The truth will out…

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on it’s shoes… – Charles Spurgeon

Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth… – Buddha

The truth seems to be making something of a comeback in this once-great nation, despite the best efforts of conservative media. With Alex Jones being ordered to pay over One Billion dollars to the people he lied about in the Sandy Hook shooting to the impending challenge to the lies of Fox “News,” there seems, finally, to be a way to combat misinformation that is having an effect: defamation lawsuits. The latest? Why, that would be Rupert Murdoch – chief evil leader of Fox “News.” When the broadcasters take their lies too far, they can be sued. It isn’t easy but it works when it can be used and I think people who CAN sue for defamation, should sue for defamation.

Oh, and before the cons all start in with, “well, two can play at that game,” no…you can’t. Since you can never prove your lies (being, you know, lies) you can’t prevail in a defamation suit. You don’t have any evidence supporting your claims and trying to only opens up your company to further scrutiny. As it happens, the truth is a one-way weapon. Because of conservative mendacity, facts really DO have a liberal bias, these days…

People who understand things know that Murdoch’s “Fox” has been broadcasting mostly lies for something like 26 years. They’ve had such a huge megaphone, very little has been able to slow them down and certainly no one has stopped them. But now? Murdoch tied his fortunes to America-hating Donald Trump. Like most things Trump-associated, the relationship has left Trump intact but Fox “News” facing impending destruction. (Fingers crossed.)

Dominion Voting Systems took exception to Trump’s lies about the so-called “stolen election.” When Fox “News” decided to support the lie and trumpet the fraud, Dominion decided to sue for defamation. According to the Guardian, they’re building a pretty solid case. They’ve been deposing one lying piece of…um, failed human being after another. The next on the list is old Rupert, himself. They’re slowly exposing each and every operating piece of the internal workings of Fox.

I’ve spent years fretting over Fox “News.” I’ve been stunned, over and over, as they broadcast some obviously stupid lie, only to have their consumers start repeating it just a little later that day. The daily Fox talking points became fodder for one lying right-wing broadcast and/or publication after another. It became fashionable among the people who don’t understand things to pretend they never watch Fox “News” the minute they realized citing Fox hurt and didn’t help their credibility. At some point, I realized it might even be true that they don’t watch but that didn’t mean they weren’t citing Fox “News.” Just because that person hadn’t watched, didn’t mean other people hadn’t watched then picked up and repeated the talking point. It’s been very frustrating.

Fox is pretending it’s presenters are protected by journalistic privilege. The problem is, at least one of their presenters, one Sean Hannity, has said over and over again that he’s NOT a journalist. He’s just a talk-show host. He’s blatantly saying he doesn’t have to tell the truth since he’s not a journalist while Fox is arguing that, as a journalist, Hannity is protected in his lies. It can’t be both and I accept Hannity’s own statement of his position over Fox’s. Meanwhile, most of the people who stuck to the truth have been purged from Fox. (They just really hate the truth over there. It never, EVER helps conservative causes…)

I don’t know how this will play out. The sensationalist headline in the Guardian reads, ‘Is Dominion’s $1.6bn Defamation lawsuit a death blow for Murdoch and Fox News?‘ Murdoch is worth billions. Even after paying over a billion dollars (and still counting) in the UK related to another of his scandal rag’s wrongdoing – in this case the hacking of private phones – he can lose the Dominion suit and STILL have billions of dollars available to finance Fox so I doubt it will be a “death blow.” Still, it’s going to hurt.

I’ll tell you this: I’d like to see Fox have to broadcast, over and over, a complete retraction and apology for the misinformation on each show that supported the lie, for as many times as they told the lie, with a proviso that they can NOT dismiss it as “error.” I doubt such a legal remedy is available but it would be fun (and honestly a bit weird) hearing Fox “News” hosts telling the truth for a change…

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Speaking of lying liars, Kari Lake – who ran a losing campaign for Governor of Arizona – is trying her hand at the trump technique of whining about the election and begging for a do-over. (The United States doesn’t DO do-overs.) She’s pretty sure she’d have won if only so many Democrats hadn’t come out to vote against her and she has the “fix” in mind. She thinks it would be great if the courts would just throw out all the democratic votes and leave only the Republican votes intact – because she’s “concerned” about improper elections. I guess we’re not supposed to noticed that arbitrarily tossing away votes against you is the very definition of “improper.” It seems Lake is just fine with that kind of tampering.

I’ll tell you this: I’ll be very happy when this “they stole the election” bunk is finally laid to rest. It’s tiresome…

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I’m pretty excited to see what Brock Purdy can do with the Forty-Niners today. He’s the seventh round pick taken to run a practice squad and not really expected to need to do more. Now, because of injuries, Purdy is thrust into the role of starting Quarterback on a team making a playoff run. There’s been much talk (speculation) about how Purdy will do, being a seventh round pick and facing off against Tom Brady, the most asterisked player of all time.

Brady has regularly been associated with the stink of cheating since his early days in the league but nobody can question his talent and skill. (It’s one of the main reasons all the cheating has been so frustrating. He doesn’t need to and never has.) People often dismiss Purdy’s chances because he’s a seventh round pick. They seem to forget that Brady, himself, was a sixth round pick, also never really expected to do much and who, coincidentally, also got his opportunity because of injuries. If the story gets framed as sixth rounder vs seventh rounder, it sounds like it will be a much more balanced game.

I’ll tell you this: I’m pulling for Purdy. Yes, partly because he’s running my home team but also, I like the underdog story and Purdy could be it…in spades. (Fingers crossed…)

I’ll have to admit I found Kirsten Sinema’s defection irritating, though not surprising. The entire time she’s been in Congress (that I’ve been aware of her) she’s been irritating, though not surprising. She ran – and won – as a Democrat but many had her pegged as a DINO, Democrat In Name Only, right away. The part I DID find surprising? She’s really a nothing. She’s actually just an opportunist. She’s been a registered independent before. She’s ALSO been registered in the Green Party. She ran as a Democrat and won. Now she’s an independent again. She works like a Republican. There’s no telling how long it will be before she moves into that camp but my guess is, she will, sooner or later. She seems to have NO loyalty to anything or anyone but herself.

I don’t know why the Democrats continue to support DINOS. I supposed putting Kirsten Sinema or, say, Joe Manchin in office gets the party control of the committees but what good is that control if “Democrats” like that will constantly undermine the efforts of the party? Sinema has now cut herself off from support from the Democratic Party and I suspect Manchin will do the same soon. My attitude? Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Yeah, sanity needs to expand it’s hold on this country but using fakes won’t get ‘er done, you know?

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14,000 Barrels. That’s how much the latest (discovered) leak from the Keystone Pipeline dumped into a creek in Kansas. 14,000 barrels. I’ve been seeing stories like this my whole life, an oil spill here, an oil spill there. The Keystone Pipeline started operations in 2010. There have been 22 previous serious spills. Truth be told, it’s one of the larger reasons I’d like to transition away from crude oil as an energy source. (That’s in addition to the climate change effects and the fact that it’s finite and running out.) The cons – certainly not a dependable source of information – blame Democrats for…well, everything, really. But in THIS case, I’m talking about their dogmatic belief that Joe Biden DESTROYED the oil industry. To me? The industry seems to be doing just fine, thank you very much.

One of the points the cons pretend to understand is that Biden cancelled the Keystone XL Pipeline. Now, the XL was only the latest branch in a complex of pipelines and it was still under construction. It had not moved one drop of crude and was not scheduled to move a drop of crude for another couple of years. But, somehow, Biden cancelling the project “destroyed” the oil industry. Leave it to the cons to display – furiously – their lack of understanding.

I prefer solar. I find that when oil spills all over the landscape, everything dies and it takes years to clean up. When solar “spills” all over the landscape, flowers grow. That’s a better outcome. Is solar the perfect solution? Not yet. It still needs development. That takes a bit of time. Some people take issue with solar because it doesn’t solve every problem today. That’s some solid thinking, isn’t it? (It’s a logical fallacy called ‘making the perfect the enemy of the good.’) When cars were first invented, they didn’t solve every problem immediately, either. In fact, the horse was the better option for a LONG time after the invention of the automobile. But horses can’t compete with cars anymore when it comes to travel. The same will be true for alternative energy sources.

There’s only ONE reason we haven’t made the switch we should have made years ago: greed. The people who own the centralized energy distribution systems make lots of money manipulating that market to their own advantage. The very best long-term power solution is DEcentralized generation. Once that happens, “they” lose their ability to manipulate the market. They know it. They bought time with their anti-science claims about climate change but they’re starting to lose that battle – as the oceans lap at their feet in Omaha. (Hyperbole alert!)

If you live in California, you’re likely FAR more sensitive to the realities of price fixing and market manipulation than any other place in this once-great nation. The oil companies have LOTS of reasons for their failures. None of them ever hold up under scrutiny. So, we’ve been paying HUGE amounts of money just to fill our tanks here on the west coast and, excuses notwithstanding, nobody can figure out why. This last fall, there was this massive spike in gasoline prices at the pump. According to the Governor’s office, it put $63 BILLION dollars into the company’s coffers in just 90 days. The key point, here, is that the prices spiked in California at a time when (again quoting the Governor’s office) “crude oil prices dropped, state taxes and fees remained unchanged and gas prices did not increase outside the western U.S.”

The Governor started off calling for a windfall profits tax. Now his suggestion has morphed into some complex kind of scheme that’s supposed to encourage the oil companies to do the right thing. I suspect the change is related to his constantly denied but well-known desire to be President of the United States and the need to work with the corporations to get there. It’s how fascist states work. It’s why he’s about to eliminate some of the financial incentives to roof-top solar, to placate Pacific Gas and Electric.

Corporate greed is holding down the economy and rapidly rendering the planet incapable of sustaining human life. It’s pretty simple really. We could stop. We could do so quickly. But we have to have the will and…we don’t.

I’ll tell you this: humans like to pretend we’re the smartest thing to ever grace the face of the planet. I’d say wiping out one’s own species for a dollar is pretty effing stupid, though…

Have you been accused by a con of suffering from TDS, yet? No? Oh, you haven’t lived. TDS, that’s ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome.’ THEY mean that you’re so blinded by your hatred of Trump, you simply can’t see all the wonderful things he is and has done. Which, of course, makes the slur perfect. Unfortunately for them, it’s perfect projection.

You see, “Deranged” is defined by Merriam/Webster as: ‘Mentally unsound’ or ‘wildly odd or eccentric.’ They’re saying that because I come to conclusions about Trump based on things that actually happen, I’m mentally unsound. Conversely, because THEY come to conclusions about Trump based on things that have NEVER happened and traits he simply does not possess, they must be the ones operating at full efficiency?

I’ll tell you this: Yes, someone in this scenario is “deranged” but I’d say it’s the people who follow Trump blindly and believe whatever they’re told to believe despite available evidence…

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I hate to throw water onto everybody’s fun, I really do. I can see that the media and the left are having fun with the “story” about Trump saying he wanted to throw out the Constitution. But…c’mon, man. Is that really what you think he was saying? Really? I suppose it could just be me but that’s not the way I understood him. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of what he said and/or meant. It just is. He said, “A massive fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles even those found in the Constitution.” That’s what he said. Those were his words. (According to CNN.) But they’ve been taken out of context to reverse his intent.

Now look, the topic, itself, is and – always has been – pure bullshit. His subject is the “stolen election.” HE knows he’s lying through his stupid teeth when he talks about it but his deluded, dare I say “deranged,” acolytes don’t know it at all. But what Trump is saying is that if the DemocRATS can steal the election, ostensibly by ignoring rules, they can disregard ANY rule at ANY time. HE is accusing DEMOCRATS of wanting to destroy the Constitution, or worse, having done so already. He did not advocate eliminating the Constitution – in this instance.

In a larger sense, his entire Big Lie about the stolen election is about abolishing the Constitution and his invoking an insurrection at the Capitol in an effort to overturn the process as dictated in the Constitution certainly belies his willingness to uphold the Constitution. His ACTIONS clearly indicate he’s willing to abandon the Constitution if doing so will help himself. But he did not say so at that rally.

There’s nothing about Donald Trump I like or admire. He IS the embodiment of the Seven Deadly Sins. He’s a waste of human flesh. He’s the very worst of the worst of the very effing worst. I only mention all that so you believe me when I write that I do not want to have to defend Donald J. Trump in any way at any time. WE DON’T NEED TO MAKE SHIT UP IN ORDER TO MAKE HIM LOOK BAD! He gives us all the evidence we need, all day, every day. Let’s stick to the real stuff, shall we? Please?

The worst part? He’s already out there telling his deranged adherents the left is floating a fake news story about him again – and they ARE! Now they have something real to point to. It gives his base an honest example of fake news against him. Sure, they’ll still make ’em up but for now they don’t have to. So, spike the story, okay?

Let’s focus on the NY State tax fraud. And the theft of classified government documents. And the election interference in Georgia. And his orchestration of the January 6th coup attempt. And his complete collapse with the pandemic because he disbanded the pandemic assessment team. And his corporation’s tax fraud. And his cozy relationship with Putin and other evil world leaders. And his association with white “supremacists” and other racists of, interestingly, all races. (He’s an equal opportunity racist? Get your arms around THAT!) And the other, Federal, tax fraud and all the other real, honest, legitimate things he does.

I’ll tell you this: The left is simply handing a weapon to the right in the culture wars and I think that’s stupid…

If you’re like me, you weren’t happy to see Jimmy G go down in the game against the Dolphins. Your hope for the season…slid. You saw a rookie coming in and thought that was that. But then something happened. The rookie, a guy named Brock Purdy, played well. He didn’t just play a little well. He played very well.

If you’re a Niner fan (like me) you’ve heard much talk about Jimmy G. Some people love him and want to see him stay with the team. I’m not one of those. I think (along with many others) Jimmy G is a good Quarterback – unless he’s in a pressure situation. “Pressure situation” has different meanings but in his case, it’s when he’s playing from behind in the second half or deep in his own territory late in a game they’re losing or sometimes, just because it’s a big game. He’s also not great in the red zone, the last 20 yards of field before scoring a Touchdown. I think Jimmy G panics in the pocket under pressure and I think his head coach, Kyle Shanahan, thinks so, too.

People have been questioning some of Shanahan’s play-calling but I think he has had to adjust. Since Jimmy is unlikely to throw a successful pass in the red zone, Shanahan is forced to try to run the ball, which often means playing for field goals. After starter Trey Lance went down with a broken ankle, though, Jimmy was the best choice available. For the record, I think that was true at the time despite what I write about him in these other paragraphs.

I’m also going to acknowledge, the rest of this is based on one game. One. Teams haven’t had a chance to game-plan against Purdy, yet. Purdy might come out and play like…well…me in the next game. That would not be good. I think he won’t though. Purdy looked poised and confident. He hit passes in the red zone – touchdown passes. Yes, he threw an interception and it was kind of a stupid interception – I haven’t forgotten. But every Quarterback in the history of the game throws interceptions. He also threw two Touchdown passes – in the red zone. That’s something we know Jimmy doesn’t do, generally speaking.

Joe Fonzi, a local sports reporter, didn’t show much of Purdy’s post-game interview. I think it’s because Fonzi stole one of Purdy’s lines. When asked what he thought about playing Tom Brady next week, PURDY said, “He’s been playing football longer than I’ve been alive.” (That’s the line Fonzi stole.) THEN Purdy said he thought playing against Brady would be “kind of cool.” That doesn’t sound like some kid out there shaking in his boots. He’s ready to play. He’s looking forward to facing off against Brady.

So, yes, one game, but this kid was very good and I’m looking forward to watching him play next week. I realize ALL of his upcoming opponents are going to try to get him to buckle under the pressure. But then I realized something else. Purdy was the team’s number 3 QB. Some teams don’t even carry a number 3. The number 3’s job, more than anything else, is to run the scout team against the defense in practice. But stop a second and think about what that means.

The Forty-Niners have one of the best defenses in the NFL this year. They may be THE best. They can’t slow down in practice without hurting themselves during regular games so they practice as hard as they’re going to play. So Purdy has been running an offense in practice that consists of non-starters against the team’s starting defense – one of the best defenses in the league. To me? Another way of saying that is to say that Purdy has been practicing against one of the best defenses in the league for months, now. Who can bring more against this kid? He’s had to learn how to pick apart a great defense with a less-than offense – and he’s had to learn to stay alive in the process.

I saw him moving but I also saw him staying calm in the pocket. I saw him roll out and pass the ball and hit his receiver right in the numbers. (It’s very hard to do. The ball tends to drift. In similar situations, Jimmy G tends to throw interceptions or hit the guy in the third row.) I saw him throw short. I saw him throw Touchdowns in the red zone. He threw at least one pass that was dead-on accurate to a guy covered like a blanket and hit the pass perfectly.

Yeah, one game. I know. I’m not ready to anoint him the second coming of Joe Montana. But I’m also not worried about him leading the team like I would normally be with a rookie in that role. I’ll go further. IF he keeps playing like he did against the Dolphins, I suspect that both Jimmy G AND Trey Lance might be taking a hit on the depth chart.

IF he keeps playing like he did against the Dolphins…

Okay, class, time for a pop quiz! Get out your number 2 pencil, everything under your desk, eyes on your own paper. Okay, here we go. Oh, yeah, it’s a word problem…

There’s a guy, homeless, alcoholic, and drug addicted. He owns a van with a bad door latch. He knows that if he drives too aggressively, the door has a tendency to come open and if anything or anyone is leaning on the door, it or they will fall out. On Wednesday, November 30th, there’s a drunken woman in the van with him and he’s mad at her so he’s driving angrily. In fact, he intentionally drives in the way he knows pops the door and the woman actually falls out of the van and onto the street.

Fortunately, she seems to have avoided serious injury but the road rash is extensive. Even more fortunately, the cops get involved. They know immediately the pair are drunk. As the cops document the injuries on the woman, they discover evidence of physical abuse and they note as much. They ALSO discover the guy is on probation for assault and battery.

Drunk driving is a violation of his probation so they arrest him again. He’s charged with violating his probation, a misdemeanor. He’s charged with misdemeanor assault and battery. He’s ALSO charged with felony DUI with injury. His bail is set at $101,000.

Okay, are we clear? He’s on probation for assault, he gets arrested for a second assault and violating his probation by driving drunk and causing injury. Pretty clearly a threat to the society, wouldn’t you say? Okay, for 1,000 points (with no cash value), here’s your question: How long would you expect the guy to remain in the local jail awaiting trial?

Okay, time’s up. Pencils down. How long did you guess, a week? Two weeks? A month? Until his trial? I see…

So, who had one day? No, that’s what I mean, one day! As you may have guessed, this is NOT an hypothetical event. This really happened on the evening of November 30 and the driver was out by Friday morning, December 2. He didn’t even have to post bail. They just…let him out…

No, I wouldn’t have guessed one day, either…

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Hey, the United States has a new bomber! Nice. As most of us know, the US has no needs other than military equipment so it’s really good they’ve come up with something. It’s called the B-21 and it’s the shiny new showpiece in Eisenhower’s feared military/industrial complex. We don’t know much about it. It’s classified and, being military hardware, that makes sense. Sadly, it also means we, the people paying for the thing, aren’t allowed to know if it works. In this case, “works” could mean anything from being able to fulfill the mission it was designed for to just being able to get into the air dependably. There was a BIG roll-out of the thing. We got to see some spectacular photos. We were told it’s the new truth, light, and way toward killing our fellow human beings. They’re currently building six of them. The Pentagon wants somewhere between 100 and 170 of them. Now, apparently, all we have to do is test it.

Yeah, you read that right. We’ve got one, they’re building six and they want somewhere between 100 and 170 and they’re going to start testing next week. I sure hope it works because in this once-great nation, they’ll build that thing whether it flies or not. I used to wonder how “they” got away with that, building weapons systems that don’t work. As it happens, there’s a trick. Just in case some Congress Critter mistakenly decided to do the right thing and try to kill an expensive and wasteful weapons system, the manufacturers distribute the parts and assembly among as many states as they can. The contract for military hardware is usually QUITE lucrative AND the factories the parts and pieces are built in and/or assembled create jobs. These are make-work programs to keep people working and keep money flowing into the states so no Congress Critter will step up to try to stop that waste.

Oh, how I wish my thoughts on this were just standard cynicism but I learned about the way it works with the F-35 Fighter plane. It was planned to be a next generation fighter/bomber. The thing is, a plane that tries to do everything does nothing well. None of the services want the plane because it doesn’t work well with any of the individual branch’s missions. Bernie Sanders once said he was going to try to kill the program. Once he found he couldn’t (specifically because of the widespread distribution of parts and assembly), he did an about-face and managed to get several of them housed in his home state of Vermont, the thinking being that the money is going out under any circumstances, why should Vermont miss out? It’s crappy but it’s also true. If someone wants to waste money, they can feel free to waste some of it my way any time they’d like.

The estimated cost for each B-21 is $700 Million dollars. They want as many as 170 of them. That’s going to come in at about $125 Billion dollars – and that assumes they keep the cost down to the estimate. When have you ever heard of that happening in military contracts? Estimates for the total cost of the failed F-35 come in around $1.7 TRILLION by the time the program “ends.” As the saying goes, a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about some serious money…

Don’t get me wrong, here. I prefer a strong United States to a weak one. I just don’t understand how building weapons systems that don’t work make us stronger. I understand how it makes the Congress Critter’s positions in wanting to keep their phony-baloney jobs stronger, though, and that is, apparently, the main consideration. But those self-same Congress Critters will ALSO harp on endlessly about how they have to “stem government wasteful spending” so they have no choice but to cut Social Security, Medicare, and/or programs intended to help and protect the most vulnerable in our society.

I’ll tell you this: I would rather see a couple of weapons systems cancelled than any portion of the social safety net so when they start, call your Congress Critter and tell them to cancel wasteful government spending on weapons systems before they even consider messing with the social safety net. Turns out, there is LOTS of wiggle room in the American national budget if we could just stop feeding the ravenous military/industrial complex…

I’m a union guy. Truth be told, I understand why Biden stepped into the fray with the railroad workers. Our economy is improving but still too weak to suffer a major economic setback. Of course, that’s the POINT of a strike. If the company won’t do the right thing, pressure on the company can (and often does) force them to do the right thing. The workers weren’t looking for million-dollar-a-year contracts or anything outrageous like that. All they wanted was paid sick leave. That’s the big unsettled question, effing sick leave. They currently have to use vacation time or take a pay hit if they get sick. They wanted paid sick leave. The Biden administration imposed the contract offered by management – with NO sick leave. The worker’s demand is not outrageous but when a contract was imposed, it was the management contract and not the union version.

I stumbled across a conservative talk show on the radio right in time to hear the hosts agreeing that greedy workers are taking advantage of generous companies through paid sick leave. It’s no wonder the people who don’t understand things ARE the people who don’t understand things. “All praise the benevolent corporations” is a sentence of almost complete and pure bullshit. You know how I know? We’ve been suffering through an exodus of American corporations moving their companies out of America for over 40 years. The workers in those companies found other ways to make a living but the companies STILL needed workers. They just wanted cheaper workers. Non-union workers. Workers who thought pay of $1.50 a day was good money – and where the government allowed the companies to build encampments that often imprisoned the workers. And when those companies left the country, certain media outlets began saying that the “good jobs” had left the country but do you know what made them the good jobs? It was NOT that they were manufacturing jobs. It was that they were union jobs.

Cons like to pretend that if workers get too uppity, the glorious corporation will only introduce robots and there won’t be any work to do. They say this as though the companies are offering jobs out of altruism. Here’s a prediction you can take to the bank: the very minute robots can be trusted to do the work, robots will do the work and the human workers will be cut loose just as quickly as possible. The corporations DO NOT care about anything – anything – except the profit margin. Period.

There used to be a difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. The cons (currently ostensible Republicans) like to pretend workers owe fealty to their glorious corporate overlord and anything the company does is good for everyone. Currently ostensible Democrats like to pretend they stand for the people against the overbearing power of maleficent corporations. This railroad debate put the spotlight on the Democrats true colors and, I believe, they failed.

I’ve already mentioned, I understand why the Dems stepped in to protect our struggling economy. But Biden COULD have used the same authority he has to impose contracts to impose the union version WITH sick leave. He didn’t. He sided with management.

I’ll tell you this: Any way you look at it, that’s a betrayal of the working class…

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There’s an old Aesop fable that teaches that a man is known by the company he keeps. Donald trump hangs around with racists and criminals. Yep, checks out…

Here’s a worse part. It’s reported that he felt he had to take the dinner with known, avowed racists so as to not alienate “his base.” So…what does that say about his base? If I suggest in this column that the cons might be leaning a little too far into racism I get quite a lot of pushback. Now the object of con love has suggested that HE thinks his base is racist. Some of the Republicans are using the opportunity to distance themselves from the trumpster – but not all of them. There are STILL people out there supporting trump. Racists, all, apparently. Hey, don’t take it up with me. Talk to your lord and savior, the racist Donald J. Trump. As the saying goes, he said it, I believe it, that settles it…

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Speaking of morons…I’m kind of loving what’s going on with Alex Jones these days. He’s trying to protect himself by filing bankruptcy. At this point, he has been ordered to pay something like 1.5 BILLION dollars to the families of the Sandy Hook victims for continually saying it was all a hoax. The so-called Sandy Hook Hoax is what gave Jones his big boost in the bullshit business. It looks like his hoax is going to bring him down, too.

He’s tried everything he can think of. He tried moving money to offshore investments but he got caught and they made him stop. He claims he’s nearly a pauper and has nothing – but a forensic accountant found over a hundred million dollars- still not enough for a $1.5 Billion dollar judgement, of course. Now he’s trying to discharge his debts through bankruptcy – but one CAN NOT discharge the kind of punishment from this kind of judgement through bankruptcy. He WILL have to completely open his books to the bankruptcy court, though. Attempting to lie to a bankruptcy court is a Felony.

Oh, he also says he’s going to appeal some of the judgements against him but most (as I understand it) are default judgements. That is, he was offered an opportunity to refute the charge early and made the choice not to. As a rule, cons actually believer things they make up in their own minds and I suspect he thought he could just ignore his way out of this problem. Once he found out that reality continues whether he signs up or not, he decided, “Hey, maybe I ought to put up a fight.” Hey, maybe he should have. But he didn’t…

History in the making…
Well, they’re off and running in Georgia! Early voting began yesterday – a Saturday after a holiday. The GOP in Georgia had tried to limit voting by making a rule that primary and general elections couldn’t include Saturday voting if the Saturday fell after a holiday. I don’t know what the two have to do with each other, but that’s what they did. What they did NOT do during their re-write, was to include “run-off” elections. Initially, Brad Raffensperger, the Secretary of State in Georgia and the loyal Republican who nevertheless stood up to the Dumbass when he begged for Georgia to just make up 11,700 votes, said they could do Saturday voting (based on the wording of the law) then back-peddled and said, no, no voting on that Saturday based on – you know, reasons…

Warnock sued and the Georgia Supreme Court said Saturday voting could go forward since the GOP hadn’t included run-offs in their limitation rule. So, the voting started yesterday and will proceed until December 6. Control of the Senate is already settled but this election could increase the size of the Democratic majority a bit and make their jobs a little easier.

From what I read, the campaigns are off to rather aggressive starts, each side pointing fingers at their opponents. Warnock points to policy positions he has taken while serving in the Senate. Walker talks vampires. Warnock points out that Walker lies about everything. Walker lies about it. Warnock acknowledges Walker’s athletic prowess as NFL running back, kick-boxer, and Olympic bobsledder but also points out that very little bobsledding takes place in Congress and reminds voters that Walker knows nothing of policy. Warnock runs ads that show nothing but trump endorsing Walker. BOTH sides have trotted out ex-wives of the candidates. Warnock’s estranged wife (the divorce is in process) claims Warnock once ran over her foot, presumably with a car (the article doesn’t say). The cops couldn’t find any evidence to support the charge. Walker’s ex claims Walker threatened her with violence, a claim supported by Walker’s own book. Warnock seems a well-spoken, thoughtful candidate. Walker has said – and this is an actual quote – “this erection is for the people.” Come to think of it, in view of Walker’s many children born out of wedlock and those he managed to get aborted, that may be one of the few honest comments Walker has made…

In summary, Warnock seems a man in command of the issues facing Georgia and this once-great nation and Walker is excellent at carrying an oblong ball a few yards. Are Georgia voters really having a tough time choosing the best person for the job? Not a great look, Georgia. Not good at all…

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History not mentioned…
I recently stumbled upon this song on Facebook, of all places. It’s called ‘Rich People’ by Carsie Blanton. (Click here. It’s worth the listen and only two minutes, thirty-eight seconds long.) She does an excellent job of summarizing the assault by the wealthy that started the class war in the 1980’s that have wrought so much damage in this once-great nation and where we are today. The ONE little nit I have to pick is that she repeats a piece of misinformation that is common knowledge in this once-great nation – but not entirely accurate. She sings, “Back in 1979, the western world was in decline…” It wasn’t.

I know, there were economic challenges in the 1970’s. It was portrayed, heavily, as the end – and failure – of Keynesian economics. It was not a “failure” and should not have been the end but the rich people used it to introduce and promote the completely fraudulent “Supply Side Economics” that became better known as “trickle-down” or “voo-doo” economics. (The “voo-doo” term was coined by Bush 41, Reagan’s eventual VP because he knew it was all a smoke-and-mirrors sham.) Listen, as I indicated, this has become common knowledge with just about everybody signing on – including some very respected economics folks – and repeating that story ever since, so everything that follows is my own personal belief and you should keep that in mind while you read it. You see, I don’t believe Keynes failed. I think the problem was much simpler and – given time – would have straightened itself out. Here’s what I think happened…

In order to explain this, I have to digress a bit but I shall endeavor to keep it short. Do you know what started the civil war in Syria? Climate change. In this case, a major drought took hold over most of the southern part of the country where much of the farming took place. So, the farmers, needing money to feed their families, went to the cities seeking gainful employment. But the cities weren’t ready for such an influx. There WAS no gainful employment for them. This left countless people standing around with nothing to do. THAT created feelings of failure in the increasingly desperate farmers which, in turn, led to anger. The anger boiled over and – BLAM-O! – civil war. Okay, got it? Too many workers, not enough jobs equals economic pain, crime, and often violence. Just hold that thought as I get back to my point…

As we all know, the United States of America is a blood-thirsty, warlike nation. Throughout our history, we’ve engaged in every war we could at first on the principle of ‘Manifest Destiny’ and later, just because it enriched the very military/industrial complex Eisenhower had tried to warn us about. (It still does!) Each time rich people sent American troops off to die in some war, jobs were left undone. So, the women left their “proper” place – in the home – and did the jobs. When the soldiers eventually came home, the women went back to their “domestic bliss” and left the out-of-the-home jobs for the men. It was a nice little balance, so long as you weren’t the one doing the actual combat and dying – and the rich are NEVER the people who fight.

But in 1960’s, various social movements had taken place (scaring the holy bejesus out of conservatives) and among them was the women’s movement. SOME of that movement was facilitated by the women doing the work outside the home while the men fought and died in the rainforest. But in 1975, to the dismay of the military/industrial complex, the war in Vietnam ended, slowing profits considerably. All of the fighting men who had been shipped off to die but didn’t…came home again. But by now, women had come to enjoy the idea of having a little jingle in their pockets. They REALLY liked the idea that they had some control over their own lives, having a little money of their own. They made the unheard-of decision to KEEP the jobs they had been doing, leaving the returning soldiers with no jobs.

This left large groups of people standing around with nothing to do. Before long, the economy was feeling the heat of too many workers and not enough work. (See? That’s the Syria tie-in…) It takes awhile for an economy – any economy – to catch up to such conditions and the interim is usually quite painful. The rich people, though, just saw an opportunity. They started the story that Keynes had finally failed and they had to do something different. They brought in an actor to sell their story – Ronald Reagan – and people bought it. Thus began the assault on this once-great nation that has created the country we suffer today. Where once we had plenty (though not well or equally distributed) now we are a nation of shortages, outages, suffering, and dismay. You know, unless you’re wealthy. Then everything is great.

Mine is a simple, straightforward hypothesis that fits all the facts but it’s not told by the American media because, today, the American media is owned by the people who profit from the falsehoods. The successful cousin of Keynesian thinking has come to be known in the world as ‘Democratic Socialism’ and works very well for the largest number of people. But it contains the word ‘Socialism’ which scares the bejesus out of conservatives and is easy to demonize – especially in this once-great nation of gullible fools. So, FDR called it ‘The New Deal’ instead and most people liked the New Deal because it worked. Rich people hated it because it limited their ability to fleece the populace at will.

I’ll tell you this: If we don’t get back to New Deal economics – and do it soon – I suspect Syria is the model we risk copying…and THAT ain’t gonna be good at all…

Well, it’s getting longer every day, isn’t it? The list of Dems the cons plan to impeach, I mean. Kevin McCarthy, the person most likely to succeed Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House (at the moment) said the House plans to impeach the director of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas for…um…reasons.

It’s pretty much clear to everybody except the people who don’t understand things that the cons are planning a revenge tour. They’re upset that their criminal president, trump, got impeached…twice. THEY think it was all politically motivated because they choose to ignore evidence. So, they’re going to “get back” at the Dems by impeaching everybody with a ‘D’ after their name. Personally, I suspect they’re doing it because they don’t have anything else to do now that they control the House but not the Senate. Everybody except the people who don’t understand things knows the cons want nothing more than to make life easier for the richest of the rich and as hard as possible for everybody else. They LIVE to inflict suffering.

But with the Dems keeping control of the Senate, any evil act they intend will have to wait until 2024, at least, since the Dems will just block in the Senate whatever they do in the House. Since they won’t be able to get any of their evil acts done anyway, they might as well spend the next two years impeaching anybody and everybody. Nothing will get done, but the people who don’t understand things will get a good show and the rest of us? Well, we’re just going to get more and more tired of conservative delusional antics. I mean, I don’t know about you but this has been going on – and escalating – for the last 40 years and every time they come up with some new, stupid, faux “charge” I find myself just getting tired all over.

2022 sent a message. Americans dumped the worst of the worst wherever they could. The class of election deniers (rightly called ‘liars’) was mostly sent packing. It’s going to take some time, especially against conservative cheating at the ballot box but it looks like Americans – true Americans, not those flag-humping but Constitution-hating cons, are sick and tired of the craziness. So the cons are going to have to wait until they get a bit more power, if they can, and in the meantime, their “fiddle while Rome burns” behavior will look like impeachment after trumped up impeachment.

My prediction? It will prove to be a MASSIVE waste of time and money. First, you need charges against someone to impeach. Making them up during a fever dream doesn’t really hold water. Second, the Dems still control the Senate where their fraudulent impeachments get tried. The Dems will respond to the evidence – or lack thereof, in this case. The cons voted to acquit the Dumbass despite the evidence against him and they’ll vote to impeach any/every Dem they can think of despite the lack of evidence against them. The Dems presented their case (poorly, I’d have to agree) and the cons just shot them down. Now the cons will present their target and the Dems will respond in kind. The only difference is, the cons did what they did despite the law and the Dems will act in accordance with the law. I like the Dem way better…

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The cons aren’t what I would call smart but they certainly ARE clever schemers. Take Georgia, where the conservatives really hate voting, so they’ve done everything they can to derail the process. One of the things they did was this: they recently changed the law so that runoffs have to take place within 28 days of the general election that necessitated the thing. BUT…Georgia law ALSO says that a voter must be registered 30 full days prior to an election. This means no new voters for the runoff. One cannot stand on the sidelines during the election, realize their voted is needed, then register and help their party – either party. Like I said, clever…

On the up side, though, the Warnock campaign has, so far, prevailed in their attempt to recover Saturday voting for November 26, so, there’s that…

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Pretty much ALL of the people who understand things have lost most or all of the respect they might once have held for the so-called Supreme Court. I’ve taken to referring to it as the Supremely Kangaroo Court as they’ve taken to ignoring law and making ideological ruling after ideological ruling and I don’t think my opinion will change so long as the Roberts Joke Court is packed with activist ideologues. BUT…they did something the other day I didn’t expect. They made a ruling based on law. Hell, I didn’t even know they were capable of doing that.

They ruled that the House Ways and Means Committee does get to look at trump’s taxes, even if they ARE “under audit.” That ruling is perfectly in keeping with a law that was passed by Congress during the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s. That means it’s a law that’s been on the books for nearly 100 years. I’d call it “established.” Still, it was surprising this corrupted court considered it in view of the fact that the case in question had to do with trump’s taxes. My actual, cynical guess is that they agreed with the law in this case because they believe the House Committee doesn’t have enough time to do a proper review of the criminal trump’s taxes before the cons take over and protect their criminal boy. Even when they work within the law, they do it in a way that helps trump as much as possible. I sure hope those returns don’t get “leaked” to the press – who WILL have the time and resources to give them a very thorough review regardless of who controls the House.

So guess who’s upset the corrupted court followed the law for a change? Why, that would be one Donnie “the Dumbass” Trump, who said they had “become nothing more than a political body…” Of course, he ALSO said that handing over taxes was unprecedented. It’s not. Presidential candidates have been releasing their tax information, usually voluntarily but not always, for decades (except for the appointed, partial-term Gerald Ford). I remember when Mr “Promises made, promises kept” promised and promised and promised he was THIS close to releasing his taxes – but he never did. Now he’s mad at the court HE corrupted and turned into a nearly useless, completely untrustworthy, ideological crap-hole because they unexpectedly did the right thing. Good.

I’ll tell you this: maybe I should start calling it ‘Frankenstein’s Court since the creature may have turned on it’s creator…

Since We, the People don’t walk the walk of our awesomeness in reality anymore, we like to pretend by quoting various aspirational aphorisms. In this case, I’m referring to the so-called ‘Rule of Law.’ What the ‘Rule of Law’ is supposed to mean is that no person is above the law. There’s not one law for some and one law for others. It’s all the same law and it applies, equally, to everybody across the board. That’s what it’s supposed to mean and we hear it all the time.

Of course, we also all know that the actual rule of law in America is that there are laws but their applicability depends on one’s wealth, connections, and, sadly, skin color. Studies have shown, for example, that if two people with the same criminal history commit the same crime and one is “black” and the other is “white,” the “black” person will commonly receive a far harsher sentence than the “white” guy. The rule of situational application of law, as America really operates, is often confusing and can be contradictory. That can make it difficult to predict the outcome of some cases.

Elizabeth Holmes was the CEO of a tech company that lied about it’s ability to test blood. They claimed they had a bold, new system that could accomplish the same tests with less blood, in less time, and for less money. It was a lie and the whole company was built on it. They ended up getting busted and Holmes was put on trial and found guilty of fraud. Now, Holmes is blonde, young, and pretty. She’s currently pregnant. Those facts might very well come together to render a lighter sentence for her. Holmes is also quite rich, which, in normal circumstances means little to no jail time. Perhaps she pays a fine, does some community service work (aka, makes a donation to some charity) and provides a public statement in which she declares her contrition and promises never, ever to do that again. That should have been quite an advantage for her. I’d bet she went to trial feeling confident, first that she could be acquitted, then, after the guilty verdict, that the sentence wouldn’t hurt the pretty, blonde, young, pregnant, rich “white” woman too badly.

I think Holmes forgot the other part of the rule of situational application of law. Holmes was accused of defrauding investors. Investors tend to be rich. In many cases, investors were richer than Holmes and better connected. Sure, she COULD have received the “white” person discount, but she forgot the Madoff exception. Like Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes defrauded rich people, the ultimate no-no. Bernie committed the same crime as Elizabeth, investor fraud. Bernie was also “white” and rich but had an additional point in his favor – one Elizabeth could only dream of – a penis. Being a rich, “white,” man, Bernie likely expected a couple of years in prison and a fine. To what was likely his ever-lasting surprise, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison and a $17 BILLION dollar fine. Again, he defrauded rich people. Holmes received her sentence this week. 11 years in prison and a – wait, can this be right? According to CNN, the sentence includes a $400 dollar fine. Four hundred dollars? (Apparently, a restitution amount will be set later.)

Sure, it’s a harsh sentence but it seems to have enjoyed the pretty white girl discount after all, when compared to Bernie Madoff. Still the message is clear: you don’t defraud rich people. THEY defraud YOU and if you defraud them, it upsets the apple cart and they WILL make an example of you. The rule of situational application of law demands it…

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Here’s a weird thing. Rafael Warnock’s campaign is suing the State of Georgia over one of Georgia’s many, many campaign restrictions. For some reason (mostly that Georgia Republicans don’t like actual voting) Georgia Republicans instituted a law that says the state cannot have voting on the second Saturday before an election if there is a holiday on the previous Thursday or Friday. The Thursday before the Warnock/Walker run-off is Thanksgiving and the day after is a generic “State Holiday.” (Specifically, it’s the day Georgia celebrated the birth of the traitor Robert E Lee – who was born in January – but they had to drop the “Robert E. Lee’s Birthday” name during one of the recent political correctness purges so now it’s just “State Holiday.”)

Setting aside the questionable idea of honoring a traitor who took up arms against his own country and shares responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in a failed effort to maintain slavery, the two things, that State Holiday and Saturday voting seem to be unrelated. But the Georgia GOP saw an opportunity to maybe restrict some voting and they jumped on it. The Secretary of State, one Brad Raffensperger, (remember when all the Dems loved him because he stood up to the Dumbass who had asked him to “find” 11,000 votes?) initially said the Saturday voting would be allowed, then backtracked. No Saturday voting, after all. (Hey, he said right after the coup attempt he was still ‘Team GOP.’)

The Warnock campaign seems to be picking at a small nit but I actually think they’re right. The law, as written, says it applies to primary and general elections but doesn’t mention run-offs. One might argue that Georgia simply implied run-offs (as I’m sure the State will) but because they specifically mentioned run-offs elsewhere in the same law, the Warnock campaign argues, it wasn’t implied and because it’s not specifically mentioned, the State should allow Saturday voting on November 26. I can’t find the reference now but I had read that the wording of the law was inadvertently changed during an amendment but leaving out “run-offs” accidentally or on purpose doesn’t matter. They left it out. Whoops! Remember, in America, words might occasionally matter in law. The Jim Crow Georgians messed up. I’m guessing they’re going to have to let people vote on the 26th, no matter how badly they wish they wouldn’t. Bummer for them…

The Dumbass waited as long as he did to announce he was running for President again because the GOP made him. You see, they have been paying many of his legal bills (his sucker acolytes have been paying the rest) and they told him they’d stop if he announced before the mid-terms. Apparently, the party was afraid the CheetoJesus would tarnish the outcome of the election exactly as he seems to have done. But some people have suggested that the reason the loser trump announced his next bid so quickly after the mid-terms was that he thought he could deflect the DOJ from investigating his illegal activities by claiming the whole thing is simply a political witch hunt. You know, exactly like he was doing before he announced.

So far? No good. The DOJ has just announced the appointment of a special counsel – a registered independent named Jack Smith – to determine whether trump gets to commit crimes unpunished or is just like any other citizen. My position? If the evidence supports the charges, he should stand trial – just like any other person. Really, just the fact that he gets a special counsel to make the determination is special treatment. Normally, the DOJ would just move forward with whatever action they determined was the correct move. Although, my guess is that this special counsel will not operate with the narrow parameters that hamstrung Robert Mueller’s investigation.

I DO think the moves signals a concern that the MAGA cons will not accept the results of the investigation. (Really, why would they start accepting facts now?) Add layer after layer of caution, the thinking seems to go, and the next step will be harder for the cons to refute. Kinda dumb, if you ask me. The cons believe what they’re told to believe and they won’t even know about extra layers of caution. They don’t need no stinking trial or evidence to know trump is innocent of all charges – even if he did do those things. But the rational crowd, the people who understand things, will have one more arrow in their quiver when the “debate” begins so it’s not all bad…

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Right now, the left is kind of salivating over the GOP’s conflict within about whether trump should run or not. I say, enjoy the moment. Fox “News” tried to get him to skip this one but he announced anyway. THEN Fox “News” talked about how “Presidential” he looked. As usual with this “holy” embodiment of ALL seven of the deadly sins, they’ll stand against him right up until they acquiesce and back him. Remember, these people operate on positions, not principles. Trump has been counted out so many times in the past and managed to slither past it I’m not prepared to make any predictions. Right now, it looks like his star has fallen. These days, he actually looks delusional. He’s not even talking about the country anymore. It’s all him, him, him. Look what they’re doing to poor, poor me, that sort of thing. We’re clear he feels an abiding pity for himself and is nursing a need for vengeance because he often lists names of people with whom he plans to get even.

Anyone capable of even a modicum of independent thought has heard him quite clearly in his threats to destroy the Republic, dump the Constitution, and name himself President for Life. (January 6th coup, anyone?) Hell, the coup, alone, should disqualify him from public office. But the MAGA cons don’t care so long as they get to keep their second half of the Second Amendment. Absolutely NO understanding that “throwing out the Constitution” includes the Second Amendment but because they don’t believe he’ll attack the Second, they don’t care. So it remains to be seen if the GOP will dump trump or not. You may have noticed, I really don’t like trump and I fear him – or at least what he represents. Unlike MAGA cons, I loved this country and would have preferred to see it continue.

But there’s an outside chance that trump will split the con vote, leaving the way clear for the Dems to keep moving forward. We know trump won’t stop on his own. He can’t. But I also think there’s a difference between MAGA cons and regular conservatives and the MAGA cons are FAR fewer in number than they used to be, likely not nearly enough to carry the con-man forward without mainstream conservatives. Besides, the left hates trump with the same energy the right hates Hillary. So long as trump is a threat (read: on the ballot) the left will fall out in droves to stop him.

I’ll tell you this: He told his base that, with him, they’d get tired of winning. He just didn’t tell them they’d be tired of the Democrats winning. I wonder how long it will be before they figure it out?

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The nice thing about the cons being honest about their intentions to initiate investigations of anybody with a ‘D’ after their name despite not having any evidence of any crime is that the rest of us know what to expect, which, to be clear, will be more of the money- and time-wasting “investigations” like those they ran (and ran and ran and ran) into Hillary, only to find they couldn’t nail her for one little thing. The party of fiscal responsibility, as they like to pretend they are, wasted something like $14 million dollars on those hearings.

I’ll tell you this: They’ll happily waste money on frivolous lawsuits and sham investigations any time they think it will mess with a Dem. Of course, they’ll need to cut school lunches and safety programs and other threads of the social safety net to pay for their scams but cons are never happier than when they’re doing harm to defenseless people. It’s just their jam…