politics

Undependable and Untrustworthy…

by MyBaconPress

The thing is, see, it won’t matter. 47 is now out saying he hates “to predict things” like a recession this year. He’s conditioning his acolytes with their new talking point. They’ll start in, first insisting, aggressively, that there will NOT be a recession this year. THEN, when the recession begins, they’ll take their next totally unpredictable move, they’ll blame Joe Biden. Either way, it won’t matter to them. They’ll believe.

Bear in mind, Biden had nothing to do with it. Biden left The Felon with one of the strongest economies in the world. 47 has already done serious harm and he’s only been in office, what, a month and a half? But MAGA is impervious to facts and, like Ron White says, you can’t fix stupid.

Anyway, according to the Guardian, 47 added, “There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. And there are always periods of, it takes a little time. It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.” When asked whether he thought his tariffs on US imports would fuel inflation, he said: “You may get it. In the meantime, guess what? Interest rates are down.”

Remember, he promised on the campaign trail he was going to bring prices down. He said he had a plan and that it was going to be “so easy.” Now he’s telling everyone that he – okay, I’m trying to be generous, here – hasn’t achieved his campaign promise to bring prices down and he doesn’t expect to. In his “mind,” it’s good enough news that interest rates are down. So when you’re asked pay $25.00 for 18 eggs, fear not. You can finance them at a competitive rate…

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I never fully trust high-profile people who switch political sides AFTER being caught up in some scandal. Simultaneously, they have had front row seats to the inside workings of whatever camp they got kicked out of. David Brock spent years writing hit pieces for the right before being kicked out of that club, ostensibly for writing a balanced piece about Hillary.

In his Mea Culpa book, ‘Blinded By the Right,’ Brock confessed to creating the line, “a little bit nutty, a little bit slutty,” about Anita Hill, the person accusing Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his SCOTUS hearing. He attacked a book that accused Thomas of being a “habitual user of pornography” and insisted the authors had no evidence. Then, again in ‘Blinded By the Right’ he wrote, “When I wrote those words, I knew they were false. I put a lie in print.”

The left embraced him and extolled his “brave honesty.” I never trusted the guy. It’s just too convenient that he decided to switch sides only AFTER being exiled from his previous position. He founded a group called “Media Matters for America,” which he later left for “undisclosed reasons.”

Brock was happy to write whatever the right wanted, so long as the checks cleared. Then, when the checks stopped coming, he had a sudden change of heart and started cashing Democratic checks, instead. His loyalty seems, first and foremost, to himself and he just writes what his benefactors want to hear, true or not.

I feel pretty much the same way about current darling to the left, the turncoat Michael Cohen, the trumpster’s one-time “fixer.” He didn’t just wake up one day and decide to do the right thing. He got arrested and convicted for his actions working with The Felon and when 47 threw him under the bus – as he almost always does – Cohen had a sudden “come to Jesus” moment. He, too, strikes me as an opportunist, taking the money from where ever it’s coming from.

BUT… it’s also true that he really was an insider. It’s true that he really does know The Felon and the way he thinks. Cohen expects the trumpster to come after Medicaid (in process) and Social Security (started). Cohen wrote an essay on Substack in which he opined that 47’s “base might be rabid, but even the most die-hard MAGA voter has a breaking point. And when grandma’s Social Security check disappears, when their Medicaid is yanked away, when the reality of Musk’s economic war on the poor sets in; who do you think they’re going to blame?”

“You screw over 72.5 million people, and you pay the price,” Cohen continued, referring to the number of Americans on Medicaid. “Unfortunately, they will suffer. But, there is a light at the end of the tunnel…Musk’s economic jihad against working Americans will be the thing that sinks Trump’s presidency and the Republican party. And for once, the chaos will actually work in the favor of the American people.”

No, I don’t trust Michael Cohen, but I want SO BADLY for him to be correct about this…

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The right is in full attack mode against Amy Coney-Barrett for her part in upholding the Constitution. She sided with the three left-leaning justices in favor of the idea that contracted work completed should be compensated according to the contractual agreement. Now the right is just bashing hell out of her.

They say she’s evil. They say she’s “rattled.” They call her a DEI hire. All of this because she did the right thing. And do you know what? If YOU were the contractor who did the work, YOU would want to be paid, too. You wouldn’t want to hear that your money is suddenly “frozen” because some mental mite made an illegal choice.

But the thing that REALLY gets me? Chief Kangaroo John Roberts ALSO sided with the majority and the Constitution. That’s HOW they got to the 5-4 decision they eventually handed down. I haven’t heard word one about Roberts. All of the vitriol seems to be pointed at Coney-Barrett. I wonder why that might be?

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When Steve effing Doocy challenges something a Republican administration does, you KNOW the GOP has gone way awry. Doocy asked why Zelenskyy was challenged (by MTG’s paid-shill boyfriend) for not wearing a suit, but Musk never wears one in the Oval and no one says anything.

The Felon’s Spokesliar, KKKaroline Leavitt, said of Musk, “He wore one tonight,” referring to the joint-party rally speech The Felon gave. That was her only line, her dodge. “He wore one tonight.” Do you think SHE thinks she handled that one smoothly? Do you think SHE thinks she nailed it? Her line was stupid and everybody knows it. Well, everybody but MAGA and that’s really who it was for…

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Right now, the entire world is looking away from the US the way Americans look away from homeless people. “It’s a shame,” we think to ourselves, “but what can be done?” We move on with our lives, hoping for the best. That’s how the world is viewing the US since the rise of MAGA. “What a shame.” They look different directions. The world will spin without US hegemony. As it happens, the US needs the world, more than the world needs the US. Who knew? Well, everybody but MAGA, that’s who knew…

On The Death of Human Empathy…

by MyBaconPress

There was a woman named Hannah Arendt. She was a German born political scientist and philosopher. She was also Jewish. She lived during – and was forced to flee from – the Nazi persecution of the 1930’s and 40’s. She had the same front-row-seat-view of the decline of a once-respectable, once-proud civilization the Americans are suffering these days.

This is from Britannica; “Arendt viewed the growth of totalitarianism as the outcome of the disintegration of the traditional nation-state. She argued that totalitarian regimes, through their pursuit of raw political power and their neglect of material or utilitarian considerations, had revolutionized the social structure and made contemporary politics nearly impossible to predict.”

It sure feels as though we’re living in an age where contemporary politics are nearly impossible to predict, doesn’t it? It’s all part of the effort to create a totalitarian regime here, in the US, and a key part to all of THAT is the slow perversion of morality, a kind of moral stupidity that prides itself on being impervious to facts. And the key to THAT decline is found in the elimination or suppression of empathy.

‘Empathy’ is a noun. It means, “The ability to identify with or understand another’s situation or feelings.” In short, it’s the ability to effectively put oneself into another’s shoes. I suspect those who eventually became MAGA started with a distinct lack of empathy in the first place. It traces to a smaller-than-average Amygdala, a small, almond-shaped structure in the brain. Researchers have discovered, for example, that psychopathic serial killers have a small Amygdala that connects poorly with the frontal lobe. They literally can not imagine how their victims feel.

Obviously, I don’t mean to suggest that all of MAGA are serial killers. It takes more than JUST a small Amygdala to make a psychopath, but a small Amygdala is requisite to reduced empathy and the entire right-wing propaganda machine was built to eliminate any vestiges of empathy that might remain. Sadly, that propaganda has been VERY effective.

I seriously doubt I COULD become MAGA, today. I mean, even if I wanted to, which I don’t. I seriously doubt my ability to simply dismantle my morality so completely and all of a sudden. I mean, even MAGA didn’t do that. It took YEARS to make them the hard-hearted, and even hateful group they are today.

It literally started with word games. “Hey, let’s call the Inheritance Tax the ‘Death Tax!’ From there, they moved to lying, though they didn’t KNOW they were lying. They thought they were just playing the political game. The stories they told were for the greater good, right? Slowly, very slowly, they’ve been led, step by step, deeper down a rabbit hole of misinformation.

They became consumed by some VERY slick, VERY professional looking propaganda. Slowly, carefully, their fears became their guiding star. Whatever bigotry they harbored was enabled and enhanced and ultimately, approved. It didn’t happen quickly. It couldn’t have. But slowly, over time – 40 plus years, in fact – they’ve had whatever empathy they may once have enjoyed stolen from them.

The success of the would-be totalitarians is VERY dangerous to the United States and to the world, in general. The US has been the most powerful nation on Earth for 80 years. Now, we’re a huge toddler with a loaded gun. No, make that millions of loaded guns. And nukes. And all of it backed by “true believers,” unable to put themselves into the shoes of others.

It took a World War and some 60 million dead to stop the totalitarian regime Arendt was forced to flee, the Nazis, and nobody back then had the kind of weapons we have today. The policy called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) used to be a warning in name. Now it seems to be a reality the world is hurtling toward with a rather insane abandon. Arendt had something to say about that. “The death of human empathy,” she wrote, “is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.”

For me, the most ironic part of the decline of empathy in our society is that the single largest group of people to lose sight of that aspect of the human condition are the people who call themselves Christians. They never even suspect that their callous attitudes about others run contrary to the most basic teaching of their ostensible leader. I mean Jesus, not Donny. They’re in lockstep with Donny.

Somewhere along the way, I sort of dropped the Ten Commandments as guiding rules. For one thing, there are really only five: don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, and don’t covet. The others are just some form of “You have to like me best” from their “jealous God.”

More importantly, those that DO speak to morality can all be summed up in ONE teaching of Jesus. “So then, in everything treat others the same way you want them to treat you, for this is [the essence of] the Law and the [writings of the] Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12, the Amplified Bible)

Treat them the way you want them to treat you. Now there’s a concept. If you don’t want to be lied to, don’t lie. If you don’t want to be stolen from, don’t steal. See? Simple. If you don’t want to be ripped from your home and packed off in the middle of the night, maybe don’t support that behavior. It’s a nice little rule and it doesn’t even require empathy. One can be as selfish as anything and it still applies. You know what you don’t want someone else to do to you. Don’t do it to them. Easy.

The loss of empathy in a person does NOT preclude sympathy in that person, and that may be a key. While they can’t successfully put themselves into someone else’s shoes, they still understand distress when they, or someone they care about, experiences some consequence or effect. Honestly, I expect they will experience a whole new set of consequences and/or effects in the very near future. What I don’t know is if they’ll ever make the connection between their suffering and who is doing the actual infliction of that suffering.

Their media tells them the perpetrator is… well, whomever they can point to that isn’t the actual perpetrator. More to the point, they WANT to believe they’re on the side of righteousness. Who doesn’t? But their desire to NOT be the bad guy in this process may well prevent them from ever understanding or acknowledging their role as useful tools to the overthrow.

Those of us who never succumbed to the MAGA misinformation are all (foolishly, I fear) waiting for a cowboy on a white horse or a knight in shining armor to come in and rescue us. I don’t see any on the horizon. This is actually happening, whether we like it or not.

I don’t agree with everything Arendt has written or said, but I think she hit the nail on the head with her warning, “The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.”

I can see how easily we, the people, might fall into barbarism from where we are. Many already have. So it’s important for those of us still capable of empathy to hang on to it. Cling to it. Hold it close. The temptation will be there to disregard first the feelings of MAGA, then the person as a whole. It might seem the only way to cope, cut them off.

But YOUR empathy has to be the example. As a bonus, you MAY find that your empathy helps you cope with their LACK of empathy. Talk with them, but not about abstract concepts or people they don’t know. Share your experiences, how things affect YOU. Those are things they can relate to.

Empathy didn’t die of natural causes in this once-great nation. It was murdered. Slowly, steadily. Fortunately, not for everyone. We may be destined to barbarism. But maybe, just maybe, we can change the course. Set the example. Maybe OUR empathy will inspire a resurrection of empathy in someone else, one moment at a time, in one person at a time where it has been snuffed out. Empathy isn’t extinct so long as it exists in even one person, and it only takes a spark to get a fire going…

Highlighting the Gaslighting…

by MyBaconPress

I just want to pile on for a second. 47 actually said “and the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats is over.” He said it with Elon Musk, the shadow President sitting right there, in the room. The GOP pretended not to notice but everyone else in the world laughed at the moronic buffoon. If you’re going to claim the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats is over, you might want to make sure the unelected bureaucrat you’ve got ruling over the government can’t be panned to by the cameras, highlighting your gaslighting…

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Well, well, whaddaya know? It turns out, 47s tariffs aren’t so much just a stupid economic move. I mean, they ARE an incredibly stupid economic move, or, would be, if they were real. But it’s looking more and more like they’re just insider trading. Make no mistake, everybody still has to take them seriously. That’s why they’re so effective. People have no choice but to respond, just in case he really means it this time. But they may never be imposed. All of the tough talk and claims of concern are just gaslighting.

Have you noticed? He threatens tariffs. Because they’re such a stupid economic move, the stock market declines, usually by a LOT. Then he suspends the tariffs and the stock market comes back. MEANWHILE, he and his insider cronies have had a tremendous buying opportunity. Buy low, sell high. And he can do it over and over and over again.

He’s manipulating the market to his own advantage. Insider trading. Um, how else can I put this? Oh, yeah, MORE crime! What a guy. Yes, the back and forth of it IS doing serious harm to the economy but HE is making huge piles of money – and he doesn’t CARE if you suffer while he does so. In fact, I suspect he kind of likes that.

This is, essentially, the same dishonorable tactic he uses when he bankrupts businesses. Sometimes, I get tired all over listening to people say he’s a terrible businessman because he has bankrupted so many businesses. He has, too. But they were never “failures,” in any traditional sense. He KNOWS those businesses are going under even as he sets them up. He talks them up, brags about how great they’re going to be. But it’s all gaslighting.

He puts himself in a position to profit, personally, from the business while it exists and milks the thing dry. He can also borrow against the business – or he could, until US banks caught on to his scheme and stopped lending to him. That’s when he allegedly became a Russian agent. The Russians still provided him money so he’s literally in their (that is, Putin’s) pocket. Yes, setting up businesses one KNOWS will fail destabilizes local economies and harms all of the people associated with the business – except him. HE makes huge piles of money from each grift and he doesn’t CARE if you suffer while he does so.

If he was even half as competent as a President as he is as a thieving grifter, he might not be the totally useless waste of flesh he is…

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I’m beginning to feel a little embarrassed by my fellow Americans. People keep watching 47 take some new, destructive action and they ask, out loud, “Doesn’t he understand?” Yes. He does. It’s the whole point.

For decades, the GOP had been pushing the false idea that governments don’t work. This claim, too, is gaslighting. The biggest problem they’ve had the whole time is that governments DO work. There was only one option, right? Sabotage the government. So, that’s what they did.

Every tax cut for the rich starves the government of resources it needs to do it’s job. That’s not a surprise, nor is it a secret. It’s the plan. All these firings? The criminal maladministration isn’t finding ANY fraud, waste, nor abuse. They’re just firing people. THAT will have the effect of rendering government less effective. THEN, they’re going to hammer on the idea that governments can’t work, point to the struggling agencies, the agencies they sabotaged for the purpose, and say, “See?”

It’s a two-prong gain for the greedy. One, they get to run an openly criminal authoritarian regime (have you noticed?) and two, they’ll get to privatize everything. For clarity, “privatize” is corporate-speak for “steal even more.” To the best of my knowledge there isn’t a single sector, not ONE, where the US has privatized operations and the operation because cheaper NOR more efficient. Instead, it becomes more expensive and LESS effective – but some greed-head gets to shave off some money and stick it in his pockets.

This is the pinnacle of the so-called “unfettered free market.” You can buy anything you can afford – even citizenship. Sadly, most of us won’t be able to “afford” anything. For the masses, life becomes a daily, desperate struggle for survival. A very small group of people own everything. There’s a small middle class that lives to serve that hyper wealthy group. Then there’s everybody else.

It’s weird I have to go to this level of detail, but think about it. If you’re not in the hyper-wealthy crowd and you don’t get into the tiny, wealthy-serving middle class, where does that leave YOU?

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Hey, take a quick lesson from Elon. Joe Six-pack is constantly told that CEOs get paid so much because they’re so completely and totally vital to the operation of whichever organization they front. I have long-since doubted that, most especially when one gets to larger and larger organizations. I say, the bigger the corporation, the less important the CEO. And claims to the contrary? By now, surely you’ve picked up on my theme.
“Yeah, yeah… gaslighting. And don’t call me ‘Shirley.'” (Sorry…)

Oh, you doubt me? Elon has been living around the White House. He’s the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, the Boring Company, and the Brand X web site. He’s nowhere near them. He’s ignoring them, even as sales and stock prices are plummeting, users are fleeing, his rockets are exploding, and his Starlink satellites fall from the sky, damaging the Ozone layer.

Quick question: How important is the CEO if he never has to even show his face around the company? So… why are they paid so effing much, again?

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If it ain’t Clarence “Pay Me” Thomas, it’s Samuel “Gimme, gimme” Alito. In this case, it’s Alito. The Roberts Supremely Kangaroo Court recently made a ruling that – you might want to sit down for this – their ruling was in keeping with the Constitution! I didn’t know they were CAPABLE OF that, let alone that they might. Basically, they ruled that the money being illegally held by 47’s criminal enterprise had to be released to pay contractors for work already completed.

9-0 decision, right? I mean, it’s a no-brainer. The Constitution clearly gives CONGRESS the power of the purse in what’s left of our government. The House looks over spending, the Senate looks over the spending, they come to an agreement and authorize the money. 535 people look at it and make the decision – all in keeping with the Constitution. But, no. Somehow, four of the “justices” pretend to think Donny has the power to just… keep the money if he wants to.

“Does a single district court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars?” “Gimme, gimme” Alito wrote in his dissent. “The answer to that question should be an emphatic “No.” But a majority of this court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.”

You’re not “stunned,” Sam. You’re corrupt. That’s different. Oh, AND? (Say it with me) You’re gaslighting! The “single district court judge” didn’t authorize the money, Congress did. The single district court judge just ruled that contracts must be honored. The work was completed, the money should be paid. Alito HATES that. (If you’re a contractor and Alito wants to hire you to do work, take note. He doesn’t believe in paying what he owes any more than Donny does. Get the money up front. ALL of it…)

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I guess you won’t be any more surprised than I was – that is, not at all – to learn that the so-called “reporter,” Brian Glenn, who attacked Zelensky for not wearing a suit in the Oval – completely ignoring Muck’s sartorial choices – is actually a paid shill for 47. Technically, I think this one is more ‘hypocrisy’ than gaslighting. We’ll call it ‘gaslighting adjacent.’

He has even confessed as much, though he tried to pretend that the payments were to cover the cost of cameras and such. He pointed to a row of them and said, “Who pays for them?” In a proper journalistic environment, the interviewing company pays for them, not the person being interviewed. But he needed an “explanation” and that’s the best he could come up with. Hey, he’s MTG’s boyfriend, too. How could he be much more than a Medulla Oblingata and very little else and continue to hang around such a mental disappointment?

So AP didn’t get to come in to the Oval for that “meeting” with Zelenskyy. Neither did Reuters. But 47 DID allow a Russian TASS agent AND a paid shill. I thought he had promised to “drain the swamp,” not create new swamp monsters. Hey, you don’t suppose he was gaslighting, do you? When would he never do that?

It’s Only Thursday…

by MyBaconPress

I’ll tell you what’s weird. I received… no, that’s not right. My ESTATE received a notice from the VA expressing their condolences on my passing. “Wait,” I wondered, “am I dead?” I don’t actually FEEL dead, you know? Well, no, nobody knows what it “feels” like to be dead except dead people and I’m not one. (Unless this is a ‘Sixth Sense’ kind of deal and I just don’t KNOW I’m dead.)

Possible spoiler alert: if I AM dead, then I can tell you that when you’re dead, you’ll feel just like you did when you were alive. Sadly, that means all the same parts that hurt right now will continue to hurt. That’s not better. But how cool is it that I can still type on my computer? Or can I? Can you read this?

I received my “bummer for you” notice from the VA on a Saturday. They weren’t around on the weekend so I had to wait until Monday morning to contact them. It seems they were willing to accept me talking to them on the telephone – ostensibly live – as evidence I’m not dead yet, which I appreciate. I’m assured the whole mess will be straightened out soon, but in at least one official computer, I spent a couple of days “dead.” Now I’m alive again. Resurrected, in a manner of speaking.

What do you know? Jesus ISN’T the only one to pull off that trick! You’all might want to be impressed NOW and avoid the rush…

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Okay, back to the swamp. Sorry. I thought to myself, “Why would I watch? He’s going to lie – just, make things up out of whole cloth – and claim great successes he has yet to accomplish and never will.” I should have trusted my instincts. But I tuned in for a bit. Guess what? He lied. He just made things up out of whole cloth. He claimed great success but has actually only produced damage and suffering. In fairness, his goal is damage and suffering so, I guess, technically, that IS “success.” It’s just not the kind of “success” any decent human being would aspire to, right?

I DID get to see Rep. Al Green escorted out for speaking the truth. He addressed the dumbass lie that The Felon has a “mandate.” That’s a sin in Washington DC these days, speaking the truth. I’m sure the right is all aflutter about Green doing it during the speech. They’ll conveniently forget the way that behavior became “acceptable” during the Obama administration when GOPrick Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted “You lie!” during Obama’s State of the Union. MTG then copied the behavior during a Biden address. NOW it’s an outrage?

One of 47’s falsehoods was about “trans” mice. He claimed someone was using millions of dollars to switch the sexes of mice. The problem? The word he saw was “transgenic,” not “transsexual.” Transgenic means the mice are genetically modified to accept human illnesses for research purposes. Now, I’ll tell you the truth, I didn’t know “transgenic,” either. But I guarantee you, I would have at least looked it up before I stood up in front of the world and made an utter fool of myself berating the misuse of money to change mouse sexes. I’d bet a DOLLAR there’s a dictionary in the White House. (I might lose that. Donny might have determined that dictionaries are a liberal plot and demanded their removal…)

President Musk and sub-president trump HAVE initiated their assault on Social Security. For clarity, that’s not just “liberal” Social Security. Are you a bright red MAGA, proudly wearing the mark of the beast on your forehead, supporting Trump in all things at all times, showing up at rallies, buying busloads of cheap, foreign-made crap The Felon hawks at every opportunity? Yeah, he’s coming for YOUR Social Security, too.

He DID say, twice that I heard, that Elon Musk is in charge of the illegal DOGE. I’m guessing the lawyers jumped all over that since it directly contradicts a court filing the government made. I THINK lying to courts is still a bad thing and now, with 47’s help, the court KNOWS the maladministration lied…

And have you HEARD his “idea” about the ‘Gold Card?’ Yeah, that will be for SALE! “Oh, you want to come to the United States and be a citizen? Here fill out this paperwork. Get yourself a lawyer because it’s a fuckin’ labyrinth of confusion and potential missteps that will cost you time and money and can easily derail success. Set aside the next couple of years of your life because you’ll need to be going back and forth from the embassy to answer questions, or provide more detail. No, it isn’t easy coming to America but it’s important that we screen every applicant to minutest detail to ensure only decent people get in…”

“OR, you could just pay Donald Trump $5 million dollars for a ‘Gold Card’ and walk right in. Oh, a Gold Card? Yeah, that’s a Green Card PLUS! YOU get immediate, unscreened access to the United States, PLUS Trump gets $5 million of your dollars. It’s a win-win.” And what could go wrong?

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For today, many Republicans are publicly disavowing The First Felon’s ridiculous claim that Ukraine invaded Russia. I expect they’ll be brought to heel soon, but for now, they’re accidentally expressing truth. The latest I’ve seen is H.R. McMaster. You remember McMaster. He was 47’s National Security Advisor during Trump’s first failed efforts in the White House. He knows Donny personally and better than you do.

McMaster did an interview with ’60 Minutes’ where he said, “Vladimir Putin couldn’t be happier, because what he sees is all of the pressure on Zelensky, all of the pressure on Ukraine and no pressure on him.” McMaster noted that Putin is a “master manipulator” with a deep understanding of how to work Trump to Russia’s advantage.

“He appeals to President Trump’s sense of aggrievement,” McMaster said. “And he’s been very successful at it because he’s a master manipulator and one of the best liars in the world.” (Editors note: I think Trump sees Putin as a role model.)

47 handled it with his usual aplomb and posted this to his failing social media platform late Sunday, “H.R. MCMASTER IS A WEAK AND TOTALLY INEFFECTIVE LOSER!” I don’t know. It seems like projection, to me, but it’s also stupid. If he’s an “INEFFECTIVE LOSER,” does that mean he’s ineffective at being a loser? Does that mean he’s a winner? If he wants lessons at being an effective loser, he should talk to the Democrats. Those idiots lose everything!

Then he added a separate post: “We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country—So that we don’t end up like Europe!”

There he goes again, protecting Putin and working hard to distract the morally defective MAGA faithful by talking about all the scary, scary things they spend their days, nights, weekends, and vacations being terrified about, but never, ever see with their own eyes and in real life. Rape gangs. What a buffoon.

Donald J. Trump has humbled and humiliated the United States of America on the world stage. He’s an embarrassment and he has reduced the nation to a laughing stock. “…so we don’t end up like Europe!” I would MUCH rather end up like 2025 Europe than the 1939 Germany he’s working so hard to make us.

I’ll tell you this: I think the very FIRST person President Musk should send to Mars is Trump and Musk should go with him to make sure he gets there safely. Oh, no return trip? Bummer…

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I strongly suspect that 47’s “path to peace” for Ukraine is for Ukraine to surrender the land Russia has stolen – and probably whatever other land Putin wants. I suspect that is the real reason that conversation became so testy the other day. I mean, obviously, it was an ambush, but it would have helped to have Zelenskyy in a state of mind to defend Ukraine’s situation and discussing the possibility of just giving away the store to Putin in private before the press came in would be just the ticket.

Now Donny (by which I mean Putin) has suspended arms deliveries from the US to Ukraine. According to Reuters, the Kremlin says suspending military aid is the best hope for peace in Ukraine. So there you go. The First Felon has violated a treaty in which the US promised to defend Ukraine and turned his back on people fighting to defend themselves from an illegal invasion AND made Putin giddy by weakening Putin’s opponent.

Look, I know nobody is going to do anything about it, but how does that NOT make Trump a traitor, offering aid and comfort to an adversary? I have LONG since understood Trump is a Russian asset, handled personally by Putin. I’m not exactly surprised whenever 47 does things intended to help Russia. But I AM disappointed every time…

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Did you know that The Felon took all the boxes retrieved from the FBI Mar-a-Lardo search back to Mar-a-Lardo? It makes it so much easier for his Russian friends to come in an get copies…

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Wow, two of the corrupt kangaroos joined the rational few to order The Felon to pay the money already spent by USAID contractors. 47, in his normal style, intended to just stiff them. In a 5-4 ruling, the Way High Court said he has to pay. John Roberts and Amy Coney-Barrett did the right thing. Bought and paid for Clarence “give me more” Thomas, Samuel “I’m gettin’ mine” Alito, Neil “Luv my stolen seat” Gorsuch, and Brett “I like beer” Kavanaugh continue to suck.

I’ll tell you this: It always surprises me when this horribly corrupt court does the right thing for some reason…

It’s The Morality, Stupid…

by MyBaconPress

I hear a LOT, these days, from lefties who are suggesting strategies for the next election. Oh, we could do this or we should do that. Uh-huh. So far, 47 has been a wrecking ball of lawbreaking. Evidence suggests he took the White House through cheating in the first place and since getting there, he has pretty much ignored the law in general. He does what he wants to do, legal or not, AND empowers toadies to do the same. So, um…

What in this HELL makes you think that come “election” time, he’s suddenly going to gain some great respect for the Constitution and stand down and accept the outcome of any election, whether he likes it or not?

My whole life, ‘voting’ has been the “solution” to whatever political problem ailed us. Don’t like the guy? Vote him out. Much of my life, that worked. I’m not sanguine that it’s going to work anymore. I suspect we’re going to start seeing Republican “wins” by, like, 94% all of a sudden, especially The Felon in his NEXT “election.”
“No, he can’t run again.”
“Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“No, the Constitution says…”
“The Constitution specifically says he can’t even hold office THIS time, yet there he is. What does HE care what the Constitution says?”
“Well the Supreme Court said…”
“The Supreme Court ruled the exact opposite of what the Fourteenth Amendment actually reads. They ruled by preference, not the law. When it gets to them, they’ll just pretend they read that a person can only serve two terms at a time, or some such.”
“But that doesn’t make sense.”
“Neither did their ruling on the Fourteenth Amendment. Or Citizen’s United, for that matter. The current SCOTUS IS the ‘Deep State,’ these days…”
“Well, crap!”

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Around the turn of the century, Measles was declared eradicated. Then the moral-defect crowd decided, for political reasons, that vaccines are bad. Now? Kids are dying. Excellent work.

Have you noticed that when The First Felon in infesting the White House, the United States also becomes embroiled in some medical emergency? It’s almost as if he brings the pestilence. The LAST time, it was worldwide. THIS time it seems contained to the US, which seems appropriate, but the end result for Americans is the same: we’re screwed because we don’t have a competent leader when we need one.

LAST time it was “drink bleach and get a black light into the body.” And THAT was when he was surrounded by competent doctors with competent medical opinions. NOW all he has is RFK, Jr. – the very picture of medical incompetence.

Okay, that was fun to write but in fairness, RFK, Jr sent vaccines to address the problem in Texas. (And, of course, it’s Texas.) Weird, but that’s what happened. I’m guessing there’s a pending rebuke for actually turning to actual science to solve a science problem. That’s generally a no-no in MAGA land…

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I use a source called ‘Ground News’ to track the amount of coverage a given story is getting in the press. It’s not perfect. It doesn’t cover opinions as much as journalism for example. Since most of MAGA media consists of “opinion” – the euphemism they use for “false stories” – I can’t be sure of the extent they’re hearing about the recent White House ambush on Zelenskyy.

But as far as journalism, there’s not much happening. The right is mostly not covering the outburst. The left has been focused. Journalists on the right have taken a somewhat ho-hum attitude. That’s because it’s yet another betrayal by Trump. I’ll tell you this: I ALWAYS expect the worst from him and he never lets me down. And yet, every time he behaves exactly the way I expect him to behave, I STILL feel disappointed. I keep hoping (against hope) that maybe, just this ONE time, he’ll demonstrate some basic, human decency. Intellectually, I KNOW he won’t. He can’t. And yet, I hope. I guess that makes it more of a wish.

WHY is it a betrayal? Because the US is obligated by treaty, along with other NATO nations, to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression, specifically. You see, when the USSR collapsed, Ukraine was left with a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons. In fact, at the time, they held the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

Do you think Putin would have invaded Ukraine had they kept those weapons? I doubt it seriously. But they didn’t keep them. In fairness, when Ukraine was released from USSR control, those weapons represented a huge cost I doubt they were ready to shoulder but there are options. They might well have found a way. But they didn’t need to. Under the Budapest Accords, Ukraine chose to eliminate their nuclear stockpile in exchange for security guarantees. They received their guarantees. They kept their part of the bargain. Now 47 can’t bring himself to honor the promise if Zelenskyy doesn’t a) pay him and b) grovel appropriately.

Now, obviously, Trump doesn’t understand what a real tough guy looks like, but Zelenskyy IS one. He’s not going to grovel and he’s certainly not going to say “nice things” about the invader. The First Felon is out of his depth, here. He should just let grown ups handle things and shut his pie-hole.

Just as an aside, according to Reuters, ‘Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said there were “whispers from the White House that they may try to end all U.S. support for Ukraine… I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embracing Putin, a threat to democracy and U.S. values around the world.”‘

Today she describes herself as “sick to her stomach.” Tomorrow she’ll vote with the majority anyway. Honor seems to be yesterdays news, along with decency, honesty, and empathy. This is just the latest example of MAGA moral decline. They’re cheering the aggressor and deriding the victims…

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I’m glad to know I’m not the only one concerned about the MAGA moral decline and it offers me hope to know there are still sane Republicans in this country. David Brooks is one such and he DOES NOT like what’s going on. After 47 ambushed Zelenskyy in the White House in an apparent attempt to get some good footage for the Kremlin, Brooks said this: “Donald Trump believes in one thing. He believes that might makes right. And, in that, he agrees with Vladimir Putin that they are birds of a feather. And he and Vladimir Putin together are trying to create a world that’s safe for gangsters, where ruthless people can thrive. And we saw the product of that effort today in the Oval Office.”

“And I have — I first started thinking, is it — am I feeling grief? Am I feeling shock, like I’m in a hallucination? But I just think shame, moral shame. It’s a moral injury to see the country you love behave in this way.”

At this point, deeply loyalist MAGA are probably lost to their fate but there are still moral Republicans and they need to keep speaking up. Our once-great nation is lost but decent Americans NEED the world to see that we’re not all bad…

Keep Shouting…

by MyBaconPress

Well, wow! THAT was something, wasn’t it? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to the US in an effort to gain security guarantees in exchange for access to Ukraine’s rare earths. I haven’t seen much of JD Vance since the “election” but he was there this time. His role seemed to be in reminding Zelenskyy that 47 doesn’t do ANYTHING unless he gets a verbal handjob talking about how great he is, so Zelenskyy had better bow low in supplication. “You CAN’T say ‘Thank you’ enough…”

THEN Vance accused Zelenskyy of not negotiating with Putin. Zelenskyy corrected that false information. Of course, this is the ‘fact-free maladministration’ and facts are viewed as something of a mortal sin in the White House these days. So, obviously, Vance and Putin’s Puppet just had to push back – against facts. Something of a shouting match ensued.

At one point, The First Felon started trying to pressure Zelenskyy to say “something nice” about Putin. Zelenskyy refused. I get that. Imagine someone coming into your house and murdering your entire family. Everyone knows who did it. An arrest is made quickly and when the killer gets to court, the judge says he’ll hand down the sentence only AFTER you say “something nice” about the killer. THAT is the situation Zelenskyy is in, and 47 wants Zelenskyy to say something NICE about Putin?!? Frankly, I think Zelenskyy showed great restraint in that room. Oh, but as always with this crowd, the plot thickens.

It turns out, there was secretly a member of Russian State TV, TASS, embedded with the hand-picked press pool in the room that day. Reuters wasn’t allowed in. AP wasn’t allowed in. But TASS got in. When I heard THAT part, I understood The First Felon’s focus on getting Zelenskyy to say something nice about Putin. My guess? That was Trump’s assignment. “Make him to say something nice about me on camera,” Putin ordered, “We take from there.”

If there was something nice to say about Putin, and Zelenskyy HAD said it, the Russians would have put that crap on a loop and put it out into the world in a matter of minutes. It would have been a tremendous propaganda coup for Russia. But Trump failed. (I wonder if he still gets paid…) Zelenskyy MAY have been too smart for Trump’s clumsy efforts but, mostly, I just don’t think there IS anything nice to say about Putin so Zelenskyy was just being honest.

When the White House was asked how a Russian state TV “reporter” got into the room, the answer was – get this – he wasn’t supposed to be there. Remember, this was a hand-picked press pool, but this guy just wandered in? They pointed out that after Trump failed to secure the required footage, the TASS “reporter” was escorted out. (No, they didn’t quite phrase it that way. That’s just what happened…)

Wait, can we roll that back a little bit? Did you say someone just…wandered into the Oval Office? In the White House? Can people DO that, just wander in to the Oval Office? It’s very curious how a TASS “reporter” managed it – and only long enough to witness 47 trying to get Zelenskyy to say “something nice” about Putin. Very curious, indeed.

I’m sure, by now, MAGA thinks 47 was in awesome form, pretending to be a tough guy, and that Zelenskyy got what he deserved, but, really, MAGA is the least dependable source on the planet these days. They know nothing. Much of the rest of the world understood exactly what happened: Trump made a fool of himself. Again. Yet another blunder from the Blunderer-in-Chief.

Also, this marks not one, but TWO more failures on The First Felon’s part. One, he failed to cajole Zelenskyy into giving Putin the footage he wanted and, two, he failed to resolve that war. Technically, he had ALREADY failed on that one, having promised peace within 48 hours of being elected. But NOW he hasn’t even settled the issue 48 hours after a meeting on the topic. Nope, make it three failures.

He ALSO failed to secure the deal to gain access to Ukraine’s rare earths. Fail, fail, fail. It turns out, diplomacy and negotiation involves more than just shouting “Make a deal!” at someone. And, by the way, has anybody heard the details of the “deal” he wants Zelenskyy to make? Based on Trump’s previous fealty to Putin, I’d guess that Trump “recommends” that Zelenskyy just give Putin what he wants and call it even.

I’ll tell you this: I’m starting to believe that Trump may not be the master of the deal that he pretends to be, outside of criminal activity, I mean…

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You’re looking for money. You need it and you need a LOT. Why are you rooting around in the couch cushions for loose change and ignoring the huge jar of cash sitting on the counter? In my mind, that’s the equivalent of what Musk’s criminal DOGE group is doing. They intend to find savings in order to partially pay for the tax cuts they want. THAT, they insist, means eliminating people from jobs that need to be done. But so long as they can SAY those jobs don’t need to be done, they’re good, right? Setting aside, of course, that people can SAY anything. It’s still the same as seeking loose change in the cushions.

Meanwhile, there are billions of dollars being handed over to huge corporations that are in very good shape and don’t need any help at all. How is THAT not fraud, waste, and abuse? In America, corporations are the true welfare queens. Corporate welfare is about twice what the US pays in social welfare. But rich people benefit from corporate welfare, so the rich people are coming after social welfare.

Oh, it should be added that social welfare almost always creates value. People get their money back. That makes it an investment. Corporate welfare, on the other hand, doesn’t really benefit anybody since the corporations that receive it don’t need it. As it happens, when you give something to someone who doesn’t need it, he just throws it on the pile. It doesn’t help anyone. So, of course the rich people are coming after social welfare.

Republicans are working day and night to throw millions of people out of their jobs and their health insurance but Elon will still get his subsidies. We don’t even know how much Elon takes, for sure, because some of his welfare comes through the Pentagon. And NOW, his criminal position allows him to secure even more of your money. How could THAT be a conflict of interest, MAGA wonders.

If the criminal DOGE was interested in saving money, they’d look at corporate welfare. Since they’re not looking at corporate welfare, they must have some OTHER goal in mind. Every day we’re moving closer to needing those guillotines. Then? We’ll need an economic system that works well for everyone, not just rich people…

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

The First Felon is ramping up his blame machine. The economy is about to experience a huge downturn. It’s the direct result of the current incompetence in the White House but, since 47 is pathologically incapable of taking responsibility for the things he does, he’s marching people out to blame, um…(checks notes) – Biden. Wait, Biden? Oh, of course he is.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Biden DID set him up. Biden left ALL of the economic indicators in favorable positions as he shuffled out the door. Inflation was down, gas was more affordable, unemployment was down. Consumer confidence was rising. The stock market just kept hitting new record highs. Things were looking good. But to hear Trump tell it, hidden in the weeds in there, somewhere, Biden left an economic bomb.

The really amazing part is, not ONLY did Biden leave a bomb set to go off, he managed to set it to go off only AFTER 47 started making his own moves. If I understand correctly, had The Felon simply not made any changes, the bomb would never have gone off. But that’s not the end of it. SOMEHOW, Biden tricked 47 into firing people by the tens of thousands AND initiate an incredibly stupid, totally unnecessary trade war against, well, against the whole world.

That means that Biden set a bomb so detailed, SO intricate, Donny couldn’t even describe it, let alone diffuse it. AND… he performed this feat of amazement even though he was trapped in the throes of debilitating senility. That, right there, is a master class in the senile genius of incompetent accomplishment.

Well, it’s either that or 47 is lying AGAIN in an effort to deflect blame for his own failures…

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MAGA Mike the Johnson is lying, too. By now, you’ve likely seen the videos of Congress critters holding town halls in which the crowd is openly hostile and shouting at their representative to do something. That’s gotta suck for the representative, but I suppose it’s the price one pays when one aligns themselves with evil. They’re not going to do anything to stop this, but they have to take the shouting from furious people.

MAGA Mike says the people shouting are paid protestors. Well, unless someone asks for proof. THEN, he admits he doesn’t know if they’re paid but instead pivots to “they’re Democrats,” ignoring the fact that they are also constituents. He says they come early and fill the seats. He calls it an “old trick.” THAT part, I believe. He would know the strategy. It certainly explains videos of cons shouting down their Democratic representatives, right?

The thing is, the cons were shouting because they didn’t know the truth about what the left was doing. The left is shouting because we DO know the truth about what the right is doing. That is to say, we’re shouting for the right reasons. So, keep shouting…

Not Making Sense…

by MyBaconPress

I guess making America great again involves crashing consumer confidence in the economy, since that’s what’s happening. Consumer confidence dropped more in February than it has in four years. (Quick question: who was in charge those last four years?)

According to the Guardian, “Views of current labor market conditions weakened,” the business research group, The Conference Board, said on Tuesday. “Consumers became pessimistic about future business conditions and less optimistic about future income. Pessimism about future employment prospects worsened and reached a 10-month high.”

I wonder how mass firings of tens of thousands of workers and a trade war could have done that?

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Raise your hand if you’re as sick of Susan Collins’ Shtick as I am. She says she’s “very concerned” about the mass firings in the Federal government. She’s forever saying in the media that she has “questions” about things, then being a loyal, faithful, and true vote for evil and destruction. We’re not fooled, Susan. STFU…

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I’ve head about this planned one-day economic shutdown set for Friday. I’m all in but I also don’t think one day will be enough. It’s likely MAGA has heard about it and will make a greater effort to BUY on that day to offset decent people’s actions. In my opinion, we should strive to squelch our conditioned tendency to buy anything at all for as long as it takes. I mean, one has to buy basics and such but anything that CAN be put off, should be put off. Just a thought…

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Suddenly Gavin Newsom is acting all MAGA. He had decided that cities need to eliminate homeless people or they’ll be punished. The cities, I mean. The homeless people are already being punished. As it happens, although the problem shows up in individual cities and towns around the state, homelessness is a STATE problem.

There’s ONE way to fix the homelessness problem in California – and everywhere else. Stop Wall Street types from buying single family homes and require them to divest from those they already own. Period. EVERYTHING else is just a waste of time and money. It equates to shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Stopping Wall Street types from buying single family homes in California would take an act by the state legislature. It SHOULD be nation wide, but the GOP clowns in Congress are ONLY concerned with tax cuts for the greedy rich and don’t give two figs about Joe Six-pack. City by city won’t work. It MUST be state wide.

So, essentially, Gavin is blaming the victims, whether that be the homeless themselves or the cities they live in. Force the big investors out. The problem will go away in about the same ten years it took to balloon to this size. DON’T force the investors out and the problem will not ever go away. It can’t. It doesn’t happen often, in life, but it really IS that simple…

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Apparently, Russia is praising Washington’s new “more balanced” stance on Ukraine. That appears to be Russian for “telling the same lie we tell.” 47 has taken to saying Ukraine started the war. That’s some intractable stupidity, right there. And, listen, gaslight away, but the whole fucking world knows who started that war. When I hear someone say otherwise, I don’t stop and think, “Oh, time to reassess.” I think, “What a moron…”

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

Listen, I know corporate media has a tendency to find a topic and hammer on it, but have you SEEN the number of aircraft incidents that are occurring around US airports, these days? On Tuesday, a Southwest Airlines jet had to pull up again after touching down because a private plane taxied onto the runway.

It was an error (or perhaps disregard) on the part of the pilot of the private plane. They call it a “near miss.” (George Carlin pointed out that it’s a “near hit.”) I don’t think one can righteously pin this on 47’s attack on the FAA. But the overall perception of flying as suddenly FAR more dangerous since his attack is getting worse by the day.

I’ll tell you this: I won’t be surprised to hear that people are actively avoiding flying, these days, if they can manage it. The airlines will start whining about the money they’re losing but the system MUST be perceived as safe if people are going to participate and with The First Felon running the show, nothing seems safe anymore…

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I think MAGA is being conditioned to believe that Musk’s actions are “audits.” He’s not slashing and burning agency after agency because it’s a good way to cut his own taxes. He’s “auditing” them, and that just HAPPENS to result in a scorched-Earth practice that coincidentally “frees up” money to pay for tax cuts for the super rich. A classic lose-win.

Dear MAGA: these are NOT “audits,” no matter what they tell you. An audit takes time. It’s actually a lot of work. I don’t care HOW good you are at the computer, one can NOT just look at a computer printout and make valid decisions about spending. It doesn’t work that way. It’s okay that you don’t understand that, but, maybe, not supporting positions one doesn’t understand is the better part of discretion…

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As every thinking American knows, DOGE is illegal and Musk’s actions are illegal. MAGA conditioning renders MAGA incapable of anything more than a “So what?” But people with better moral compasses have been trying to pin down 47 on whom, exactly, runs DOGE. It could be anybody, we’re told, but whoever it is, it certainly isn’t Musk. Uh-huh…

The problem is, there are proper, legal procedures to establish a new Federal agency AND to install a director of that agency and, obviously, the criminal maladministration has done neither. Ergo, the illegality of the whole thing. But Elon’s self-serving role seems to be a weak point in the whole scheme, legally, and interested parties are looking closely. So the White House recently named the actual director, a woman named Amy Gleason.

Musk, so the story goes, is just a senior advisor to The Felon. GLEASON is making all the decisions. She was in Mexico when the announcement was made, wholly unaware of the developments in the demented minds of GOP. Meanwhile, it’s MUSK who shows up for the press conferences, MUSK who issues the orders, MUSK who fires people, and MUSK working to protect the actions of his, er, Gleason’s illegal agency.

Hmm. Have you noticed? Sometimes, 47’s stories don’t make complete sense…

What Gets Destroyed Today?

by MyBaconPress

I’m not a fan of Elon Musk. (Oh, have you noticed?) I get irritated every time I hear one of his fan boys talk about how brilliant he is. Bill Maher, for example, will broach NO comment against Elon and insists he’s a genius. Musk is not a genius. He’s an opportunist. It’s a common complaint I have about all of these self-described “geniuses” because, in truth, they don’t DO anything except invest in companies – often to the detriment of that company.

People actually believe Elon developed the Tesla, for example. He didn’t. He bought into the company when it was distressed and exploits a legal agreement to describe himself as a founder. He wasn’t a founder. He bought it. (His seed money for all of his “successes” came from his father’s allegedly illegal emerald mine in South Africa.)

But in this country, once a belief takes hold, it can take on a life of it’s own. When I complain that Musk has never accomplished anything in his life, he’s only stolen things, I get a lot of push-back. So I wanted to share something from the author of an upcoming biography of the conman, a writer named Seth Abramson.

“It does not take intelligence to, having thrown money at a politician, use the clout you accrued from that to advantage your own businesses—businesses you are well aware you have nothing to do with the success of, which is why you mess around with their patents to hide that fact.”

“If you assign intelligence to just spending money, you’re in a cult,” Abramson added. “If you attach intelligence to simply owning a successful company whose work on a day-to-day basis you have nothing to do with and who you are considerably more of a hindrance to than a help to, you’re in a cult.”

“It is also a particularly American disease to confuse wealth with intelligence and corporations with those who own them. In most of the world the conversation we are having would seem utterly preposterous, as again there is no evidence of Musk having *intellectual* achievements.”

Weird. As it happens, those words apply neatly to another lying gasbag of self-promotion we all know and increasingly hate…

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Speaking of Musk, he sent out an email to all Federal workers demanding that they report to him what they did last week. Failure to comply will be interpreted as a resignation. Well, no, that’s not right. He sent the email demanding to know what people did last week. Then he posted the threat on social media.

Based on what he’s done to Brand X and hate-filled trolls who lurk there, I’m of the opinion that most people missed the “threat” part, since fewer and fewer people use his quickly-crashing site.

I hope people don’t comply. Some will, of course. There are STILL people out there who think he’s doing an awesome job. Sadly, there will always be some. They’ll be cheering for 47 even as he fires THEM and leaves THEM out in the cold. “Oh, he burned me so bad! Isn’t he great?”

The deadline is today at 11:59pm. CAN he tie any responses he gets to actual employees? CAN he read something like 2 million emails? No, we’re told, but AI can. AI? Is that the same AI that regularly draws human beings with six fingers? Would you trust YOUR job to AI? We know you’re going to LOSE your job to AI sooner or later, but in the meantime, do you want AI determining your employment viability? I’ll bet it makes mistakes…

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The First Felon, himself, has now declared “inflation is back.” HIS words. Now, obviously, even though it was under control when Biden left office and the only person responsible is him, it’s clearly not his fault, at least in his mind. Nothing is EVER his fault, in his mind. Most especially when it is.

Most of the world knows that 47 won by cheating but the narrative is that he “won” on groceries. Even HE says as much. He promised, over and over, to bring down the prices of pretty much everything. He hasn’t done anything toward that end. In fact, every move he makes seems calculated to put inflation on steroids and let ‘er rip.

Truthfully, no political bunk here, but so far, the only thing I’ve seen him do is play golf and work day and night to “get even” with anybody he feels has slighted him. And the dude’s paranoid, among other things, so in his mind, EVERYONE has slighted him.

President Muck is the only one I see doing anything that might pass for “work” from that crowd and the work he’s doing is destructive and illegal. Oh, and stupid. He’s doing things stupidly. Blindly firing people, then trying to get them back? Yeah, that’s stupid. And it hasn’t been a one-time bad deal. He keeps doing it, over and over, demonstrating a rather remarkable inability to learn.

That’s the exact same tactic he used after he bought the very popular Twitter and turned it into the trash heap it is today. MAGA loves it. They can’t WAIT to see their own government in a trash heap. But most Americans are keeping a careful distance from that particular gutter.

This is just a sidebar, but can anybody explain to me Musk’s obsession with the letter ‘X?’ He changed the name of Twitter to X, which was stupid. He slapped an X at the end of the word Space for his rocket company to get the oh-so-not-cleaver ‘SpaceX.’ He even has a son named X (for short) and a daughter named Exa. In fairness, he has eleven other kids NOT named with the letter X so, there’s that. I’d love to X him out of the picture entirely. He’s one of the very few immigrants I’d like to see deported to his home country, but apparently, they don’t want him there, either…

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The Felon is so stupid he doesn’t even know who started the war between Russia and Ukraine. That’s some pretty basic stuff, right there. It turns out? It was a bad idea to put a neurotic moron in the White House…

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The Wrecking Ball Crew is now out there pretending they might send a $5,000 dollar “DOGE dividend” out to everyone. I guess that’s supposed to buy people’s silence? I mean, what’s the point? It’s not bad enough that DOGE is taking millions of dollars, now they’re pretending that the money they “save” should be sent out to people? Well, how does that “save” anything?

I think of it as an attempted buyout. We take the $5k, see, then, in exchange, we accept the incoming authoritarian regime peacefully. “Would you sell your government for 5,000?” It would be FAR better to simply go back to destroying Twitter and leave the government functioning. Let a smarter, more qualified person take on the task of finding and eliminating redundant positions, rather than just bombing agencies, then trying to revive the bodies of the victims it turns out you still need.

How about you KEEP your $5,000 dollars, leave agencies working the way they’re supposed to, and get the fuck out of my government? How about that?

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The Felon fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q. Brown. Instead, 47 wanted to hire Bozo the clown because he saw him on television a couple of times and the dumbass actually believes that makes Bozo qualified. Sadly, Bozo was unavailable. Fortunately, 47 can still choose from a frighteningly large group of other clowns – and they’re all standing patiently in line, waiting THEIR turn to destroy things…

The Midas Touch…

by MyBaconPress

All I see is unrestrained greed. Rampant and unrelenting greed. Republicans in Congress are working, literally day and night, to pass a massive tax cut to the richest people in the world. Another tax cut. They don’t need it. It won’t help anything. In fact, it will make things worse. But it’s all they can think about, throwing another penny on the pile. In order to pay for it, they see no option but to gut the social safety net.

As a direct result of the privileged class’s previous greedy moves, many Americans rely on the social safety net to survive. So here’s the question. If the richest people cut the social safety net and many Americans rely on the social safety net to survive, what happens to those who rely upon it once it’s gone? What does it say about a person who genuinely doesn’t give two figs about starving someone to death, so long as they gain another penny?

The ancient Greeks had an allegory for this about a king named Midas. You’ve heard of him, I’m sure. He’s the model for the term, ‘The Midas Touch.’ What most people know of that story is that everything he touched turned to gold. Many people think that would be a pretty great deal. These days, The Midas Touch is often used as a kind of a compliment for people who make piles and piles of money. We say it about the obscenely rich. “That guy has the Midas Touch.”

But it wasn’t a compliment in ancient Greece. It was a warning. You see, King Midas was a man born to great wealth and comfort, yet consumed by greed. It didn’t matter how much he had, he wanted more. One day, Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry, and his friend, a satyr named Silenus, were traveling through Midas’ kingdom. They got separated and Silenus decided to take a nap in Midas’ rose garden. Midas found Silenus there, recognized him, and invited him in and treated him well before taking him back to Dionysus.

As a reward for his kindness, the god told Midas he would grant him any wish. Midas knew what he wanted. He wanted everything he touched to turn to gold. The god suggested Midas think a little more about the wish, but that was the wish he wanted, so Dionysus granted it. It sounds great, right? Midas woke up the next morning and touched his bedside table and the table instantly turned into solid gold! Midas was exhilarated and started touching everything he could see. Everything he touched turned to gold. What a lucky man.

Or was he? The part of the tale we’ve just seen is pretty much all people remember about Midas and they don’t think any more about it. But they should. Midas had a lovely morning, running around touching things, turning them to gold. His greed was in overdrive. His avarice ran rampant. But after a couple of hours of turning things to gold, Midas began to feel a bit peckish.

He went to his dining table where he saw a rose. He picked it up to enjoy it’s fragrance – but it turned to gold. No scent. “I’ll have to enjoy the scent of flowers without touching them,” he thought. Then he reached for a grape. It, too, turned to gold. Uh-oh! He tried a slice of bread with the same result. Gold. Even the water he attempted to drink turned to gold. Suddenly, the “gift” which had been bestowed upon him began to frighten him. How could he eat if his food turned into gold? One cannot survive eating gold. As he began to understand his problem, his beloved daughter came into the room and when Midas hugged her, she became a golden statue.

Midas now understood that his endless greed was a curse, not a blessing. He begged Dionysus to remove the curse. Dionysus told him to wash his hands in a particular river and, when he did, everything Midas had touched returned to it’s original state. Midas hugged his daughter again and realized his avarice had nearly destroyed him. He became a very generous and grateful person and led his kingdom into a new age of prosperity for all.

Midas had the opportunity to learn from his mistake and make life better for everyone. Like any good story of redemption, that’s what he did. But today, people have lost sight of the parts of the allegory that teach the lesson. We stop at “everything he touches turns to gold” and leave it at that, as though that’s enough, and it’s a good thing. The people who hoard the wealth like to spread the idea that they amassed that wealth because they’re blessed. God wants them to have it. Outside of entertainment, one rarely sees any great fortune that was acquired or maintained by means God would approve.

Oh, yeah. God. Jesus meant what he said when he said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” That’s pretty clear admonishment that the accumulation of wealth hurts one’s chances of getting into Heaven. So greedy people made up a story. “The Needle,” they claimed, ” is a small gate at the back of a walled city a laden camel could not pass through.” That’s not true. No such “small gates” exist. Jesus meant an actual camel and he meant an actual needle’s eye. He was saying, flatly, rich people don’t go to Heaven.

The United States of America is said to be the wealthiest country on Earth. But like all things wealth-related, that’s something of a lie. The US has the richest rich people and that pulls up the average. The rest of us? WE struggle with a lower quality of life than most of the developed world. And now? The richest people want even more – and they don’t CARE how it affects the world around them.

Had Midas not learned a lesson and changed his ways, his kingdom would have been doomed by greed. Today’s One Percent do not seem inclined to learn any lessons or change their ways. It’s as if they turned their own children into gold – then just kept touching more and more and more anyway. The children, THEIR children, are not relevant. Only the gold matters.

When an entire society becomes enthralled by the madness of greed, we don’t prosper. We suffer. When the only “acceptable” pursuit in a society is the pursuit of more money, we pay a price. An incalculable price. Neil Young wrote it into a song years ago, “They ‘give’ you this, but you pay for that.”

In the story of Midas’ Touch, one man stood to become inconceivably wealthy while the rest of his world suffered his greed. In the US, today, an incredibly small number of people, comparatively, will enjoy the wealth. Everyone else will suffer. Today, the United States is consumed by the Midas touch, but the Midas touch is the madness of greed. Greed for greed’s sake. Greed to the exclusion of all else. Greed to the point of destruction.

It’s greed so deeply entrenched, leaving people starving in the streets just so the wealthy can have a little bit more isn’t just acceptable. It’s the point. Apparently, it helps to pretend the victims of the avarice are at fault. “You’re poor because you’re lazy.” “You’re poor because you don’t manage your money well.” “You’re poor because God wants you to be poor.”

None of that is correct. The victims of the money grab are poor because they’re the victims of the money grab. And now, the masses are to be victimized again and even more, to satisfy the greed of an obscenely rich few. The United States of America certainly has the Midas Touch these days. One can only hope we realize the error of our ways before it’s too late. But I don’t see any evidence of that. All I see is greed. Unbridled, uncontrolled, unconstrained greed. The US has allowed itself to become mired in the madness of greed and it’s rapidly becoming greed to the point of destruction…

Corrupting Voting – Along With Everything Else…

by MyBaconPress

I wonder if women who voted for 47, knew they were voting to vote for the last time. A LOT of women still have that thing, that…oh, what is it? It’s that thing MAGA hates so effing much they’ve purged it from their hearts completely. It’s like, Oh, I remember: Empathy! A LOT of women still have empathy. That makes it harder to vote for the cruelty of MAGA. As far as MAGA is concerned, that means they’re weak and they shouldn’t vote.

There’s this bill, you see, reintroduced in the House, known as HR8281, or ‘The SAVE Act.’ It’s another one of those cute little acronym names of bills. ‘SAVE’ stands for ‘Safeguard American Voter Eligibility.’ See? Cute, right? Not only do you give your idiotic bill an acronym for a name, the acronym has to sound like it does something positive. They could just as easily have gone for the ‘WASH Act’ (Women Absolutely Stay Home) but that doesn’t sound as helpful.

Of course, the publicity around it, the optics, are about preventing all that “voter fraud” that never happens when all those busloads of undocumented immigrants aren’t driven around from polling place to polling place to cast illegal ballots – all under the watchful eyes of the evil Democrats.

As everyone knows (and I DO mean ‘everyone,’ even MAGA), the actual vote rigging that occurs happens when states like Virginia purge Democratic voters with not enough time to cure pretended defects, bomb threats to Democratic districts that leave active polling places “empty” long enough for…what? And Elon’s $290 million dollar donation and all those things “Elon knows about those voting machines.”

But listen, just because ‘busloads of illegals’ never happens, and has never happened, doesn’t mean Republicans shouldn’t do something to stop it, right? Since they’ve discovered they can squeeze their eyes closed tightly and fervently rock back and forth while chanting “illegals voting, illegals voting” they’ve KNOWN it must be true for a long time – and it must be stopped.

No, of course there’s no evidence. This is a self-convinced thing, not an actual thing. Still, this thing that doesn’t happen MUST be stopped. Enter the ‘SAVE Act.’ They can stop all those illegals, see, by requiring people to bring a paper birth certificate to their physical polling place to cast a ballot. And if the name on your birth certificate doesn’t match your current, legal name, you’re out.

THAT will certainly catch all those illegals, who, likely, don’t have “acceptable,” good-old American birth certificates. As it happens, there are many US citizens who don’t have birth certificates for one reason or another, as well. But more importantly? If you’re a woman (and many people are) and you’ve taken your spouse’s name (as many have done), your current legal name doesn’t match your birth certificate. Oh, tough luck! No voting for you.

Keep the bitches in the kitchens where they belong, I guess. I honestly don’t know how that makes America great again but then, my mind isn’t a morass of pretzel-twisted “thinking” simmering in a sauce of fear, anger, and shortsightedness so, I guess I’m not meant to know…

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Granted, it’s not much, but we have to find silver linings where we can, right? Republicans are supporting the firings of huge swaths of the work force. That’s going to leave a LOT of people with a LOT of time on their hands. Presumably, they’re going to be angry at the unfair treatment. (And it IS unfair to lose your job because some putz doesn’t understand basic things.)

Maybe it’s not related, but in Syria, drought caused southern farmers to head north, to the cities, looking for work. They didn’t find it because the cities weren’t ready for the influx. Do you know what THAT left? A LOT of people with a LOT of time on their hands, and they were angry. How did that play out? Oh, yeah, revolution that resulted in the overthrow of their king and the fall of THAT corrupt government.

There could have been a lesson to be learned from that. Leave it to MAGA to not learn and instead, add to the growing number of very angry people with a LOT of time on their hands. I mean, what could go wrong?

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“LONG LIVE THE KING.” Do you know who recently wrote that? The First Felon. Do you know who he was referring to? Himself. As king. You know what? Fuck that guy!

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I heard KKKaroline Leavitt whining in a press conference that the maladministration doesn’t like the term “Constitutional Crisis.” Apparently, they think it’s a bad thing for the press to report what the usurpers are actually doing, creating one constitutional crisis after another.

But before taking reporter’s questions, KKKaroline said, “Many outlets in this room have been fear-mongering the American people into believing there is a ‘constitutional crisis’ taking place here at the White House.”

“I’ve been hearing those words a lot lately,” she said. “But, in fact, the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch, where district court judges in liberal courts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump’s basic executive authority.”

She lies with such practiced ease, doesn’t she? In fact, the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our executive branch, where an out-of-control, unelected civilian is bulldozing the government while Putin’s puppet looks on. The courts are supposed to step in. That’s their job. It’s IN THE CONSTITUTION! If the White House stopped flaunting the constitution, the courts wouldn’t say anything. Oh, AND, the judges in question come from across the political spectrum so the part about “liberal courts” is just a lying smear, too.

Another irritating lie 47 is trying to sell? This government has a ‘mandate.’ They don’t. The official numbers suggest more eligible voters did NOT vote for The First Felon, with the largest numbers being those who didn’t vote at all. Add in the factual detail that many likely Harris voters were illegally purged just before the election, the chicanery of the bomb threats at so many polling places in expected Democratic districts, AND Musk’s super-de-duper understanding of “those machines, the ones that count the votes” as Trump put it, he didn’t even really win, let alone receive a “mandate.”

241 million people were eligible to vote. 77 million voted for hate and destruction. 75 million voted for Harris. 89.5 million were either prevented from voting or couldn’t be bothered. Neither 47 nor Harris got them out. Setting aside the obvious cheating, that means most people didn’t want either one of them. That’s not a mandate.

It doesn’t matter, either way. The wrecking ball continues to swing and they’ll just keep lying and lying and lying to cover their asses and maintain MAGA conditioning. And it’s going to KEEP swinging until the American people rise up and take the power back – and, at this point, that’s the only way we’re getting it back…

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Okay, one last thing. I recently wrote about 47 having the Resolute Desk removed from the Oval room and suggested he was being petty about ‘Time’ magazine’s depiction of Elon sitting behind it. That could still be true, but it seems more likely, to me, that he had it removed because Elon’s kid picked his nose then wiped it on the desk. You remember, that was when the kid told The Felon to shut up because he wasn’t the President and should just go away.

You’ve got to admit, four year olds can be a bit gross but most people handle things like that with a cleaning spray and a cloth. Mr. Overreact is having the desk refinished…

*Edited to correct the House Bill number from 22 to 8281, as it should have been.