Crime

Too Much, Too Long…

by MyBaconPress

Have you noticed the force around Luigi Mangione as they move him from place to place? It’s like every cop in New York is needed to escort this oh-so-dangerous man. Really, it’s one hell of a show. Yeah, he shot a guy in the back. Now, because the guy he shot was a CEO and, more importantly, rich, officials are charging him with terrorism – so they can put him to death.

Mangione was a very specific shooter. He’s not a threat to all of society. It’s not like he randomly shot up a school, killing anybody unfortunate enough to be in front of his barrel. Because he had – and achieved – a goal, I’d say he’s LESS of a threat. But 30 cops surround the guy like he’s Public Enemy Number One with a long list of murders to his name every time he gets moved.

It’s all a show. The masses are being “discouraged” from following his example by seeing the treatment Mangione receives as a result of his action. Expect it to be harsh. Publicly harsh. Expect it to end with Mangione sentenced to die. Hell, they might fast-track him to the gallows, just to make their point.

The message is, ‘don’t attack rich people’ but I’m not sure that’s the takeaway the public will go with. I haven’t seen any waning in people’s support for Mangione or his choice, despite the fact that we ALL think murder is bad. People see this killing as a kind of retribution, not murder. When they DO kill him, I suspect he’ll become a martyr, a rallying cry…

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Have you heard about this? A congresswoman from Texas, Kay Granger (R), has been living in a care facility for dementia patients at least the last six months. Her son tried to downplay the situation: “There’s nothing wrong with someone wanting to live in a community with other folks their age,” Brandon Granger said. He’s right. There IS nothing wrong with that. More, there’s nothing wrong with battling dementia. It’s sad, but it happens.

It’s the ‘battling dementia while holding a House seat’ part that concerns me. She hasn’t voted on the House floor since July. She hasn’t shown up at all, except for one photo op pretending she was a-okay. She has stepped down from her committee assignments. Oh, and she HAS continued to accept that sweet paycheck…

I’m not ripping on Granger, herself. We see this from time to time. We last saw it from Dianne Feinstein, who was no longer aware she WAS Dianne Feinstein much of the time, but maintained her position in the Senate. Useless, possibly even dangerous to her job, but holding the seat. The thing is, in Congress, this can only be about money, right?

Had Feinstein stepped down due to health issues, Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom could be expected to replace her with another Democrat, so the balance of power would not be affected. That’s the exact same situation with Kay Granger. Her Governor, Greg Abbott, would likely have appointed a Republican, so, same outcome. But they stay. And stay. And stay.

Yes, it appears Joe Biden is battling some age issues, himself, and Ronald Reagan, famously, no longer knew he was Ronald Reagan by the end of his term. It just comes up from time to time. People get old and they don’t have control over dementia. Once it hits, it hits. But they don’t leave their offices.

Theoretically, their teams take care of them by keeping them out of public view and occasionally issuing statements in their candidate’s name but it’s essentially a seat held hostage in Congress. I might go so far as to assert it’s a kind of theft. EVERYONE is getting paid – from tax dollars – but nobody is doing the job they were hired to do. It’s no different than if you went to work every day but never did your job. Well, there IS one difference. Once your employer found out you were accepting the check but never contributing, you’d be let go.

I’m not normally an advocate for age restrictions but I think I’m leaning further and further that direction when it comes to Congress critters. For one thing, FAR too many of them are FAR too old, even if they’re NOT battling dementia. One gets out of touch with things as they age. The world moves pretty fast, these days, and it gets harder and harder to keep up.

Since people clearly can NOT be trusted to just gracefully step aside when, say, health conditions demand it, there should be a defined upper age limit. I genuinely appreciate the wisdom and perspective that can come with age but it’s not guaranteed and some people end up with dementia, instead. They shouldn’t be allowed to continue in such important roles.

What if we say 70? It’s a random, round number. 70 is old, but one is still likely to be in command of one’s faculties. Yes, we WILL lose some good people early but we have an obligation to protect ourselves from being governed by people who don’t even know who they are, let alone that they’re supposed to be governing…

When You Make Peaceful Revolution Impossible…

by MyBaconPress

I wouldn’t live a life that caused people to want to celebrate if I got murdered in the streets. Early Wednesday morning, in the middle of Manhattan, a man named Brian Thompson was shot and killed by a gunman. Mr. Thompson was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, a health insurance company. The shooter is still at large, so nobody can speak to his motivations with certainty. But the truth is, when I heard the person who got shot was the CEO of a health insurance company, my first thought was, “Someone who got a claim denied.” Wasn’t that your first thought? (Tell the truth.)

I don’t mind saying: I felt pretty badly about the fact that I didn’t feel more badly. There was even an element of “Well, that’s no surprise. The real surprise is why it doesn’t happen more often.” But I wasn’t proud of myself for a) dismissing other possible motivations so easily and b) maybe even feeling like one was struck for the little guy there, like it was a kind of justice. Who died – or is going to – because some bureaucrat sitting behind some desk someplace looked an some actuarial table and pressed the “Denied” button? (UnitedHealthcare is said to deny around one-third of all claims.)

Then we found out the shooter took the time to write “Deny,” “Defend,” and “Depose” on the bullets. That’s close to the name of an insurance industry book that teaches insurance companies how to deny claims, ‘Delay, Deny, Defend.’ Now I’m more certain that this is related to insurance denials – and I feel better about a Small-Folk “evening the score” than I feel badly about a human being getting gunned down in the streets. Oh, also? I feel a little more ashamed of myself for nurturing the schadenfreude.

Then, I saw a meme. It said, “I have seen at least 30 different news stories about one billionaire insurance company CEO’s death today. Wouldn’t it be great if every person who died today because an insurance company denied coverage got the same attention?” Okay, then. At least I’m not alone.

In fact, I’d say this is indicative of the failing nature of our health care system and, really, free market capitalism, in general. We all know that insurance companies like this exist only to add cost and extract money from people unfortunate enough to end up needing medical care. Just think about THAT for a second. One of the slogans of the United States of America is that we live in the richest, greatest country on the planet. And yet, we fear illness and think of the process as ‘unfortunate enough to end up needing medical care.’

The vast majority of Americans live one serious illness from ruin. Now, from all indicators, we’re all moving into a fascist free-for-all that promises to pit Joe Six-pack against corporate interests at every turn. That is, economically, things are about to get MUCH worse, not better. So I suspect we’re going to see more of this kind of thing going forward. In fact, I’ve been struck by how many people are rallying…around the shooter.

There are online sleuths, people who take pride in helping law enforcement find bad guys. As a group, they seem to have collectively decided to stand down. Only one stood up and offered some information – and that person was attacked by other online sleuths. To me, it looks, largely, like the rank and file people – those of us who have been victimized by some insurance company somewhere so, you know, most Americans – stand on the side of the shooter.

John F. Kennedy (the good one, not the jerk currently in Congress) said, “When you make peaceful revolution impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable.” I think the vast majority of the country rooting for the shooter in this case is shades of that coming to pass. Now that our government has been handed over to the One Percent (the collective net worth of Trump’s cabinet nominees is estimated at around $340 billion dollars) and Project 2025 is a blueprint of how to attack the poor and defenseless, we can expect these out-of-touch rich prigs to inflict damage after damage.

Worse, they’ll do it blindly, because they really ARE out-of-touch. Because they really DON’T understand how decisions which don’t have any serious effect on them, nonetheless have devastating consequences to the largest numbers of Americans. Elon Musk, the wealthy, silver-spoon opportunist who has never invented anything in his life, has already warned the Small-Folk that they’re just going to have to suffer some “temporary hardship.” Not him, mind you. He’s going to get tax cuts and deregulation that makes HIS life oh-so-much easier. But you? Oh, yeah, YOU have to suffer. Suck it up, buttercup.

I can’t say when things explode. That part is always elusive in history. People put up with a lot of crap, just trying to get by. But everybody has a limit. Everybody has a moment. The One Percent have succeeded in rolling back FDR’s New Deal, which means all glory to the wealthy and the Small-Folk need to just do as they’re told and be grateful for the crumbs they get.

It’s a good thing we live in a bloodthirsty, brutal, and vicious society that’s already struggling mightily to survive on a day-to-day basis, pissed off about the inequities of America, and armed to the teeth. I mean, what could go wrong? I don’t think, long term, this shooting will prove to be an isolated event.

Right now, there are a large number of people who chose to support Trump, because they didn’t believe he’s actually going to do the things he promised he was going to do. As he DOES do those things – to them – and the work-a-day Joe’s lives are impacted, they’re going to wake up and get mad.

MAGA is a different story. MAGA was perfectly happy to kill their loved ones to keep Trump from looking bad about his horrific mishandling of Covid-19. They may well prove to be blindly loyal enough to kill themselves to protect their Precious, too. But one of the primary hallmarks of MAGA is selfishness. Killing their loved ones was one thing, a necessary sacrifice. Killing themselves?

I suspect when MAGA is asked to just forget about the Social Security they’ve paid into for so long, when they realize their gardener isn’t coming anymore because he got deported, when they lose their health care and can’t see a doctor anymore, when the price of eggs goes up, not down, when they lose their homes to some clever wall street type, when their granddaughters start dying in botched back-alley abortion attempts, they’ll start to wake up and get angry, too.

I’ll tell you this: I suspect the shooting of Brian Thompson and, more importantly, the ho-hum attitude people have displayed over the shooting (are we actually rooting for the shooter to get away with it?) represent an opening salvo in the impending culture wars. Trump isn’t even President, yet, and the shooting has already begun. This is going to be ugly…

Book ’em, Dano. Please? Finally?

by MyBaconPress

WOW! Just wow. I mean, like, wow, wow, WOW! Yet another criminal complaint against Trump has been filed, this one in Ohio. Guess why. No, you have to guess, but I’ll give you a hint. It involves cats and dogs and people eating them…

See it turns out, Ohio has a law that allows a private citizen to swear out a criminal complaint. If someone does, it goes before a judge to check the merits of the case. If it survives that scrutiny, it becomes just another criminal complaint to be handled. And all of that is what happened. A warrant for the arrest of Donald J. Trump and JD Vance has been issued by the State of Ohio.

During his debate against Harris, Trump insisted that Haitians were up in Ohio eating their neighbor’s cats and dogs. They’re not. It’s a made-up story and the woman who made it up has made that completely clear. Still, even after he was told, point-blank, that, no, that’s not a real thing and it’s not happening, he maintained his false story. Authorities in Springfield, Ohio insist no such thing is happening but Trump saw someone blathering on TV (or so he says) and decided to believe the blatherer. He probably wants to make that person Secretary of Ag or something.

The thing is, as we know, when Trump speaks, MAGA acts, and they have been faithful. Haitians in Springfield started getting death threats and enduring other threatening behavior. (MAGA likes to make clear: one does NOT tell the truth about Trump…ever! It’s the law – or soon will be.) That threatening behavior is the basis for the criminal complaint.

So our President-elect, aside from being a felon and adjudicated raper, is now a wanted man in Ohio. Bizarro America is NOT a great place, but it’s going to have it’s elements of fun, you know?

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Well, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a warrant for the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu, one of his “defense” ministers, and a leader of Hamas, Mohammed Deif. I’d say the hardest one to serve is going to be on Deif, who was reportedly killed by Israel. But all three are charged with committing war crimes. That seems appropriate, in view of events in Gaza and spreading.

Warrants from the ICC carry little to no weight. Theoretically, those three might be arrested if they travel to certain countries. In practice, that doesn’t really happen. The ICC has no enforcement authority. Israel goes around acting badly because they have a bodyguard, the United States, who will defend them, no questions asked. The ICC certainly isn’t going to get involved in that, and, again, Deif is too dead to be charged.

Besides, with Trump coming in, Israel is about to be unleashed completely and I see the Palestinians being “cleansed” from the river to the sea…

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The left just never seems to get it, you know? We keep thinking sexual assault should be a deal killer for people nominated to some of the highest offices in the land. We expect those charges to derail their confirmations because of, well, decency. Fools. Take a look at the list. It’s long and getting longer. Sexual assault is treated like a peccadillo to be overlooked and/or brushed aside but worse, it seems to be a requirement to working for Trump.

Apparently, Trump is surrounding himself with people who “get him…”

By Thursday afternoon, one of Trump’s fellow perverts – to be clear, I mean Matt Gaetz – had to withdraw his name from consideration for the job of Attorney General. It won’t be that big of a deal for Trump. I’m sure he has a long list of fellow child molesters totally unqualified to do whatever job Trump assigns so he’ll just get one of those. He must have seen SOMEBODY on television that he can choose.

It may be a bigger deal for Gaetz. He stepped down from Congress in order to quash the ethics investigation that was about to do him so much harm. (I base the ‘do him so much harm’ comment on the reality that whenever the idea gets floated of releasing that report anyway, Republicans crap their panties and run. MAGA Mike insists releasing the report would “open a Pandora’s Box.” One has no such concerns when the report says, “Nope, no evidence. All is well.”)

He THOUGHT he was going to be USAG. That hasn’t worked out. But, hey, it’s possible he’s going to be closely associated with an AG office, here, in the very near future…

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In yet another example of how the corruption of the criminal courts is proceeding, Judge Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over Trump’s so-called “hush money criminal trial” that was REALLY an embezzlement trial he lost, is hearing an argument put forth by the defense that the charges against Trump should just be dropped. After all, they argue, being convicted of the crimes one actually committed is VERY inconvenient to one’s future. Failing that, they’re asking the court to, you know, just wait for sentencing until after Trump is finished “Presidentin’,” despite the 40+ felony convictions connected with the case.

Some of us doubt Trump ever intends to leave office under any circumstances. If nothing else, such a ruling by Merchan would give Trump even greater incentive to stay in office.
“We’ll sentence you when you come out.”
“Well, then, I’m not coming out!”

In fairness, I can see how serving the time for your crimes might interfere with the duties of the President. I’m a reasonable guy. I’d move forward with the sentencing. But I’d let him out on a work-release program by day. He could just spend the evenings and weekends in the clink, and come out and harm the nation during the day…

I’ll tell you this: when laws stopped applying across the board, the US was in trouble. These days, the phrase “rule of law” sounds like a punchline of some kind…

Is My Hair On Fire?

by MyBaconPress

Corporate media keeps trying to offer up excuses as to how Trump won. He cheated, that’s how he won. Corporate media keeps telling us it was this failure or that failure but none of it makes any sense. Corporate media is trying to hide inconsistencies and get everybody to believe this was a fair and honest race. It was not.

Am I going to attack the Capitol? No. My plan is to let Trump be Trump. I believe certain things about him. I’m told by his acolytes I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’m wrong. I think Trump can’t contain himself and who he is will surely come forward. His last administration was disastrous, despite the lies the right (and apparently corporate media) want you to believe. And that was when he had some grown-ups around him, holding him even a little in check.

Now? No guardrails. No voice of reason. He’s going to do what he wants to do, when he wants to do it. How long do you think it will be until people – ALL people – are up in arms? The right has been carefully manipulated with lies they accept, believe, and defend. But those ARE lies. Sooner or later, the lies will fail and the scales will fall from their eyes. At that time, we’ll STOP being Americans vs MAGA and we’ll become the masses vs the would-be masters.

I mean, look. There are only two possibilities, right? Either I’m right about Trump and disaster is about to befall every one of us, MAGA included. Or MAGA is right and the world is about to become a utopia, perfect in every measurable way. Only time will tell which side was right about this whole thing so I intend to wait and watch. And listen, I actually HOPE I’m wrong. It would be awesome if he was even half as good as they think he is. But I’m a pretty good judge of people and I feel quite comfortable with my assessment of him. We are in very great danger.

One more thing. Despite hearing MAGA claim it was a beautiful, wonderful success, after four years of his last “effort,” medical facilities were piling bodies in refrigerator trailers as makeshift morgues. He had lost 2.7 million jobs. Unemployment was 6.4%. The number of people who had lost health insurance rose by 3 million. The Federal debt had jumped from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion. (That’s $7.2 trillion dollars – in four years.) Oh, and he had an approval rating of just 34%, which, I suspect, will be FAR lower four years from now…

I’ll tell you this: that doesn’t sound like Utopia to me…

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When a person joins the military, they take an oath to protect and defend the CONSTITUTION of the United States. Not any one person, the Constitution. According to the Guardian, Trump’s advisors are considering a ‘Warrior Board’ to determine which officers are not loyal enough to TRUMP and remove them.

By that standard, every officer should be removed. NO officer should be more loyal to Trump than to the Constitution. An officer who is seen by this board as “acceptable,” according to MY thinking, would be in direct violation of their oath and unfit for their role.

And, what happens to the officers who are deemed “unacceptable” because they continue to respect the Constitution more than an individual and get purged? I think they’ll continue to have a role in protecting this once-great nation. The truth is, I suspect true Americans are going to need them to lead whatever fight is coming.

Yep. This is going to get ugly…

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As I watch Trump fill out his Cabinet of Destruction, I find myself wishing I could be a fly on the wall in the various planning rooms of the countries we once understood as our allies. They must be in quite the panic. They KNOW that Trump is a direct conduit to Putin, so they can’t share good intelligence anymore. Worse, they see the clown car filling up and, likely, know better than to trust anything coming from American sources as well.

EVERY non-MAGA on the planet expects the US to withdraw support for all things good and align themselves with the worst on the planet. All hail Putin, for example. How do our allies respond to THAT? They’ll have no choice but to withdraw themselves. I’m guessing they’re hoping that’s the LEAST of what they’ll have to do but there must be some planning going on for the kind of ‘worst case scenario’ the US is about to become.

As a metaphor, the United States is about to become the equivalent of a three-year-old waving around a loaded firearm. Pure danger. Not just to themselves but to anyone around them. I wish there was some positive spin I could put on this but…I just don’t see any. We the people are about to become the most dangerous place on Earth.

At this point, the next office betting pool should be about what’s going to destroy humanity first. There are SO many possibilities. Invariably, the fight comes down to this: what’s best for humanity vs profits. Sadly, this country has been answering ‘profits’ for far too long and now there’s going to be a focus on MORE profit at whatever cost. Sadly, humans are the cost.

Are you going to lose your health care? Yes. Of course you are. Will THAT kill you? It will certainly kill some. You lose the health care you’ve got when they repeal the Affordable Care Act – promising a “better” option any day now – and then can’t get replacement coverage because you have preexisting conditions.

Will it be pregnancy? For some, yes. I guess the dudes are safe on this one, but fertile women are in great danger. Sure, most pregnancies work out just fine. Many do not. Women just have to hope their own pregnancy goes well because doctors won’t be able to help, should the worst occur. If I was a fertile woman, I think I wouldn’t risk it and that means I’d close my legs – to men, anyway…

Medication? Do you take things? The FDA is about to become essentially useless and the pharmaceutical companies get to do what they want. I guess we’re all just supposed to rely on their professionalism and innate compassion. Remember Oxycontin and how they lied and lied and lied, addicting and killing thousands of people? THAT was what they wanted. Well, they didn’t necessarily want people to die. They wanted the profits. But IF people died? Hey, they got the profits. Feel free to use that as your model as to how corporations, in general, are going to respond to lack of regulation.

Will it be poverty? For some, for sure. Poverty DOES kill, and a society built around supporting an insatiable greedy few at the expense of the masses will certainly see increases in deaths – just not among those insatiable greedy few. And with the canceling of various programs designed to help people financially, poverty is sure to go up at an unimaginable rate.

Will it be societal instability? That’s surely around the corner, as desperation increases. John F. Kennedy warned us, “When you make peaceful revolution impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable.” We’ve seen the various plans they have to make peaceful revolution impossible. YOU make the leap. The dangers I’ve listed ahead of this one will LEAD to this one.

I suspect most people will try the ‘go along to get along’ route for as long as they can. But as the attacks on the masses continue, one after another, anger will rise. Do you remember the ‘Arab Spring?’ Egyptian cops had gotten quite comfortable beating people up to make their point and people just accepted it – until one video of a beating went viral and suddenly, they didn’t anymore. That’s how it happens. To be clear, I’m not advocating societal violence. I just expect it. That’s likely to kill a LOT of us.

My money is on climate change, though. With everything I expect from this incoming group, I think climate change is going to get a turbo-charged boost. Humanity was already in great danger and now the US is being led by people who think climate change is some kind of scam, best ignored lest it interfere with any of those blessed profits. But, while facts CAN be denied, they can NOT be ignored. Climate change is happening and is about to burst forth with all new power.

Since it’s already moving faster than originally expected due to feedback loops, turbo-charging the process is about the dumbest thing humanity could do. So, of course, look for MAGA do cheer wildly and insist on doing even more, even faster. In THEIR mind, they’ll be “proving” how wrong scientists are – right up until their house floods or burns or falls down in an earthquake caused by fracking.

Yeah, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be dark, here. I see exactly two options in viewing the upcoming disaster. One, you can try optimism. Two, you can be realistic. I strongly recommend ‘realistic.’ Simply sitting back and hoping for the best is likely to get you killed…

Things Are Getting Crazy…

by MyBaconPress

“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”

Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I’ll bet he does. He used a bunch of AI-generated lies to pretend Taylor Swift was endorsing his criminal, raper ass. She wasn’t. In fact, because of his pretense, she felt she had to correct the record. She made a post endorsing Kamala. She’s honorable. She said everyone should do their own research and vote their conscience. It was just that HER conscience told her to avoid Trump because of how dangerous he is to society. The result?

Immediately after Taylor’s endorsement, something like 330,000 people showed up at a voter registration site! Swifties in action. Trump immediately started selling Swift rip-off merchandise. She should have her attorney’s send a cease-and-desist letter. All I DO know is that Trump hates her. Cry me a river. Oh, yeah, she’s worth more than him. A LOT more. And she didn’t grift hers or get it from daddy, she earned it.

Watch for MAGA to come out screaming. Celebrities shouldn’t endorse! They don’t mean that. They mean bigger celebrities than they can muster shouldn’t endorse Trump’s opponent. In truth, I suspect she would have endorsed Kamala sooner or later, anyway, but Trump forced her hand with his lie. I kind of feel like he got what he deserved.

But she won’t. Trump declaring, in all caps that he “HATES TAYLOR SWIFT” could be all it takes for some new nutball to try to “remove” Trump’s source of irritation – “Protect the Precious!” That could put Taylor Swift in real danger. In America, one is NOT supposed to be put in danger because the prefer a political opponent. And, yes, that DOES go both ways, in my mind…

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I think I should start this part by acknowledging that I don’t believe Trump ever got shot or even grazed. I know he pretended to in an effort to create sympathy. All I DO know is that the “hit in the ear” story does NOT comport with other, known facts. I can’t speak to any of the rest of it. I don’t know about the “blood.” It never looked right, to me. It was WAY too bright red. I honestly believe somebody actually died and others were actually injured. Trump just wasn’t one of them.

The lie is, a round from an AR-15 took off a piece of his ear. Nope. All you have to do is look at Evander Holyfield’s ear. Holyfield was a professional boxer. He fought a fight against Mike Tyson. Tyson wasn’t at his best and at one point, bit off a piece of Holyfield’s ear. BIT! IT! OFF! (Spoiler alert: Tyson was disqualified and lost the fight.)

To this day, Holyfield is sporting a “gap” where that piece of his ear had been. I mean, it has healed. But the ear never took on it’s old shape. The piece that was removed is still removed. Had Trump been shot in the ear, the piece that got “removed” would STILL be removed. Yeah, yeah, he wore a feminine napkin on his ear for a few days, mostly to highlight the pretense that he had been “shot.” Then he lost the pad and the ear was perfect again. Trump’s ear is pristine. It’s in perfect shape. But that is simply NOT the way ears heal – even Trump’s “god-like” ear.

I had a hard time accepting that. I couldn’t believe Trump might pull a political stunt that would actually get people killed just to gin up some sympathy. Was it a random coincidence that he just happened to look in the direction of the shooter just as the shots rang out? Or, was he watching for some signal, fully aware of what was about to transpire? I don’t know. It seems outside the realm of possibility. But Trump is the very definition of “outside the realm of possibility” and at this point? I wouldn’t put anything, no matter how horrific, past him.

Would Trump allow one (or more) of his loyal followers to actually die for political points? Well, from his point of view, the victim was ONLY “Small-folk.” He genuinely doesn’t seem to care about them at all (except to get their money). I suspect that, yes, he would risk the possibility of Small-folk dying in an effort to gain a few political points. But I don’t know any of that. All I know, for sure, is that Trump was never shot in the ear or anyplace else.

And now there are reports that there was more gunfire in the vicinity of Mr. Trump during one of his golf trips. He was never in any danger. As it happens, the gunfire was from a Secret Service agent who was patrolling one hole ahead of Trump. He spotted a rifle barrel sticking through a fence and opened fire. The guy with the rifle, reportedly, never fired a shot. When the Secret Service opened up, he ran. Somebody got a picture of his getaway car and the cops found the guy pretty quickly.

Now we’ll get all the details. Was he left? Was he right? So far, he seems to have spent most of his life left but he’s been moving right of late. He even voted Trump in 2016, though he later regretted the choice. MOSTLY, he seems tied up in Ukraine’s war and that’s where his sympathies lay. The current working theory – and it could change by the time you read this – is that he was mad at Trump for refusing to say he wanted Ukraine to win during the debate. Trump only said he wanted the war to “stop.”

I presume the right will now pile on the Secret Service as a “security failure,” but was it? Some guy breached the perimeter, sure, but he never even glimpsed Trump. The Secret Service neutralized the threat before Trump was in any danger, just like they’re supposed to. To my mind, that was a security success.

I don’t much like that people might be shooting at Trump, or trying to. All of the violence this culture promotes along with Trump’s own tough-talk is encouraging the wrong kind of discourse in this country. Vote him out. Don’t shoot him out. But I DO have to confess, after his fake at that rally in Pennsylvania where someone shot in his direction, I’m not sure I trust any of these so-called “assassination attempts.” It has crossed my mind that this is a prelude, the warm-up to get MAGA mad enough to pick up their own guns.

He suspects he’s going to lose in November again, even with Russia’s help. THAT leaves him his January coup and in order to pull the coup off, he needs confusion. For that, a MAGA mob, ready to “fight, fight, fight!” would be useful. And an armed MAGA mob would be FAR more effective – especially if they’re just itching to “get even” for the attempts on Trump’s life. One needs to sow those seeds early so they “sprout” at the right time. The attempts could be real but they could also be trumped up, staged events to inflame his supporters to violent action.

I’ll tell you this: I know how it sounds. Get out your tin-foil hats. It’s important to remember that much of this is (possibly/probably wild-eyed) speculation. But things just keep getting crazier and crazier out there and we KEEP learning that no matter how low things might get, MAGA always seems to find a new, lower low. That makes anything possible…

HE Admitted It – Out Loud…

by MyBaconPress

OMG, you trusted the guy. When he said the 2020 election was “stolen,” you took his word for it. Sixty lawsuits were filed. ALL SIXTY were thrown out of court for lack of evidence, because what Rudy, et al, we trying to present doesn’t qualify as evidence. There was no evidence but still, you believed. You believed because he needed you to believe. You took him at his word. Hell, you fought for him. Some of your friends even went to jail for him – because he said the election was stolen. He insisted he had won and the outcome had been rigged.

People tried to tell you. They only wanted to help but they were met with disdain. DO NOT contradict my precious, you said. If he said the election was stolen, the election was stolen, you said. Trump said it, you believe it, that settles it, right? So…how do you feel now?

According to right-leaning ‘USA Today,’ Trump has quietly admitted that he did NOT win in 2020 and he has always known he didn’t win in 2020. He said it out loud. Specifically, during an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman on August 4, he said, “He beat us by a whisker. It was a terrible thing…” Not only that, he said it on August 8 at a Moms For Liberty meeting and August 23 at the southern border. Three times in August, he has confessed that he lost the 2020 election.

Three times is not a misstatement. It’s a confession. Remember, my source on this is the right-leaning ‘USA Today’ so MAGA can just fan the claim that it’s some kind of liberal smear. More, Nick Fuentes, a far right “white nationalist” – a current euphemism for bigot – had some questions and I think they’re questions every MAGA should be asking.

“So, why did we do Stop the Steal?” Fuentes wanted to know. “Why did anyone go to Jan. 6? Why did anyone go to jail? It would have been good to know that before 1,600 people got charged,” Fuentes said on his podcast, referring to the criminal charges for those who invaded and ransacked the Capitol. “It would’ve been good to know that before (I) had all my money frozen, put on a no-fly list, banned from everything, lost all my bank and payment processing.” He went on to call it a “tremendous betrayal” and “callus indifference to the sacrifices that his supporters made on his behalf.”

It very definitely was that, a tremendous betrayal and absolutely callus indifference. It shouldn’t be a surprise. He told you to your faces, he doesn’t care about you, he just needs your vote. You laughed, as though he was joking. He wasn’t joking. He really doesn’t care about anything but himself. He didn’t have the slightest concern about what his lies did to you. He only cared about what his lies might do FOR him.

Now Fuentes is promising sustained opposition to Trump. Funny that. If you let your friends go to jail, and then let them know you lied about WHY they went to jail, they tend to get pissed off at you. So…

Dear MAGA,
Trump, himself, said he lost the 2020 election. He admitted it at least three times in August alone. That’s not a “smear” from the left. It’s not a talking point. Trump said it, out loud, at least three times! The 2020 election was fair. It was NOT stolen. Trump lost it, fair and square. MAGA King Donald J. Trump said so. Right leaning USA Today reported it. Right wing, bigoted nutball Nick Fuentes is furious about it. All of them, right leaning sources.

I have no interest in gloating. I’ve said all along, MAGA is deceived. I would happily welcome you back to the realm of decent humanity. I would like to know the scales have fallen from your eyes but I don’t want, need, or wish to punish you for believing. It’s not your fault you put your faith in a conman who lied to you. That’s what con men do. But now HE has told you you were conned. HE has confessed the deception with his own mouth – at least three times.

I “get” that you won’t believe me. But will you believe one of your own in Nick Fuentes? Will you believe a right-leaning source in ‘USA Today?’ Will you believe Trump himself?

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

In a completely unrelated…no, I mean totally related event, a one-time doctor from Massachusetts is on her way to jail – because she believed Trump when he lied about the election. She’s got to server nine months in prison and then nine more in home confinement. She says she’s very sorry she punched that cop during that oh-so-peaceful “unauthorized tour.”

She got sentenced AFTER Trump started confessing he had lied about losing the election. She participated in the assault because of the lie. Now she’s going to prison. How does SHE feel today? I don’t mean to be unkind, but if he is STILL her “Precious,” after she gets sent to prison because he lied to her, she kind of gets what she deserves…

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

MAGA DID try to keep his media group at the top. They did. When TMTG (Trump Media & Technology Group) hit the stock market, people who have NO business dallying in the stock market started buying the stock. The price shot through the roof, despite the complete lack of anything to justify the price. It was just a buying spree that ran up the price based on the idea that they loved Trump. But those things don’t last. After a while, investors look at fundamentals and when the numbers aren’t right, the stock price adjusts, or, in Trump’s case, crashes.

At one point, TMTG was trading at $79.38/share. The same stock closed Wednesday slightly below $17/share. Think about being the sucker, um, guy who bought that stock at, say, $78/share, definitely thinking he was making a shrewd investment. He’s down around $68/share and he’ll never get that back.

Trump is DEFINITELY not a shrewd businessman. He’s not even competent. It’s almost as if he lied about his business skills. Oh yeah, did you hear that he lied about losing the 2020 election, too? Turns out, he knew it all along…he said so himself!

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

Hey, Boeing managed to bring it’s Starliner “maybe spaceship” back to Earth safely! If only it could have brought back the astronauts it took to the ISS. I feel like Boeing has taken the cost cutting just a little too far…

Shifting Realities…

by MyBaconPress

Hey, if you’re one of those “people” who thought it would be a good idea to attack Guy Walz for being proud of his father? May you reap as you sow. Most writers include the information that Guy is, apparently, autistic. Does that matter? Can’t a son be proud of his father? Oh, AND, we’re supposed to have an agreement: no kids. Gus is seventeen. Off-limits.

I’m SURE I heard that kids are off-limits when people wanted to make fun of Barron for being weird. If I remember correctly, kids were off-limits when the Bushes were in the White House and George’s daughters were…um…misbehaving. I don’t think they were even under 18 then. They were just “off-limits.”

The same rule never seems to apply to the right, though. THEY think they can attack anybody at any time, so they do. But they shouldn’t. Kids should be off-limits, but under ANY conditions, trying to put someone down for being proud of their father seems like a rather stupid attack. Nice work, MAGA. I’m guessing if you had something stronger, you’d use it…

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I think he’s scared. Maybe scarred. Trump went down to the border. (He was looking for a soul to steal.) He stood next to border wall steel and bitched and whined about the world being mean to him. Then, a reporter asked him a question and he only wanted to get the hell out of there. He didn’t even answer the question. He just said they weren’t safe and he had to go. He DID tell her to go, too.

Some dude had threatened to kill Trump and was still on the loose. I don’t blame Trump for being concerned. People really do hate the guy and someone has already tried to kill him, once. Someone else trying to kill him is totally believable. In this case, though, they’ve captured the nutball so Trump will be fine. He claimed to be unaware of the threat but he was very focused on getting out of there as quickly as possible.

Maybe he’s finally coming to understand the risks to the kind of fire he’s stoking and finally starting to understand that anybody might be a target when nutballs start shooting. It’s a good thing that Federal “judge” in Kansas has ruled that banning machine guns was probably unconstitutional. THAT will make Trump – and everybody else – much safer…

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

Well, the two astronauts who went to the space station for a few days (about 8) finally get to come home – in a few months (about 8)! Boeing got them there, though just barely. Boeing can’t get them home. They have to hitch a ride with someone else and the next available slot is in February!

They went up just to test Boeing’s Starliner. How would you mark it down, success or failure? The crew got there, they just can’t get home. At least none of the doors fell off en route. The astronauts will come home on Boeing’s competition, a SpaceX craft. The Starliner will come home “uncrewed.” They can’t risk putting people aboard. Boeing’s reputation (and production) just ain’t what it used to be. It’s almost as if corporations can’t be trusted to properly self-regulate…

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Trump’s tune on choice seems to be changing a bit. He claimed the Dobbs “decision” was behind us and nobody was focused on abortion, anymore, but he seems to know better as he tries tacking to the left on the topic. “Sure, I put three aggressively anti-abortion judges on the Supremely Kangaroo Court but I never thought they’d try to end abortion. That should be up to the states.”

He says he doesn’t support a national ban but a huge number of his fans do. If a national abortion ban bill shows up on his desk, would he sign it? That’s a bit of a different question, right? He may not push it, but would he support it?

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

Trump said during his chat with Musk that if he didn’t win, he and Musk should retreat to Caracas, Venezuela because it would be “safer” to be in Venezuela than the US. (This at a time when Venezuela is burning over an attempted stolen election.)

How could the US send Trump anywhere? He has already made it clear: even HE thinks it’s a bad thing for one country to export it’s criminals and rapers to other countries. I’m pretty sure, by definition, he has to stay here…

Do Not Go Gentle…

by MyBaconPress

There are people who are upset that Biden may step aside, concerned that the Dems have no one else who can beat Trump. I know one thing, Biden isn’t going to beat Trump. Yes, he’s had a successful administration. But his age is an insurmountable issue and unless you can find the Fountain of Youth, that issue isn’t going away. It’s true, the Dems may not have anyone who can beat Trump. But Biden is surely NOT going to beat Trump. So, we lose for sure or change horses and maybe lose. Which do you prefer?

Besides, I don’t think Biden ever beat Trump to begin with. No, I believe the outcome of the 202o election, but I think people were voting against Trump, not for Biden. Dems are desperately hoping people will come out against Trump again but the enthusiasm just doesn’t seem to be there. We’re not currently in the throes of a pandemic that was SO mismanaged it killed over a million Americans and I fear Roe has receded in people’s minds. Women in blue states know they can still get required services and women in Red states may be able to travel.

But the GOP wants to impose a nationwide ban on abortion and, likely, birth control. Of COURSE they’ll tell you differently. Cons lie all the time. They KNOW their program is not popular so they have to bring it in secret. Ignore what they say. Pay attention to what they do. Once Trump is in, though, he’s IN. Only death will remove him, so his unpopular agenda will move forward, like it or not. That’s the weird part. People WANT to vote against Trump but Biden’s presence on the ticket is killing enthusiasm.

I think Biden is killing his legacy by staying in the race. I wonder if he knows how much people will revile him when he loses, knowing everyone wanted him to step down but HE wanted HE wanted and screw everyone else. HE says if he loses, he’ll be okay with that if he just ran a good race. But staying in the race doesn’t just hand it to Trump, it hands the country over to the One Percent, once and for all. If you believe Project 2025, it ends the Republic as we know it…

Wow. That’s some real ‘hair-on-fire’ stuff, isn’t it? Do you know what’s funny about it? It doesn’t matter. Some of us already know the cons have a plan to just steal the election in January if Trump doesn’t win it outright in November. I’m sometimes told that’s paranoid hyperbole. Do you remember Merrick Garland and his appointment to the Supreme Court? No, because the seat was stolen, outright. Neil Gorsuch stole it. (Moscow Mitch did the work. Gorsuch ended up with the seat.)

Why would they have ANY compunction about doing it again, especially for such a prize? What a Dem win in November MIGHT do is light a fire under the butts of the left and get them into the streets when MAGAGOP makes it’s evil move. There’s either going to be some France-style social unrest at the theft, or we’re all just going to go gentle into that good night. I wonder if there’s any revolutionary spirit left in Americans…

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Remember Bob Menendez, the Democratic Senator from New Jersey who was accused of accepting bribes in exchange for his influence in certain legal matters? He blamed his wife. He insisted he didn’t know anything about it. He said he was innocent. A jury said otherwise. It’s almost as if high-profile people ALWAYS claim to be innocent of the crimes they commit. Think Donald Trump.

Now he says he’s confident he’ll win on appeal. I’m confident there won’t even BE an appeal. It’s just what they say…

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On the left, people are shaking their heads at the complete and utter turnaround of the “Never Trump” cons to full-on MAGA. Nikki Haley said a LOT of anti-Trump things and she was right when she said them. A few days before her South Carolina primary, for example, she questioned his mental competency. “Trump and Biden are two old men who are only getting older,” she said. “We’ve all seen them fumble their words and get confused about world leaders. That’s not who you want in the Oval Office when Russia launches a nuclear weapon at our satellites or China shuts down our electricity grid.”

She said Trump had brought chaos to the GOP. She remained defiant and in a fighting spirit. “I feel no need to kiss the ring. I have no fear of Trump’s retribution. I’m not looking for anything from him,” she added. “My own political future is of zero concern. So I hear what the political class says. But I hear from the American people, too.”

Now? Oh, she’s all-in. “…for the sake of our nation, we have to go with Donald Trump.” Yeah, that makes sense. He’s mentally unfit and thrives on chaos so he should be running the show for the good of the country. Oh-kay…

JD Vance was a firm anti-Trumper who has now transitioned so completely into MAGA, he’s Trump’s effing vice-presidential running mate. During 2016, he wrote in a letter to a friend, “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler. How’s that for discouraging?”

He said he thought Trump was “…the most-raw expression of a massive finger pointed at other people.” In social media posts, he called Trump “reprehensible” and an “idiot.” Now he doesn’t seem to remember any of that. He has even deleted the critical posts.

These two Trump critics (and others) have one thing in common: they’re politicians. If you want to know why so many Never-Trumpers are suddenly all in on Trump, do what Mark Felt (aka, ‘Deep Throat’) told Woodward and Bernstein during the Watergate investigation: follow the money.

Trump put his daughter-in-law in charge of the RNC. She (and, therefore, he) controls the money. Politicians need money to run. It’s how the parties control candidates. What, you thought Dems just collectively chose not to run against Biden? No money, no political future. So? Bend the knee. Kiss the ring. HAVE a political future. No? Get a real job, you’re out of politics. It’s simple, straight-up control – and they’re all doing as they’re told. Good dogs…

It’s a little micro look at what the entire nation is going to look like, here in the near future as Project 2025 rolls out. Everyone will be loyal to Trump – or else.

Can’t Decide?

by MyBaconPress

Do you know what I’ve noticed? I’ve noticed that, to a small degree, some of the voices calling for Biden to stay in the race and predicting disaster if a younger person replaces Biden are coming from the right.
“Wait, the right?”
Yes, the right. I presume they’re just being “helpful.”

Mostly, the cons are staying out of it. If the Dems want to shoot themselves in the foot (or the face, for that matter) let ’em. It’s just good strategy. But they clearly don’t mind adding just a touch of input, “supporting” Joe as the candidate. “Worrying” about the “damage” a change might do to the party’s chances. It’s really very considerate of them.

Quick question, why would MAGA suddenly think leaving Biden at the top of the ticket is a good idea? They’ve been talking about his down side for a long time – likely because of how successful his presidency has been. Now, suddenly, they want to keep Biden in the race? Yeah, that make perfect sense.

Biden really HAS had a successful administration. No, not perfect but pretty good. Literally, the ONLY rap one can honestly hang on Biden is his age. Unfortunately, that’s a pretty heavy burden for the old guy, largely because it’s true. And, no. My position is not “ageism.” Getting older takes a toll. There’s no getting around it. Nobody likes it. We all try to ignore or even deny it. But…wait, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, Getting older takes a toll…

So, in one corner, we have Trump, the worst President in American history, a serial criminal, adjudicated rapist, a bigot, a liar, an embarrassment to humanity, a “one man crime spree” who is only slithering away from justice because he so corrupted our government in his first effort that he’s being protected by toadies. In the other corner, we have a decent guy who seems interested in helping Americans and who has done the job pretty well – but he’s old. And the ‘old’ bit is holding sway.

Yes, if you replace the old guy, the (younger) replacement can’t run on the successful record. But what kind of record do we need to beat the worst President in American history, a serial criminal, adjudicated rapist, a bigot, a liar, an embarrassment to humanity, a “one man crime spree” who is only slithering away from justice because he so corrupted our government in his first effort that he’s being protected by toadies?

Is America really SO corrupt, SO lost in a moral morass it can’t decide between a decent person and the personification of the Seven Deadly Sins?

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If I had ever considered buying a Tesla, I wouldn’t now. Paying their CEO $56 Billion dollars in compensation? Where does that money come from? How much of the cost of the rolling crematorium goes simply to cover that obligation? More importantly, to me, what makes anybody worth that kind of compensation? Do you really believe that if Elon Musk disappeared today, Tesla would just dry up and blow away?

That, right there, is a good example of “greedflation.” We’ve been told by cons, who don’t really understand things, that inflation is terrible and all Biden’s fault. The problem is, there IS no systemic cause for the price increases we’re all feeling. There was. Things really DID get screwed up by Covid-19 and Trump’s mismanagement of Covid-19. But the corporations have been raising prices and pretending “supply chain issues” ever since.

The thing is, the supply chain issues have been managed. The prices keep going up because people in corporate boardrooms WANT prices to keep going up. It’s pure greed, plain and simple. It’s not inflation in the traditional sense. It’s price gouging. And price gouging is NOT Biden’s fault, nor doing. It turns out, the President of the United States has very little say in corporate boardrooms.

The bit that really gets me, though, is this: out current economic problems are being blamed on some failing of Joe Biden when they are largely caused by conservative policies that have been enacted through the years under the heading of “deregulation.” Deregulation has been great for large corporations but terrible for average citizens. It turns out, if you tell a corporation they can do pretty much anything they want to do, they will.

That’s not an indictment of corporations. Corporations exist for profit. It’s what they do. The responsibility for setting the boundaries of corporate options should be, properly, borne by the society in which the corporation exists. But cons have abdicated that responsibility and now we’re ALL suffering from it.

I preferred a regulated market along with a progressive tax system. It was better. And I mean, better for everyone, even the corporations. People still got rich under the old rules, just not “harm the economy” rich. In fact, the rules and regulations protected the economy and created the largest and most powerful middle class in history. That middle class is quickly fading away as corporations are deregulated. Yes, the two are directly linked.

But you know what never happened when the government set the standard and regulated behavior? Airplane doors didn’t fall off of airplanes in the sky. Planes didn’t just…crash because some piece of software inadvertently told the plane to crash. Boeing is about to plead guilty to fraud for that one. 346 people died in those crashes. Boeing will be made to pay a fine. Nobody will go to jail because one cannot put a corporation in jail.

Theoretically, it will be harder, now, for Boeing to get government contracts because the company will, technically, be adjudicated a felon. They’re going to have to (OMG!) spend a little more money ($455 million) on safety and compliance programs they SHOULD have been observing already. I’d bet they booked more than $455 million from their loosened policies so, a win for the company.

I guess it’s just me but I prefer regulations that attempt to keep these kinds of fraudulent activities from occurring in the first place, rather than relying on lawsuits after the fact that may or may not cause the company to change it’s ways.

But I’ll tell you this: as long was we have a deceived segment of the population out there championing corporations and chastising any government role in regulating their activities, this crap is going to keep happening and will inevitably, get worse. Hold on to your hats, folks…

Tacking Left…

by MyBaconPress

Trump seems to be tacking left a bit. He has, of course, sewn up the votes from the dangerously extremist far right. Now he has to try to convince some rational, non-cult members to vote for him, too, so he’s starting to pretend all that “pander to the crazies” was just something special he did for them. He’s really a centered, down-to-Earth guy, right? To that end, he came out disavowing Project 2025. He claims he knows nothing about it. HE didn’t write it. He has no idea who is behind it. (Like he’s never even heard of the Heritage Foundation.) He even said that some of the stuff in Project 2025 is “ridiculous and abysmal.”

I’ve written about Project 2025 a couple of times before. Essentially, it’s a 922-page plan created by the Heritage Foundation and many of Trump’s own former senior administration officials to create a government loyal NOT to America, but to Donald J. Trump. It’s sweeping, and it’s evil. So, Trump is pretending he doesn’t know the plan, never heard of the Heritage Foundation, and doesn’t know any of his former senior administration officials. Yeah, plausible…

Nope. Remember, this is Donald Trump. He’s LYING! He has publicly praised the President of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, twice and his website actually links to the Heritage Foundation under his Section on ‘Agenda 47,’ his own, horrible plan to do terrible things to people, the nation, and the world. Remember, if Trump is speaking, he’s lying…

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I have a friend who is MAGA. That’s true. How do we do it? Mostly, we don’t talk politics. But the recent ‘make the president a king’ ruling from the SKCOTUS was a momentary exception. I started it, I confess. I didn’t mean to. It was just an off-handed quip I made. “No,” I was assured, “the ruling did NOT make the President a king.” Then I heard something I’ve heard before. “Read the decision.” So I did.

No, that’s not true. I looked up the decision. I found a copy in the Guardian. The first thing I noticed? It’s a 119-page decision. My friend is a VERY busy guy. I’m certain HE didn’t read the 119-page decision. But, hey, that seemed an unfair conclusion, based on nothing but the total number of pages, so I started digging in. I didn’t have to go too far. The details of the ‘make the president a king’ thinking are in the summary – on page one, fercrissakes.

Here, for your edification: “Held: Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no
immunity for unofficial acts.”

Based on that ONE short exchange I had with my friend, I suspect MAGA is being told the left is just pearl-clutching and that there’s no such provision in the ruling. I suspect the MAGA deceivers are telling the MAGA deceived to tell people to ‘read the decision’ because the word “king” doesn’t appear anywhere in it. I’m going to stipulate to that. Yeah, they didn’t use the word.

Interesting sidebar: when one is learning to write fiction (like that SKCOTUS decision), one of the lessons taught is that one should not tell the reader a thing. They should use their words to show the reader the thing. As an example, “It was a dark and stormy night” tells the reader it was a dark and stormy night. But better writing is to describe a dark and stormy night – no lights, no moonlight because of the cloud cover, the effects of the wind and the rain. The reader then takes those pieces and puts together the idea, it was a dark and stormy night.
“What the hell is he talking about?”
“Hang on, he’ll tie it together…”

The SKCOTUS didn’t tell us they were making a king. They showed us the power of a king and claimed said power is inherent to the American Presidency. (It very specifically is not.) One had to be able (or willing) to infer and understand. MAGA most definitely, is not. If one reads about lack of light and wind and rain and comes away thinking it’s a bright and sunny day, they missed the point entirely. They clearly weren’t reading too closely. Most likely, they didn’t read the thing at all.

So, if you try to debate with your favorite MAGA on the topic, don’t be too surprised to find they know nothing of the reality of the situation. The Deceived are merely parroting what they’ve been told by the Deceivers…

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Hey, it doesn’t seem like much but maybe, just maybe, it’s a harbinger of better things. We’ve all watched MAGA rise in this nation. We may NOT have noticed the rise of conservatism around Europe in general but, OMG, is it happening. Conservatism has taken hold wherever one finds an internet outlet cons can lie through. The cons aren’t just doing it to the US. They’re doing it to all of Europe, as well. The US is just their biggest prize.

But in the UK, cons have been running things for quite awhile – and running them into the ground. It’s the conservative way. So, finally, after more than a decade of failure, the cons have been replaced by thinking people in the UK. That’s a good thing. I suspect Britain’s future is looking up.

I know. It’s one election. Right across the Channel, in France, the cons are making great strides and claiming a huge segment of the French government. So expect a campaign of cruelty and failure in France coming soon. It’s the conservative way. But maybe the victory for rationalism in the UK can spread in the same way con misinformation spreads.

Hope springs eternal, I guess…