elections

Shut ‘Er Down – Again…

by MyBaconPress

Word is, MAGA Mike, the Johnson is shutting down the House two weeks early. Obviously, there’s going to be speculation in the media as to why. One idea I heard was that the GOP knows it’s in such deep trouble in the upcoming mid-terms, (now only 55 days away) they need to get out there and campaign more. Plausible, right? The GOP IS in trouble. Maybe campaigning more will help.

Oh, but then, what’s this? Oh, hey, it looks like Thomas Massie was working to force a House vote on the Trump/Epstein Files Transparency Act II. The Trump/Epstein Files Transparency Act II would strengthen the enforcement mechanisms of the original transparency law, including giving certain victims and officials a way to challenge the inJustice Department over the withholding or redaction of covered records.

What?!? STILL trying to get the Trump/Epstein files released in whole? Well, then, shutting down the House seems like an excellent dodge. It’s true, they won’t be working. They’ll still be getting paid, though, won’t they? I think the whole thing sets the example of how work life should be, don’t you? Oh, you’re sick? Maybe dead? Stay home. Don’t even call. Take as long as you like, months maybe. You’ll still receive your full pay and benefits AND all of your bribes and other “gratuities” and, um, campaign contributions. That will be the McConnell rule.

Oh, you have a secret to hide? It’s probably best if you just don’t come in for a couple of weeks, maybe a month. You’ll still receive your full pay and benefits AND all of your bribes and other “gratuities” and, um, campaign contributions, too. That will be the Johnson rule.

When I re-wrote the Constitution, I added a clause that reads, “Members of government may not exempt themselves from laws applying to the general population, nor grant themselves privileges unavailable to the general population except as provided herein.” That would include things like endless time off at full pay. Fifteen days PTO. Then? Get your ass back to work or the money stops until you do…

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On September 11, 2001, the only thing the Drumpfster said about the attack was that now he owned the tallest building in New York City. That was his only concern, because, obviously, he only cares about himself. AFTER that, though, he has made up several stories – ALL of which steal honor from the first responders who actually DID go down to the rubble and start digging.

It bugs me a lot. That useless waste of human flesh will steal honor from anybody at any time. We all know Cadet Bone Spurs ran away from his opportunity to serve. Hell, he comes from a long line of cowards. These days, he’s releasing AI generated pictures of himself in a military uniform – clothing he was never man enough to wear in real life.

He runs around on each anniversary of 9/11 lying that he was in the building, at the building, near the building, or went down to the building afterwards. (The specifics depend on the moment.) He sent a crew, or he took a crew. Mind you, there’s no record of any of it. People were not just coming and going at ground zero. They were admitted and their names recorded. People were taking photos. Not one piece of evidence supports his lies that he was there.

He wasn’t there. He used the opportunity to grab a spotlight and shine it on himself, bragging about now owning the tallest building in Manhattan. You will not be surprised to learn, THAT was a lie, too. It’s all this guy does. Lie…

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Well, straight up bribery is an idea, too. 47 went to the first night of his Mid-Term Republican convention and blathered for awhile. While he was blathering, he promised every US citizen $5,000 if Republicans control Congress after the election. Uh-huh. I’ll just put that over here, next to my $5,000 DOGE dividend and my $2,000 tariff rebate. I wonder if some people are stupid enough to still believe his promises of money. The money never materializes and would only add to the debt if it did. Everybody is laughing at him. Again. He should have tried doing the job well. That would have worked best…

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(I thought we might like a break from the horrors of our reality, these days.) The NFL started it’s season LAST night. It was a Wednesday night. Through the years, the NFL has expressed it’s greed by – well, every way they can think of, really, but in this case, they keep taking on new nights to broadcast the games.

The 2026 season officially kicked off on Wednesday. The NFL “explained” they had to open on Wednesday because their international game from Australia created a “scheduling conflict.” The thing is, the NFL does the scheduling. They knew they already had a game scheduled for Thursday, so why schedule another? Why, it almost seems as though they intended a scheduling conflict, just to make sure they could try to grab another weeknight.

“No,” they’d tell me. “It was just an unfortunate oversight.” Oh. Okay. Um, so why the SECOND Wednesday night game, the night before Thanksgiving? I think it’s bad for the game – saturation – but I KNOW it’s bad for the players. American football is a brutal sport. The players need time to recover from the games. Look for increasing injuries as the NFL adds days. Some of them will be serious. Serious injury to marquee players keeps them off of the field. That, too hurts the game. (Not to mention the player.)

And never forget, watching an NFL football game on television is one of the very worst time investments a person can make. The viewer gives the NFL three and a half hours of their lives, 210 minutes, for which the viewer gets up to 11 minutes of action. Total. 11 minutes.

I’m not sitting in judgment. I’ve been doing it for years. I mitigate the laziness by doing my laundry on Sundays. At least I’m doing something. One can rationalize Monday night football as being tired at the beginning of the week. After that it gets harder to justify. Thursday has been a real push for me since it started. I’m not on board with Wednesdays, at all…

Why Paper Is Better…

by MyBaconPress

I’ve been writing, recently, about how mail-in ballots are the safest way to vote. I haven’t gone into the why, so this morning, I thought I’d offer a view of one aspect. For the purposes of this piece, let’s say I’m a politician facing a backlash for my policies and positions. People hate me because I’m clearly incompetent and clearly robbing the nation blind. The masses want me gone. If I don’t retain control of the Senate, I’ll likely be impeached, then face a criminal probe.

So the upcoming election is very important to me. I need to win. I don’t just want to win – everybody wants to win. I NEED to win. So much so, I’m perfectly willing to cheat. I’ll start immediately by inoculating the charges of cheating by constantly accusing my opponent of cheating. For this example, we’re looking at holding the Senate. There’s a Senate race taking place and I need MY guy to win. I’ll be using California. Simple enough premise, right?

One of the things I think people don’t think about it this: election officials don’t just prepare one ballot and send it out to everyone. They have to capture races and issues that may affect one area but not another. Here in Sonoma County, we don’t get to vote on local issues in other counties. Remember, this is an extremely simplified example.

We know we have the Senate race. That race will be on every ballot in the state. But Sonoma County might have an issue that only affects Sonoma County. That issue will be on ballots for Sonoma County voters but not other counties. Makes sense, right? Now, there are two congressional districts that touch Santa Rosa, the fourth and the second. Let’s say the fourth has an issue that affects only the fourth. That issue won’t show up on everybody’s ballot – only the ballots of affected voters. That’s three different ballots that need to be sorted, printed, and delivered to the affected voter in Sonoma County alone, but we’re not done, yet.

Santa Rosa might have it’s own issue that needs deciding as well. That means yet another, separate ballot for Santa Rosans. Santa Rosa, itself, is broken into council districts. We could easily have an issue that affects the seventh district but not the others. Yet another ballot. We’re up to five different ballots for the same election. In reality, there are far more. Each town in Sonoma County could have their own issue requiring their own ballots, but for our purposes, I’m stopping at five.

Five ballots for Sonoma County. California has 58 counties. That means, in our simplified scenario, California has to print 290 different ballots and I say again, that number is low. So that’s our situation. Now it’s time for me to cheat. If I can get everybody to vote on machines, my work is comparatively simple.

You see, I’m only interested in the Senate race. I don’t care about any other issues on any other ballots. EVERY ballot has the Senate race. I need only create a few dongles that flip votes in the Senate race and get them to the areas I need to affect. (Dongles are the plug-in devices pollsters use to summarize the votes, perhaps alter the results, and transmit the data.)

But if there are no machines? If we all use mail-in ballots? How do I cheat? My first task is to re-create the ballot for a specific area. It’s got to be perfect and I have to do that for many areas, getting them all exactly right. Even if I mark the Senate race for my guy and leave the rest blank, the rest of the ballot has to be there. Now I’ve got to get my forged ballots into the counting arena. Do I just bring them in and drop them off? Registrars know how many ballots they sent out and to where. What happens when they send out 1,000 ballots and get back 1,500? I’m pretty sure that’s going to trigger an audit.

So now I have to add my 500 forged ballots and remove 500 legitimate ballots, so the total is correct. You can have fewer ballots, but you can’t have more. You can already see how much harder it is to manipulate a mail-in ballot voting system. You can’t just invisibly flip one race with corrupt dongles. There’s a reason I keep railing against mail-in voting – while voting by mail myself.

This, by the way, is WHY Biden won in 2020 AND why Donny is so absolutely certain HE won. HE allegedly paid the money and had the machines rigged and ready to go, but Covid-19 forced everyone to use mail-in ballots and it’s just too complex to cheat with those things. If we, the people, are to get rid of one type of voting or the other, I’d say let’s dump the cheating machines and stick with mail-in ballots. But then, I support fair elections. Not everybody does…

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I don’t want to get too far out ahead of my skis, here, but it looks more and more like 47’s influence is waning. Not gone, not by a long-shot. But more and more people seem to be seeking ways to distance themselves from the deeper MAGA movement. To that end, a guy named Rich Logis founded a support group called ‘Leaving MAGA.’ Logis was once MAGA himself. He understands how hard it can be to break the bonds of MAGA. It’s not just the political ideology. There’s a sense of community, of belonging, that one loses, as well. That can be scary.

About ‘Leaving MAGA,’ the Guardian wrote, “Launched in 2024, the movement turned non-profit is built on the premise that abandoning the MAGA identity – and the community surrounding it – functions less like changing one’s mind and more like leaving a high-control religious group, fighting a disease or breaking an addiction. It requires not just rejecting a set of beliefs but rebuilding an entire structure of belonging and identity.”

According to the article, many people leaving MAGA feel badly, afterwards, about the harm they helped to inflict while they were deeply in the movement. Often, the scales fall from eyes as some of that harm comes back to bite them. In Logis’ case, he was shocked out of the movement after the Uvalde shooting, when the MAGA response was exactly what he expected. Whatever the motive, breaking the spell of the movement isn’t easy. Leaving MAGA makes the point that support is important for those around the person trying to break said addiction.

It’s like belonging to certain churches. Step even slightly outside the accepted thinking, and this same group that once provided such warmth and loving, “unconditional” support, such community, will turn on you like a pack of rabid hyenas, ready to tear you to shreds. That sudden, unexpected venom actually helps the person realize they’ve been on the wrong path, but it’s still scary to find oneself suddenly cut loose from community and friendship and support.

Leaving MAGA steps in to help. Not only does it help the person trying to leave the movement, it helps those of us around them to understand what the MAGA person might be going through. It preaches support, not surrender. People who avoided being sucked in should, properly, provide a safe space for rank-and-file members to flee to.

If you know a MAGA who seems to be wavering, tell them about ‘Leaving MAGA.’ Don’t expect miracles. Don’t expect overnight change. Just offer your MAGA a place to turn so they don’t feel so cut off, so alone. It might be just the lifeline they need…

4 in 10,000,000….

by MyBaconPress

I saw this in the Guardian, “A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that mail voting fraud occurred in only about four cases out of every 10 million mail ballots cast.” 4 in 10,000,000. And it’s often high-profile conservatives doing the fraud, in an attempt to “prove” their delusions. Donny is trying to convince the rubes that mail voting fraud is rampant. It’s everywhere. Anybody can do it. It’s SO unsafe. Except when he does it. Then it works just fine – because he’s a liar and a hypocrite.

As expected, another legal hold has been placed on his Executive Order (EO) in which he desperately tries to eliminate the one weakness in his plans for a coup. When the EO was first signed, 23 states filed a lawsuit to stop it, based on the fact that the constitution gives control of the electoral process to the states. A federal judge agreed. Then, corrupt John Roberts overturned that finding, saying it was premature.

47 wants to create a federal list of “eligible” voters. I’ve spent time trying to figure out how that might be a beneficial thing for the nation. I can’t think of a single reason that makes sense. I CAN think of a reason that benefits HIM, personally. And, really, what does he care about except himself? See, if he has a list of all of the voters, he can pick and choose. A Republican voter is “eligible.” A Democratic voter is not. Independents would have to be decided by region. Likely (based on, say, address) red independents might be okay. Likely blue independents are certainly not.

But after the ruling, clever Team Evil submitted a slightly different plan, this one focused on efforts to disrupt by the USPS, another federal agency with no authority over the process. THIS time, the USPS tried to create such a mailing nightmare, there just wouldn’t be time for states to comply. “Oh, too bad,” says Team Evil, “I guess you’ll just have to use voting machines, eh?” Nope. That triggered the basis for the new lawsuit as dictated by Roberts.

The federal judge overseeing this whole, trump-induced mess is Indira Talwani and she placed a hold on the proposed changes for this election and wrote, “Plaintiff states have neither time nor funds to design new mail ballots, seek approval of the new designs, order production of mail ballots, update their own election management systems, train election officials to use the USPS portal and upload citizen data to the portal, all before the midterms.”

In short, she turned the effort on it’s head. Team Evil meant to leave insufficient time to comply, thereby short-circuiting mail-in voting as an unfortunate consequence, but the good judge said because there wasn’t enough time to comply, Team Evil can’t impose the changes at this late date. The legal battle continues.

Obviously, Donny will try for a quick appeal to his corrupt kangaroos. The Constitution is VERY clear about voting and who controls the process. Will they vote in accordance with the law, or in keeping with the desires of their Precious? Inquiring minds want to know. The clock is running out on him, though. What Talwani wrote is correct. There’s just no time to comply with the new rules for this election. That doesn’t even speak to the fact that the goal is illegal. It’s a state’s rights issue, like it or not.

To me, this whole charade feels desperate. 47 seems to be flailing. He knows his fate if he can’t rig the elections. He knows he CAN rig the machines. He’s done that before. He also knows he can’t rig mail-in voting. He knows he must get rid of that option somehow. He just doesn’t know how. I believe this USPS effort will fail. After that, all he has left is trying to declare some national emergency that somehow means no voting at all, or fraudulent declarations of how “unfair” the election was…

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Two Americas: a billionaire gets caught dead-to-rights trying to harm the minds of children around the world for fun and profit. His punishment? A fine of less than 10% of the amount he took in while inflicting the damage and a pinky-swear to do better.

A teletype operator uses his insider information with Team Evil to place bets on a “prediction market” and makes $104,000. HIS fine? $172,000. Everything he won, plus a fine on top of that. See? Courts DO know how to hand down effective punishments. They just won’t do it to billionaires…

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There’s a sub-Reddit on the Reddit website called ‘Leopards Ate My Face.’ It refers to conservatives who have supported 47 and Team Evil, only to see the policies they love for other people suddenly applied to themselves. They always seem surprised. Immigration is a biggie. Someone gets hooked up for overstaying their visa or just sneaking in but, in each case, otherwise obeying the law. “Hey,” they cry, “he said he was only going after violent criminals.”

He DID say that, too. I sometimes wonder if MAGA has anything, even one item they can point to, of an actual promise made, promise kept. Immigration is the closest I can think of, but even that isn’t being handled the way he said. Team Evil likely grabbed up some real bad guys. But they’ve also grabbed up regular Joes (or, maybe Joses) who contribute to our society even though their paperwork isn’t quite up to snuff.

THEN, Team Evil started grabbing people who ARE in the country legally. Hell, they started interfering with the immigration process to create the crime, then they want to deport their victim. It’s a crappy attitude and I can only give 47 half credit on immigration because the implementation is so much worse than the promise.

Do you remember, or have you ever heard the name, Milo Yiannopoulos? He’s a standard, far-right provocateur. He had a moment in the spotlight a few years back because his whole shtick was about being far-right outrageous. He was editor at Breitbart “News,” a far-right misinformation site. His star faded when he condoned sex with boys as young as 13 years old. (They deny it, but conservatives clearly condone sex with children. Actions speak louder than words, folks.)

Anyway, Yiannopoulos has been a vocal supporter of Team Evil’s immigration policies. He even suggested they might not be harsh enough. Then, one of his same-team detractors with whom he was feuding, Laura Loomer, claims to have turned him in to ICE for overstaying his visa. He was deported Friday! Ha-ha!

Many of us used to know and use a phrase that said, “What goes around, comes around.” I’m not happy about any of the things Team Evil is doing, but I DO enjoy when Team Evil does their evil things to their own supporters. It’s their surprise that gets me. “Wait, what? Me? No, not me!” Watching MAGA wake up to the idea that horrors they supported for others are going to hit them, too, is like watching a toddler discover the wonders of a twig. The toddler thinks it’s an amazing discovery. Everyone else knows it’s an expected, and rather mundane, thing…

Nobody’s Cheating But Donny…

by MyBaconPress

So… Donald Trump is out there claiming that that last couple of elections have been rigged. Republicans control the House of Representatives. Republicans control the Senate. A Republican is currently “President.” But the last couple of elections have been rigged? Is he suggesting the Democrats rigged the 2020 election while HE was President? Did the Democrats rig the 2024 election in favor of the Republicans, who won most of it?

Maybe he’s just confessing through his normally lying mouth that Republicans have cheated in every possible way at every possible turn? But he won’t shut up about it. He has the obsession of an Alzheimer’s patient who became focused on some trivial thing and now can NOT let it go. Okay. I have randomly decided I believe him, for the moment. The 2024 election was rigged. There’s not a single Republican who won his or her seat honestly and they should be removed immediately. This is not from me. This is from Donny, himself.

“What I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.” Do you remember that? That’s the Dumbass himself, working as hard as he could to cheat in an election, so we KNOW Donny was cheating and/or trying to. I would like somebody, ANYBODY to show me some evidence that supports Donny’s lies that is at least as clear as his request of Brad Raffensperger. “I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes…”

But nobody can DO that, can they? There IS no evidence of cheating that so clearly supports the charge – from anywhere else, really. And Donny didn’t just get upset that he lost the election he put so much effort into cheating to win. (There’s a reason he wants you using voting machines instead of mail-in ballots, and it ain’t vulnerability.) He also bragged that “nobody knows” tabulating machines like the cheating con Elon Musk, who, Donny suggests, manipulated said tabulating machines in 2024 just enough to give Donny his ever-so-slim victory.

Seems like the solution is MUCH simpler than his stupid SAVE My Ass Act. Really, if he wants to stop elections from being rigged, all he has to do is stop rigging them…

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Oh, SNAP! The benefits, I mean. SNAP is the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. It provides some food for struggling citizens. Well, it did. Now the cruel regime is cutting SNAP benefits and increasing the requirements to qualify. They’re also shifting more of the cost to individual states. Some states can absorb that cost – to a degree. Other states (largely red, noticeably) can not. Or, perhaps WILL not. Either way, it’s possible entire states will leave the program. I think we had better get ready for an increase in crime. It will be low-level stuff, but it’s coming.

Mostly, the cons try to hide their evil doings until AFTER the mid-terms, and, indeed, SNAP gets an even harsher gut-punch after the election. But they’re starting in on SNAP now anyway. That seems like a bit of an oversight, to me. Maybe the idea is, they can start cutting now and the public won’t find out about the consequences before the election. But here’s the point I think will rule the day: people need to eat. Once assistance is no longer available, those same people STILL need to eat. Do the cons really just think those folks will curl up and die? They won’t.

What they WILL do is engage in petty thefts and other low-level crimes in an attempt to eat and/or feed their families. What choice do they have? “Well, they could get jobs,” sneer the very comfortable pols. Mostly? They HAVE jobs. The US is a huge nation of what are called “working poor,” because what else could you expect from the ‘Richest country on Earth?’™ Many people in this country work their asses off all week and still can’t make ends meet in our brutal and selfish society.

These creepy cons in Congress WILL cut SNAP benefits, but they WILL NOT increase the minimum wage to ensure the workers get enough pay to survive. In short, they’re leaving people no choice but to do what they’ve got to do to survive. Brutal America sucks and it will become an increasingly unpleasant place to be for anybody NOT in the One Percent…

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The next time you’re talking to some Israeli sympathizer who thinks anybody questioning Israeli tactics is antisemitic, point them to the current news that Israel is building MORE illegal settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. My read on the entire situation focuses on these actions. Encroachment after encroachment. The Palestinians know it’s happening every day and they get mad about it.

Nobody will (or, perhaps, can) stop Israel and so Israel doesn’t stop. But they’re stealing the land and the people they’re stealing it from don’t like that. Israel’s constant, relentless, slow-moving invasion is why I support the Palestinians over there. It has nothing to do with Judaism. It’s all about the actions of a government, not a religion, and those government actions stink. You’d think so, too, if it was YOUR home being stolen…

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Okay, so I understand it’s a game of the media to find the very worst examples of “the other side” and then pretend they are just standard representations of that side. But some of the messages going out to some of the weaker thinkers in our midst are proving dangerous in unexpected ways.

Take the case of Andrea Shaw, a woman who stands accused of murdering her two children. Twins. They were suffocated. I don’t know who did what but I know her defense isn’t going to work. She says it was vaccines that killed her kids. Can you imagine being SO enthralled to fake news you’d try to blame the murder of your children on a conservative talking point? I’m thinking Mrs. Shaw isn’t exactly the most dazzling star in the sky.

This, um, person (and I use the term lightly) really thinks she can make a case that she got her kids vaccinated and then they died – eight days later! She actually believes vaccines are SO deadly, she could hide a murder behind them and nobody would even question it. But the whole vaccine story is just pure unadulterated horse dung. It’s not going to hold up in court because vaccines aren’t dangerous in the way the right pretends – and they don’t suffocate babies eight days later. I suspect Shaw is looking at a couple of life sentences because she believes conservative propaganda. That’s a pretty high price…

ALREADY Cheating For 2026…

by MyBaconPress

Listen, I’m about to write something and I feel like a heads-up is in order because it’s the kind of thing that normally pukes from 47’s putrid and fetid mouth. The difference between him puking it out, and me writing it here is that when HE says it, it reflects his teeny, tiny mind. He’s setting up crimes. He’s trying to explain away a loss. He’s projecting. He’s distracting. He might be trying to do all kinds of nefarious and evil things. When he says what I’m about to say, it’s all about him and his oh-so-crushable, hyper-fragile ego. Even he says so.

At the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5th, 2026, he said of the 2020 election, “They rigged the second election. I had to win it. I had to win it. I needed it for my own ego. I would have had a bad ego for the rest of my life. Now I have a really big ego. Beating these lunatics was incredible. The first time they said I didn’t win the popular vote. I did.”

It’s important to remember that at the time of the 2020 election, there was no need to rig anything. We, the people, were stacking bodies in refrigerator trucks for storage because so many people were dying so fast from his failed handling of Covid-19. The economy was flat-lined. Millions were out of work. Prices were down at the time because nobody had any money to buy anything but his terrible management of Covid led directly to the inflation explosion Biden had to fix. Most people genuinely hated trump for his complete failure at the job.

But when I write this thing I’m about to write, there’s no ego involved. It’s an honest warning, based on nothing more than a sober and careful analysis of information available today. It goes like this: If the Democrats don’t win control of Congress in this upcoming election, it will be because the election is rigged.

Not the pretend kind of “rigged” President Pedo always lies about. I mean truly and honestly rigged. I base THAT, again, on available evidence. There have been many special elections over the last year. Cons have won exactly one. Red district, blue district, it hasn’t mattered. People, Americans and MAGA alike, are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and that has been reflected at the ballot box already.

So he sent a team of his crony criminals into Georgia to raid the election office and seize information he has no legal right to. He says he’s trying to prove he won Georgia in 2020 because he just knows it. In my opinion, he didn’t go to Georgia to prove anything about 2020. He’s setting the stage for cheating in 2026. He suggested the Federal government needs to “nationalize” the election in about 15 states – blue and, very definitely, swing states. Uh-huh.

Setting aside that he only sees problems in the blue states, the Constitution is quite clear that voting is a State thing. The Federal government doesn’t get involved. He can’t legally do what he’s threatening but he does all kinds of illegal things and nobody says anything. There are no crimes if there are no cops. That’s important, because everyone on the planet knows that if Dems win Congress in 2026, there will be cops again and his crimes will be recognized AS crimes.

The reason it’s important to remember that voters kicked Donny’s ass in 2020 is HOW they did it, because that’s the ONLY answer to doing it again: Vote on paper. DO NOT use voting machines. Our “elections” have become increasingly unpredictable ever since those damnable things were introduced and we need to avoid them like we would avoid the Plague or worse, Donny himself. It’s my personal suspicion that Donny is so sure he won 2020 because he paid all the right people all the right money to rig the election by subverting the voting machines. When we all went to paper because of Covid, he lost.

So vote on paper. Remember, Donny always says the quiet part out loud. After the last election (2024), Donny confirmed that he “won” because Elon was able to manipulate tabulating machines. “Nobody knows those tabulating machines like Elon,” he said. Not the voting machines themselves. The tabulating machines that count paper ballots. We need to dump them, too. Paper ballots, hand counted. THAT is how we get back to the Constitution in this once-great nation.

We’re not going to get the ‘no tabulation machines’ part in place in time for 2026, but the least we can do is vote on paper. Once the anomalies start showing up – and they will – we can sue for recounts and eventually force hand counts anyway. It sounds hyperbolic but I mean it: if you love America you’ll vote blue – and you’ll vote on paper…

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MAGA Mike, the Johnson ran his mouth again and I think the part that bothers me the most about his comment is that we’re going to have to listen to MAGA pretending it’s a perfectly serious, reasonable statement that probably reflects absolute truth. After bitching that three Republican candidates lost their elections, the Johnson said, “It looks on it’s face to be fraudulent. Can I prove that? No.”

Well, then, don’t say it. I mean, anybody can make crap up, then dismiss it with a “Can I prove that? No.” Here, let me show you. Someone said MAGA Mike the Johnson beats his wife on a daily basis. Can I prove that? No. I heard MAGA Mike the Johnson was giving $25 dollar blowjobs behind the local gay bar in his home town. You had to let him finish the full blowjob before he gave you the $25 dollars. Can I prove that? No.

How about this one: MAGA Mike the Johnson is a spineless toady lacking all principle and dignity and willing to do any disgusting and degrading thing he’s asked (told) to do by his Precious in the White House no matter how stupid and/or incompetent it makes him look. Can I prove that? Well, with even a cursory look at his track record, yes, actually…

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Conservatives have a kind of slogan they like to repeat: “If you’re not liberal when you’re young, you have no heart. If you’re not conservative when you’re old, you have no head.” Yeah, it’s cute. It’s wrong, though, so I fixed it: “If you’re not liberal when you’re young, you have no heart. If you’re not conservative when you’re old, your brain hasn’t calcified.”

Like so many other people who become more and more conservative as they age and their brains slowly turn to bone, Bill Maher is moving to the right. He doesn’t seem to realize it’s happening. In fact, he denies it. But on the January 30th episode of ‘Real Time with Bill Maher,’ I watched Maher spar with Joe Scarborough about Ilhan Omar and Maher sounded very conservative.

Maher was bitching that Omar, an immigrant US citizen of Somali descent, makes observations about problems in the US. Ignoring the fact that Omar is a member of Congress and it’s her job to observe and try to fix problems, Maher says she’s not showing enough appreciation for being in the US instead of Somalia. Maybe he thinks she doesn’t smile enough.

Scarborough tried to point out that Maher seemed to be making the point based on Omar’s criticisms. He pointed out that as an American citizen, she had as much right to complaints as anyone else. Maher denied he was basing his opinion on her observations. He just, somehow, knows, Omar doesn’t appreciate America enough. (The way any conservative might “know.”)

Scarborough never did get to the point where he asked Maher the one question I was shouting at my television: what are you basing your perceived lack of appreciation on if not her observations about the state of our once-great nation? No matter how you slice it, I heard Maher saying that because the US is still better than Somalia, she should just appreciate her lot and shut her mouth. Sounds pretty conservative to me…

Dates That Live In Infamy…

by MyBaconPress

Today, Sunday, December 7th, 2025, marks the 84th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, killing 2,403 Americans. It was a tactical success for Japan but a strategic failure. They didn’t hit some of the most important targets of their attack. Oh, AND, (spoiler alert) Japan lost the war in the end.

Or maybe we all did. WWII changed the face of the planet and, upon further review, maybe not for the better. WWII brought about a new world order and, for a time, it looked like it might be an improvement. But we can all count on self-serving, self-important blowhards to decide they “deserve” more than anybody else to come along and ruin things for everybody.

Which brings us back to Donny and the One-Percent-serving Heritage Foundation and all of the damage and pain they’re intentionally inflicting on Americans and the world. History repeats (or rhymes) in roughly 80 year cycles. Roughly 80 years ago, the US pushed back authoritarian Fascism with extreme violence. Now authoritarian fascism is back.

I think Americans are hoping to stop all of this nonsense with the 2026 “elections,” non-violently. I have a hard time believing that the group that led this coup in the first place might let it slip away by allowing honest elections. I’ll wait and see. I’ll hope. But you’d better keep your powder dry…

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Twice, recently, I’ve seen Donny act exactly like a three-year-old boy who sees a big truck – and then the driver honks the horn for kid. We’ve all seen that young man. He’s the happiest he’s ever going to be until he discovers his newest favorite toy. The first time I saw Donny act like that was when he was hanging out with the Saudi murderer, you know, the one who killed Jamal Khashoggi, that guy. Yeah, Mohammed bin Salman, that’s the one.

The second time was this FIFA “Peace Prize” he was “awarded” on Friday. To be clear, FIFA does NOT have a long, storied history of awarding it’s well-known and prestigious “Peace Prize” to someone who has made a great impact on world peace for the benefit of nations. Instead, FIFA seems to be a rather corrupt organization that takes bribes and oversees world soccer. FIFA made up their “Peace Prize” for Donny and, one presumes, when Donny isn’t a factor in their world anymore, the “FIFA Peace Prize” will be a thing of the past.

But he was SO happy, giddy even. I thought he was going to literally clap his hands and jump up and down, “My peace prize! My peace prize!” It was scary. That dude is old. Jumping up and down on those cankles could break him in more ways than one. Old bones shatter. It was also mind-boggling. Can you imagine demanding a peace prize and then actually believing you’ve done something to “earn” it?

Donny grabbed that medal and put it around his own neck so fast I thought it might hit him in the face. (Full disclosure: I would have LAUGHED!) Then he stood, wearing his fake award, BEAMING. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a happier boy – even when the “Big Truck” honks.

This is a large part of the reason he’s as petty as he is: secrets he knows about himself. On some level, he knows he’s a fraud and he knows this is a fake award, created to placate his massive unquenchable ego. He acts like he’s done something to earn it but he knows that everybody knows – the thing was “awarded” by FIFA, fercrissakes. HE has to know it’s a meaningless award. And because HE knows the whole thing is trumpery, but wants YOU to believe he actually accomplished something, he gets insecure and belligerent.

Tough cookies, there, Donny. Most of the world knows you to be a fraud and we have always known you to be a fraud. You can act like the biggest assoholic on the planet, we’ll all still know…

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Speaking of recognizing Donny as the liar, conman, grifter, and general waste of human flesh that he is, it looks like there might be a bit of fraying at the edges of MAGA. It’s hard to say, for sure. MAGA isn’t going to confess their error, most especially not to me. I expect their support to drift away quietly. They’ll wonder in their own minds. If/When the scales fall from their eyes, the MAGA regalia will quietly disappear. They won’t fall out for rallies. They won’t come out to vote. They’ll get quieter in social media. They’ll just… step away.

So, instead of waiting for the mea culpa, we have to watch for signs of separation. Maybe they’re real, maybe not, but here’s one I’ve been hearing about recently. There’s a very definite date – well, dates – looming for Republicans who may have been caught up in MAGA thrall, but aren’t true MAGA in their hearts. Filing deadlines.

The major threat Donny represents to candidates is his ability to “Primary” them. That is, if he gets his knickers in a twist at someone, he can press another, more MAGA-friendly candidate to run. That might cost a Republican office-holder their phony-baloney job and they might lose all of that beautiful lucre that keeps them so happy. So they comply.

At the same time, one does not have to be Nostradamus to see what is going on with the right, these days. Donny can say all day and half the night that prices are down at the grocery store. Then, we ALL walk into grocery stores and – RATS! – prices are still going up. Donny can tell us until he’s blue in the face that medical care costs won’t go up. But the letters have gone out. Every American and every MAGA has seen the new, definitely-not-improved numbers.

Donny promised no more foreign entanglements. Not only has he NOT ended the major foreign wars he promised would be so easy to end, he’s actively ginning up a completely new, completely unnecessary conflict. Instead of less foreign entanglement, we’re getting more, like it or not. He promised to drain the swamp. He IS the swamp. By every measure, he’s the swampiest swamp monster ever to swamp the swamp.

And it is NOT that he is “just doing what they all do, just more transparently.” In the first place, taking bribes and committing crimes transparently doesn’t make them better. But no President in history has ever been so deeply involved with bribes, crimes, grifts, and cons. Everything, everything, EVERYTHING this boy does is about shoving more money into his insatiable pockets – YOUR money.

The point is, this has become SO apparent, even MAGA sees it and cons in Congress who have been compliant but not truly MAGA? They have to win back their seats in an environment where it’s clear and undeniable that Republicans hate America and Americans. That’s a pretty hard run, right there. So the moment the filing deadlines pass, that is, the moment there’s no immediate danger that Donny might primary them, they can start to separate themselves from Donny and the MAGA nightmare, hoping they haven’t already been too tarred.

The final filing dates vary from state to state but, generally speaking, they all come around August 25th, give or take. I know, that’s a long time from now. These pricks can do a LOT of damage between now and then. But let’s see how GOP candidates react after that date…

BIG Lies…

by MyBaconPress

Dr Ooze, said in a speech that Americans were on track to lose 135 BILLION pounds before the midterms. 135 billion pounds? Wonderful! We’re EACH going to give up around 400 pounds. Actually, I’m a little concerned. I confess, I carry a little extra wight – but not 400 pounds! For most of us, losing 400 pounds is like the Dumbass insisting he can lower drug prices by 1,500%. First you get to zero, then you keep going.

This regime just LOVES to make up numbers and they MEAN for the made-up numbers to be as impressive as they can be. THAT means BIG. The numbers have got to be BIG. If the numbers are BIG, the achievements are big, too, right? So Donny can’t just lower drug prices by 100%. Anybody could do that. (They can’t.)

It’s GOT TO BE 1,500% to impress MAGA, and Dr. Ooze isn’t impressing anybody by claiming Americans will merely lose 40 pounds each. Who could be impressed by THAT? No, it has to be 400 pounds because that’s a bigger number. Idiocracy, thy name is America…

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Well, there’s talk of a plan to end the shutdown. It comes out of the Senate. It would have to since the House has gone walkabout. It appears to have support from enough turncoat Dems to pass the Senate. It does not include the health insurance subsidies the Dems have been holding out for. The Senate’s Republican leader, John Thune, has promised he would allow a vote on a bill to deal with the credits by the second week of December.

He won’t. The GOP has gone so far as to withhold food from hungry people in an effort to put pressure on Democrats to surrender their demands. “You want health care? STARVE, peasants!” Now, all of a sudden, they’re going to just get reasonable and do the right thing? Uh-huh. You bet our lives!

Even if Thune does do the right thing, MAGA Mike the Johnson has said he won’t bring such a measure to the House floor. Besides, how can he bring anything to the House floor when the House Republicans are out quivering in their hidey-holes, fearful of having to address the problem of Donny’s very close friend Jeffrey Epstein in public and on the record.

My feelings on the topic were best summed up by Greg Casar, chair of the congressional Progressive Caucus. He said: “A deal that doesn’t reduce health care costs is a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them. Republicans want health care cuts. Accepting nothing but a pinky promise from Republicans isn’t a compromise – it’s capitulation.”

I guess it’s back to desperation catastrophic coverage and preexisting condition denials for “The Land of Opportunity™!” A citizen of ‘The Greatest Country On Earth™?’ These days, I feel more like a victim…

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Have you SEEN the ramping up of disdain from all corners when it comes to Democratic Socialism? If you’re a talking head on American television, left or right, you MUST come out against Democratic Socialism. It’s BEST if you also mischaracterize Democratic Socialism. Call it Communism, that scares ’em!

I heard Bill Maher talking about how it never works, socialism. That’s wrong. He MEANS communism. Right now, the happiest, the freest, the most successful (if you measure success by best-serving the largest number of people) countries on Earth are Democratic Socialist. The act that made America great in the first place was FDR sprinkling in elements of Democratic Socialism to the US as a way to stabilize normally erratic so-called “Free-Market” Capitalism. He called it the New Deal.

This latest round of pearl-clutching started because Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, just became the mayor of New York City. The so-called “Free-Market” Capitalists run scared every time socialism rears it’s head. The thing is, socialism rears it’s head from time to time because it seems to be a better system and the masses keep figuring it out, then figuring it out again.

Mamdani once said in passing during a speech in 2021, “But then there are also other issues that we firmly believe in, whether it’s BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel), right, or whether it’s the end goal of seizing the means of production, where we do not have the same level of support at this very moment.”

“Ooh, he said, ‘…seizing the means of production,'” terrified Capitalists cry, “He MUST be a commie! If seizing the means of production means one MUST be a commie, look to Donny, who just strong-armed his way into a deal giving the US government a stake in Intel. And MP Materials. And Lithium Americas. And Trilogy Metals. Not to mention the US government’s “golden share” of US Steel Corporation. Apparently, we’re communists already, da comrade?

Here’s what all the naysayers have in common: they’re all rich. Okay, maybe not rich rich but they’re doing very, very well, compared to most of the regular working stiffs. Pick a system, any system. The people who are doing well in that system probably like it very much. Why would they see problems? The very BEST one could hope for is a flaccid acknowledgement that it could use some “tweaks” here and there.

The thing people have to understand is this: Democratic Socialism is a capitalist system. It’s just controlled Capitalism. Those of us being crushed under the weight of so-called “Free-Market” Capitalism think it could use a little control…

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The Niners had a football game yesterday. Somebody should have told them. It looked like the team failed to show up so the coaches went into the streets and grabbed up anybody they could find who might fit the uniforms and put them out on the field. They played accordingly. If the game HAD been played by amateurs, well, they did a fine job. Hats off!

But if the people who showed up for the Niners identify as professional football players in the NFL? They might not want to tell anybody for the next couple of days. Maybe, let the memory of that stinker fade a bit. The Rams were firing on all cylinders and the Niners were still looking for their keys.

It seems strange, but that loss put the once-first-place Niner’s playoff hopes in jeopardy. They still have a winning record. They’ll still show on the “in the hunt” sections of playoff predictions. But the NFC is very competitive and the Niners are trending in the wrong direction. With their defense collectively in the Intensive Care Unit, they don’t have much hope of turning things around. RATS! Oh well. There’s always next season. Always. Next season…

Ballots Online? Be Careful…

by MyBaconPress

Okay, so this is important. California has done a confusing thing. (What? Again?) I know! I opened my mail-in ballot. You know, the safest kind of ballot a voter can use? The ones with all of those protections built into them to ensure security? Yeah, that one.

Along with my ballot, I found a little card. One side of the card is emblazoned with the words ‘Business Reply Mail.’ The other side is an application for a thing called a ‘Remote Accessible Vote By Mail Ballot’ or RAVBM. I suppose such a thing has value if you spoil your mail-in ballot, but I don’t like them putting the application in with the other ballot. It could cause confusion.

What it is, see, is your ballot online. BUT… you don’t file the ballot online. You access it online, mark your ballot online, then print it out, put it in an envelope, and mail it (or carry it) in. Meanwhile, filling out the application voids the mail-in ballot the county mailed to you – and you STILL have to get it back by the end of business on “election” day.

My concern is that someone might get confused and think they’re signing up for a new service for future “elections” while filing this year’s mail-ballot, and not realize they’ve voided this year’s mail-in ballot in the process. That would be bad.

We enjoy a secret ballot in this once-great nation so you’ll never know which ‘yes’ box I filled in for Prop 50. To be clear, I oppose gerrymandering. I worry we’re starting an even faster downward spiral by supporting this idea. Worse, I fear that in a nationwide tit-for-tat, Dems will lose.

But I don’t see any other idea that might work. Texas started this when they rewrote their districts with the specific intention of creating five extra GOP seats. It left California little to no choice but to respond in kind. We might lose the gerrymander battle – but this vote, at the very least – reflects an effort. It’s a statement: “We do not agree. We will not acquiesce.”

Personally, I just thought of it as a finger to Donny’s eye and that made it all… wonderful…

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Well, rats! Donny didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize – again! I mean, how many people does he have to bomb, maim, and murder to prove he’s a peaceful guy?

Okay, here is where I should probably mention that all of the hostages in Gaza have been released and people are giving Donny credit. We’ll have to wait and see if it equates to “peace,” but releasing the hostages is a good thing…

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It’s called ‘Inoculation,’ ironically enough. One side ‘inoculates’ an argument by advancing a given position themselves and baselessly blaming their opposition, thereby blunting later criticism when they do what they accused their opponent of doing. Here’s what I mean: Donny spent the last four years whining and moaning about the government “weaponizing the Department of Justice (DOJ)” because they were trying to convict him for all of his crimes. The government, then, was NOT weaponizing the DOJ. They were simply trying to convict him for all of his crimes. They would have, too, if he hadn’t already strategically installed so many corrupt judges.

The DOJ was just doing it’s job. But the point for the GOP wasn’t to whine. The point was to create a story. The idea is, they whined and whined and cried and bitched and moaned and whined some more. NOW, when THEY actually weaponize the DOJ and the Dems say, “They’re weaponizing the DOJ,” the cons will just say, “Yeah, yeah, you didn’t care when we said it, we’re not going to care when you say it.”

MAGA is celebrating these fraudulent, harassment suits against James Comey and Letitia James. They don’t realize that establishing this precedent of weaponized prosecutions could just as easily come back to bite them down the road, too…

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MAGA Mike: “If you look at polling, people’s faith in the federal government is at an all time low. Why? Because they don’t see that it’s being done well.” I have to agree with that. With the GOP in charge, it’s not just being done poorly, it’s downright treasonous…

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It isn’t true on the national level, yet, but I’ve noticed a trend in which Democrats seem to be flipping seats in red areas down ballot. The most notable in my mind was when a Democrat won the mayoral election in Fairbanks, Alaska. Alaska, including Fairbanks, is dependably red. But they voted blue this year, at least for mayor.

Democrats flipped a legislative seat in Iowa, too. They flipped one in Pennsylvania earlier this year. Last May, Democrat Sam Sutton defeated his Republican opponent to win New York’s 22nd State Senate district – a district Donny won by 55 points in 2024.

I don’t mean to overstate it. Dems are also crowing about “over-performing” in other areas. That’s usually a euphemism that means “we lost by less than we lost by last time.” It’s still a loss, but it’s promising.

To me, it’s reflective of the havoc and chaos Donny and Team Evil are inflicting on the country. I mean, c’mon, do you really believe the Dems have improved their messaging and clarified their vision of how to improve the daily lives of Americans? I assure you, they have not. At least, not on the national level. On the national level, Dems seem stuck in “We’re not Donny.” Sure, it’s true, but it’s also not very… informational.

It’s like… people WANT to vote for “We’re not Donny” but you’ve got to give them something more than “not Donny” to vote for. Candidates in these down ballot elections have done exactly that – and they’ve won. It’s a hopeful sign for the mid-terms.

While Democrats and Republicans bicker about who’s doing what to whom, constituents – Americans and MAGA, alike – are getting notices from health insurers informing them of significant increases in premiums. HUNDREDS of dollars in increases. MAGA loves bitching about Obamacare but they’ve sure enjoyed having health insurance these last years.

I doubt any of my MAGA friends are going to confess, to me, their frustration with the wreckage being inflicted by Donny and the Dumbasses. But they will confess it to each other and it might very well play out in the voting booth. Even if they don’t vote blue, not voting at all sends a message, too.

There’s even a possibility the Democrats could lose the redistricting debacle and STILL win enough seats to flip one or both houses of Congress. One can contrive a bright red district, but the bright red voters still have to come out and cast a ballot and I’m not sure taking away health care and creating artificial price spikes is the way to get that done…

Undercover Voters…

by MyBaconPress

Republicans are forever trying to break California in two. They don’t like living in a blue state, what with all that better lifestyle and all. But here they come again, this time, in pursuit of stopping California from doing what Texas did: gerrymander the state to give one party an unfair advantage. Oh, and please note, I wrote “…an unfair advantage.” I think gerrymandering is cheating and wrong every time it’s done. See how I didn’t specify party?

But if one side is bringing a gun to the boxing match while the other side is following Marquis of Queensberry rules, the fight ends very quickly in a very one-sided “victory.” The Republicans in Texas weren’t even subtle about what they were doing or why. It was straight up cheating and they said it was straight up cheating but they were doing it anyway. If Donny hadn’t asked for it, they wouldn’t have done it.

So, really, what is California going to do? What are ALL the states going to do? What choice is there? Oh, let’s stand on principle? Set the example? Or will each state follow suit, each time explaining they’re “fighting fire with fire?” The minority party in each state ends up disenfranchised and insisting it’s an unfair power grab. The minority party in each state will be right.

By now you should be able to tell, I’m VERY ambivalent. But the GOP isn’t. They KNOW it’s right and proper when they do it and an unforgivable sin when the Dems do it. So Texas was just good politics and California is an outrage. They seem to be in a real dither. I started receiving “don’t do what we did” flyers in the mail, the same day Texas passed their new map.

That was only a couple of days ago, but I’ve also already received a second “don’t you DARE do what we did” flyer and now a Republican in the state legislature has introduced a bill to start the process of splitting California in two. This comes up from time to time. It’s the dumbest idea since Donny but the cons STILL think they’d be better off destroying the state. (Hey, it’s a theme, isn’t it? They think they’re going to be better off after destroying the entire nation, too!)

The only real move the voters have is to destroy the plan and the only way we, the people, can interfere with this legislative race to the bottom is to change our voter registration. I first got this idea last Sunday. I wrote: “If you have a friend who is a Democrat and lives in a red state? Advise them to leave the Democratic Party.” The idea is to have liberals/progressives register as independents.

In the moment, the idea was simply to keep from being purged from voter rolls by hiding in plain sight. When the cons purge, they purge Democrats. So don’t register as a Democrat. You can still VOTE with the Dems. More importantly, you can still vote. The Dems, of course, will never, CAN never make this suggestion. They don’t WANT people to leave the party, but if the GOP is just going to remove Democrats from voter rolls anyway, what’s the loss? They’re actually better off if Dems re-register.

But I didn’t take it far enough, did I? The Republicans are evil, not stupid. They’ll figure out what the Dems are doing. Then, they’ll ‘call the conservatives home.’ That is, they’ll tell the cons to register Republican so they can purge all Democrats AND Independents. It pretty much looks like that’s the goal anyway. One party rule, and, what the hell, only one party vote.

When I realized that, I decided the best course is to re-register AS a Republican. I know, I wouldn’t want to, either, but it’s just a strategy. We can call them ‘Undercover Voters.’ As a registered Republican, you could vote in their primary, selecting the least MAGA candidate. More, as a registered Republican, you can STILL vote for the Democrat during the general “election.” They’ll have to find another way to remove your vote. The bonus is, when Dems see people fleeing the party, maybe they’ll realize their brand is toxic and do something different. Don’t bet any money on that last bit, though. Undercover voters. It’s a good plan. Let’s do it…

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Donny has already demonstrated his voracious appetite for destruction but this will be the worst, the most destructive, possible move yet. He keeps meddling with the Fed. He has no right to meddle with the Fed, but he keeps doing it, anyway. The Fed is supposed to be independent. He wants to bring it under his control. The very moment Donny brings the Fed under his control, the Fed’s value is compromised. Inflation will result because he’ll order the interest rate low just to make himself look better and the Fed will simply comply.

You think he’s done a lot of damage so far? You ain’t seen nothing yet…

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American troops on the ground – in American cities? Wasn’t that what the gotta-have-a-gun crowd was always using as their excuse to keep arsenals of weapons, oppressive government? Right now would be the time to act. Once they’ve got soldiers in place, they can come and take those arsenals from the gun-rights crowd – and I strongly suspect that’s part of the plan…

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Hey, I learned a new word: confabulation. It’s a common feature of dementia. A patient (or, in this case, 47) creates false or distorted memories without intending to deceive. They genuinely believe these fabricated memories to be true. So maybe he’s not the biggest liar in the history of lying. Maybe, just maybe, he’s just suffering from a severe case of dementia. That would explain a lot.

Like the story he tells about turning on the water in California. He wasn’t the hero in that story. Yeah, he sloshed some water around. He wasted that water. He flooded some farms. But to hear him tell it, he saved the day. He, personally, put the fires out in LA. (Never mind that they were already under control and essentially out by the time he wasted that water. Oh, and we have to ignore the fact that the water he wasted never got anywhere near LA and never could. As it happens, water does NOT just automatically flow from top to bottom just because north is above south on a wall map.)

But maybe it’s not a lie he likes to tell. Maybe it’s confabulation. Maybe he really believes his version of the story, despite all the contradicting evidence. Is it better if he’s demented and not just a straight up liar? I suspect it makes no difference. He’s reacting to his lies/confabulations the same way – badly – so I guess it doesn’t matter if he’s wrong about lies or wrong about delusions. Still, I like the word: confabulation, and, maybe it will help to understand the ramblings of his mind a little bit…

When You Can’t Win, Cheat…

by MyBaconPress

In an effort to stop the gerrymandering Donny has demanded from Texas, the state’s Democrats have fled, leaving insufficient votes to move forward with the evil plan – for now. Evil Texas Governor Greg Abbott has threatened to “remove” the Democratic lawmakers from their office if they don’t come back. That seems unconstitutional, to me, but I’m not very familiar with Texas state law.

The GOP knows the policies they’re pursuing are incredibly unpopular. Every day, more and more people are speaking out. When this country was a constitutional republic, the people could get rid of lousy lawmakers at the ballot box. It’s part of the reason there has been so little pushback to the insanity coming out of Washington, DC. Americans figure they’ll just vote the scoundrels out in the mid-terms.

That used to work. The GOP, and, specifically, evil Donny, are afraid it might work again so they formed a plan and the plan is simple: cheat. The anti-American GOP intends to gerrymander districts to eliminate Democratic seats and give the state five more Republican seats, thus extending the artificial hold Republicans have on the House of “Representatives.”

It’s not like this is back-room politics. They’re doing it right out in the open, where everyone can see. There’s not much the Texas Democrats can do about it, except leave the state, depriving the legislature of a quorum. So that’s what they did. But, come on, how long can they keep that up? They get fined $500 a day while they’re gone and their campaign funds aren’t allowed to pay the fines. Besides, historically, it only serves to slow, not defeat, legislation.

Texas is already considered one of the more gerrymandered states in the nation. Other known gerrymandered states include North Carolina (Swing, red in 2024), Maryland (Blue), Pennsylvania (Swing, red in 2024), Kentucky (Red), Louisiana (Red), Arkansas (Red), Utah (Red), Texas (Red), Ohio (Red), West Virginia (Red), and Wisconsin (swing, red in 2024).

Maryland seems to be an outlier as a gerrymandered blue state. It should be noted that the swing states that went red in the last “election,” likely went red as a result of Elon Muck’s money and his ‘knowledge of the tabulating machines’ – according to 47. But if the red states are already heavily gerrymandered – really, the only way the GOP can hold seats – all they can do is gerrymander more.

There are some blue states threatening to respond in kind, California and New York among them. California was once heavily gerrymandered to favor the GOP and we suffered terribly under the heavy hand of conservatism. The citizens managed to eliminate the rigging and California went blue again but the method we used to get back to fair also makes it very difficult for California to respond with it’s own, blue gerrymander. Newsom is trying anyway.

When I re-wrote the US Constitution, I included a bit that required each state’s congressional districts to be “as close to square shaped as possible.” The hope is that the requirement eliminates gerrymandering altogether. It’s cheating, pure and simple. Because of that, I’m not wholly on board with the idea of blue states gerrymandering to bring more blue seats. On the other hand, the red-hats are openly cheating and the country is suffering.

Do we really just stand around, squawking about honor and playing by the rules when we KNOW our opposition is openly cheating? In this case, losing with honor means losing the country. Like, entirely and forever. In view of the GOP nightmare we’ve already been treated to, I see blue-state gerrymandering as the lessor of two evils.

IF California can pull it off, we can bring as many as six more blue seats to Congress, offsetting the five Texas is trying to add. But it’s a big ‘if.’ Democrat Jared Huffman called the ploy a “race to the bottom” and I agree, but bringing a Marquess of Queensberry rule book to a gunfight seems like a losing tactic. I’ll tell you this: MAGAmerica sucks in every way…

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I’m very sorry to learn of Loni Anderson’s passing just a few days shy of her 80th birthday after a prolonged illness. I was a great fan of the original ‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’ and her character, Jennifer Marlowe, along with Gary Sandy’s Andy Travis, was one of the two “adults” in the room…

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Speaking of evil, Donny’s problem with Epstein seems to be leaving the news, just as the GOP hoped when they abandoned their jobs early to go on vacation rather than risk forcing 47 to release the files he promised to release. Yet another promise made, promise broken.

I understand why Donny wants the whole thing to go away. Based on the information currently available, I suspect he wasn’t JUST having sex with minors, he was part of the trafficking ring, supplying girls to Epstein via Mar-a-Lardo.

I have never seen such a unified, concerted effort to protect a child-raper as I’m seeing from the GOP and MAGA, though. This isn’t “shame,” it’s disgrace. I don’t have first-hand experience, of course, but my understanding is that in prison, fellow inmates are absolute in their “handling” of child-rapers. Murderers have better morals that MAGA!

I mean, it’s one thing to disagree about the best way to balance the budget but protect the pedophile? I will never understand…