Well, that was…excruciating but ultimately satisfying…

Congratulations to Joe and Kamala. It will be nice to have decent people running the show for awhile. Of course, the dumbass isn’t going quietly. He’s beaten. He just doesn’t know it. People will explain it to him, though.

Biden won, fair and square. In fact, he had to do a seriously heavy lift against Republican cheating (more on that in a subsequent piece) but he managed to get it done.

To me, the most amazing single bit of theater from the whole thing came from Cult 45. I’ve long been aware that the conservative bubble has complete control over a segment of our society. Through the years, I’ve watched the bubble move the crowd from one position to it’s polar opposite in a matter of days. YEARS ago I realized that conservatives don’t have principles, they have positions which can (and often do) change with the wind.

But even I didn’t have a full understanding of the level of control the conservative bubble maintains. Not until I saw them. In Arizona, a gaggle of trumpsters stood outside the counting facility and shouted that the counting must continue because it’s the correct thing to do to count the votes. At the exact same moment conservatives were in Pennsylvania demonstrating outside the counting facility that the counting must cease because counting the votes was harming Trump’s position.

Yeah, I’m used to them taking one position, then switching to the opposite on a dime. Taking both positions at once? That’s new…

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The Senate is still up in the air. If the conservatives retain control – which seems likely in the face of so much Gerrymandering – Biden will be blocked from moving forward with some of his ideas (anything that needs Congressional approval). But he CAN put us back in the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization. He can begin to heal some of our national institutions and he can restore (to some degree) our standing in the world. Frankly, I’m not sure how long it can last nor how deeply the world can/will trust us. After the Trump years, our system has proven far more fragile than many of us ever suspected and now the world knows that what a decent man like Biden might do today can be easily UNDONE by an indecent man like Trump…

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I’m looking forward to my conservative fellow Americans demonstrating their belief in all that talk they were on about when the topic was “support the President” and “respect the office.” I confess, I wasn’t able to do that when Donnie was “in charge.” I’ll be watching for their example. What was the line? “You support the President because if you wish for the President to fail, you wish for AMERICA to fail!” There’s also, “You respect the office even if you don’t respect the man.” I’ll be watching for examples from conservatives…

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One man I think everyone respected was Alex Trebek, the host of Jeopardy for 35 years. He wrestled with Pancreatic Cancer for the last year and a half and it finally got him. Alex apparently waited around long enough to find out who won. My deepest condolences to the Trebek family. I think we’ll all miss him very much…

I’m sure it’s just me but I think Republicans should try to come up with some decent ideas and convince people rather than just bully and cheat their way through “elections.”

If you scroll down a bit and click on the first clip in this video, you’ll see a gaggle of trumpsters harassing a Biden/Harris bus. There’s a woman narrating events and she thinks it’s funny as hell that they’re “running him out of town.” If you watch to the end (it’s a short loop) you’ll see one of the trumpsters ram another car. Apparently, the local police are trying to determine if it was intentional.

The dumbass, of course, supported the action, even re-tweeting video…

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But they can’t do that, of course – offer decent ideas. So, they cheat. Sure, I know, they jump up and down and scream and yell about all the cheating going on by Democrats. Pure projection. The Democrats aren’t cheating, the Republicans are and if they didn’t? They’d never win another election again. Even the orange moron said so.

That’s why the GOP is in court right this minute trying to get the Texas Supreme Court to throw out over 117,000 ballots. Okay, so, apparently, the court has already deflected several attempts by cheating Republicans to stop people from voting and it seems likely this one will fail, too. But, damn, people. Just offer up some decent ideas. Don’t just try to impress your stupid and racist base. Try to impress intelligent people, too. Maybe you’ll get somewhere…

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The reality, of course, is that Republicans don’t have any decent ideas to run on. There’s a simple reason. The Republican party has been infected and co-opted by so-called “objectivist” Libertarians. Objectivism is a boneheaded philosophical position first espoused by Ayn Rand. The weakest thinkers in our society (they would have to be for her “work” to make sense to them) glomed onto the concepts and eventually created the Libertarian Party.

Most people understood the Libertarian Party was made up of extremists and misfits and the Libertarians stayed, properly, outside the mainstream of American politics. But they didn’t stay there. Realizing the official party would likely never amount to much due to their radical positions, they began to infiltrate the Republican party. As Libertarian influence in the GOP grew, more and more traditional Republicans left the party.

Now the Republican Party is basically the same intellectual wasteland as the Libertarians. That doesn’t mean they’re not a threat. They’ve been cheating for decades and, as such, they’ve built themselves a very difficult to defeat advantage via gerrymandering and entrenched voter suppression techniques. They’re not going to be easy to overcome even though it looks, as of this writing, as though the left is fed up and coming out in force.

Remember, the reviled Hillary beat him by nearly 3 million votes but mismanaged the Electoral College. I guess we’re going to need significantly more than 3 million to win AND be allowed to serve. That’s not okay. The GOP is making it VERY difficult to have a peaceful revolution. Remember the words of JFK: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

I sure hope nobody put too much faith in Lying Lisa Murkowski’s claims that she wasn’t sure she would go along with her hypocritical conservative team in confirming Barrett. This is just her game. She, along with Susan Collins, regularly announces she’s considering not standing with the Republicans on some issue or another. Of course, (spoiler alert) she ALWAYS does.

My own suspicion is that it’s a negotiating ploy. She publicly claims she may not go along, she gets some special consideration from the party, and at the last minute, she does as she’s expected to do. She’s a VERY dependable conservative vote. Of COURSE she’s going to vote to confirm. There was really never any question…

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I don’t want to be the one to defend Rudy Giuliani so could I PLEASE ask my liberal counterparts to NOT make hay of something that isn’t anything? Giuliani isn’t married. If he wants to go back to a woman’s room for a drink, there’s no reason he shouldn’t. Disclaimer: I haven’t seen the movie. If Rudy had reason to believe she was 15 before they went upstairs, I disavow my own position. But from what I’ve gathered, he went up to her room for a drink. It would certainly be reasonable to assume she was of drinking age. In fact, the actress who played the 15 year old daughter is 24.

Rudy Giuliani is a shit-stain. Nobody has to make up things to make this guy look bad…

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For example, shit-stain Rudy is the source of the so-called “laptop from hell” that turned out to be little more than a “laptop from aw, heck.” I know, conservatives are all over it, all of them convinced without question Hunter Biden has been incriminated by evidence of wrongdoing from his own laptop. Of course, conservatives are lost in an alternative world of alternative facts and, at this point, can be made to believe anything. Or, at least, pretend to believe anything.

But for the rational people still among us…first, I haven’t seen ANY incriminating evidence. So far, it’s all innuendo – a whispered smear campaign even the cons can’t agree upon. The cons need to make the charges BAD. The story starts with simple emails “proving” Hunter Biden tried to get Joe Biden involved in something nefarious (they don’t). Not enough, they added that there are pictures of Hunter with a crack pipe. (Yeah, Hunter had a drug problem. Not news.) So, I briefly heard there was child porn on the computer. I think they had to drop that one because if there’s child porn on a computer people are making copies of and passing around, every person who handles the laptop (outside of law enforcement, of course) is guilty of trafficking in child porn! So that one went away.

More importantly, though? The evidence in question – a copy of a hard drive that may or may not have once belonged to Hunter Biden – sure has some problems with chain of custody. Apparently, they can’t even prove that the laptop in question ever really belonged to Hunter and by now it’s been handled by so many different people there’s no way to prove who did what nor when they did…whatever. Sorry, cons. No sale…

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The Trumpery keeps touting the notion that 2.2 million people haven’t died as a result of his feckless failure on Covid-19 so he guesses it’s a win. Hell, why not make up a bigger number, since you’re just rambling? 38.6 billion people not dying makes his body count look MUCH better.

As of this writing? 223,393 dead US citizens.

During the last “debate” Trumpery, himself, said Biden had mishandled a flu outbreak. Trumpery, himself, admitted the flu wasn’t nearly as virulent as Covid but then insisted that if it had been Biden would have done a bad job handling it. What an…unsupportable assertion…

We all know, now, that Trumpery DID know how bad it was going to be and chose not to do anything about it. Sidebar: has it crossed anybody else’s mind that any vaccine that gets developed will be made available in this once-great nation for the low, low price of…whatever they think they can force you to pay? A vaccine developed in another country and offered up for free will be refused by the US as “unsafe” and the American people will have to wait until an American company comes up with something that can be monetized.

These days? It’s the American way…

It has begun. The voting, I mean. I think we’re all holding our collective breaths, watching. We have no more time for trumpery. ALL of his antics will be disregarded until further notice. But there’s a LOT riding on this “election.” The Republicans, predictably, are out there cheating every way they can, every chance they get, as aggressively as possible – all the while whining about how the Democrats cheat.

Meanwhile, Democrats and progressives seem to be turning out in droves. I can’t make predictions because I can’t measure the effects of the Russians flipping votes in the machines to help the dumbass but at this point Biden seems to be doing well.

In the alternative world of alternative facts, conservatives are told that, secretly, THEY represent the majority. They don’t, of course. That’s an “alternative fact” also known as “bullshit.” They ARE a stronger voting bloc, normally, because they turn out dependably. But from time to time, the one percent – via the Republicans – just push too far and Dems and progressives wake up. That reality brought us Obama and I think it’s going to bring us Biden, too…

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In the meantime, the Barrett confirmation moves forward, unabated. I sort of wish the Dems would just stand down. I mean, there’s nothing they can do to stop this so all the rest is just posing. The left is whining about how she won’t answer questions. Technically, she shouldn’t and, since she’s a shoo-in, it doesn’t matter.

Another pseudo-Christian ascends to the Bench. Pseudo-Christian? How can a woman who insists she has to bend the knee to her man – who, in turn, has to bend HIS knee to his deacon – nevertheless rise to such a powerful position? She won’t be taking care of home, hearth, or family, the traditional role of women in the Christian tradition.

I HAVE noticed that traditionalists and so-called “originalists” have a tendency to “believe” that everything should stay the way it was the day those documents first came into being – except, of course, for the parts that adversely affected them personally.

According to both the original Constitution and the Bible, Barrett is the property and responsibility of her husband – who REALLY needs to get his house in order. She’s okay with those “updates”, though, I’m guessing. She’s more of a traditionalist and originalist, um…starting right at the point where she gets to vote and speak for herself. THAT’S some careful re-interpretation…

The perjurist Clarence Thomas has the same creative interpretation of “originalist.” I’m sure he doesn’t count HIMSELF three-fifths of a human but he’s okay discriminating in marriage – now that HIS inter-racial marriage is all legal and proper and acceptable. For conservatives, it’s all about careful and fluid interpretations…

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I’m not looking forward to living under Christian Sharia so if that’s where the pseudo-Christians want to go I’m going to say this: you first. If the conversation is going to move beyond the academic, I’m going to need you to LIVE the principles you pretend. Please don’t TELL me you’re a Christian. SHOW me. (This, of course, assumes your given name isn’t ‘Christian.’ THAT, I’ll believe…)

You see, I’m very aware that anybody can say anything they want at any time. All you need is to put together a few select words in the proper order and – viola! – a sentence! Is it a TRUE sentence? Who knows. Only verification can tell one way or the other. Here’s an example of what I mean: I’m Tom Brady, Quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

See how easy that was? I just…put those words together. Are they true? Well, if merely saying so is enough proof, I’m guessing the Bucs are going to deposit Tom’s – I mean my – next check into my bank account, yes? Probably not. Really, all they’ve got to do is look at me. “Wow, Tom, you’ve kind of let yourself go, eh?” But if there’s still any confusion, they can clear it up simply by handing me a football. “Here, throw this to that man with world class speed making a cut at a specific point and hit him right in the numbers, okay?” Hell, I’d be lucky to hit the grass…

So, apparently, just saying it isn’t enough. One has to SHOW it. I’m going to start simply enough for you. Let’s start with one book. Hell, one verse. You “Christians” of course already know this one. (Sidebar to the uninitiated: there are some Bibles in which every word attributed to Jesus is written in red ink. I often refer to the “red writing” as the ultimate authority of Christianity…) So, let’s take a look at Matthew 25:35.

“For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’”

When your answer is, “They should have come the right way” or, “They don’t have the right paperwork”, you lose. According to YOUR book, you’ll be sorted with the Goats and cast into the pit. Jesus didn’t say, “...and you invited me in – AFTER ensuring I had the right documents and paperwork to prove I had gone through the system the way Fox “News” pretends you should interpret it.“

So, for now, let’s start there. If you’re going to try to impose your religion on me, I’m going to need you to know what you’re espousing. You might want to read that book you’re always on about…

Look, I know the alternative reality crowd is never going to admit this but I’ve noticed that while they’re shouting and making a fuss about the bad behavior of Anitfa, whenever the cops DO go far enough to make arrests of people who break windows or start the fires, the person of interest seems – commonly – to be a conservative trying to undermine the BLM activities.

And now it’s conservatives who tried to kidnap the Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. So maybe – just maybe – liberals aren’t the problem after all…

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It’s voting season. I find that several of the heavily promoted ballot measures in my states are being financed and lied about by some very wealthy and powerful special interests.

Proposition 22
Uber, originlly founded as “Uber Cab,” is pretending they’re NOT a cab company. They don’t want to take responsibility for their employees so they’re pretending they’ll just go away if they’re forced to. Frankly, I’m okay with that. Capitalism teaches that if you can’t run a business in a profitable way, you shouldn’t be in business. If paying one’s employees an honest and fair wage is a problem, close your doors.

They’re complaining that drivers should be allowed to remain “independent contractors” because of the flexibility it offers. There’s no reason they can’t be flexible in their schedules if they’re employees. To me, “independent contractors” in this context stinks of “right to work.” “Right to work” is a euphemism created by predatory Capitalists. It’s always important to remember that the slaves had a “right to work” as well. I’m more of an ‘honest-day’s-pay-for-an-honest-day’s-work’ kind of guy…

Proposition 23
Dialysis centers are bitching because someone thinks they should have a doctor on site when patients are receiving dialysis. Why, that will cut into profits, yes? So they’re running ads saying dialysis patients won’t be able to get dialysis if doctors are required to be on hand. I’d bet that’s not true. Those greed-heads are not going to walk away from a profitable market just because it might be slightly LESS profitable…

Proposition 15
California Proposition 15 this year attempts to correct the deception of Proposition 13 from 1978. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association (“Deceiving Californians since 1978”) is trying to defend their tax-shifting, corporate-benefiting tribute proposition by telling everyone the property tax on small businesses will go up. They won’t. Or, more accurately, they already have. Here’s the deal:

Properties that get sold – even commercial properties – get reassessed at the time of sale. There are other triggers for reassessment as well. Most SMALL commercial properties have been sold and reassessed through the years. But the largest corporations in the state? They don’t sell property. They sell companies and transfer the property – avoiding the reassessment trigger. This means while YOUR property taxes have gone up over the years, large corporations are still paying property taxes at the 1976 rates. (Prop 13 included a rollback of rates to their 1976 values…)

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Okay, so it’s been a couple of days and the dumbass has yet to backtrack on his declaration that he won’t participate in a debate he can’t disrupt. At this point, it seems he might really stay away. I wonder if he realizes he gave away the game. I mean, everybody OUTSIDE of the conservative bubble knew that if the moderator had a mic cut-off button Mr. Trumpery would run away. After all, can you imagine him trying to present a cohesive plan – or even a coherent thought? No, me neither.

I have this theory that suggests that the people who rise to the top of any existing hierarchy is the person most willing to do whatever it takes to rise to the top. THEY present that as ‘hard-working’ and ‘dogged determination’ but mostly, it’s devious backstabbing and immoral and/or unethical actions. In Mr. Trumpery’s case the behavior is audacious rudeness. People – Republicans nor Democrats – weren’t ready for his bombastic, bullying approach. His inability to function in polite society caught everybody off guard.

But he’s a one-trick pony and everyone is on to him now. (Okay, everyone NOT caught in the alternate reality…) So it’s no surprise he won’t participate in a process he can’t disrupt. If he can’t disrupt, he’s got nothin’…

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Pence and Harris, on the other hand, know what a debate is supposed to be and handled it better. Pence tried to be a bombastic asshole to Harris but that’s not his authentic self and he didn’t pull it off too well. What I DID notice was this: when Pence tried to describe the vision of the Trump/Pence team, he spoke of what’s best for the American corporations. When Harris was describing the vision of the Biden/Harris team, she spoke of what’s best for the American PEOPLE.

I’ll tell you this: I care more for the American people than for American corporations…

So…just a friendly reminder: Donald Trump thinks military members are “suckers” and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, “losers.” Those are HIS words, not mine…

Trump’s tax information is leaking. What we know NOW is that Trump is among the worst businessmen in the world or he’s the biggest tax cheat in history. (It’s likely both…)

Trump’s man-baby tantrum in the “debates” seems to have backfired. Cult-45 saw him as strong, of course. (That’s what they were told to see.) But everybody else started supporting the notion of having mics that could be cut when the tantrum starts. Trump unable to distract? Enter Covid-19. Could be a coincidence…

Trump has had a pre-existing condition for quite some time, being a fat man. Now he’s added to it if, in fact, he DOES have Covid. Still, his administration is before the courts trying to strip pre-existing condition protections from the Affordable Care Act. He knows HE can afford to pay for health care out of pocket and doesn’t CARE about you…

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After Trump was sent to Walter Reed, his team of doctors gave a presser. They said they were “just 72 hours into the diagnosis.” This (likely) truth accidentally exposed the fact that Trump knew he had Covid-19 at least 36 hours sooner than anyone else and kept attending campaign events anyway. (Remember: he cares about himself, not you…)

It was a very rosy rendition. It was SO rosy, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows called the press corps together immediately afterward and told them off the record that the situation was worse than the doctors had indicated. This, of course, angered the man-baby.

So, the White House, caught once again not giving a rats ass about the American people, pulled out their always available go-to card: they lied. The White House issued a statement that said the doctor was mistaken when he said 72 hours. He SHOULD have said three days. Also, he was mistaken when he said 48 hours. He SHOULD have said two days.

I guess we’re left to decipher the difference between 72 hours and three days. Then, Meadows was trotted out to explain that, no, trump’s situation isn’t that bad and in an effort to demonstrate that the dumbass was still doing the Presidentin’, Meadows included the comment that Trump was asking for “documents to review.”

You gotta hand it to the dumbass. He knows his base and his base is VERY impressed by the term ‘documents.’ He’s never looking at papers, briefings, information, or folders. It’s ALWAYS ‘documents.’ That seems to be all it takes to impress his base…

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Speaking of Trump’s base, I’ve heard that the Proud Boys, the White “Supremacist” group that Trump told to “stand back and stand by” doesn’t admit women into their group. I don’t know why that surprised me. After all, I know women can be small-minded bigots, too. I guess I could have known by the name, ‘Proud Boys‘, eh? I find myself wondering if they can’t allow women because every time they get near girls they can’t talk anymore…

It continues to be true – every hour of every day – I’ve never seen a better argument AGAINST white “supremacy” than white supremacists…

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I read an article that suggested that trump wants food aid boxes to include a letter from him. I don’t know if that’s such a good idea reminding people they need food aid boxes because of trump policies…

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One of the bits of information that was included in the claim that trump has Covid-19 was that he was given an antibiotic cocktail. It’s a special, experimental treatment. It has no FDA approval. In fact, the doctors had to get special permission to use it.

I’m no doctor but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t use experimental treatments on the so-called President of the United States unless I had no other choice. It seems…irresponsible.

So maybe trump DOES have it – badly enough that doctors had to pull out all the stops and take any chance. Then again, maybe it’s just another hydroxychloroquine lie…

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Racists and other conservatives don’t like it that thinking people are questioning the veracity of trump’s Covid claims. They pretend we’re out of line wondering if this is just some new ruse intended to distract from the avalanche of bad news coming out about him on a near-daily basis.

It would be hard to be a conservative these days. NOW they have to pretend they never heard – or at least didn’t understand – the story of ‘Peter and the Wolf.’ Just to help out with our less-capable fellow Americans, one cannot lie every hour, every day, every week, every month for years and years and years and NOT have the world suspect even the possibility of further mendacity. I mean…hey, maybe the wolf DID show up this time. But THAT’S why we don’t lie…

This is getting more and more complex – and it really doesn’t need to. In 2009, the world was introduced to a new type of cab company – one in which drivers and riders connected through an app instead of dialing the phone. That was pretty much the difference: how the driver and rider connected. The company is known today, as ‘Uber’ but was founded as ‘Ubercab’ so it’s pretty clear that even THEY know they’re a cab company that uses an app to connect driver and rider.

The thing is, Uber didn’t want to take responsibility for their drivers as employees so they started insisting they’re NOT a transportation service. They call themselves an “app-based company.” It’s clear to anybody paying attention that Uber IS a transportation service. After all, what good is their app without the drivers? But our society has devolved to a point where one has only to form a sentence and said sentence must be treated as equal to all other sentences. (Yes, it’s exactly as stupid as it sounds…)

So…Uber forms a sentence – says they’re an app-based company – and California is flummoxed. California wants the drivers classified as employees since no Uber driver works without Uber’s direct involvement. So the California state legislature passed Assembly Bill 5 which attempts to reclassify so-called gig workers in a way that might force Uber to accept it’s responsibility to it’s drivers. The thing is, AB5 created MASSIVE problems in the work force and the economy as one industry after another was inadvertently impacted. California started issuing waiver after waiver and finally put out – in the form of AB2257 – a long list of job categories exempted from AB5 strictures.

It won’t be long until they’ve exempted everybody BUT the driver services like Uber and Lyft at which time the driver services will take AB5 BACK to court and claim it’s unconstitutional because it’s AIMED at Uber and Lyft.

So I got to thinking about what makes an actual “app-based company” and I think I’ve stumbled onto something. I used ‘Spotify’ as my model. (Full disclosure: I signed up for Spotify, once, but don’t use it much and have no other ties to them…) Spotify really is an app-based company. What I mean is, I can download the app, sign up as a user, tell the app what kind of music I prefer, and begin listening. Easy. At no time do I have to interact with a Spotify representative to use the service. And THAT’S the key…

Rather than trying to create legislation to correct the problem and then legislation to try to correct the issues created by the previous legislation and then very likely needing to create even MORE legislation to try to clean up the problems from the earlier legislation, I propose that for legal and tax purposes California simply define an “app-based company” as a company that provides it’s products or service without any representative of the company directly interacting with the general public.

If Uber can deliver it’s product without drivers, fine, they’re an app-based company. If they can’t, they’re not. It really IS that simple. As a transportation company, they can take responsibility for their drivers just like all the other cab companies do…

AB5 was originally introduced by Lorena Gonzalez from the San Diego area. If anyone can get this idea in front of her, it might help to eliminate a bunch of legislative entanglement in the future…

RBG’s Seat…
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing was a bit of a gut-punch to those of us holding on to the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, there’s some path to saving this once great nation. (There isn’t.) I’m hearing lefties out there swearing up one side and down the other they’re going to fight the corrupt GOP-controlled Senate to stop them from foisting another Sour Cream Court “justice” on the American people.

“Don’t you remember,” they shout angrily, “when the GOP said they can’t put a nominee up for a vote in the last year of a Presidency?”
“Didn’t you know,” I reply, “They were lying their hypocritical asses off at the time?”
“We’re going to fight to stop them!”
“Excellent. Which exact mechanism did you plan to employ?”
“Um…we’ll make angry phone calls!”
“Yeah, that’ll do it…”

It’s hard to say what kind of impact the passing of RBG is going to have on the upcoming “election.” BOTH sides were sort of pointing to the so-called “High Court” as the big prize for winning. Who gets to appoint the next “justice?” Now? Well, we know the answer. Trump. THREE Supreme Court nominations (one stolen, of course) for the dumbest man in the history of stupid! And the court’s decisions will reflect that for years to come. Or at least until the revolution, whichever comes first…

Then I see speculation that perhaps the GOP will hold off on naming someone as an enticement to getting GOP voters out. That doesn’t make sense to me. Look, we all know that Trump isn’t going to win this “election” unless the Russians are successful. If, say, the internet goes down on “election” day, Trump loses. Do you think the GOP is going to take a chance with that seat? No. They’ll have some Federalist Society toady appointed by the First Monday in October.

By all means, though, feel free to make angry phone calls. It won’t change the inevitable but it’s an EXCELLENT exercise in venting…

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Blind Love…
Have you ever been blindly infatuated with anyone? Of course you have. Percy Sledge wrote a brilliant song about it called, ‘When A Man Loves A Woman.’ His song is about a man loving a woman (obviously) but it applies to a woman blindly in love with a man, as well. In a larger sense, it applies to ANY infatuation that blinds one to reality. (Say…Cult 45?) So…with apologies to Percy…

When A Man Loves the Donald
When a man loves the Donald,
Can’t keep his mind on nothin’ else.
He’d change the world for the good thing he’s found.
When Don is bad, he can’t see it,
Donald can do no wrong,
Turn his back on his best friend if he put Donald down.

When a man loves the Donald,
He’ll spend his very last dime,
Tryin’ to hold on to what he needs.
He’d give up all his comforts,
And sleep out in the rain,
If Donald said that’s the way it ought to be.

Well, some men love you, Donald.
Gave you everything they had,
Tryin’ to hold on to your heartless love.
Saying, “Baby, please don’t treat me bad.”

When a man loves the Donald,
Down deep in his soul,
Don can bring him such misery.
Don is just playin’ him for a fool,
He’s the last one to know.
Lovin’ eyes can never see.

When a man loves the Donald,
he can confess no wrong,
he can never trust the real world.
Yes, When a man loves the Donald
You know exactly how he feels,
‘Cause baby, baby, Don’s his world.

When a man loves the Donald…

I find myself wondering how many military members trump lost when they found out he considers them suckers for joining and losers if they get injured or killed. Some, I imagine. If they’re true trumpsters, though, they simply pretended he didn’t really say that and put their vile little red hats right back on. At this point, it’s pretty clear to any of us outside the conservative bubble that those who insist on supporting him ANYWAY are the true losers and suckers…

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Speaking of losers and suckers, I ALMOST started to feel sorry for trumpsters. Imagine how many battles they’ve fought over Covid-19. They marched out, social warriors on social media, name calling, ruining friendships and other relationships, tearing their own families asunder – all in defense of the dumbass and his pretended position on trump’s pandemic – only to find out he wasn’t just wrong. He was lying the whole time.

I mean, how embarrassing to be so completely exposed for the gullible rubes they are.

But, like I said, I ALMOST started to feel sorry for them. Then I remembered, all I have is evidence in the form of a recording of trump himself describing in detail the dangers and threats of the virus, proving he knew. And as we know, trumpsters say, “Evidence, shmevidence!” See, trumpsters have faith. They disregard evidence just as easily as a snake sheds his skin.

I’ll be voting against trump because of all of the truths I know about him.
Trumpsters will be voting FOR trump because of all of the truths they refuse about him.

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I’m guessing there are STILL some suckers out there pretending climate change is a hoax. More faith over facts. Nice. I’d say events have overtaken your ideology. I’d say you were wrong but it’s really worse than that. Because you chose faith over facts, we ALL have to suffer the consequences. It was EASY to type contradictions into your computer and hurl epithets. It’s going to be far less easy to live with the consequences of your lies…

It’s weird living in and moving through the conservative hell-scape conservative positions have brought to us all. Orange skies are not the norm. When the sun is bright red, it’s a sight to behold – and then get back indoors where it might be safer to, you know, breathe. We’re supposed to go outside to meet with people because of trump’s failure on Covid-19 but we have to stay INSIDE because it’s not safe to breathe the air…

Trump’s America: just try not to breathe so much…

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I really feel like rich people, with the help of their conservative suckers, have won their class war. I’m still seeing articles and posts asking what we can do but I think we already know the answer: nothing. With the help of faith-based conservatives – and the careful manipulation of that faith – the rich people have destroyed this country and it’s government. The DOW keeps going (generally) up because the rich people know they’ve created the most incredible buying opportunity in the history of the world. It won’t take too much longer until they own most everything, leaving the vast majority of Americans out in the cold.

Believe it or not, THAT’S when the real squeezing will begin. THAT’S when things are going to get ugly. I’ve long suspected the conservatives who helped bring about this end think they’ve accrued to themselves some kind of a pass. Maybe, they hope, when the 1% starts squeezing in earnest, conservatives will be passed over. They won’t.

I don’t know how long Americans will tolerate a dictatorship. We’re a spoiled bunch and we know it. Because we’re spoiled we might have a short fuse regarding things being taken away from us but because we know we’re spoiled, we MIGHT just decide losing a few things here and there is somehow acceptable.

I’ll tell you this, though: it’s not going to end well…

Okay so, maybe I’m just jealous. I’ve kind of come to admire how my conservative counterparts just…insert their preferred reality in place of whatever is actually going on.

A pandemic that’s killed, so far, 186,000+ Americans because of trump’s inaction? Why, no! In the conservative bubble it makes FAR more sense that medical professionals and institutions would risk their professional licenses and certifications – not to mention the legal consequences – by lying about Covid-19 – just to make trump look bad.

So, to hear them tell it, 186,000+ Americans haven’t died from Covid-19. It’s only been like 6,000 or maybe 4,000 or hell, I don’t know, maybe 150 people and a cat. The thing I don’t understand? If you’re going to just make up a reality anyway, why not make it a perfect reality? Why include ANY Covid-19 deaths?

At first, I thought, this is how they make their lie seem credible – acknowledge and stipulate to a FEW deaths but deny the bulk of them. That doesn’t really track, though. ANY number of deaths surely makes Dumbass look…well, like a dumbass, right? So why not just deny ANY of them?

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Personally, I think trump humping the flag is every bit as disrespectful of the flag as someone setting it on fire. And at least the person burning a flag is expressing an honest emotion…

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Speaking of disrespect, the Atlantic reported this last week that trump counts military members “suckers” and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice “losers”. Okay, so the Atlantic leans left but Fox “News” confirmed and reported the story as well. Based on everything I’ve ever seen from the coward trump, I’d guess he DID say those things and I’d wager he’s just honestly expressing his true (and vile) position.

Sure, he can – and will – lie. Helpfully, his reality-replacing base will work as hard as they can to believe him. But nobody else will. The dumbass has no regard for the military. He just shines them on like Eddie Haskell. (Yeah, something of an archaic reference there…) Cult 45 will just overwrite what they know with what they’d prefer to know and keep going.

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I’m VERY excited about California’s new color-coded slow re-opening plan. Mostly because of the anticipation it creates for the inevitable new color-coded slow re-closing plan in the near future.

We can close and open and open and close all day every day for months years, days, weeks – whatever. If we’re not going to deal with the underlying problems the symptoms aren’t going to get better.

It’s a sad thing that so many Americans don’t seem to understand this…

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Pelosi! (You have to kind of spit it.) She’s trying to spin her recent hair appointment as a “set-up.” Truthfully? I think she WAS set up. But it was her own arrogance that allowed her to be set up in the first place. She didn’t know the rules? Bunk. When someone told her something different, she, of all people, should have known.

Okay, so the truth is, rich people get privileges in this once-great nation the masses don’t enjoy and, right or wrong, that’s just the way it is. I think she was wrong and ended up projecting a “do as I say, not as I do” message. But I STILL don’t think her disregard for protocol is anywhere near as damaging or dangerous as trump’s disregard for reality…

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Remember, because of Covid-19 the rules of the “election” are changing this year. Evil, America-hating progressives have to go first and have their votes in by November 3. Then, the god-loving, patriotic conservatives get their turn and start voting on November 4. Know your group and vote accordingly…