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J6, Four Years Later…

by MyBaconPress

Today, January 6th, 2025, Congress certifies the stolen 2024 “election.” Tom Manger, chief of the US Capitol police, says he’s planning on using unprecedented security measures because, “We cannot be taken by surprise again.” He’s referring to how police were outnumbered and overwhelmed by the rampaging mob four years ago, when Trump prompted his loyal cultists to attack in an effort to steal the election, ironically calling it the “Stop the Steal Rally.”

Oh? Has anybody heard anything from the left, calling for a rally, or even a speech on the ellipse? Has Harris posted a message telling followers to be there, “will be wild?” Has Harris or any of her followers funded such an event? Is there a list of speakers planned, each intending to incite violence and mob mentality? Have the Democrats even mentioned an ‘unauthorized tour?’

So now, this Manger guy is going to surround the Capitol building with cops in riot gear to ensure the safety of the people inside because four years ago a MAGA mob attacked? Does he think another MAGA mob is coming? Because Democrats don’t behave that way. Yes, the left IS pissed off about the outcome of this “election” and we have questions about it’s accuracy and some of the details. No, the left is NOT going to attack Congress’s procedural process in a huge demonstration that serves mostly to send supporters to prison.

Sidebar: isn’t it funny that 34 got elected by pretending foreign countries were emptying their prisons and putting violent prisoners onto the streets of America, now that HE intends to empty American prisons and put violent prisoners onto the streets of America” by pardoning the January 6th rioters? It just strikes me as hilarious.

Trump instigated the January 6th riots. Trump paid for them. Trump called his people together. Trump whipped them into a frenzy. Trump then sent them to the Capitol to attack – and even, perhaps, kill the sitting Vice-President at the time. TRUMP did that. THEN, Trump abandoned them, knowing he could use them as a campaign issue in the next run. (He could have pardoned them before he left office. He had the time.)

At this point, one of the more glaring differences between the left and the right is that the left continues to respect the US Constitution while the right ignores the thing in whole or in part. The left respects the peaceful transfer of power even as we question the details of the “election.” The left is going to be satisfied with the imagery of the nation’s flags at half-staff on that dark day.

But some MAGA con feels the need to put on a great show, “defending” against the threat MAGA brought last time? Yeah, okay, you do you. Bonehead…

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‘The Washington Post’ was once a respected publication. Then Jeff Bezos bought it. Now it’s a biased rag. When the editorial board at the Post wanted to endorse Harris, Bezos stepped in and said no. Apparently, that caused something like 300,000 subscribers to cancel. Now, an editorial cartoonist has penned a cartoon depicting Bezos, among other rich guys, bending the knee to 43. It’s factually accurate, of course, so, naturally, the paper spiked it. (I’d guess there are more cancellations in the Post’s immediate future…)

This is the cartoon:

Rich people groveling at the foot of Trump.

It depicts corporate wage-thieves—including Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Patrick Soon-Shiong, and, of course, Bezos – trying to curry favor with the president-elect. Soon-Shiong also spiked an endorsement of Harris in the LA Times – ALSO earning thousands of cancellations. The rest have each ponied up a million dollars for his inauguration.

Dead Mickey, there, represents ABC’s flaccid capitulation to Trump in a defamation suit in which Trump said he wasn’t convicted of rape – “only” sexual assault. The judge in the case said it WAS a form of rape and most legal people think ABC would have won the suit easily, but ABC laid down to make life easier for 34.

In fairness to ‘The Washington Post,’ they had a cover story (read: a lie) at the ready. ‘We had already done a piece about rich people sucking up to Trump,’ they lied, ‘and we’re about to do another piece about rich people sucking up to Trump, so we couldn’t do THIS piece about rich people sucking up to Trump.’ Uh-huh…

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When US Army veteran Matthew Livelsberger blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside of a Trump hotel, Muck went into damage control mode by pretending the guy meant to do a GREAT deal of damage, but the Cybertruck is built SO WELL, according to Musk, it contained the blast, limiting the damage. Of course, by Livelsberger’s own statement, he meant only to create a spectacle of some kind.

Oh, but Musk wants to defend his “truck” and he couldn’t WAIT to point out that it wasn’t a failure of the vehicle. I guess that’s important to stress since other Cybertruck fires ARE so clearly caused by failures of the vehicle. (I continue to think of them as rolling crematoriums.) THEN he bragged that the Cybertruck “contained the blast.” Yeah, the guy used fireworks, not high explosives.

I suspect Livelsberger’s protest was against Musk’s involvement with, and control over, 34. Trump spent a LOT of time telling work-a-day Joes he was on their side and he was going to look out for them. They believed him. Now Trump is dancing to the tune of the billionaires and all indicators are pointing to the idea that Trump may not be as loyal to the working class as he made out.

MAGA thinks they’ve installed a champion. I think they’ve installed their worst nightmare. Only one of us can be right and we’ll ALL find out together starting January 21st. (He’ll just party on the 20th.) MAGA was built on fear and, more importantly, fury. What happens to that furious mob once they discover they’ve been deceived and used?

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Trump is wishing for a large package. According to MAGA Mikes Johnson, Trump wants ONE big bill to cover his tax cuts for the rich, the border plan he spiked for political reasons, AND opening up national parks to drilling we don’t really need because we’re already producing more oil and gas than ever in history.

Apparently, they’ve been trying to decide between using two bills, one for border and energy, and the other for tax cuts, or just the “one big beautiful bill” Mr. 34 Felonies has asked for. The “one big, beautiful bill” will make it harder to negotiate. It will take longer and, remember, the cons can only lose two votes and the thing fails.

These are the kinds of details I look for, right now. Yes, these people intend to do terrible things to this once-great nation, but trying to do them all in one fell swoop makes it harder – MUCH harder. It will slow them down. ANYTHING that slows them down, benefits Americans – and even MAGA, though they won’t know it. The left is going to need to stand in their way to try and slow them down from time to time, but not if they’re going to stand in their own way and slow themselves down. THAT, the left should just help with…

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Two stories, side by side, in this morning’s ‘Guardian.’ On the left is a headline that reads, “‘We have our country back’: convicted January 6 rioters anticipate Trump pardons.” The story immediately to it’s right? “‘The tyrant is gone and the nightmare is done’: Syrian exiles hope for a brighter future.”

One nation, the US, moving inexorably into tyranny, another, Syria, celebrating the possibility of finally throwing off tyranny. Syrians didn’t seem to like it. I suspect Americans aren’t going to like it, either…

BOOM, Goes The…Fireworks?

by MyBaconPress

Tesla Cybertruck burns outside Trump hotel.

Have you seen this? It’s a pretty good metaphor for what the country expects. I haven’t commented on it, yet, because it’s too hard to say with any certainty who the guy is, a con or an American. It’s kind of freaky that it could, honestly, be either one…

There’s a possibility he did it because he and his wife had just broken up. But a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel is a political statement, not a personal one. If he was just killing himself over the breakup of his marriage, he could have used ANY car, in any place.

People who knew him say he was a conservative and that he LOVED Trump. That was a weird thing to do to Trump if he really loved him, a weird image to create. It could well be that he was unhappy he voted for Trump, but got Elon. I know I’d be irritated by such a bait and switch. I’ve also heard it suggested he was trying to kick off some kind of left vs right battle. Every once in a while, some con does some violent thing in hopes that other cons will follow suit. So far, that hasn’t happened but extremists keep trying.

Maybe something happened that caused the scales to fall from his eyes and he suddenly realized the damage he had done in his world based on his love of Trump. But in writings on his phone, authorities found he supported President-elect Thirty-Four Felonies, President non-elect Musk, and even worm-food brain RFK, Jr. So, WTF?

Apparently, he left a suicide note. It read, in part: “This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wakeup call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?” Well, we all saw what you did but, to tell you the truth, I STILL don’t get your “point.” And now you’re too dead to ask what the hell you were saying. Nice work…

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I could use some help from cons, here. On the left, we’ve been treated to several examples of “people who voted for Trump but now regret their vote.” To be sure, these aren’t MAGA. Mostly, they’re low information voters who supposedly got hoodwinked by 34’s rhetoric in the moment, then realized it was a mistake. The left is enjoying these examples under the hashtag, #FAFO. #FAFO is ‘F*ck Around and Find Out.’ The idea is, they ‘f*cked around’ in voting for Trump, now they ‘Find Out’ what they’ve done, see?

I’ve seen, maybe, 20 or 25 of these things. They get pulled together into one presentation and put side-by-side and presented under ‘MAGA is turning on Trump.’ But I’ve been thinking. Something like 77 million people (ostensibly) voted for the felon. How difficult might it be to find 20 or 30 or even 50 people who have quickly come to regret their vote? (Spoiler alert: it would be easy.)

So then I got to wondering, is MAGA media now presenting evidence of Harris voters who wish they’d voted for Trump? Many people have noticed that the corporate media works to keep left and right battling over stupid, niggling little things and some of the battle fodder is making certain each side feels “right” about their own positions. Telling consumers the other side now regrets their choice (as they see the light) supports each team’s faith in their own positions.

So I’d like to know. IS MAGA media presenting Harris voters who now say they wish they’d voted for Trump? (I just don’t want to have to consume MAGA media to find out…)

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Well, we knew it would play out like this. It shouldn’t. In Better America, it would not have done. But we live in Bizzaro America, now. Judge Merchan has set a date, January 10th, to sentence President-elect Thirty-Four Felonies for his, well, thirty-four felonies. We live in this pretend world where there’s a fantasy rule called, ‘The rule of law.’ It only exists for Small Folk, though. Rich people get a different standard. “34” is about to enjoy the rich guy standard.

He was found guilty of thirty-four separate felonies by a jury of his peers. If I was found guilty of thirty-four separate felonies by a jury of MY peers, I’d be in prison. But he’s going to get a stern talking to and pay a fine – THEN he gets to go be king!

Shit, man! I guess crime DOES pay…

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Sadly, Trump is coming back. Oh, also? Covid-19 is coming back. They were a great combination last time. Trump’s fecklessness allowed the deaths of more Americans (and MAGA, of course) than the American Civil War. Now we’re coming back for round two.

Over a million dead and around $7.8 Trillion dollars added to the debt, last time, because 34 tried to wish the illness away. (Spoiler alert: that didn’t work.) What a great time to have a self-serving, incompetent boob coming into the White House.

I’ve spent a good bit of time concerned about the various kinds of damage 34 is going to do to this once-great nation. I’m really trying to stay in the moment and only worry about things he actually does or tries to do. I STILL think that’s the best option. I’m starting to suspect that Trump’s own fecklessness is going to work against him again.

With the return of Covid-19 (“THIS time, it’s personal!”) and the need to double down on battling climate change just as the incoming maladministration eliminates all climate change considerations, this incoming group might well be so distracted handling emergencies they don’t really have a chance to deal any (or much) damage of their own.

It’s a hell of a question: are we more likely to be wiped out by Trump’s intentional actions (like tax cuts plus profligate spending), or by Trump’s unintentional actions (like ignoring real and present threats)? Inquiring minds want to know…

Contemptible Fools…

by MyBaconPress

Okay, so here’s how it works. An employer is allowed to use an H1B visa if they can’t find workers to do a job they need, as described, here in the United States. So, employers ask for, say, a computer programmer. You must know every programming language ever written. You must have never made any mistakes. You must have decades of experience. AND, you must be willing to work for, say, one third of the pay your contemporaries make.

The company can “adjust” the expectations of the requirements, so long as they stick to the pay demand. Then, they insist they can’t find the people they need, as described (because of the pay difference). THEN, they get to bring in foreign workers at lower cost using H1B visas. It’s a pretty clever trick and President non-elect Musk has been using it to his financial advantage for a long, long time. To be clear, there ARE Americans who can do his jobs – just not at the salary he offers. He doesn’t want to pay Americans, so he uses foreigners.

Well, the heat is turning up on the President non-elect. He has made clear that he intends to continue to use these foreign workers because of the cost savings. Of course, he doesn’t mention the cost savings. HE says Americans just aren’t good enough. Hell, his billionaire buddy Vivek Ramaswamy got caught up in the debate and said it out loud, “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Musk is STILL fighting for his position. He has vowed “war” over getting to use his cheaper labor. He said, “I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.” But MAGA has an entire ethos built around how bad foreigners are. They seem really very upset that their new leader is going to deport some foreigners but allow those who benefit him, and they started saying so in social media. Interestingly, they started saying so on X, where Musk had his team cancelling and demoting accounts that criticized him. You know, because of his dedication to free speech.

He’s trying to, get this, correct MAGA – by calling them “contemptible fools”! Musk wrote on his X page that “hateful, unrepentant racists” should be removed from the Republican Party, “root and stem.” Uh-huh. So much for MAGA. You’re going to remove Donald Trump, root and stem, from the Republican Party? I’m laughing, Elon.

But it appears, even MAGA can see the hypocrisy this time. They can see that even as he calls THEM racists, he continues to support far-right groups around the world who embrace racism, like Germany’s AfD. They remember when Musk Defended Scott Adams of ‘Dilbert’ fame, after Adams declared black people a “hate group” by telling white people to “stay away from them.” And NOW they see that he wants to just ignore the “foreign” status of HIS workers because THOSE foreigners benefit Musk? (Hey, isn’t that the SAME attitude Trump is taking about HIS foreign wife?)

Meanwhile, Trump tried to avoid this whole thing by playing golf. But, he finally weighed in on the conflict, and MAGA might not be happy – OR, they’ll be changing their position overnight. Trump, it turns out, likes the H1B Visa program and admits he makes regular use of it at “his properties.” It seems Trump doesn’t MIND giving jobs to foreigners instead of Americans, so long as it saves him money.

I feel like MAGA got sold a bill of goods on this one. But give them a short time to change course and they’ll all be onboard with foreigners coming and taking American jobs. Hell, in a few days, MAGA might be screaming about how we need to open the border for cheaper labor!

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Many of us have been watching to see who’s actually in charge, going forward, Trump or Musk. As it stands right now, it’s looking like Musk, but the future is hard to see. Here’s a hint, though, of whom MUSK thinks is in charge. During his dust-up with MAGA about how he gets to keep using foreign labor, someone posted on X, “Never insult the monarch,” a comment Laura Loomer shared. Musk’s reply? “I’m constantly insulted on this platform!”

To me, that feels very much like Musk sees himself as “the monarch.” That doesn’t leave much room for Trump, does it?

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This is funny. Trump promised he was going to bring down prices and he promised it would happen fast. He said he could end the war in Ukraine easily, before he even took office. He said his tariffs were going to fix the American economy. He said these things many times, in many places during the campaign. His supporters believed him, so they voted for him.

Oh, but NOW, he’s back-peddling. FAST. No, prices won’t come down, quickly or otherwise. “It’s hard,” he said. No, he can’t end the war in Ukraine easily. Maybe he won’t even DO tariffs, now. On the left, we see those as campaign lies. He said things that weren’t true and he almost certainly knew they weren’t true, but he said them anyway. His campaign though?

They’re saying he’s just “shifting away from the sales pitch rhetoric that is typical of campaigns.” Shifting away from the ‘sales pitch rhetoric?’ That’s some fancy language for ‘lying on the campaign trail.’

Revivals and Exceptions…

by MyBaconPress

Have you noticed? He’s staffing his administration with a LOT of the losers he endorsed in various campaigns. No, let me say that differently. He’s staffing his administration with a lot of the people he endorsed for various political offices who went on to lose their races. Think Herschel Walker. Yeah, the guy CAN carry a football. No, he doesn’t seem able to carry a thought, but if the US finds itself in a fourth and short situation in the Bahamas, we’ve got our guy.

It’s almost as if Trump has a pathological need to try to prove that the people he endorsed deserved to be endorsed and that Trump was right and the voters were wrong. But I remember some of the people he endorsed. I think Trump was wrong and the voters were right. Time will tell. But it’s not just failed people he’s re-introducing.

Trump seems to be recycling bad ideas from the first assault, too. He thinks the US should own and control Greenland. Apparently, in his mind, that also means Denmark should just hand Greenland over. They’ve already had to respond to his “thought” with a stern, “No! Greenland is not for sale, barter, or trade. Nor are we just going to hand it to you. Just, no!”

Maybe he can send Herschel over to discuss the matter…

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The thing I had not heretofore considered about President non-elect Musk? Most Americans have been waiting and watching for the clash of the outsized egos. The thinking has been that those two egos cannot exist in the same space for any length of time. Sooner or later, the thought goes, there will be a clash and Trump will show Musk the door. But then I remembered something: Putin.

In all the world, there’s one person on the planet Trump has never said one negative word about: Vladimir Putin. Trump has something nasty to say about everybody, no exceptions. Okay, ONE exception. Putin. No matter what Putin says or does, Trump just bends the knee. Putin seems to have something on Trump that, well, trumps Trump’s ego. Donald does as he’s told by Vlad. And now, maybe Musk, too.

It’s entirely possible Elon has the same kind of control. Musk put up a LOT of money to help get Trump “elected.” We can only guess at the other kinds of things he did, but whatever it was, it put Musk in the driver’s seat. That could explain why Musk gave an order and Trump jumped to deliver…

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On the one hand, we’ve got Puppet-elect Trump out there, threatening the American people with high prices on everything because of his tariffs. On the other, we’ve got President non-elect Musk, who has massive business interests in China, one of Trump’s favorite targets.

If Trump slaps his promised (and threatened) tariffs on China, Musk feels it. Musk’s Chinese Tesla plant can make nearly one million cars a year. That’s quite the investment. Do you think Musk is going to let Trump impose tariffs when it will have THAT kind of impact on Musk’s businesses?

Maybe he can carve out an exception for Musk’s cars – or Ivanka’s purses – or all the cheap-ass crap he has made in China, then sells to his gullible supporters here. By the time he finishes his carve-outs, the only thing the tariffs will hit – again – will be soy beans. The soy bean farmers should be used to that by now. He already put them on the government dole once with his policies – then bragged about getting the farmers the money they needed to get by…

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Oh, and speaking of Tesla, like everything Tesla puts out, the so-called “Cybertruck” is quite the little death machine. Well, okay, it’s not that little. It’s not a truck, either. For whatever reason, in a crash, Teslas have a tendency to burst into flames. Do you remember when Musk tried to show how the windows couldn’t be broken on a Cybertruck? The window DID crack – Musk seemed embarrassed – but it didn’t break. Ooh, aah! Oh, wait. What happens with you NEED the window to break because it’s the only way out of the burning Tesla?

Yeah, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I think those Cybertrucks are beyond ugly. Oh, also, you get to pay around $119,000 dollars to own one of those butt-ugly things! (I mean, how tiny IS it?) Oh, AND, that little bugger WILL kill you, given the chance. They just started rolling off the assembly line in November of 2023 and Tesla has already had TWO major recalls on the things. And, yes, they HAVE killed people who couldn’t get out of the burning vehicle after a crash. I’ve long thought of Teslas as rolling crematoriums.

The Ford Pinto killed far fewer people before being pulled from the market because of their tendency to burst into flame in an accident. I wonder how many more have to die in burning Teslas before we take appropriate action…

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Okay, this is not so much a “correction,” per se, as an update. It was way, way back, oh, some four days ago now, I wrote about how when Elon ordered the Continuing Resolution (CR) killed, the GOP ALSO killed funding for research into cancer in children. The reason it’s not a correction, exactly, is that the statement is technically true – it’s just misleading.

See, the House passed a separate bill to continue the funding – way back in May of 2024. The leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, sat on the House’s bill for awhile. That is to say, Schumer could have brought up and passed the funding back in May, but he didn’t. He sat on it and put it into the CR, instead.

How do I know this is true and not just MAGAGOPCORP, Inc propaganda? The actions. Actions speak louder than words. Musk order the CR killed, the GOP obeyed. (That “killed” the cancer research funding.) The GOP tried to pin the impending government closure on the Dems but it was FAR too clear to anyone and everyone that this was all GOP, all the time. Hell, even MAGA could see it.

So, the GOP basically ended up passing the original bill at the last minute with a few minor things changed. One of those “minor” things was the removal of the funding for research into cancer in children. Oh, how the Dems crowed about that. “They killed cancer research for kids! They killed cancer research for kids!” The left, predictably, got upset. I wrote about it.

THEN, the very next day after the modified CR was passed, the Senate passed the funding for research into cancer in children bill the House had passed back in May of 2024. (Interestingly, that didn’t get NEARLY the coverage on the left the ‘killed the funding’ narrative had received.) But the Senate couldn’t have passed the bill if the House hadn’t already authorized it. That’s the way that works.

The ONE thing Schumer can point to in response to the charge that this was all a cheap political manipulation is that the CR bill included $190 million for the research, while the previously approved House bill only covered the original $120 million. When the Senate finally passed the House bill, it was for only $120 million, but if I were MAGA, I’d suspect (by which I mean ‘know without question’) that the attempted increase in funding was, itself, a cheap political manipulation.

Why, I wonder, would the One-Percent-serving, corporate media make such hay about the funding being “killed” when, in reality, the funding just got handled differently – which, itself, was only sparsely reported? Why, it’s almost as if the One-Percent-serving, corporate media WANTS to see the left and the right fighting and used – I’m sorry – abused their power to foment a little discord. We ALL need to be careful about what we read in our oh-so-corrupt society…

It’s the Free Market, Stupid…

by MyBaconPress

Capitalist: 1) An investor of capital in business, especially one having a major financial interest in an important enterprise. 2) A person of great wealth. Then, thrown in to try to keep the rest of us on board, 3) A supporter of capitalism. (Uh-huh…)

It’s one of the greatest deceptions of all time. Capitalists have their victims (that’s you and me) declaring themselves capitalists and defending capitalism. And we do, too. If you ask anybody in America, odds are they’ll tell you they’re a capitalist and they believe in capitalism. You can see that one of the definitions is ‘A supporter of capitalism.’ That makes us feel like we’re ‘on the team,’ as it were – but we really, really are not.

Those first two definitions – rich people who have major financial interests in important enterprises – are FAR more accurate descriptions of capitalists, but do you know what THAT means? That means that, far and away, most Americans are NOT capitalists. (We’re the victims of capitalism.) We’re not rich and we don’t own enough to have “major financial interests in important enterprises.” We just get up and go to work, creating the wealth the capitalists keep – and then use against us…

Suddenly, I feel a need to make this point. There are NOT only two systems, Capitalism or Communism. I don’t support communism, either. It clearly doesn’t work – based on the idea that it has never worked anywhere in the world, any time in history. But this so-called ‘Free Market Capitalism’ ain’t working so hot, either, wouldn’t you say?

I support the middle road, once known as New Deal Capitalism. I call it ‘Social Capitalism.’ The rest of the world calls it ‘Democratic Socialism.’ That’s too bad, too. Americans have been fully conditioned, brainwashed really, to believe that the word socialism describes one thing and one thing only: communism, so the instant they hear that word, many Americans crap their panties and dive for the covers to hide their heads. But despite the stupid name, it’s really just managed capitalism, the kind that fights back against capitalistic abuse. It’s better for everyone – even rich people.

Right now, the poster child for the failure of ‘Free Market Capitalism’ is Luigi Mangione, the guy who gunned down the current poster child for capitalistic abuse, Brian Thompson. Mangione shot Thompson in the back, just gunned him down in the street. As of this writing, it appears Mangione shot Thompson as a symbol. That is, he had no personal beef with Thompson. Thompson became the poster child of capitalistic abuse because he was the CEO of the health insurance company that denied more claims than any other company.

Nobody seems to care. I see memes out there of Luigi superimposed by Photoshop into various work environments with comments about how he was there on Dec 4, on-site all day and right next to other workers. Never out of their sight, even for a moment. Why, the memes insist, Luigi couldn’t have done it. Alibi established. Obviously, it isn’t. It turns out, the police have a few photos of their own – and theirs aren’t Photoshopped.

Truthfully, when the shooting occurred, my first thought was “Someone who got denied.” I wasn’t alone. I felt badly that I didn’t feel worse about the shooting. I felt guilty that I was kind of happy to see a little guy get even for a change. As it happens, I’m not alone in THAT, either. I expected the party to end a few days later, as people got past their bubbling anger and re-connected with their humanity. So far, that hasn’t happened. Instead, there’s a “Free Luigi” movement starting.

Do you know who IS showing signs of concern, though? Corporate media. The media owned and operated by the capitalists. The message coming from both sides of the dial is the same – it’s poor form to shoot capitalists. Don’t do it. That’s not working, either. I suspect we’ve all noticed that NONE of them are promising to change their ways. They just don’t want people shooting them for the abuses. But people are really angry and most of us seem quite happy that a rich guy got his, for a change. And that’s the key.

Thompson’s program of denial likely killed thousands. THAT was just “good business.” HE was getting bonuses for increasing the bottom line so nicely. Families were planning funerals that didn’t have to happen. We ALL know this. We ALL know we COULD have decent health care in this country. But the capitalists don’t WANT us to have decent health care. They can’t profit if they can’t insert themselves into the process and all they care about is profit.

So, after forty years of living the ‘Free Market Capitalism’ life, one guy has reached the point of shooting someone and the rest of us are cheering the act. There’s even a new movement out there called ‘Board rooms, not classrooms.’ It takes the position that, if you’re going to be a random shooter that goes out and kills someone for fame – at least kill someone whose death benefits society. Don’t kill six-year olds. Don’t shoot up classrooms. Kill CEO’s. Shoot up board rooms. Go out a hero, like Luigi. (I’m only describing, and not endorsing, the movement, here.)

I think Luigi was trying to start something and I think he has. Somehow, this single act of defiance has loosed a torrent of anger at the way our economy works (or doesn’t, in so many cases). I suspect Luigi wanted other people to start shooting right away. That part didn’t happen but the anger is now at the top, not being hidden anymore, perhaps bubbling over. In fact, it’s being celebrated. There WILL BE other shooters.

And now, just to put the icing on the cake, we’re getting the richest political Cabinet in history. We’re already hearing messages from billionaires like, “You Poors are going to have to suffer,” and comments about how Joe Six-pack has it way too easy. Trump has admitted, now, that he isn’t going to bring the price of groceries down and he can’t guarantee his tariffs won’t raise prices. “Yeah, I lied. Whaddaya gonna do about it?” Hey, ask Luigi.

Consider this: So-called “Free Market Capitalism” has created a world in which people cheer when a capitalist is gunned down in the street – and all the while, there have been entities in place pushing back against the abuses of the Free Market. Now, the One Percent (and Putin) have managed to install the richest group of people in history, none of whom have even the slightest idea of what life is like for a working person. Corruption has mostly eliminated the restraints the held them back in the past – even the recent past.

Now? The brakes are off. The capitalists – the true capitalists, not the “supporters of capitalism” – are about to have their way with the economy without restraint. Do you think that’s going to be better or worse for the Small Folk? If we’re already at, “Yes, kill them!” and the capitalists are about to turn the screws even harder – and I guarantee they are – I expect blood.

To be clear, I don’t WANT blood. I wish every self-absorbed, self-serving, self-described “important” blowhard would get visits from three ghosts and see the error of their ways. But John Kennedy’s words are about to explode in front of us. The capitalists are making violent revolution inevitable…

#FAFO…

by MyBaconPress

Hey, didn’t Donald promise, over and over and over again, that he would NOT touch Social Security? Didn’t he promise, over and over and over again that he wouldn’t raise the eligibility age by ONE DAY? He did. I know he did. There’s video of him making that exact promise at rally after rally. He promised! AND…doesn’t Donny ALWAYS keep his promises? That’s the MAGA story, anyway. But wait. What do we have, here?

Suddenly Trump and his billionaire buddies think your Social Security is WAY too high and, wait, what’s this? Yes, it needs to be cut. Billionaires are SURE you’re taking too much. How very selfish of you, taking payment on the insurance you paid into your whole working life. And now the billionaires are here, planning to put a stop to that.

Now that he’s taking office, Trump has also admitted that he can’t really do anything to bring down the price of eggs. Huh, whaddaya know? “It’s hard,” he says. He’s the first to tell you he “won on groceries.” Now he’s confessing he can’t do all that much about groceries, which means, of course, that he “won on lying about groceries.”

We’ve all heard, by now, the (admittedly anecdotal) stories of factories revoking or limiting expected Christmas bonuses because they have to use the money, instead, to prepare for the economic damage resulting from Trump’s promised tariffs. It turns out, the end users DO pay the increases, just like people tried to warn.

These things are all traveling together under a banner called #FAFO. Fair warning: the first ‘F’ in that is a generally accepted “bad” word, though I confess, it’s one of my favorites. FAFO stands for ‘Fuck Around and Find Out!’ Until very recently, it was most commonly tossed out by young, often intoxicated men looking to engage in a rousing round of fisticuffs.

It translates, roughly, to, “Oh, my goodness, if you continue on this apparent intended course, you might well discover some unforeseen and certainly unfavorable consequences to your actions.” There’s nothing tough about that, though, so they shorten it to ‘Fuck around and find out!’ The phrase has been co-opted by the left since the “election.”

I’m not sure how I feel about it. I don’t THINK it’s taunting. I wouldn’t like it if it was. I continue to believe the right has, more than anything, been deceived. I don’t think there’s any honor in taunting someone about being deceived. Anybody can be deceived.

It’s certainly not Schadenfreude. The left can’t take pleasure in the suffering of the right since the left will suffer the exact same consequences at the exact same time. Hell, it’s not even “pleasure.” ‘Satisfaction’ is probably a better word. It’s been pretty well established that cons have to live a thing to understand it.

I THINK it’s vindication, that is, proof that someone or something (in this case, the left) was right, reasonable, or justified. It’s GREAT to be vindicated, even when the vindicated person is going down with the ship as well. “I KNEW it wasn’t ‘unsinkable!'” Sure, he’s going to drown, too, but there’s a very brief moment where he gets to enjoy the satisfaction of having been correct – before the panic and desperation set in.

I think the left is just trying to make sure the right doesn’t miss the details of what their votes have wrought. It’s a matter of ‘don’t tell them they were mistaken, show them they were mistaken.’ These days, the only positives the left can see in the future will be watching the deer-in-the-headlights look on MAGA faces as they realize they “fucked around” – voted for Trump – and now they get to “find out” that Trump was lying to them all along.

This is pretty simple. The left used it’s knowledge and experience to politically scheme it’s way right out of power. Completely. There are just enough Dems left in Congress that they might – might – be able to stop some of the more egregious things, but they can’t enact anything. In short, anything that happens in the next couple of years lies directly at the feet of the GOP. They have nobody else to blame.

Sure, conservative media will try. They have to try. But the GOP has all the power. Eventually, even MAGA should be able to figure out that the people doing them so much harm are, in fact, the very Republicans they’ve been supporting. I suspect the left is going to KEEP pointing it out.

Here’s the thing, though. I don’t want the left to get smug or taunt the right. It’s one thing to show someone the error of their ways. It’s another to “punish” them. Remember all those arguments with Uncle MAGA? Remember how he would not back down from his positions no matter what evidence you provided? We’re going to need that tenacity on our team once they realize the left isn’t their enemy, the One Percent is. So let’s leave a door open that allows them to save a little face as they come back to reality…

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Well, bless their hearts. I mean, how sweet, like the innocence of a small child. According to CNN, Republicans in Congress are certain Trump has no plans to go around them in trying to reach his goals of cutting two TRILLION dollars from the budget. GOP Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, who serves on the House Appropriations Committee said, “We worked very hard to stay in the majority and get the majority in Congress. I’m sure that the ‘thank you’ for that is not, ‘we don’t need no stinking Congress.’” (Uh-huh…)

GOP Rep. Max Miller of Ohio, who claimed that all stakeholders involved want the same thing echoed, “They have no choice but to work with us, they have to.” (Heh, Heh…)

And GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the incoming Senate Appropriations chairwoman for the next Congress – and ALWAYS an excellent judge of character and summarizer of situations -told CNN ahead of her one-on-one meeting with Musk, “To me, that violates the separation of powers.” (Ah—ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! )

Meanwhile, (you might want to sit down for this) Trump is laying the groundwork to see how much he can cut by going around Congress. He wants to use a process called ‘impoundment.’ It’s illegal, of course. See, Congress spends the money, not the President. When Congress allocates money for something, whether useful or stupid, that money goes where Congress allocated unless Congress acts again. That’s in the Constitution.

Trump has put a guy in place who thinks none of that matters. The guy is Russell Vought, co-author of Project 2025. You remember. That’s the project Trump swore he had never heard of and didn’t know the people behind it, even though many or most of them had worked in his previous maladministration. Vought thinks the President can just, on a whim, redirect money or refuse to spend it where Congress said, so long as he calls the practice some official sounding name, like ‘impoundment.’

It’s one of the many, many…okay, many battle shaping up within the GOP itself. The Congress critters ARE going to protect their own jobs. WHEN Trump tries to bypass them, they will assert their official roles, quite probably aggressively.

You see, Trump doesn’t give two figs about whether or not you ever see your Social Security. He has plenty of (your) money and he’ll be just fine. It’s the same with Musk and Ramaswamy. These are billionaires with NO IDEA of what life is like for normal folk. Worse, they don’t care. But the Congress Critters DO care. Not because they actually care, mind you, but because they want to keep their phony baloney jobs and keep raking in all that beautiful lucre.

Now, one does have to take into account that Musk has directly threatened Congress Critters who don’t do exactly as they’re told by Trump. He swears he’s going to use his glorious pile of ill-gotten money to attack any GOP member who defies Trump in the next “elections.” That kind of puts the GOP in Congress in a tough position: If they cut Social Security, or Medicaid, or the VA budget, or even welfare they’ll likely be voted out, anyway. If they don’t, Musk works against them.

That’s a lose-lose proposal from the incoming Trump maladministration. Congress must be SO excited to be in THAT position. But at the very least, if a threatened congress critter could go back and tell his constituents that he is being “primaried” because he insisted on protecting Social Security, I’d bet he would overcome Musk’s money. Maybe they’ll #FAFO…

Violations…

by MyBaconPress

It’s just such a weird feeling, being bummed police have captured a murderer. But I am. I’m not alone, either. The guy who shot the CEO of a health care denial company, we now know, is named Luigi Mangione. He was spotted at a McDonald’s Restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania and ratted out. Okay, turned in. Police showed up and arrested him.

Then, the Mickey D’s in question began to be bombarded with negative reviews. Google finally had to step in and remove the low ratings. The restaurant was being hit with bad reviews because that’s where Mangione was captured, not because of anything having to do with their business.

The corporate press is trying to trivialize the reality that people seem to support his Mangione’s actions. They’re calling him the “hot assassin” and pretending people only support him because of celebrity culture. They keep trying to reinforce the idea that shooting “important” people is a very bad idea.

This is just a guy with a beef who shot another guy. Murder, right? No, the CEO gets the honor of having been “assassinated.” ‘Assassinate’ is defined as murder for political or religious reasons. The corporate press wants the world to see the CEO as an innocent victim but the population, the people who deal with the fallout of the CEO’s leadership, keeps seeing the act as revenge – killing the man who killed so many.

The thing that strikes me about all of this is how the population isn’t letting itself be manipulated. We all KNOW murder is wrong. We’re not all sure this qualifies as a murder so much as an act of self-defense. I think the One Percent is about to start pressing very, very hard on the day-to-day workers, trying to extract whatever they can, however they can.

I think the population may well be far more angry about it than the One Percent have taken into account and I suspect there will be MORE vigilantes out there aiming for self-described “important” people. I think Mangione will go to jail, but I ALSO think it might take awhile to find a jury willing to convict…

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Effing Israel. Assad falls in Syria. The country is in a vulnerable moment, trying to determine what shape it’s going to take moving forward. But Israel saw an opportunity – and started bombing. Can you believe it? They say they’re just carving out a “buffer zone.” It’s one of their favorite stories, we need a buffer zone. I suspect the “buffer zone” Israel REALLY wants is one in which no Muslims can be found from the Mediterranean Sea to just beyond the Persian Gulf.

It’s a land grab, pure and simple. It’s kind of what Israel does, steal land. They’ve been doing it to the Palestinians for decades and now they see an opportunity to annex some of Syria and they didn’t waste ANY time.

Is this really behavior their god is going to protect?

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Yeah, this is dumb but here it is. I saw an article telling workers how they can plan a perfect “workation.” Get it? It’s a mashup. ‘Work’ and ‘vacation.’ See, you go on vacation, but you still work. Ooh, cute. Let’s mash that up and make it sound like something cool, working while on vacation. Yeah, workation, that’s the ticket.

Hey, you know what? Pound sand. If I’m on vacation, I’m not working. If I’m working, I’m not on vacation! This seems like an idea the One Percent is trying to inject into the populace and what a stupid, stupid idea it is. Besides, it comes out at a time when employers are demanding their employees return to the office. How the HELL do I go someplace restful (to not rest) AND show up at the office?

It reminds me of when the One Percent tried to convince people that working only as hard as people were being paid to work amounted to “quiet quitting.” Never forget, rich people literally used to work people to death. They worked children over the course of ten hour days. These guys, left to their own ends, will do ANYTHING for profits and they really don’t seem to understand worker’s reticence to be abused that way.

I doubt “workation” is something that’s going to catch on. I just wanted to mention it…

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Well, both sides ARE doing it. Joe Biden is commuting sentences of low-level criminals. The individuals in question did some real time, then got sent to home confinement because of Covid-19. They’ve BEEN on home confinement since and apparently there hasn’t been any problem. So, Biden just commuted many of their sentences (something like 1,500) in an effort to protect them from the incoming threat.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, the Governor there is a Democrat but their state legislature is controlled by Republicans. So, the Republicans have voted to strip the Democratic governor of the state of most of his powers. Oh, and the incoming State Attorney General is a Democrat, too, so they stripped him of some of his powers, as well.

It’s a naked power grab. The thing is, the GOP is set to lose control over their legislation in the 2025 session so it may not be too serious of a move. When the Dems come in, maybe they can reverse the law.

The effing GOP is relentless in their thefts, power grabs, and hypocritical manipulations. Damn, I miss the days when people had honor…

Um…Pardon Me?

by MyBaconPress

Every once in a while, I get a little irked by the left. I’m not sure I mean the rank and file left. This is very definitely the politicians. They keep coming out and condemning Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter. Even though everyone… no, EVERYONE knows Hunter was being used as a political pawn in a smear campaign, the left is saying it’s bad that Joe protected his kid.

The story is, the left just handed Trump the excuse he needs to pardon the most vile people in the country and get away with it. Really? Do you think Trump needs an excuse to pardon the most vile people in the country? Because I remember him doing exactly that the last time he infested the White House – no excuses needed. All he had to do was pretend the justice system had been “weaponized.”

Sometimes, I hear people saying the left should learn to fight like the right. I’m not sure I agree with that all of the time. I don’t think one can adopt the tactics of a scoundrel effectively without becoming scoundrels themselves. But the left shouldn’t avoid doing the right thing because it hands Trump “an excuse.” Trump makes up his own excuses if he doesn’t have one and Trump’s odious behavior shouldn’t have a bearing on, well, anything, really. Sometimes, doing the things the right does isn’t underhanded and this is one of those times.

Anytime anyone wants to start comparing the “crimes” of the left with the crimes on the right and the nature of those pardoned by the President, I’m in. Hunter checked a box on a form. Now, compare that to the thieving, sexual assault, and downright traitorous behavior from the right – much of which Trump pardoned.

And then pipe down, yeah? Joe did the right thing…

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The right is trying to dismiss criticism of Trump’s pick to destroy the DoD, Fox Not-News liar Pete Hegseth, by pretending that, because the charges come from anonymous sources, they’re probably false. Um, have you SEEN what MAGA does to people who come forward with charges against a rightie? Doxing, harassment, and death threats. (This is based in the now infamous ‘Scream facts away’ doctrine.) I think I’d prefer to keep a low profile, too.

Of course, one person DID come out, if involuntarily, describing his horrifying behavior in great detail: his mother. His own mother thinks he has some serious problems and needs to get help. From what I hear, his mother is correct. Hegseth looks like a mighty uphill battle and worse, he looks like a mighty uphill battle Trump would likely lose.

Trump apparently thinks so, too. According to Politico, Trump is now considering Ron DeSantis for the job, among others. That’s likely just a feint, though. Keywords: “among others.” Trump chose confirmed bootlicker Marco Rubio to serve in his maladministration. Rubio is/was a senator from Florida. Trump wants DeSantis to name Lara Trump, Donald’s daughter-in-law to the post. So Trump is dangling a carrot to DeSantis.

I hear MAGA is unhappy with the pick. DeSantis stood up to Trump, you know. I don’t know why they’re okay with Rubio. Rubio is the guy who pointed out how small Donny’s hands are. If I were DeSantis, I don’t think I’d trust Trump to keep his word…

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Joe Rogan says he just had to vote for Trump because Tim Walz was caught in a couple of lies. Just think about that for a minute. Walz intimated he had carried a gun “in war,” but he never really faced combat. Walz also suggested he was in Hong Kong during the Tienanmen Square crackdown but he wasn’t. He WAS in Hong Kong, just not during the events in question. Those “lies” – an inflated resume, really – were just too much – a bridge too far for Rogan.

So he went with honest, puritan Donald Trump, instead. Uh-huh. That certainly checks…

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Corrupt judge Clarence “Buy me” Thomas recently said he was considering retirement – but only if Trump won the “election.” Of the move, Moscow Mitch McConnell said, “It’s a brazen admission. And the incoming administration would be wise to explore all available recusal options with these judges, because it’s clear now that they have a political finger on the scale. This sort of partisan behavior undermines the integrity of the judiciary.”

No, wait. No, that’s not right. Moscow Mitch didn’t say that when Thomas conditioned his retirement. Thomas’ condition was a-okay with the right. It made perfect sense to them that a judge may or may not retire based on the person who would name their replacement, assuming that judge was conservative.

Moscow Mitch is pretending to be all upset that two Democratic-appointed federal judges decided not to retire for the same reason. No, the McConnell quote from above is what he said about the Democratic-appointed judges. I see. When a Republican conditions their retirement on who gets to fill the seat, that’s okay. When a Democrat does it, that’s some kind of underhanded trumpery. Got it…

Doing The Right Thing – And Not…

by MyBaconPress

I guess the right is viewing it as a flip-flop but if you didn’t know Ole’ Sleepy Joe was going to pardon his son, Hunter, you were living in a dream world. (And, as it happens, MAGA is starting to discover the world they’re expecting is, in fact, a dream. A pipe dream, to be sure, but that’s still a dream…) I’m glad Joe did it.

I’m not defending Hunter’s actions. He broke the (very minor) law and a punishment was recommended that was in keeping with how these things are handled. So, first, there’s a “how these things are handled,” suggesting Hunter Biden is not the only guy to check off the box that says he’s not buying a gun while being a drug user and, as a rule, people don’t go to jail for it. Well, unless they’re the son of a President currently under attack by political opposition.

When MAGA heard Hunter was going to get the same thing other people get for the same offense, they were outraged and insisted on something worse. You know, because of how much they hate, hate, hate abuses of the law. So, Hunter found himself in deeper trouble than he should have been in – for political reasons. Why, it’s almost as if the cons were weaponizing the law…

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I was born in the LA basin and I don’t remember ever seeing a truly blue sky until I was about eight years old – when we moved out of the LA basin. There was a time in this once-great nation when the air pollution in some cities was so bad, people were dying of smoking-related diseases – even though they had never smoked. The air quality was so bad, there was a concern it would cause birth defects. There was a river near Cleveland, Ohio, the Cuyahoga River. It was choking with chemical contaminants. It was said that if you accidentally fell into that river, you went straight to the hospital – and God help you. It had spontaneously burst into flames.
“Wait, did you just say a river burst into flames?”
“Yes. A river burst into flames because of chemical contaminants.”

Cons like to pretend these issues should be handled on a case by case basis. As it happens, that had been the way various cities and states had been forced to handle it prior to 1970. The case-by-case approach had created a mish-mash of rules that made it hard to know the law in any given area – and that made it difficult to enforce the law. Mindless human activity, combined with very mindful corporate activity had damaged the environment so badly, it was becoming unsafe to breath the air, drink the water, or dig in dirt.

So, in 1970, Republican Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. The idea was to pull together responsibility for the various environmental efforts from around the country and set common standards. He even spoke of the need in his State of the Union Address from January of that year. Remember, this is a Republican speaking:

“Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and beyond factions. It has become a common cause of all the people of this country. It is a cause of particular concern to young Americans, because they more than we will reap the grim consequences of our failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later.

Clean air, clean water, open spaces-these should once again be the birthright of every American. If we act now, they can be.

We still think of air as free. But clean air is not free, and neither is clean water. The price tag on pollution control is high. Through our years of past carelessness we incurred a debt to nature, and now that debt is being called.”

Yes, there is still work to do. Corporations are forever finding ways to pollute as “cost cutting measures.” But we came a LONG way in cleaning things up. The EPA has the power to clean up areas that had become SO polluted they couldn’t sustain human life anymore, the so-called Superfund sites. (Look up Love Canal.) The companies that DID the polluting – when it wasn’t the military – often just walked away. Too costly to clean up their mess, you know. So the EPA forced them to.

Hmm, the EPA has the power to force corporations to clean up after themselves? Oh, the huMANity! But…but…what about the cost?!? What about maximizing shareholder value? What about the plight of the CEO, who might have to try and get by on only $350 million dollars a year if he has to clean up after himself? Maybe less. Oh, weep for the struggle.

All of that probably explains why corporations haven’t been too keen on the EPA since the day it was formed. As a result, corporations have wanted the EPA gone pretty much since the day it was formed. Fortunately, they have Donald Trump, now.

He hasn’t even taken power yet and his people are already gleefully attacking the agency, working to weaken it’s ability to do it’s job if they can’t get rid of it entirely. They plan to attack scientists who disagree with Trump, who knows nothing. They plan to eliminate protections from political interference with the agency’s work. They don’t LIKE that the EPA knows about – and works to prevent – climate change.

They think if they can make the EPA stop warning about climate change, climate change will just…go away. They think this because they randomly decided climate change is a fraud – even as summers get hotter and hotter and winters get wetter and wetter and storms get stronger and droughts last longer. LIVING the reality of climate change isn’t enough to convince some people climate change is real.

So, here we go. The thing is, climate change IS real. Denial won’t change that. With these actions, efforts to protect the environment will fall off and corporations (and you can bet your ass on this) will start dumping toxic wastes and other contaminants all over the environment as quickly as possible. Sure, it kills everything and everyone, but it saves money. Get your priorities straight, people!

I guess if we’re looking for “bright” sides, what I can come up with is, now that MAGA is sidelining the EPA, humanity will likely NOT survive long enough to suffer many of the other extremes I hear MAGA threatening.
“That’s a bright side?”
I suspect it’s a bright as we’re going to get from this crowd…

Not All Bad…

by MyBaconPress

There’s a Senator from Iowa, Joni Ernst, who is set to lead Trump’s new department, and possibly massive bureaucracy, the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ for her state. She says she wants to make the federal government “squeal.” I hope she wasn’t envisioning the infamous scene from ‘Deliverance.’ But I’m curious what she did mean.

I expect all of this cost-cutting the GOP keeps talking about to fall on the weakest and most vulnerable citizens, in general. Oh, sure, they may make noise about cutting from programs that assist the wealthiest and government subsidies that benefit corporations but the wealthiest and the corporations have powerful voices in the government these days. (That’s the beauty of fascism, in their eyes.) THEY won’t lose out, so the weakest will be the scapegoats, right?

But, in fairness, the first program Ernst suggested dumping was this so-called high speed rail line in California. It’s probably the single largest boondoggle I’ve seen in the state for a long time. It’s MASSIVELY over budget. It has taken FAR longer to become active than originally projected. It was supposed to travel from one large population center to another but has since been pared down to travel between two places nobody needs to get to in a hurry.

Oh, and it’s NOT “high speed rail.” Not if you think if high speed as a bullet train. This one is expected to go faster than a regular commuter train but not nearly the speed of bullet trains of Japan or Europe. In short, I have opposed the pretended high speed rail project in California since I first heard of it but it just keeps going forward. I suppose there is a huge amount of money being funneled to a small number of self-described “important” people as long as the project continues, so the project continues.

Listen, I’d even go so far as to say I would support a high speed rail line that traveled from, say, LA to Sacramento or the bay area if it was a) high speed and b) functional. But this ain’t that. The project currently sucking up money has failed. It just won’t die…

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Okay, I confess, I have extreme trepidation about this incoming team. For the most part, it’s going to be ugly and most Americans – and much of the world – will suffer. But within that framework, there are going to be sort of “fun” things to watch. Like the inevitable battle of egos between Donnie and Elon.

Trump and Musk are, without a doubt, two of the most self-important blowhards the world has ever seen, will ever see. They BOTH see themselves as god-level geniuses with some kind of mystical vision that allows them to understand things the small folk just can’t. They never see anybody they love more than the face in the mirror.

Right now, they’re working together but there WILL come a time when their interests diverge. There WILL come a time when both outsized egos will KNOW they have the right answer – but their answers won’t match. THAT is when you’ll see the breakdown between them. Set up an office pool. You can do it by the month, week, day, or even hour. When did Trump’s ego clash with Elon’s ego to the point they consciously uncouple?

Yeah, I know. That’s kind of a small comfort, isn’t it? Yeah, it is. I fear it’s what we get for the foreseeable future, small comforts. We have to take them where we can get them, right?

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I STILL say it’s better to remain engaged with your MAGA than to shut them out. For one thing, you KNOW MAGA is getting false information that’s misleading them. THAT doesn’t make them bad people and if you back away, where are they supposed to get better information? BUT…for another thing – and this one might be a bit more difficult to take – if the corporate media is feeding MAGA misinformation on the right, what makes you think the SAME corporate media, the one that benefits so nicely from the ongoing battles between Americans, aren’t feeding misinformation to the left, as well?

Yeah, it’s more subtle. The left is not as vulnerable to outright misstatements. I have long held that the media misdirects the right on facts and they misdirect the left on intentions. The media fools the right on details of events but fools the left on what people might DO about it. And, sometimes, the media deceives the left using “editorial decisions.”

Do you remember Hunter’s laptop? On the left, we, at first, didn’t even know about it. The media really DID suppress info about that laptop so as to not hurt Biden’s chances in the election. I still don’t think the laptop had anything of actual value on it. That’s not the point. The point is, it WAS Hunter’s, the media DID know about it, and they DID suppress the “story” until after the election.

AND, in a very real sense, the media suppressing that story on the left allowed the right to just run with any and all conspiracy theories it wanted. The left never got any chance to push back in the run up to the election so the right was out voting on that, at least in part, and the left didn’t even know it existed. I’m saying, don’t get smug. We don’t have a monopoly on truth.

If we stop talking to our political opposites, we surrender any chance of uncovering the stories intended to manipulate the left. We actually make it easier for the corporate media to foment anger via “editorial decisions.” My actual and honest first choice would be to seek a way to make media – left AND right – more responsible in it’s reporting.

One of the things I noticed early on about conservative media was their insistence that cons don’t risk listening to lefties. I actually heard Rush Limbaugh say to his audience once, “You don’t need to do any thinking. That’s what you have me for.” The right created that wedge as a tool to assist their destruction of the Constitution, and it worked. What makes you think adding to the “divided house” will help in any way? Bear in mind, our actual enemy is the one percent, who understand how tariffs work, not Uncle Conservative, who doesn’t…