Well, Steve Bannon still seems set to begin his four month prison sentence on July 1. He didn’t want to. He tried to suggest to the court that he is somehow special because he lies for the cons. The court didn’t buy it and said, “No, start your sentence.” Bannon wants to take his case to the Supremely Kangaroo Court and ask them for a mulligan. NOW he wants to appeal THIS call to the same court. (I’ll bet. I don’t know if those guys are in the bag for ALL high level, criminal cons or only for Trump but it’s still the best bet he’s got…)

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The Kangaroos took a recess. Their session ends in, like, eight days. They STILL haven’t issued some of their most important – and likely most egregious – decisions. Does a President have perfect and total immunity? No, but who knows what this embarrassing court will do?

The corporate media seemed surprised. “Why, oh why, won’t they issue those rulings that are so important?” That’s easy. NOT issuing them helps their client, Trump. They’ll wait as long as they can, then issue the decisions late, as they skulk out the back door to go collect their bribes, er, “gifts.”

It’s yet another heartbreak for those of us who actually DO still love this country, seeing how corrupt the conservatives have made the institutions of a once-great nation…

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Now Donald Sutherland has passed? Say it ain’t so. Aged 88 years. He gave us a LOT of great movies. I’m a fan of his work. I know people have to go but I often wish they hadn’t, you know? Donald Sutherland, like Willie Mays only a few days earlier, was in THAT group, for me…

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Is he already running for the door? Trump is telling supporters he’s going to lose the upcoming (June 27) debate. He tried suggesting he’d do that on purpose to make some kind of point but even MAGA wasn’t dumb enough to buy that. So, now, it’s all pretending Biden will be amped by drugs, all the time.

The reality is that Biden is sharper, smarter, and better prepared than Trump and would win because the debate is about reality and not preferred MAGA distortions. But I submit that Trump is setting the stage for a chicken-out. First, he primes the deceived into believing that he can’t win because Biden will be aided by drugs, then he backs out because, he’ll claim, the whole thing is unfair and rigged.

I’ll tell you this: Trump is just a loser who can’t win if he can’t distort. MAGA doesn’t know it, wouldn’t believe it if they saw it with their own eyes, but Trump does. So, he’ll make claims. But it will just be cowardice…

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Well, it took THIS long for their stolen election lie to come back to bite them. The lie is that the 2020 election was “stolen.” It wasn’t. But the mouths have been wagging ever since. Oh, what an evil thing the Dems did to the cons. It’s a stupid lie, easily proven false unless one refuses to look at the mountain of evidence to the contrary. But “look” MAGA does not and so the lie persists.

Now it’s persistence is spreading like a cancer. There’s a politician from Virginia, Bob Good, who is a far right MAGA level con. He totally supported the “stolen election” lie. He’s running to retain his House seat. Oh, he ALSO endorsed Ron DeSantis in the Presidential primary. THAT, of course, is an unforgivable sin, so Trump endorsed Good’s opponent, John McGuire. Currently, McGuire is winning by a very small margin.

So, guess what? NOW Good is claiming HIS election was stolen! NOW it’s an evil thing the CONS do to cons. From his point of view, it couldn’t possibly be that he’s just losing. Something must be “rigged.”

This is one of the main flaws of the far-right ideology, ‘nobody counts but me.’ It doesn’t take long until they form a circular firing squad and start shooting. Good’s claim undermines Trump’s claim, which never had any credibility anyway. Every day, the “party of personal responsibility” moves further and further away from personal responsibility…

I’ve figured out why MAGA can’t accept that Trump is a convicted felon: his conviction is a fact and it’s based in truth. Really, it’s that simple. Cult-45 has been so abused for so long, they no longer have the capacity to even recognize the truth. What a scary way to live…

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As you likely know, Alex Jones is finally being made to pay for his lies about the Sandy Hook massacre of first graders being a “hoax,” performed by “crisis actors.” He might even lose his beloved Mt. Bullshit site, Infowars.

Meanwhile, survivors of the Sandy Hook massacre graduated from high school the other day. They paid for his gun lust immediately and without choice. It seems wrong that he has been allowed to forestall paying, by choice, for twelve years…

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Now that we know a person can’t use drugs AND have guns, why won’t people start going after private gun owners who smoke marijuana – or even consume alcohol? In their zeal to “get” Hunter Biden, did the MAGAGOP just lay out the blueprint to slow gun ownership?

Nah! The ACTUAL rule is that a person can’t use drugs AND have guns AND carry the name Biden. It’s VERY specific, if you’re MAGA…

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The cons chose Milwaukee as their host city for their convention because Wisconsin is seen as pivotal in the Presidential race. Essentially, the GOP is pandering to Wisconsin. But not Trump. He thinks of Milwaukee as “a horrible city.” He said so, out loud. Way to woo ’em, Donny…

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Even when they get it right, they do so for the wrong reasons. Our crumbling SKCOTUS issued a ruling that supported continued use of what has become known as the “abortion pill,” Mifepristone. This is the “get it right” part. BUT – they based their ruling on lack of standing by the plaintiffs so the issue isn’t dead. It WILL be back. I saw a young woman on television saying so. Young women arguing against reproductive choice always confuse me.

They must be optimists, believing THEY will never be impregnated by their rapist. But they’re ALSO ignorant of history and the things women went through before Roe (and are starting to go through again, thanks to the cons) and completely lack empathy, a marking characteristic of all cons everywhere…

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When Trump went to the Capitol to visit with his toadies, he suggesting replacing income tax with an “all tariff” model. Economists have already said the plan would seriously harm middle and low income workers and seriously boost the wealthy. That’s JUST what we need in this submerging nation, a policy that harms the majority and helps those who need help the least.

Go ahead, MAGA, vote for Trump. He WILL make you bleed…

So…the presumptive nominee for the Roepublicon Party underwent his presentence probationary interview this last week. The interview is part of the sentencing process. It helps the judge gauge certain aspects of the defendant’s (now the convicted person’s) attitude. DOES Trump feel any remorse? Not based on any of his words. According to him, the fault lies, not with his crimes but with the people who punished him for them. He even sent out fundraising emails calling the conviction a “fraud.” That’s hardly contrition.

Apparently, they asked him if he understood that as a convicted Felon on probation, he wouldn’t be allowed to associate with other known criminals, specifically, people with criminal convictions. That pretty much lets out everyone Trump knows at this point. It seems to be a thing, hang with Trump, go to jail…

But his hearing was rather unusual; more of that Special Treatment he’s always bitching about. He got to do his interview via Zoom. He got to have his attorney present. His interview lasted a little less than a half-hour. NONE of that is, apparently, standard practice…

Weird, isn’t it? The impending election pits one guy who, yes, is old against the other guy who is ALSO old AND can’t travel freely around the world due to his status as a felon and will have to weave his criminal probation into his Presidency, wants to impose a far-right, extremist agenda, did a terrible job when he had it before, and fully intends to dismantle the Constitution. And millions of Americans are STILL voting for the second guy. I just don’t get what’s wrong with people…

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Oh, but the cons got Hunter, didn’t they? Everyone was so shocked, so surprised. Wait, no. That’s not right. Hunter had already indicated his guilt. The prosecutor investigating the case had looked at it and offered a plea bargain. MAGA couldn’t have that, just a plea bargain. Never mind that a plea bargain is the same sentence offered others in similar cases. This is Hunter Biden and they have to get Joe! (Dear MAGA, Hunter is STILL not Joe. If you need a President with a drug problem, look to your beloved Donny…)

They knew they could drag embarrassing details about drug addict choices out in public and put it in a court record somewhere, as though court records aren’t already full of the stupid things drug addicts do. Of course, after the conviction, MAGA was ready with all new conspiracy theories, freshly minted by their bullshit machine and injected into the body politic for ready rhetorical use. Suddenly, Hunter’s conviction was a set-up by – wait for it – JOE BIDEN! That senile old man is one clever and crafty son-of-a-bitch, isn’t he?

See, according to this insane conspiracy theory, the (stupid) plan was to convict Hunter for a petty crime, which naturally and automatically, of course, covers up all the vast web of crimes out there that Joe is committing and MAGA knows everything about but can NOT (for some weird reason) come up with a single shred of evidence for proof. So fear not, featherheads, the “investigations” will continue. They know Joe is guilty. All they have to do is find a crime now. Easy…

There is a song out in “Christian” media calling Donald Trump, ‘The Chosen One.’ Donald didn’t write it but he promoted it. The Chosen One? Isn’t that title already taken in the Christian religion? I believe it’s held by a guy named…um…Oh, Jesus Christ, what IS that guy’s name? Oh yeah, Jesus Christ.

So the next time you’re out there, scratching your head, wondering how MAGA can stay so loyal to this international criminal buffoon, remember that song. They believe he’s the next coming and they’ll support him as such. What a bunch of rubes…

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Here’s a question: if Donald Trump is as popular as he says he is, why is he faking photos to show huge crowds? Shouldn’t he just be drawing huge crowds? When a thousand people show up, he claims 100,000. Recently, he released a campaign photo showing a huge crowd and suggested the crowd was at his rally. But it wasn’t. The crowd he showed was from a local music festival – where Trump wasn’t.

As a sidebar, he had a rally in Las Vegas, where he told his fans that he didn’t care about them, he just wanted their votes. To be specific, he said, “We need every voter. I don’t care about you. I just want your vote.” He said he was kidding and the crowd laughed. But he wasn’t kidding, was he? He FINALLY tells a truth, and it’s an insult to his base. But, they’re still “the uneducated” and they didn’t get it. “Oh, idn’t he funny?”

If he’s lying about crowd size every chance he gets – and he is – why wouldn’t he lie about all the other amazing “successes” he’s experiencing, like how much money he’s bringing in from donors (to pay his legal and living expenses and get Melania $8,000 dollar haircuts)?

Oh, yeah, he’s also claiming something like 22% of under-50 African Americans are Trump supporters. I heard Raphael Warnock (D, Georgia) on the radio. Warnock insists there’s no way 22% of under-50 African Americans are voting Trump. I believe Warnock, not Trump. Especially since Trump keeps getting caught faking photos trying to show how much the African American community loves him. Once again, if you have to fake it, how true could it be?

I’ll tell you this: It turns out, the sexually assaulting, convicted felon, and international criminal Donald J. Trump might be a liar, too…

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I don’t know if it’s better or worse that Europe is also suffering a surge in far-right conservatism. Better because it means we’re not alone here in the US. It usually helps to know others have experienced something someone is going through. The panic on the left at the rise of backwards, ineffective thinking in the US can be felt by the left all over Europe.

Worse because it means the far-right propaganda machine is working much of the western world and making great strides. I believe I’ll NEVER understand how so many millions of people can be so deceived, so completely, for so long. But I’m watching it happen right now, with my own eyes, and it doesn’t matter if I believe it or not. It’s happening.

The general thinking among those who still do (think, that is) is that the rise in far-right conservatism is going to make it much harder to govern Europe, just as they’ve mucked up the political process here in the US. In France, the far-right showed so many gains, their President, Emmanuel Macron, dissolved their national Parliament and called for a snap legislative election, a kind of electoral re-do. Honestly? I can’t decide how I feel about that. It doesn’t feel very democratic. The election was the election. The people spoke. If they spoke in the manner of brain-dead morons, so be it.

On the other hand, the people supporting those movements in country after country are doing so because they’ve been deceived by a sophisticated propaganda machine and they don’t have the tools (or, in some cases, the capacity) to identify the deceptions. SHOULD a country suffer under the weight of wrongheadedness just because a large number of people were fooled? If there’s legal method for an instant re-do, shouldn’t they? I’d guess that if such a thing had been possible in the UK when Brexit happened, the Brits might have jumped at the chance for a do-over.

It’s weird. We’re watching a battle between informed and uninformed – and uninformed is winning…

People seem to be closing their wallets. FINALLY! We keep hearing about “inflation,” and the cost of living IS going up. A LOT! But it’s not structural inflation, it’s greed and price gouging. The core drivers of the “inflation” are housing costs – being driven up by Wall Street investors – and fuel – as always, driven by greed.

But people have been spending anyway. They got used to easy credit and easy debt. The recent rate increases seem to be having the desired effect. That debt ain’t so easy any more and people are getting worried. Where I live, the wine industry is, well, pretty much everything these days. They’re suffering. People are eschewing the wineries (and their prices) for off-the-shelf stuff. I heard ‘Target’ is going to cut prices on something like 1,200 items. That’s an indicator. People aren’t buying. Spending is down, revenues are down. Now, in a natural turn of events, prices will start coming down, too.

But not in housing and not in fuel. As long as Wall Street can buy the houses, the cost will continue to skyrocket. Gas companies just gouge. It’s what they do. Prices at the pump here in California were making their way steadily to $6.00/gallon but the state legislature passed a law, here, that allows them to look into cost increases – and punish the companies if such a look finds the increases were just based in greed. So, as the prices started going up and up, a state politician said, out loud, ‘maybe we should look into those gas prices.’ They dropped the next day. Funny how that works…

Now there’s an entire movement out there, a “no-buy year,” in which participants buy only essentials. I doubt such a thing will go widespread in our consumer society but it won’t take a lot of people for an impact that can make a difference.

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Trump called Robert De Niro a failed actor. De Niro is anti-Trump and makes no bones about it. He spoke outside the courtroom where Trump’s criminal trial is under way. Someone tried to heckle him and he shut the guy down. Trump claimed De Niro had run into a “force far greater than the radical left – MAGA!” I saw the exchange. I thought De Niro won the moment. Just one opinion, though.

Donald J. Trump is the thinnest skinned snowflake I’ve ever even heard about.

I keep getting new favorite bits of this process. The most recent was when a spokesperson for Trump came out in front of the press, complaining that the left was trying to turn the trial “into a campaign event.” Let’s just ignore how the trump campaign has raised money off of the trial and used the press draw as free advertising where the defendant in a criminal trial is allowed to hold court and speechify on nearly whatever topic enters his diseased mind.

Trump claims he wants to be on the campaign trail. In my view, Trump IS on the campaign trail. So, of course MAGA is pointing the finger at Democrats. But, as always, with MAGA, every accusation is a confession…

To honor the fallen on Memorial day, Trump sent out hate mail. Again. Apparently, that’s how he sees holidays, as a way to hate on his “enemies.” He wrote, “Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country…” And so on and so forth for a rambling while. Hate, anger, revenge, and lies ruled his post, and presumably, his day. In fact, from what I’ve seen hate, anger, revenge, and lies rule his entire life.

It’s not the first time he’s used a holiday to attack people, showing none of the respect the holiday deserves (“Happy Memorial Day?”) and none of the decorum decent human beings expect of those around them…

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Well, closing arguments happened. For hours and hours, they happened. The defense was pretty quick. There’s not much to say when there is no defense.
“That guy’s a liar!” the Defense said, pointing at Cohen. “Don’t trust him.”
“Yeah,” answered the prosecution, “but he’s Trump’s liar. Trump hired him because of the things he’d do. And we’ve shown you corroborating evidence for all of it, remember? There was this and this and that and those and this and that and more of those. Why would you have to rely on Cohen? He just tied it all together for you.”

Did you see how much longer the prosecution’s answer was? That represents how the closing arguments went. The Defense was quick, with nothing to say. The Prosecution took a long time, reviewing the entire case for a jury that had taken a week off between trial and closing.

At one point, the defense got in trouble with the judge, yet again, by asking the jury if they really wanted to send an ex-President to prison. It was an effort to either induce sympathy or produce guilt. Either way, it was a cheap, emotional manipulation. The thing is, the jury doesn’t send anyone to prison. The judge determines the sentence – and I doubt Merchan will give Trump jail time, special treatment being what it is.

Merchan told us as much when Trump kept violating the gag order. Merchan said, out loud, “Mr. Trump, it’s important to understand that the last thing I want to do is to put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president, as well.” He’s SUPPOSED to be a normal citizen, subject to the same laws as anyone else.

MAGA keeps pretending that it’s special treatment that keeps getting in Donald’s way, but it’s really special treatment that has kept him out of jail up until now. So don’t get your hopes up on the whole jail thing. He ain’t going. Merchan has already (kind of) said as much. Still, he’ll be a convicted Felon, unable to vote for himself in November…

The case got to the jury Wednesday, the 29th. They worked on it for several hours. As of this writing? Crickets. Nothing. Nada. (In fairness, it’s been less than one day.) There will be more deliberations today. I presume the jurors want this over with as much as anyone so they’re, likely, not mucking about…

Quick question: will it affect YOUR opinion? I know I’ll accept the verdict, either way. But one way (acquittal or hung jury) will irritate me and the other (guilty) will satisfy me. I would not want to see an innocent man go to jail. Ever. Even the guy promising to destroy the country, if he didn’t do the crime for which he stands accused.

I think the evidence supports the charge, but I’m not in the courtroom. I ALSO think nobody’s opinion about Donald Trump will change one iota. He has already poisoned MAGA’S mind on the matter, pretending Joe Biden is secretly orchestrating the whole thing, which he most assuredly is not. But on the left, we’ve pretty much decided, too. I suspect nothing will change the voter’s positions one little iota.

There’s no amount of evidence one can bring that will change the mind of a MAGA. They don’t WANT to see it so they will NOT see it. (The “NOT sees?”) So, they’ll happily vote for the Felon, if convicted. Hell, by Friday, his conviction will be a badge of honor among MAGA. “I ignored his conviction before anybody else!” Yeah, you did. Hey, we see you…