Well, it looks as though the cons have won the beer war. Bully for them. Anheuser-Busch, the company that makes Budweiser products, put a picture of a trans person on their label for a contest. The director of marketing, Alissa Heinerscheid, said she was trying to attract younger beer drinkers to the brand. Conservatives – already afraid of, well, everything, really – became even MORE afraid and decided that touching the can might make them gay so there was only one choice: shoot the beer! Hey, it’s perfectly logical. A photo of a trans person might make you gay so, instead, get your great, big penis extender out and share it with a friend, right?

Beau: “Wow, Buck, big strong rod you got there!”
Buck: “Yeah, thanks, Beau. I’m pretty proud of it. I’ve been playing with it for awhile now.”
Beau: “It shows. Can I have a turn?”
Buck: “You want to make it shoot?”
Beau: “I do. I really do. Can I…touch it?”
Buck: “Oh, man, I’d really love for it to be in your hands for awhile.”
Beau: “It feels so hard!”
Buck: “Blue steel, baby!”
Beau: “I am SO gonna shoot that can!
Buck: “Do it! Do it now! Make it explode all over everything!”

See? Nothing gay there.

Anyway, Anheuser-Busch has backed down. The good Ms. Heinerscheid has “taken a leave of absence” and an underling is now in her position. A statement was released saying Anheuser-Busch is really only about bringing people together over a beer. The offending cans will be eliminated and the company will go with an American flag picture for awhile and wait to see if the rednecks come back.

I’ll tell you this: It was a bold move on Ms. Heinerscheid’s part, if a bit tone-deaf. Budweiser has been the beer of rednecks for as long as I can remember. Bud advertises at NASCAR, fercrissakes. This is NOT a beer for thinking people. Her attempt to expand the beer’s consumer base was laudable but one cannot slap such a group in the face with one of their very worst, most terrifying fears (“Arghh! People not like me are allowed to live!”) and hope to get away with it…

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Well, I guess the debt-ceiling battle looms. The problem with having so many ideologically-faithful but stupid people running the House of Representatives is that they really may not understand the implications of carrying out their threat to not pay US debts. You see, over time, I’ve really come to believe these guys – no matter how stupid the threats. They WILL carry them out regardless of consequences, just to make some misguided point, and it won’t be until AFTER the damage occurs that it begins to dawn on them they they may have overdone it.

There is a LOT of language about who should do what and why. (It takes more words to lie.) They’ll suggest all kinds of things, none of which are the problem and none of which will solve the problem, instead of just doing the things that WOULD solve the problem; specifically, raise taxes on the highest incomes and slash the Pentagon’s budget. We won’t do that, though, because the people with the highest incomes own and operate the people who would have to raise the taxes (thanks, Citizens United) and cutting the Pentagon’s bloated budget would be immediately decried as “weak.”

You see, from time to time, the cons trot out one of their favorite catch-phrases, “fraud, waste, and abuse.” These days, the Pentagon is the very embodiment of fraud, waste, and abuse. They’ve simply “lost” trillions of dollars and they have not and can not pass an audit. But, no. Military spending, wasteful as it is, is spread out carefully among the fifty states so no one will touch it, lest they hurt people in their own districts. Accordingly in conservative world, THAT fraud, waste, and abuse is a-okay! Instead, we get to listen to politicians prattle on about their concerns and attempts to work around the problem they refuse to solve. (As a bonus, they get to inflict a lot of pain on the most vulnerable members of our once-great nation and cons love nothing more than that, so it’s a win-win!)

We have a bunch of those kinds of solvable but “unsolvable” problems in this once-great nation. For instance, you could pretty much solve the homeless problem in a year or two if the powers that be would simply reverse their oh-so-destructive 2011 decision to allow pooled money investors to buy single family homes and require them to divest. We’re not going to do that, though, because so many people are making so much money from the carnage. But I digress…

There’s going to be a lot of posturing and bickering, especially among the cons, themselves. The thing that bothers me the most is that these guys have been trying to destabilize American democracy for over 40 years now and this debt ceiling thing has become the perfect weapon to do it. Sure, destabilizing countries rarely leads to good outcomes but cons believe what they prefer to believe and can’t be bothered with facts, evidence, or reality.

I’ll tell you this: It’s all just noise for now but we’re getting closer to an actual default. These guys are holding a gun to their own heads and they really are just crazy enough to shoot…

Well, color ME shocked. I didn’t even know this Roberts Supremely Kangaroo Court could get anything right anymore. But they did. Well, at least temporarily. Preserving access to Mifepristone is the right move and, for now, that’s what they’ve done. I guess they’ve earned a temporary, collective “atta-boy!” (I feel like, since I’m going to bitch when they do their normal, stupid stuff, I should give them props when they do something right…)

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This court has done everything in it’s power to eliminate ALL pretense of respectability. It’s obviously not just the oh-so-horribly bad decisions, either. Taking bribes? Yeah, bad look. Not doing anything about it when one of yours is caught dead-to-rights? Ah…

I’ll tell you this: Complete lack of legitimacy seems to be the goal of the cons on the court. Well, in that case, I guess they get another “atta-boy” for achieving their evil goal…

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I’ve seen many a high-profile politician throw their hats into a presidential race only to flame out spectacularly. It seems as though the first to falter in this race is Ronda Santis. He was going to be the biggest threat to 45 we had ever seen. Instead, he decided to run on a battle with Mickey Mouse and the incredibly unpopular war on women being waged via the abortion battle. Toss in his war on knowledge and his insane concerns about the clothes people wear and, well, the picture of crazy seems complete.

Besides, he’s short. No, I don’t mean to insult any who might be “height-challenged.” I read, once, that one of the factors Americans use to choose their next “leaders” is height. Taller has an edge over shorter. I’m sure it’s important, somehow, and I’m glad to see Americans making the hard choices with quality details. (Ahem…)

Sometimes, it looks like some politician does something SO stupid it seems it must have been planned. Battling with Mickey and pressing one of the most unpopular issues currently being fought in this once great nation seems like one of those. Yes, the cons love a pseudo-fighter, a tough-talking, pretend tough-guy. But you’ve got to hate the right people to please the people on the right. Mickey ain’t it. I mean, Hunter Biden is still out there. Why not just attack him over and over? It works for Fox Not-News. But, no. The mouse it shall be. True genius…

So, DeSantis is already yesterday’s news and there don’t seem to be any other real challengers out there to 45 on the right so, unless someone invokes the 14th amendment blocking insurrectionists from holding public office (they could, it’s right in the Constitution), 45 will get the nod again.

I’m going to say, “good.” I know (and worry) people took a dismissive attitude toward the Former Guy during the 2016 race. I was one of them. I didn’t really believe the portrait he was painting of himself. It seemed…too extreme, too “pat” – a practiced conservative ignorance that correctly hit every conservative “issue.” My mind just couldn’t grasp that such a complete moron could ever, under any circumstances, get to be the President of the United States of America. I wouldn’t believe such an incompetent fool could be the president of the local dog-walking group.

So, I confess, I didn’t take him seriously. Truthfully, I still don’t but I believe the danger now and won’t take him lightly. There were a lot of people like me at the time and many or most of those have also come to see that we no longer have an actual choice in presidential races. We vote against whomever is the worst choice, not for our preference for the best and that’s that. Sad but true…

I’ll tell you this: 45 is an actual and honest threat to America and he needs to be stopped by every legal means available in our system -if there are any left. (There are, but will the “opposition” use them?)

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Hey, five NFL players have been suspended for betting on sports! WOW, who could have guessed THAT might happen? I mean, really, who…you know, besides, well, everyone? We’re assured – by the NFL – there were no bets by players on games they were playing in and no evidence of any game tampering. “No evidence?” Is that because the very powerful NFL has made certain there is “no evidence?” One guy bet on a different league but did it on his phone in his team’s clubhouse. Apparently, HIS offense was where he placed the bet – despite the fact that stadiums are starting to house sports books right on their premises.

I’m not opposed to gambling, per se, but the leagues, all of the leagues, need to go back to the zero-tolerance rule for anybody connected to professional sports. One strike and you’re out – forever. Gambling players, coaches, referees, team owners, hell even cheerleaders, gives the game a dirty look. In the NFL particularly, the officiating is often so bad, people regularly speculate out loud as to whether the refs took bribes to call games in one way or another. Now, with actual money on the line?

I’ll tell you this: The temptation will be more than many people can contain. The games, all of the games, will be pretty quickly tainted by this and professional sports in general could well devolve to Big Time Wrestling respect levels…

Truth? Every thinking person I know with whom I’ve discussed lying “Fox NOT-News'” settlement for repeatedly lying to it’s viewers is a bit disappointed that they got away without having to admit on air to their oh-so-gullible viewers they were lying all the time. Thinking Americans wanted each of the lying Fox talkers to have to confess their sins during their shows, where they had so comfortably spread the lies in the first place. It really sucks that didn’t happen. No one was particularly surprised, just disappointed. Me, too.

In today’s Guardian, there’s a story about how they haven’t said nearly word one about the settlement. (There was a brief mention in their hard “news” segment, apparently.) No surprise. Then I saw, at the end of the article, that Bill O’Reilly used the opportunity to try and polish his turd-like image by claiming that when HE was at Fox, their standard was ‘Fair and Balanced’ and has, since his departure, become, ‘Tell the audience only what it wants to hear.’ Uh-huh.

I remember when his was a relevant voice, thinking people used to regularly refer to him a Bill O’LIEly. He didn’t earn that moniker by being dedicated to truth. Al Franken wrote a book called ‘Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them’ in 2003! O’Reilly started HIS lying show at Fox in 2001 and was “purged” in 2017 after a sexual harassment scandal. So NOW Fox hosts are lying about the lying and who the lying liars are, might be, and used to be.

“Fox Not-News” viewers don’t care. They’re the physical embodiment of Sheryl Crow’s ‘Strong Enough’ lyric: “Lie to me. I promise, I’ll believe. Lie to me. But please, don’t leave.”

It should be noted, however, that MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell may have spilled MSNBC’s beans with his “analysis.” He said they had to pay out because they were stupid and smugly pointed out that Fox couldn’t have been sued if their talking heads had simply uttered three words at the end of each lie, “if that’s true.” He said, “Those are safe legal words that save you $787 Million…” Quick question: does Lawrence O’Donnell knowing how to tell a legally bulletproof lie on television reflect something he just casually picked up along the way? Or is he telling everyone how MSNBC lies to their viewers with impunity? Either way, he has now told lying Fox Not-News how to do it better.

I’ll tell you this: If I was an MSNBC viewer, I’d be watching for those weasel words – “if that’s true” – from now on. Better yet, turn of broadcast news entirely. READ an actual newspaper. Take your time. THINK about what you’re reading. Don’t let them blast some b.s. into your head and swiftly move past it, eh?

What the hell kind of message are they spreading in crazy conservative media these days? I ask because old white men have suddenly taken to shooting anybody who appears on their property – without warning, without communication, certainly without cause.

A 16 year old kid, Ralph Yarl, mistakenly went to the wrong house trying to pick up his siblings. The homeowner opened the door and shot the kid in the head. They never spoke. He just opened the door blasting. Sadly, the kid who got shot is black and the shooter is white and the shooting took place in Kansas City, Missouri so the police don’t really want to charge the white guy. Public pressure finally shamed them into action but it was as small an action as they could take. The best they could come up with was “armed criminal action.” The 85-year-old man shot the younger man twice. Once in the head and again after Yarl fell. Yarl is fighting for his life. The old man? Well you might see him at a barbecue this weekend…

That seemed like an isolated incident, just some crazy old man who could be (and was) made to panic at the mere sight of a black person. But…hold the phone. Holy gods, it happened again! A not-quite-as-old white man, Keven Monahan, 65, saw a car pull into his driveway. His response? He came out shooting! He just stepped out of the house and opened fire on the car. I doubt this one was racially motivated as he didn’t have the chance to notice that the people in the car were white. Well, at least one of them was. HE killed a 20-year-old white woman named Kaylin Gillis. He’s charged with second-degree murder.

The point is, one crazy old white guy opening the door and shooting is an isolated incident, an old man who has lost his grip on reality. The second time, though? I’m not ready to call it a trend but two blind shootings in three days starts to look like reality is being ripped from the weak-thinker’s minds. Fear everybody, all the time. That sound just like the message of the conservative media. The very same message they’ve been delivering for decades. Now it’s coming to full fruition.

I’ll tell you this: DC vs Heller was always a bad and dangerous, seriously flawed ruling but now it’s becoming a nightmare from which America can not wake..

More than once, I’ve heard Joe Biden referred to as “the trump slayer.” I believe this is the DNC trying to convince Americans that only Biden could beat 45. See, since 45 is the presumptive GOP nominee, having a guy who can “slay” him opposite is a good thing, right? Couple-a things: One, Biden didn’t “beat” the dumbass. Yes, he won but people were not voting for Biden. People were (desperately) voting against 45. Two, anybody who is not Hillary would have beaten 45.

Yes, his base was and is still there and still loud. But there just aren’t as many MAGA cons as there are rational people and the masses were fed up with 45’s antics. Thinking people came out in droves to vote against 45 and would have voted, collectively, for a dying rodent (so long as it was NOT named ‘Hillary’) in an effort to stop the crazy. That was another thing. Many, many third party voters abandoned their principled positions to vote against 45.

It really IS a sorry state of affairs in this once-great nation that people are mostly motivated to vote against opposition rather than for a preferred choice. We, the people, learned a couple of election cycles back that we’re not even really choosing our preferred candidate in the primaries. The candidate has been selected. (Apparently, that means the check cleared.) I’ve long opposed the idea of states paying for political primaries but when I learned the whole thing is a sham with a “winner” already determined, I REALLY started to wonder what the dog-and-pony show was all about. I still do. (Fund-raising, I guess…)

The truth is, I think Biden has done a pretty good job. Sure, the cons disagree but since they have no idea about what’s really happening in this country, their “opinion” has little value. So, yeah, Biden has done okay. But every time I see him, every time I hear him speak, I find myself thinking, “Man, this guy is old.” Biden’s only like, 80 years old, but, damn…every time I see him he seems like Methuselah’s older brother. I know a number of people older than Biden, numerically, but with far more actual vigor than the current Oval Office occupant. (In fact, I suspect that SOME of Biden’s image problems come from him trying to prove he’s still vigorous.)

The question looms on the left: who will the Democrats get to run? Many of us are quite clear that the answer to that is whomever writes the biggest, fattest check that clears first. That makes it impossible to guess. The masses would be thinking stupid things like: Who could do the job well? Who is best qualified? Who do we think is the best person for the job? Wishful thinking noobs. The DNC will focus on and foist the check-writer of choice. That could well be Biden. (That’s going to put some added focus on the choice of running mate…)

If Former Guy is the GOP nominee, it won’t matter who the DNC posts up. The left will fall out in droves, again, to beat his criminal ass, again (which they can only do if they vote on paper). If it’s anybody else though? Complacency could be very costly in this upcoming race…

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Well, of course…it’s Floriduh! Two men get into a road rage incident. At some point each “responsible gun owner” pulls out his gun and – while racing down the road, blinded by fury, surrounded by innocent people – fires it at the other car. (Yet another example of how awesome it is for everybody to be armed at all times.) In each case, the shooter shoots the daughter of the other driver’s car…”accidentally.” A 5-year-old (non-combatant) got shot in the lower leg. A 14-year-old (also non-combatant) was shot in the back. (Both girls were treated and survived.) Neither of the Bozos doing the shooting managed to hit each other, though.

One, the first shooter, claims he was only aiming at the bed of the truck. This prompted the second shooter to grab his gun and empty the magazine into his adversary’s car. The thing is, the first guy to grab his gun and shoot? HE won’t be facing any charges. That’s because the second shooter, the guy who returned fire, “started it,” according to Floriduh law, by throwing a full water bottle at and into the first shooter’s car – right through the driver’s side window! It “startled” the other driver so, clearly, the thrower deserved to die…

I’m sure this is the wrong focus for the moment but I was struck by the idea that a guy flying down the road and furious could throw a full water bottle at and into an also-speeding car – but couldn’t hit the driver with a bullet. That’s some very good, very bad aim.

The first shooter isn’t charged because of Floriduh’s “Stand Your Ground” law. You remember “Stand Your Ground,” right? That’s the stupid law that allowed George Zimmerman to murder Trayvon Martin after George started to lose the fight George started. Now it allows the first person to resort to gun violence to walk free? How does that work? Well, apparently, the first shooter had the right to “defend himself” because the thrown water bottle was a “deadly missile.”

I guess the water-thrower can say he wasn’t aiming the bottle at the window. That was just an unfortunate throw – you know, in the same way the first shooter claims he was shooting at the bed of the truck but managed to shoot a 5-year-old child sitting in the cab. Accidents happen. We see stories like this because the underlying law is stupid. In keeping with the Roberts Supremely Kangaroo Court’s stunningly stupid record, DC vs Heller was badly decided and bad precedent creates bad law. Now there’s an increasing tangle of laws trying to manage the fallout of that one stupid ruling.

I’ll tell you this: I have no defense for the guy who threw the bottle but it seems to me that drawing a gun in response to a thrown water bottle is an escalation, not a response. In my not so humble opinion, both “men” should be in jail…

Boy, the dangers of the radicalized right came into clear focus for just a moment with the arrest of the young con who released all of those classified documents. His prize? He’s facing up to 20 years in prison and a Dishonorable Discharge. He’s 21 years old and his life is already over. The prison time will be bad enough. The Dishonorable Discharge will take care of the rest.

But what motivates a young Air National Guardsman to betray their own country? Radicalization. The cons are very fond of a propaganda outfit called RT.com. ‘RT’ stands for Russia Today. It’s mostly owned by the Russian government and, not surprisingly, it presents a very rosy picture of Russia and paints Putin as a strong-willed and resolute leader. (The editors get murdered if they say anything otherwise.) More importantly, it presents the Russians as the victims in the Russo/Ukraine war – and the cons believe it. (Yeah, they believe a lot of stupid things…)

Currently, cons stand against US assistance in Ukraine. In short, they’re rooting for Putin. This kid just took a few extra steps to help the Russians out. His actions will help the Russians plan troop movements and block off weak areas in their systems and processes the US (may have) exploited for intelligence gathering. He also gave the Russians a very good look at just how much intelligence the US has gathered on the Russians.

The world has seen one assessment that suggests Ukraine won’t be winning this war any time soon – if at all. The cons have jumped on it as “proof” that Ukraine is losing the war. Truthfully, I don’t think Ukraine can win, either, so long as they’re fighting what, historically, has been called a “limited war.” A “limited war” is when one side picks a line and refuses to go beyond it. That allows the other side to attack and retreat to safety to re-group and re-arm over and over and over again. The US tried it in Korea and Vietnam. It didn’t go well for us then and it won’t go well in Ukraine, either. If you’ve got a war to fight, fight it. If you’re not going to fight to win, don’t fight.

The conservative fantasy delusion about life in oh-so-glorious Russia is kind of amazing. I suspect that living there for about a month or so might have them singing a different tune, experience being what it is. I suspect they LOVE the idea of being able to murder one’s political opponents like Putin does but they simply fail to take into account the possibility THEY might find themselves the “opponent” that gets murdered someday. Yeah, great system. But they don’t live there so they’re free to pretend any damn fool thing they want and to their heart’s content. As with everything else, the radicalized right stands against the United States and with anybody/everybody else who opposes the US. Putin and his Russo/Ukraine war are no different…

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So, what else are the cons wrong about this week/month/year? Okay, everything – so let’s just focus on this one: abortion. They’re really coming after abortion rights right now. It makes sense to them. They will likely never have a better shot than they do right now. They’ve corrupted enough of the judiciary to have legal cover and they’ve gerrymandered enough state houses to get the laws passed and THEY ARE PUSHING.

So, they found themselves a conservative activist “judge” who decided to apply his vast medical guesswork and preferences in lieu of, you know, a medical education, and take a stance on one of the medications commonly used for abortions these days, Mifepristone. Mifepristone (aka, RU-486) has been around in Europe since 1980 and came into use in the US in about 2000. (Yeah, despite the rhetoric, the US lags Europe in most areas…) The “judge” declared that the FDA didn’t test it well enough and the now-forty year practical application experience isn’t enough and is, therefore, invalid.

Fortunately, another, you know, actual judge (that is, not some activist, ideological moron) ruled nearly simultaneously that Mifepristone is perfectly legal and must stay available to women. This will buy a little time to have the whole thing sorted. More importantly, it will buy time for people to secretly stockpile as much Mifepristone as they can lay their hands on while right fights wrong. Oddly, conservative Kangaroo of the Roberts Kangaroo Court, Samuel Alito, has issued a stay on the ideological “judge’s” ruling, leaving Mifepristone available for now.

The only trouble I can see is that most Americans prefer choice. To be clear, NOBODY is “pro-abortion” but most people are “pro-choice.” Nobody is “pro-life,” either. THAT crowd is actually “pro-birth.” After delivery, the woman (and the kid, incidentally) are on their own. And I DO mean “the woman.” I’ve heard a LOT of talk about forcing the woman (or violated child) to have a child she isn’t ready for but I’ve heard precious little about forcing the man to take full financial responsibility for the child he sired. When one removes all the specious arguments from the anti-abortion crowd, they REALLY seem interested only in punishing that slut bitch for having sex in the first place…

Fortunately, the cons are in direct conflict with big business, as well as sane Americans. How do you think the pharmaceutical industry is going to feel about losing countless millions of dollars for a very unpopular ideological position? Yeah, it really sucks having to rely on the greed of a corporation for help but, if nothing else, greed endures…and it will help in this case.

You likely remember when Obamacare passed, it required insurance companies to provide for birth control. Hobby Lobby sued, saying such a ruling violated their mythology and they shouldn’t have to do it because they made a wild, blind-ass guess that their invisible super-friend in the sky might somehow take offense. And they won. (I know!)

So they’ve laid it out for you in detail and in black and white and make no mistake. Conservatives, in the guise of the Republican party, want to eliminate birth control AND access to abortion and they’re moving as aggressively as they can to do all of that. Fair warning: they won’t stop until they are stopped and the only way to stop them is get them out of power.

I’ll tell you this: I can’t/won’t tell you for whom you should vote. But I WILL say that if you value freedom and choice, you can NOT vote for Republicans – ever. They’re doing everything they can to subjugate women and return them, barefoot and pregnant, to the home where they “belong…”

Amazon spent $14.2M on anti-union consultants in 2022.

That’s a lot of coin they’re laying out in an effort to make sure they don’t have to do the right thing by their workers. You know the workers. They’re the ones who do the work! It’s their work that generates the revenues Bezos stuffs into his pockets. Amazon is using the revenue generated by those workers to make sure they don’t have to do anything for the workers themselves.

I’ll tell you this: I hope they keep at it, the workers, I mean. Unions were one of the major components that made America great in the first place and they’re needed if we ever really want to do it again…

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Okay, weird. Or is it? It turns out the right-wing, amicus brief-writing, pseudo-“Justice” corrupting “friend” of Clarence Thomas admires fascists. It has come out Harlan Crow has a collection of Hitler memorabilia, including a couple of Hitler’s paintings. He has a garden of statues of dictators including Mussolini and Stalin but most of his collection centers on Hitler. You know, kind of typical, far-right conservative memorabilia.

After all this time, why might people be confused to find that the wealthy people trying to take over this once-great nation are Fascists – or, at least, Fascist-aligned? I’ve seen several theories that suggest that in order to be truly fascist there must be this or that characteristic but Mussolini, the reputed “Father of Fascism” described it only as the marriage between corporations and government. That’s the definition I’ve always used and it certainly seems to be the country we live in today. I don’t even think authoritarianism is necessarily part-and-parcel to Fascism. I think it occurs as a natural by-product because that’s how corporations work.

We KNOW that the richest people in this country tend toward fascism and have for a long, long time. Henry Ford was a Fascist, for example. I’d even say it’s logical. If you’re the one who gets to keep all the money and make all the rules, that system is probably going to be VERY attractive – to you. It’s everybody else, the vast majority of the population, that suffers.

But I’ll tell you this: “Finding out” that the stronghold of Fascism in this once-great nation is in the homes, halls, and offices of the top 10 percent of the wealth-holders? That’s really kind of ho-hum information these days. The real question is, what are We, the People going to do about it?

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The main protagonist in the Christian Bible is a guy named Jesus. He has more of a supporting role in Islam. (Religions do that. For example, Apollo, the leading god to the Romans, also existed as a god in ancient Greece. The Greek Apollo was just a bit further down the pecking order for the Greeks. So, Jesus being “re-ranked,” as it were, is just standard operating procedure for religions…) Oh, also, his name was more likely Joshua, with “Jesus” being something of a mistranslation but that’s just a digression…

Today is Easter, a big day for Christians. All my life, I’ve had questions about the religion so today seems a good day to mention one of them. I mean no disrespect to believers. I’m just asking the question, as Tucker Carlson might say…

Christians, as a group, are waiting for the end times, when Jesus/Joshua comes back and collects everybody and takes them off to a better place. Sure, you have to die first but still…better, right? (“Can’t get an even shake here on Earth? Just wait until you die. Things will be GREAT after that! That will be 10% of the gross, please…”)

If I may coin a mash-up, JeJosh, is quoted in Matthew 24 as describing the signs to look for and, without being too specific, when the return will take place. This is one of the more prominent places in the Bible where JeJosh warns believers (over and over) that there will be many pretenders and not to be fooled. In Matthew 24:4 (NIV) we get: “And JeJosh answered, “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name claiming ‘I am the Messiah’ and will deceive many.” Then, in Matthew 24: 11, “…and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.”

JeJosh really brings the point home in Matthew 24:23, when he says “At that time, if anyone says to you ‘Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘There he his!’ do not believe it.” AGAIN, in Matthew 24:24, “for false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.” I guess JeJosh didn’t feel like his message was getting through so he repeated again in Matthew 24:26, “So if anyone tells you, ‘there he is, out in the wilderness’ do not go out; or ‘Here he is in the inner rooms’ do not believe it.” Or, finally, in Matthew 24:26.5, “No, I will NOT be a big, fat, orange blob of anger, whining, greed, self-pity, and self-interest hell-bent on seizing a once great nation for my own aggrandizement.” (Okay, I may have thrown that last one in on my own…)

I mean, my own edition aside, that’s still a LOT of “don’t be fooled” right there. All of that is really just a digression from my point, though. MY question is about the timing. In the same book where JeJosh repeats himself over and over, “don’t be fooled” (only to be HUGELY disappointed at the countless multitudes of the faithful fooled by false prophets) he also gave a time-frame.

Matthew 24:34 – and remember, this is JeJosh talking, here: “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”

Now, there are many different definitions of what constitutes a “generation,” depending upon the subject category and the speaker. I’ve heard it range from 20 years to 40. I have never, ever, in all my born days, heard a “generation” being described as anywhere near 2,000 years. So, without being specific, JeJosh was still pretty clear: “THIS generation…” (emphasis mine.) So, either there’s still some poor soul out there just trying to get to his 1,996th birthday or the “events” described already occurred – something like 2,000 years ago. Like a dad who goes out to “buy cigarettes” and never comes home, you can wait and wait, but he ain’t coming home. (I imagine there’s some Biblical scholar out there with lots and lots of words to explain why what the book says isn’t what the book means so remember, it’s just my own reading – and it’s just a question…)

So here’s my sermon for the day: Don’t be a good person because JeJosh might come back and punish the crap out of you if you’re not. Be a good person because it’s the right thing to do. It’s not that hard and, if it turns out he’s real, Jesus will probably notice even without the pageantry…

In the meantime, I hope you and yours have a lovely Easter…

So…Clarence Thomas, the conservative ideologue adding MUCH corruption to the Roberts Supremely Kangaroo Court (along with his wife) stands accused of not reporting gifts from a wealthy real estate guy who lives in Texas named Harlan Crow. Thomas claims he was advised by his fellows on the court that the kinds of gifts he was receiving, flights on private jets, vacations in exotic locations, and yacht trips didn’t have to be reported because they were a matter of “personal hospitality.” Okay. But the law says they ARE supposed to be reported. Funny how the Kangaroos never seem to know the actual law.

An ostensible Supreme Court Justice, too stupid to know the law? You’d have to be Clarence Thomas to even try to pull off that defense but, in point of fact, it’s really quite savvy. (Someone on his team came up with something good, there.) You see, because he IS Clarence Thomas, as least “too stupid to know better” is believable.

Mr. Crow tried to help his “friend” by claiming that he had never talked to Thomas about court proceedings or lower cases and has not had business before the court. He MAY have forgotten to mention the half-million dollars he donated to a tea-bagger group founded by Ginnie Thomas, wife of the corrupt pseudo-justice. The group paid Mrs. Thomas $120,000 a year. It likely slipped his mind. He likely also forgot he sits on the board of the horrifying, America-hating American Enterprise Institute, a group which has offered multiple amicus briefs before the court. Mr. Crow has held that position since 1996, the very same year Thomas ascended to the court and the year – I’m sure it’s all a coincidence – Crow and Thomas first became “friends.”

Yeah, both Crow and Thomas likely just forgot all of that. I mean, it’s either that or both men are lying, right? Heaven forfend! So, his defense makes him look like a lying fool. He didn’t know he had to report bribes. But here’s a question: what does Thomas’s “defense” say about his fellows on the court?

I’ll tell you this: if Thomas really was advised by his fellows on the court that such brib…er…”extravagant gifts” don’t need to be reported, I want to know what kinds of wonderful “gifts” the other Kangaroos aren’t reporting, don’t you?

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Ah, Tennessee. Recently, several people were shot to death at a school there. Three of them were nine-year-olds. Naturally, nobody is going to do anything about it. This is America. But, some selfish students – thinking only of themselves and not the feelings of the weapons in question – protested the public choice to send our kids to school with a “Good luck! You’re on your own.” attitude and three Democratic lawmakers from the Tennessee State House took part. They supported the kid’s position that going to school shouldn’t involve getting shot to death. (See? Selfish! I mean, consider the guns!) Republican lawmakers in the same State House really didn’t like the three exercising their First Amendment rights. They’re all for the Second Amendment but, really, none of the others.

Republicans have used their majority to remove two of the “offenders” from their elected positions in the state government. I presume they just wanted to show the world what a politically motivated “witch hunt” actually looks like. The third one managed to stay. Personally, I think the reason they dumped the two they dumped is as clear as day. It can’t JUST be that the “offenders” are Democrats. All three of them are Democrats but only two were removed. But those two, in particular, have something else in common. Yes, both men are black but I suspect the REAL reason is this: BOTH men are called Justin. Justin Jones and Justin Peterson. See? They even spell it the same.

I’ll tell you this: Tennessee’s anti-Justin attitude is getting to be a bigger problem with each passing day…

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I remember, even if you don’t, when Roe v Wade was overturned by the clearly corrupted Roberts Kangaroo Court. People started protesting outside of some of the ideological pseudo-justices houses. The protestors kept moving (they had to) but didn’t go away. That’s kind of important because there’s a law that says you can’t set up camp outside a judge’s home in an effort to affect political change. The cons, happy about the successful assault on women, defended the Kangaroos and were quick to pronounce the protests illegal.

Fast forward only a couple of years and now the cons are actively threatening the life of the District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, and the Judge, Juan Merchan, in the case against 45. Oh, yeah, I mean the one about cooking his company’s books to cover up his hush money payments to the women he was screwing instead of his wife, Melania. You know, the one in which he’s been charged with 34* felony counts? Yeah, that one.

Threatening the life of a sitting judge because you don’t like that he’s hearing the case? I guess the cons see that as a “less than” when it comes to peaceful protests outside of a judge’s house… They’re WAY okay with it…

But, Republicans currently control the House of Representatives. I think they suspect their time is limited and they only have a very short turn-around time to destroy the integrity and respectability of that once-august body, so they issued a subpoena to a former prosecutor from Bragg’s office.

They’ve been so loud-mouthed about witch hunts and political prosecutions. Once again, they apparently just wanted to show us all what a politically motivated witch hunt actually looks like. Helpful…

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I don’t exactly feel sorry for Melania. She knew what she was signing on for and I’m sure she’s well paid to continue playing her role. But do you remember (you might have to be an “old”) but do you remember when Bill Clinton was caught cheating on his wife? There arose a loud chorus of “Hillary should leave him!” largely from the right. She didn’t, of course, but she had to put up with all of that for a long time and still has to endure reminders as cons and late-night hosts like to remind everybody about Monica from time to time. Comedy gold, I guess.

Now it’s Melania having to endure the public humiliation of being cheated on. For some reason, I haven’t heard any calls for her to leave him. I wonder. Why not? If Hillary should have left Bill for cheating, shouldn’t Melania leave Donnie for the same thing? In fairness, Melania has withdrawn and is not out in public much but the “marriage” continues. My guess is, background negotiations are ongoing. We’ll see Melania in public again once some new, bigger numbers are agreed to. Word of advice for her, though. Get the cash up front. He’s notorious for not paying his debts…

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• Oops. In a typo, I wrote 43 felonies instead of the proper 34. It has been corrected and MyBaconPress regrets the error…

I have a quick question: when was the last time you heard or saw some high-profile personality charged with some kind of crime step up to the microphone and say, “Wow. You got me. I did it.”? Mostly, their lawyers come up and say, “My client disputes these charges and looks forward to his/her day in court to prove their innocence.” Then, some period of time later, after negotiations (which the lower classes don’t get) and/or a trial (which the lower classes ALSO may not get) they’re sentenced for the crime, having not so much “disputed” as “plea-bargained.” It’s standard operating procedure, simply the way things are done in this once great nation. So, great prevaricator that he is, I don’t even see trumpery denials as lies – they’re just kind of…expected.

But Former Guy IS the first to call for protests and stir his most extreme supporters to potential violence – just like he did on January 6th, 2021. So far, when someone DOES come out, there are only a few. Many of his most radical supporters are currently cooling their heels in prison from the last time he called them out under fraudulent pretenses.

We’ll see what happens this Tuesday when he’s expected to turn himself in for booking and a short chat with a judge but I hope his threats of violence don’t deter the legal system from doing the right thing. Yes, the Cult 45 crowd might come out, furious, but they’re quickly identifying themselves and culling themselves from responsible society and, long term, that’s a good thing…

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Yesterday, I wrote about the links between the treasonous Reagan and the path to the traitor Trump. I suggested that American presidents had been reduced to servicing the One Percent only and that they all share in the decline of a once-great nation. Then I got called out on an inaccuracy by one of my friends. (Thanks, Brad!) I’ve taken to using the term “One Percent” as a kind of short-hand for “rich people.” I’m actually referring to the top 10%, a much larger group but still a small segment compared to the bottom 50%. I shall endeavor to do better going forward…

At the risk of irritating some of my left-leaning readers, I thought I should at least sketch out my reasoning for the claim that Reagan and each president after (party not relevant) have been primarily in the service of the top 10%. (See? Better already.) This list is hardly exhaustive and it only focuses on the services (since 1980) to the Top Ten Percent each president has managed during their reign…er, I guess, “administration.”

I’ve long held that Reagan was the first major success of the Ten Percent in their assault on the American people when they decided they had well and truly had enough of the New Deal. Reagan got to be President and, later, really rich – just so long as he was willing to work toward the benefit of the Ten Percent while in office. He befuddled a wide swath of not-so-savvy Americans into believing in a fantasy nonsense called ‘Supply Side’ or “trickle down” economics. To this day, there are still cons out there waiting for something to trickle down to them. (Some people just never learn.)

Reagan launched the first salvo in the ‘tax cuts for the rich’ paradigm. He reduced the tax rate at the top. The economy crashed. He raised taxes on the middle class. The economy improved. It was never a tax cut. It was – and is – a tax shift. (It should be noted, though, that because the top 10% enjoy control over significantly more wealth than the bottom 50%, the government STILL loses revenues when these little shifts do their thing.) Every time they do it, they do it TO YOU. And they’ve been doing it too you ever since.

The quality of the Presidency, sadly, has not always been great. But since Reagan, it has gone steadily downhill – largely because each President is expected to do great things for the Ten Percent – which often means doing harsh things to the majority of citizens and absolutely horrible things if you just happen to live in one of the small, poorly defended countries the US decides we have an “interest” in. But Bush 41, immediate successor to Reagan, was the last old-school guy. He actually raised taxes on the wealthy even after promising he wouldn’t (“Read my lips!”) because it was in the best interest of the country. His old-school attitude got him ousted after one term. Then we got Clinton.

Yeah, using his cover as a “Democrat,” old Bill raised taxes on the wealthy a little bit. The economy boomed and more importantly, people relaxed and looked away feeling like we were “back on track.” But then he also decimated Welfare, undermined the free press, and ignored the derivatives market that led to the crash of 2007. Oh, and he signed NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA was very good for corporations, not so good for the American worker. In short, Clinton was the best corporate president the Dems ever elected. Any money problems Clinton may have faced in his lifetime have been well and truly eliminated. Quite the reward. (As a sidebar I must confess, at the time I didn’t understand the damage Clinton had done. I was kind of “all in” on the guy, blinded by his charisma, and even supported the idea of Hillary. Now that I know what I know, I’m glad Hillary didn’t make it…)

Clinton was followed by Bush 43 who initiated the very unamerican ‘Patriot Act,’ turning the Bill of Rights on it’s ear, and invaded not one but two foreign sovereign states in an effort to raid their natural resources. In Afghanistan, he tried to install a puppet government friendly to American business interests. In Iraq, they just wanted the oil. The invasions were good for business and good for the weapons industry – not so good for the soldiers fighting and dying. But that was okay. None of them were super-wealthy. He also appointed two new “justices” to the so-called Supreme Court and they helped to bring us the democracy-destroying and ideological Citizens United ruling – a MASSIVE win for those rich enough to buy their very own politician…

Then we got Obama. Obama won by running on national health care for all. What we got, instead, was national corporate health insurance which often can’t be used to see a doctor as co-pays, share-of-costs, and fees are still outrageously high. It was a plan originally conceived by conservative Stink tank ‘The Heritage Foundation.’  It was a conservative “economic plan” brought to you by a “Democratic” president.  But it shut everybody up…for awhile, anyway.

Trump was essentially just a natural follow-up to that sequence. Presidents had been working to the exclusive benefit of the top Ten Percent for so long, it seemed time to have a member of the class AS President. (Here’s hoping that they have somebody, somewhere better the the Dumbass, though. That guy doesn’t make them look good at all…) He, too, was a tax-shifter

I haven’t included Biden because he’s still in office and, as we learned from Bill Clinton, it can be very difficult to say how his administration did without a little historical distance…

I said this yesterday and I’ll say it again: I, for one, am sick of it. I’m MORE than ready to go back to the New Deal policies that made America great in the first place; unions, regulated business practices, and high taxes on high incomes. Remember, it’s always true that high tax rates cause the One Percent to actually do what they always promise low tax rates might someday encourage them to do…

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Thursday turned out to be a pretty good day. Well, for me. Former Guy might not have enjoyed it as much. If you missed it, well, you’d have to be living under a rock but if you’ve been living under a rock, Former Guy was indicted for his hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. The hush money payments are just a misdemeanor – unless they’re associated with some other crime. Then they become a felony. My understanding is Former faces felony charges so it’s more than just the hush money.

I had reservations about this particular indictment. I was concerned that something that could be seen as petty might not be the best place to start. I don’t feel that way, anymore. I see value in starting with something with lower stakes. There are obviously going to be legal maneuvers of every kind. IS an American ex-President an American citizen subject to American laws? I say yes, but the Roberts Supremely Kangaroo Court might well rule otherwise. They’re ideologues and they prefer a dictatorial strongman. A king would be right up their alleys.

But…thus begins the process. Former Guy will do what he always does – stall, lie, and obfuscate. He’ll seek every delay he can find and appeal all the way up as high as he can for every detail of the case. But he can only do those things once. Should courts rule he IS subject to the laws of the land – by no means a certainty – he won’t be able to challenge the legality of answering for other issues brought before the court. The Stormy Daniels indictment will clear the legal path for other, more serious indictments presumed to be coming sooner or later.

Besides, it felt so good to see him finally facing some consequences for his misdeeds…

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I’ll tell you this: most of the rank and file cons are keeping a low profile until they decide how best to attack the charges against their CheetoJesus but some are out, predictably claiming the whole thing is politically motivated and a witch hunt. Personally, I would be angry and massively depressed if it turned out they’re right. I have no love for the Dumbass. None at all. But I would NOT want to see the legal system perverted just to harass political opponents. I count that downright unamerican…

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Also on Thursday, within minutes of learning about the big indictment, I also learned that the New York Times has continued to look into the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979. You may not be up-to-the-minute. In 1979, some Iranian “college students” stormed the American embassy in Tehran, Iran and captured the compound and the employees working there. The President at the time, Jimmy Carter, did pretty much everything he could do to secure the release of the hostages but no matter what he did, nothing worked. The hostages ended up being held prisoner until January, 1981.

The thing is, the Iranian Hostage Crisis really hurt Carter in the 1980 presidential election when he was running for a second term against Mr. 666, Ronald Wilson Reagan. To be clear, it wasn’t the only thing. The American (and world) economy was kind of going through it at the time and that was working against him, too. At one point, Carter even authorized a covert military operation in an attempt to recover the embassy and the people in it. The operation blew up in the desert. Literally. It was kind of the last straw and Reagan won the election. He was inaugurated on January 21, 1981 and the hostages were released almost exactly one-half hour later.

The official story was that the “students” were so frightened of Reagan’s great big firm…um…resolve they just quaked and surrendered. But stories started swirling almost right away that Reagan’s campaign team had been working behind the scenes to convince the “students” to hold the hostages until Reagan took office and he would give them a better deal. (He did, too. That’s how the world came to know the name Oliver North.) The thing is, working with foreign nationals against the efforts of the American government and against the best interests of American citizens? To me, that seems like a treasonous act.

The NY Times has never let it go. They kept trying to prove or disprove, or at least verify, various aspects of the story and have, over time, confirmed enough to state with little doubt that the Reagan campaign did, in fact, collude with the Iranian “College Students” to affect, in essence, “steal,” the 1980 election. I read about the NY Time’s confirmation that an act of treason put Reagan in the White House within minutes of reading about Trump’s indictment.

The reason these two stories go together so well, in my mind, is that a decision to undermine the electoral process in 1979 through what I see as a traitorous act led directly to the vacuous criminal now facing charges in New York and investigations in several other places for several other crimes. The focus for selecting Presidential candidates – especially for, but not limited to Republicans – became one thing and one thing only: serve the One Percent. Their first guy, Reagan, was charismatic and could, marginally, pull off a scene. Their last guy, 45, attracts attention like a fatal car crash on the highway and can barely string a basic sentence together. But they’ve ALL had one thing in common: they service the One Percent and only the One Percent.

Sure, a once-great nation can’t fix it’s roads, or it’s water system or it’s sewer system or fix it’s schools. Sure, there aren’t enough cops to control traffic anymore and basic social services, once paid for by taxes, now cost the user. Simple for the rich, a burden on everyone else. But, hey, rich people don’t have to pay taxes and that has been their only goal since 1980.

I’ll tell you this: I, for one, am sick of it. I’m MORE than ready to go back to the New Deal policies that made America great in the first place; unions, regulated business practices, and high taxes on high incomes. Remember, it’s always true that high tax rates cause the One Percent to actually do what they always promise low tax rates might someday encourage them to do…