, like, 18 months with lower charges than many people hoped for. (Trespassing?!?) Hell, the so called “Q-anonsense Shaman”, the guy with the buffalo hat and the spear? He’s already out! He got some considerations for good behavior. Stewart Rhodes will get the same considerations but with a starting sentence of 18 years, he’s likely gone for a long time to come.

The courts have started issuing harsher sentences as the trials have focused on the “masterminds” behind the assault. That feels more like justice. It’s my understanding ‘seditious conspiracy’ doesn’t come up very often in courts but with Rhodes going down for it, the portent for the Former Guy is looking worse and worse. If Rhodes got 18 years for his leadership role in the Trump insurrection, how much time do they give the insurrection’s namesake?

Actually, it won’t be that long. 45 has a few years under his belt (he’s old) and the prison system isn’t really equipped for geriatric care so they tend to release older inmates. But it DOES make prison for Donald Trump look a little more like a possibility…

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

Friday evening:
Jessica Watkins was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for her role in the insurrection with the Oath Keepers, as well. She was not convicted of seditious conspiracy but she’s going away for awhile. She’s transgender. She tried using her identity confusion as an excuse. The judge sympathized, then issued the sentence. Buh-bye. Don’t let the door hit you…

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

I’ll tell you this: It’s been a rough week for the cons. It turns out, one can only out-run truth, facts, and reality for so long – then they catch up and BOY do they bite you in the ass. A bad week for conservatives, though, is a good week for America so…fingers crossed…

Apparently, the University of Chicago did a study last year reporting that just 18% of Americans said they had a great deal of confidence in the Supreme Court.

How could 18% of Americans be so stupid?

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

Okay, speaking of the Kangaroos, the Democrats are out, up in arms, opining that we need to expand the Supremely Kangaroo Court to balance out the extremist ideologues now in control. I agree that the partisan, activist, ideological rulings of the court are VERY bad news for America (and, likely, human beings everywhere) but expanding the court seems like it will just cause problems down the road.

It started with seven Justices. Now it’s nine. In order balance out the crazy, the Biden administration would have to add four more seats. Thirteen Justices? Then, say 45 does manage to buy his way back to the Oval Office. What do you think he’d do? Would he add just one to give the cons power again? Would he add four to ensure a solid majority? Would the maniac add five, just to be able to brag that he added more seats, more beautiful, perfect seats than anyone ever? (And, by the way, it’s all a witch hunt…)

Yes, the conservatives on the court have dispensed with integrity. They’ve abandoned any and all pretense at neutrality. ‘Citizens United,’ alone, has done so much damage to America, it seems likely thinking people will never be able to recover the American experiment, and I hate that. But a 30 Justice court? 40 maybe? How many is too many?

The thing is, it’s all just showmanship. The Dems can’t expand the court unilaterally. It would take legislation. They MIGHT have been able to do so when they controlled both houses of Congress but there’s not a path to do it with Republicans in charge of the House. Republicans hate America. They LOVE the carnage they’re inflicting on the most vulnerable people and there’s NO WAY they’re going to relinquish the power they have voluntarily.

It’s pretty much the same thing I wrote yesterday. If we want to save this once-great, now submerging nation, we have to eliminate every Republican we can. (With votes. Put that powder away…) If we can, we might be able to save the nation. If we can’t?

I’ll tell you this: The conservative fever dream is ugly, horrifying, damaging and dangerous. It’s not going to be a pleasant ride…

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

Listen, I liked Dianne Feinstein, I really did. I voted for her several times. Later, as she aged, she started sounding more and more like a con, to me, and I started voting against her. The cons have a saying that makes them feel better about themselves: “If you’re not a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative when you’re older, your brain hasn’t calcified.” (Wait, that may not be the exact wording.)

But it does seem to apply to Feinstein. She’s now caught up in full-blown senility of some kind. It seems as though she doesn’t even know where she is at any given time, anymore, but she keeps clinging to that seat – and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

It reminds me of when RBG refused to step down when she was “invited” to do so by Obama. Her choice to stay on, combined with predictable conservative treachery, contributed heavily to the packed crap court we suffer today. One can only wonder what damage Feinstein’s refusal to accept, or possibly understand, reality is doing in the background.

I’ll tell you this: I think we need a mechanism to remove politicians who are clearly suffering cognitive impairments. I understand why SHE can’t face the facts. Who the hell wants to lose their mind to age? It should not be her call, particularly when she can’t even say where she’s been over the last three months…

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

I watched the Warriors lose to the Lakers in the NBA playoffs. I have a friend who is a dedicated Lakers fan and we talked about the games. I’m only a casual fan so I don’t take it too seriously but I didn’t really say to him what I was thinking while I watched. It didn’t look to me so much like the Lakers beat the Warriors. I mean, it looked more like the Warriors lost than the Lakers won. Same difference when the Warriors went home and the Lakers moved on but my perception seems to be playing out correctly in this round where the Denver Nuggets now have a 3-0 lead over the Lakers.

I think the Warriors played badly – and they STILL nearly won. There were a couple of games where the Warriors couldn’t hit a basket to save their – well, their season, for sure. At least two games, nearly the entire team shot 0 for double-digits. (That may not be technically, perfectly accurate. I didn’t check because I don’t care enough, but it’s close.) I suspect the Warriors dynasty might be in it’s waning days. It’s too bad. They were fun to watch.

By the way, I won’t be taunting my Lakers-loving friend. I passed on the opportunity to tell him I expected them to get bumped before the series began and it doesn’t seem right to retroactively smack-talk him, now. But I can’t honestly say I’m bummed to see the Lakers get bumped…

When it comes to conservatives, every accusation they make is a confession. Case in point? We’ve been listening, like it or not, to cons complain about election rigging and stolen elections and just about every kind of election chicanery they can think of. No, there’s never proof, just words. Cons don’t need no stinkin’ proof…

But now, Ron DuhSantis has signed into law a bill releasing him from obligations under Florida law regarding running for office while holding a different office. The idea, apparently, is to either focus on your job or your campaign but don’t try to do both. NOW, suddenly, that’s okay if you’re, say, the Governor and you want to run for, oh, I don’t know…say…President of the United States. Because, really, how important is the job of Governor anyway? That particular bill also included a bunch of new voting restrictions because conservatives HATE that people get to vote. Well, some people…

Oh, he ALSO signed a bill that allows him to avoid reporting who visits him in his office or mansion or who travels with him AND he doesn’t have to report past or future travel anymore, either. Why, after all, would anybody need to know who travels or meets with the Governor of the Grating State of Floriduh? Transparency, Smansparency! (My spell check is hating this bit…)

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

This is just my opinion but I think it’s time to relegate the Republicans to the same trash bin as the nation once – correctly – relegated the extremist Libertarians. Americans like the euphemism “two party system” but America is NOT a two party system. (I actually agree with Noam Chomsky that America has only one party: the Business Party with two factions, one called ‘Republicans’ and the other called ‘Democrats’ but that’s a different bit…)

America has lots of political parties. It’s just that most of them represent extreme views and most Americans aren’t really into extreme views so those parties don’t get much attention or traction. There was an extremist arm of the Republican party called the John Birch Society that thought the Republicans had become too centrist. There ideas were eventually picked up by what became the Libertarian Party and broke away from the Republicans. But they were too extreme.

David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket in 1980. He knew he wasn’t going to win but he pumped over $2 million of his own dollars into the campaign anyway. Predictably, he got his ass handed to him. So his brother Charles conceived a plan. They began using their vast wealth to undermine American values at every turn.

They funded seats in colleges and created pseudo-think tanks (better called “stink tanks”) to inject misinformation and disinformation into the body politic. They started buying news outlets and having those outlets deliver their anti-American information. They enlisted help from other wealthy fascists and spread the money around, always in the service of promoting wrong ideas. Then, they re-infected the once-respected Republican party and, well, you likely know the rest.

Now the Republicans represent pretty much the very worst of humanity, the very problems this country had largely overcome, and are moving us backwards at an alarming rate. Honestly, I can’t, off the top of my head, think of a single positive thing the cons say about America, these days. I mean, sure, they wrap themselves in the flag and SCREAM “patriotism” but those are just words. Based on their actions, they hate everything about the US Constitution except the 2nd Amendment, which they don’t understand.

They talk “freedom” but the freedom they want is the freedom to deny YOU freedom. No, you don’t get to manage your own reproduction. Leave that to rich old men in Washington, DC. No, you don’t get to express your authentic self. Too scary. No, you don’t get to read what you want to read. You don’t get to learn what your college professor thinks is important for you to learn.

You don’t have the freedom to pursue life, liberty nor happiness, lest you interfere with some gun rights advocates freedom to kill you where you stand for the “crime” of needing milk or going to school or whatever other daily activity in which you might engage. You don’t get to let your children BE children. Get their little asses to work. And you, too. You DO have the “freedom” to produce wealth for the boss for whatever pittance the boss feels like handing out in his largess. (Say ‘Thank you…’)

These are all things prominent on the conservative agenda. None of them are paranoid rants – the Republicans are doing, or trying to do – ALL of them. I haven’t even mentioned their dedication to tax cuts for the wealthy or “deregulation” – the conservative euphemism for “let corporations do whatever they want.”

Thinking Americans have been watching the process play out, slowly and in stealth, for over 40 years now. But it’s not in stealth mode anymore. The evidence is everywhere and it’s undeniable and there’s only one way to stop it: never vote Republican. The Republicans have proven, beyond question, they are opposed to the American way of life and they want something worse, something FAR more brutal to the majority.

I’ll tell you this: The MAGA cons don’t know any of this but then, these are people who think 45 did a good job and Biden is doing a bad job so…what do they know? They’ll vote Republican. But no one else should. Ever.