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…

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

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…

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…

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

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?

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

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…

Well, whaddaya know? The corporate media is FINALLY getting around to commenting on Trump’s various proposals. It turns out, they see some…problems. It sure was helpful of them to wait until AFTER the “election” to say so. The latest? You’ll never guess. Despite the fact that Trump promised, over and over, to lower gas prices with “Drill, baby, drill” – a popular chant from the right – it turns out the companies that do those things don’t see any need to drill any more.

It turns out, they LIKE the balance they have between energy available to the customer and the dividends they’re paying to investors. The US is ALREADY the world’s biggest producer of oil and natural gas. (Because nothing says “fighting climate change” better than becoming the world’s biggest producer of oil and natural gas.)

Oh, AND, as it happens, American refineries are not set up to refine the kind of crude we pump from under the North American continent. We can do a little but we can’t do a lot and the oil companies would require a HUGE capital investment in their refineries to do more. Not to put too fine a point on it, that would RAISE prices at the pump. See how that works? When a company has to spend more to get a product to market, they have to charge more for their trouble.

NOW the only remaining question: was Trump lying outright or does he really NOT KNOW the actual US position? I sure am glad the guy without a clue is going to be in charge. It’s… inspiring…

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

Truthfully, I’m not sure why Trump is so ready to fight for Matt Gaetz. He is surrounded by a LOT of toady bootlickers ready to pander to his every whim. Any ONE of them would do the job just as badly. Why fight for the guy who assaults underage women and… Oh, right. Never mind…

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

Well, MTG is STILL out there, calling for a “national divorce” from the left. She says the left and the right are just too far apart and we can’t get past our irreconcilable differences. At this point? I think I finally agree with something MTG says. I wish the left could leave, too. We’d go back to being a decent country and MAGA could trash the rest…

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

Right now, the Dems are working overtime trying to fill judicial vacancies. Right now, cons are working overtime trying to stop them. Dems want responsible people who know and respect the law. Cons want toadies to Trump who will rule as directed. (See Aileen Cannon.) Cons have a few absences in the Senate and, as a result, can’t stop the Dems.

At one point, Sen John Kennedy (R-La) – no, not the good one from history, the guy from Louisiana, said he’s frustrated. THEN he said, “Because a number of President Biden’s nominees, particularly at the courts of appeal, they think they’re qualified to be a federal judge if they’ve seen ‘My Cousin Vinny,’ and I don’t agree with them.”

That’s a bit of a self-own, isn’t it? A quick check of Trump’s staff proposals shows not one, not two, but THREE people Trump has nominated based on the fact that he’s seen them on TV and thinks they must be smart. So OBVIOUSLY the GOP has to start bitching that the DEMS are posting people based on movies. It’s the offset to Trump actually posting people based on who he likes to watch on television.

Kennedy, you won’t be surprised to learn, is simply sucking up to Trump, who wants all of these confirmations to stop. The more decent judges the Dems put in place, the fewer lackeys Trump gets to name – and Trump ONLY likes lackeys…

Well, that was…disappointing. Depressing, even. I hesitate to confess that because I know that MAGA takes great pleasure in lefty depression, but what the hell, right? It’s their day. They get their celebration. I suspect it will be short-lived. Whatever it is they’ve chosen to believe, reality will invade, and soon. So, congratulations, MAGA. The whole world is going to reap as you’ve sown and I genuinely believe it won’t be the utopia you’ve imagined.

I’ve got to say, I don’t really believe it. I mean, I’ll accept it. To be clear, I have no evidence of any kind of chicanery and I’m not leveling any charges. I just don’t believe it. It’s only a personal opinion. But I suspect Trump got a boost from his good friend and handler, Putin, who will now enjoy unfettered access to the American intelligence apparatus. I don’t think the machines are inherently corrupt – so stow your lawsuits. I just think they’re vulnerable to MAGA mischief. Something like, say, connecting the machines to the web early, allowing the Russians to dial in and “adjust” the outcome. It’s just an opinion, but it’s a firmly held opinion. And I should say, it’s possible I simply can’t accept that so many people could be so blind.

To me, the GOP “victory” just doesn’t pass the smell test, and I’ll tell you why: he “won” the popular vote. See, it has long-since been a political reality that large turnout favors the left. It always has – before this. And this wasn’t just “large” turnout. It was the second highest turnout in history. Yet, suddenly, huge turnout means nothing and Trump wins both the electoral college AND the popular vote? And he did that by pulling in large numbers of people from groups he promises to oppress, deport, or otherwise vilify?
“You suck, it’s all your fault, and I’m going to punish you!”
“Oh, you’re my guy. I’m voting for you.”
Yeah, that’s how people work…

See, Trump has NEVER won the popular vote before, and the left has mentioned that fact a time or two – or three or four or… When anyone mentions anything that might be viewed as a vulnerability, he needs to do something to prove it’s not true – especially if it is. Remember how hard he worked to convince people that nobody ever left his rallies, even as we all watched video of people leaving his rallies?

So this time, he doesn’t just arrange to “win” the electoral college. THIS time, he needs to “win” the popular vote, too. But winning the popular vote has a second, more sinister, motivation. It sets up the claim that they HAVE TO do the terrible things they want to do. They have a “mandate.” (True, someone had to explain to them that a “mandate” wasn’t two guys grabbing dinner and a movie, but still…)

At this point, the only thing I can think of that might serve as even a glimmer of a bright spot, is actually the success MAGA has enjoyed. What I mean is, now there are no Dems to stop them, assuming the GOP lead in the House holds. The GOP OWNS anything and everything that happens going forward. (Yeah, it ain’t much of a bright spot.) They’ll have no one to blame. The only place to point their fingers will be the mirror.

Maybe, just maybe, as things crash – and things will crash – the scales will fall from MAGA eyes and they’ll see what they’ve done – to themselves, if nothing else. Might the MAGA win be the beginning of the MAGA undoing? Maybe. Meanwhile, the only thing that remains for the left is the “neener, neener” factor. That is, we get to say “We told you so.” That’s small comfort, though. It’s like having the ocean lapping at your ankles on the deck of the Titanic and seeing someone you don’t like fall into the water first. Yeah, you can point your finger and laugh, but you’re headed for the drink, too. Small comfort.

Besides, I don’t think we should. The 2024 outcome is the culmination of decades of work by the One Percent against the rest of us. It has been slow, but it has been steady. It has been relentless. MAGA hasn’t been the driver, they’ve been the tool. As the scales DO fall from their eyes, I think we should welcome them back to the fold of humanity. We, the people, are going to need to work together to overcome what the One Percent has done to us.

As of now, they have us right where they want us – back to before FDR saved the country in the 1930’s with the New Deal. It was a good time to be rich back then. But it sucked for everyone else. It was the New Deal that made America great in the first place. We don’t make America great again by scrapping the New Deal…