elon-musk

Inmates Running the Asylum…

by MyBaconPress

Elon presenting to the world as an insane person is only one reason Tesla sales are crashing and the stock is down. Tesla’s early success in the car market wasn’t because of Elon, either. Tesla benefited, early on, by being first. They offered an electric vehicle with a perception of quality and safety that had good range and speed.

As they’ve penetrated the market, though, certain realities about Tesla’s safety have been exposed. They keep being recalled. The ‘Autopilot’ feature of the car is, at best, erratic. (Hey, just like their CEO!) In crashes, they tend to burst into flames. Fortunately, they increasingly have “unbreakable” glass windows (actually just very difficult to break) so WHEN your Tesla crashes and burns, literally, with you inside? You might survive the crash, but not the fire.

Meanwhile, all of the other car makers have come up with decent alternatives that DON’T burst into flame every chance they get and many of them are far more affordable. That is to say, there are better options out there now, or, at least, competitive options. As those options became available, it was inevitable Tesla sales would drop. They aren’t the only game in town anymore.

But it really has not helped that the richest man in the world started scolding work-a-day Joes for taking too much. “Oh, you want your Social Security? I don’t need Social Security so you shouldn’t either!”

Muck and the trumpster held a publicity stunt at the White House in an effort to shore up Tesla sales. 47 pretended he bought one. He said he was going to write a check for the $80,000 dollar car. Neither of the grifters mentioned, in the moment, that Musk was planning to put $100 million dollars into The Felon’s pocke–, er, PAC. Yeah, the PAC, that’s the ticket.

Now, as Elon actively attacks the American people, the American people are pushing back by protesting outside Tesla dealerships. It really makes perfect sense. Elon is closely associated with the Tesla, even though he had nothing to do with their development or design. Tesla is quickly becoming a symbol of evil and it provides people with a very visual place to protest.

Donny says he wants to make protesting outside Tesla dealerships a crime. He wants to call it “domestic terrorism.” Look for that to happen in a once-great nation near you, soon. I remember when the United States enjoyed a thing commonly referred to as the First Amendment. Remember that? It allowed people to say things other people might not like. It allowed people to protest, so long as it was peaceful. That was pretty great.

The MAGA alternative to the First Amendment, along with the Tesla and Tesla’s CEO, sucks. I wonder how long Tesla’s board is going to stand behind Elon and his insanity. Do you think they’re going to wait until their brand is completely unrecoverable?

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Sometimes, stupid just can’t hide. A competent AP reporter asked KKKaroline Leavitt if she had ever paid a tariff. She went directly to faux outrage, “I think it’s insulting that you’re trying to test my knowledge of economics,” before moving on – quickly – to another question. (She commonly reminds me of a line from ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail,’ “Run away!”)

It wasn’t really a “test” though, was it? It was more of a demonstration. If you really think foreign companies pay the tariffs, you have no idea what you’re talking about and anybody, everybody, who DOES understand will know in a heartbeat that you DON’T know – and it doesn’t matter HOW big of an asshole you act. You’re still wrong.

The most frustrating part about this particular gaslight is that cons will be the first to tell you that adding a tax to a product will only be passed along by the seller. We all know it. Even MAGA knows it. But suddenly, THIS tax doesn’t work that way, apparently, because it has a different name? Really, sometimes, stupid just can’t hide…

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Recently, a young child died of Measles in Texas. I’m sure the child’s parents are very proud of themselves. Sure, they killed their kid – but he didn’t have Autism!

I suppose we have to set aside the FACT – you know, like they didn’t – that he wouldn’t have contracted Autism from the vaccines, anyway, since that was just a made-up story. It stems from a morally defective, British former doctor. He isn’t a doctor anymore because his “study” was crap work. He fudged his data. He was applying for a vaccine patent of his own and thought that if he discredited the one in use at the time, he’d be better off. His lie has killed countless numbers – including that child in Texas.

The dude must be MAGA because he’s still out there telling his lie – and doubling down on a lie is the MAGA way. He has apparently impressed what’s left of RFK, Jr’s brain, which doesn’t seem all that hard to do. He impresses a LOT of weak minds. I suspect he feels good whenever an unvaccinated child dies of some easily preventable disease because he convinced yet another rube. But people die. I think he should be in prison.

Science isn’t perfect. There, I said it AND, I mean it. But it’s better than not-science. It’s sure as shootin’ better than “doing your own research.” What the hell do YOU know? Do you have a lab or even a lab coat? Testing equipment? Can you do a double-blind study on a large enough, representative sample? Can you even describe a double-blind study? Or did you just cruise the internet until you found the story that supported what your husband’s cousin mentioned she heard from her friend down at the mall?

If you don’t get your kids vaccinated because you’re afraid they might get Autism from the shot, leaving your child vulnerable to readily preventable diseases that can very easily kill or permanently disable them? You’re a moron…

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I don’t know. It was a tough call. Do Democrats sign on with Republicans and help them pass their Continuing Resolution (CR), or do they stand their ground and let the government shut down in an effort to get a less vicious budget? If the CR passes, the autocrats get a shot in the arm as the CR codifies some of the things “Team Evil” want to do. If the CR fails, the government shuts down and leaves a huge opening for Team Evil to do their thing with less opposition, but makes clear the damage comes from one group and one group only – the One Percent compliant Republicans.

It seems to me the outcome was the same either way. Team Evil gets to do what it wants via the budget or Team Evil gets to do what it wants via the closure. Since that’s the case, I think it would have made more sense to vote against the CR. The short version is, either way, Team Evil gets to do what it wants, so the Democrats should do the right thing and stand with the American people. Most did.

Chuck Schumer (NY), John Fetterman (PA), Dick Durbin (IL), Catherine Cortez-Masto (NV), Gary Peters (MI), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Brian Schatz (HI), Maggie Hassan (NH), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), and Angus King (MA), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, all joined Team Evil in giving Elon and The Felon a free hand. But, really, it was a tough call, either way. It’s difficult to know what the right choice might have been – except…

47 said of Schumer’s vote, “I think he did the right thing.” Okay, so now I know the answer. If Evil Donny is happy about the choice you made, you definitely made the wrong choice. The outcome totally reinforces my perception that the Democrats are the Washington Generals of this political charade. The Washington Generals are the team whose job it is to lose to the Harlem Globetrotters, but both teams are paid by the same people…

What Evil Looks Like…

by MyBaconPress

Some people think that evil looks like the devil, a red-hued guy with horns and a spiked tail. I don’t, though. I think evil looks like the richest man in the world telling work-a-day Joes that they’re taking too much…

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Listen, it isn’t going to take any time at all for all of MAGA to believe that this volatile economy is Joe Biden’s fault. The economy was humming along when Biden was President. It was SO good, the First Felon was taking credit for it. “It’s good because I’m coming into office.” In truth, it was good because Biden knew what he was doing.

Then 47 GOT into office and started his mindless “trade wars” (code talk for “stock market manipulation”) – and the economy is tanking. But that, TOO is Joe Biden’s fault. I mean, obviously. Oh, it’s STILL Biden’s economy, which, remember, was doing so well before 47 stole the office. Yes, their stories ARE stupid, but MAGA conditioning keeps them befuddled and they’ll never see it.

It’s often true that economic effects last beyond one person’s term. Bush 43 left Obama a crashed economy that saw Obama struggling for the first couple of years. Obama left then-45 a booming economy that kept humming along until then-45’s mismanagement allowed a pandemic to run wild. That dragged down Biden’s early years as the trumpster’s inflation ballooned, but Biden got it under control. The economy was humming along again when now-47 stole his way back. He should have, COULD have kept it humming along – but the trumpster wanted tariffs.

It stopped being Biden’s economy the second 47 started signing Executive Orders that affected the economy – that is, day one. He affected the economy faster than any other modern sitting President. Sadly, he damaged the economy faster than any other modern sitting President.

All of this is happening because Trump is an old man and thinks old thoughts. Tariffs might have been a solid economic tool at one point in history. Hell, in some cases, they can still be solid tools. But he’s using a cannon to kill a mosquito. Mostly, the world just bypasses tariffs by turning in other directions, these days. All 47 is accomplishing is having other countries take American products off their shelves.

I’ll tell you this: that doesn’t sound so “great” to me…

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The cowardly, snowflake Republicans have decided to stop holding town halls because pissed off people keep showing up to demand action from their “representatives,” who aren’t going to do anything because they actually represent the One Percent. And to protect their cowardly selves from looking like cowardly snowflakes, they’re pretending the angry people are paid protestors funded by (obviously) George Soros.

In point of fact, George Soros doesn’t NEED to fun angry citizens. Most Americans are plenty pissed off about what’s happening and don’t need any prompting from anybody. Their anger is real, not bought and paid for – and THAT is why they’ll stop holding those meetings. They can’t afford to let people see how many of us are super pissed off about what’s happening. Solidarity is our best weapon, now…

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“But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby,’ in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for.” The trumpster wrote that.

He’s not altogether wrong. There IS coordination among the protestors. That’s kind of how protesting works. It COULD be called “collusion.” But illegal? Sorry, chump. It’s not illegal to NOT buy a product (except health insurance, apparently). If Americans want to boycott Tesla in response to Tesla’s CEO attacking them, that’s an honest choice. Let MAGA buy the Teslas. They LOVE electric cars, right? Well, they will, soon. Well, Teslas, anyway. (Their conditioning is so… malleable…)

I first predicted on February 13 of this year that MAGA conditioning would be modified to encourage them to buy Teslas in an effort to prop up Musk’s company. March 12 saw The Felon turning the White House into a car sales lot for a short time. He held a press conference to hawk the cars like a used car salesmen. He even got a script from Elon! He promoted the event on his social media site where he wrote, “In any event, I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American.”

Listen, knowing the dumbest man on the planet “bought” an overpriced car from the richest man on the planet is not a strong endorsement of the Swasticar. But suddenly, MAGA everywhere will be fond of Teslas. If the First Felon “buys” one, then it’s okay for THEM to buy one. Hell, it may become requisite. Someone should tell them it was JUST a promotional event. I seriously doubt 47 will actually write a check for $80,000 for a woke car he doesn’t even get to drive. But now MAGA has to carry the company? Can they do that? Many MAGA have lost huge amounts of money to The Felon’s various schemes and scams. Can they afford a Tesla, too? Those rolling crematoriums are VERY expensive…

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Meanwhile, the stock market is crashing like it’s 1929. Credit where credit is due, ‘Fox Not-News’ reporter Peter Doocy asked during the Elon/Felon event – out loud and in public – if it was a good idea to be hawking luxury cars outside the White House while the working class was watching their 401ks shrivel.

That’s TWICE Peter Doocy has confronted the maladministration with honest questions. The first time was when Doocy questioned the legitimacy of attacking Zelenskyy for not wearing a suit in the Oval when Muck never wears a suit in the Oval. At the time, Spokesliar Leavitt ducked the question with a very not-subtle dodge, “He wore one last night.” Sure, he wasn’t in the Oval but in fairness, it was all she had.

Wait, a third time? Doocy ALSO challenged the White House spokesliar by asking if anyone in the White House was “shorting” the stock market during all of this chaos. Did you know it’s possible to bet against the stock market? Or, rather, it’s possible to bet the market is going to go down. Very simply, you buy what are called “Put Options.” They’re like a long-odds bet so they pay off “bigly.”

Famously, okay, infamously, some unknown person bought Put Options on American airlines and United airlines just before those planes were used on 9/11. After the planes hit the buildings the stocks crashed, too, and the Put Options paid off handsomely. Sadly, the purchaser never got to collect because doing so clearly indicated foreknowledge of the event. (Official word is, we “never knew” who bought those options…)

Anyway, if you’re an evil schemer and you’re in a position to manipulate the market, you buy some Put Options, announce your tariffs, watch the market decline, collect your money on the options, buy stocks at bargain basement prices you just manipulated into being, then “pause” your tariffs and watch your stock price grow as the market “recovers.”

That might give you some idea of how bizarre Bizarro America is, I have to give props to a ‘Fox Not News’ reporter for doing the job ALL reporters should be doing – but aren’t. Good work, Peter Doocy. Keep it up…

Undependable and Untrustworthy…

by MyBaconPress

The thing is, see, it won’t matter. 47 is now out saying he hates “to predict things” like a recession this year. He’s conditioning his acolytes with their new talking point. They’ll start in, first insisting, aggressively, that there will NOT be a recession this year. THEN, when the recession begins, they’ll take their next totally unpredictable move, they’ll blame Joe Biden. Either way, it won’t matter to them. They’ll believe.

Bear in mind, Biden had nothing to do with it. Biden left The Felon with one of the strongest economies in the world. 47 has already done serious harm and he’s only been in office, what, a month and a half? But MAGA is impervious to facts and, like Ron White says, you can’t fix stupid.

Anyway, according to the Guardian, 47 added, “There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. And there are always periods of, it takes a little time. It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.” When asked whether he thought his tariffs on US imports would fuel inflation, he said: “You may get it. In the meantime, guess what? Interest rates are down.”

Remember, he promised on the campaign trail he was going to bring prices down. He said he had a plan and that it was going to be “so easy.” Now he’s telling everyone that he – okay, I’m trying to be generous, here – hasn’t achieved his campaign promise to bring prices down and he doesn’t expect to. In his “mind,” it’s good enough news that interest rates are down. So when you’re asked pay $25.00 for 18 eggs, fear not. You can finance them at a competitive rate…

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I never fully trust high-profile people who switch political sides AFTER being caught up in some scandal. Simultaneously, they have had front row seats to the inside workings of whatever camp they got kicked out of. David Brock spent years writing hit pieces for the right before being kicked out of that club, ostensibly for writing a balanced piece about Hillary.

In his Mea Culpa book, ‘Blinded By the Right,’ Brock confessed to creating the line, “a little bit nutty, a little bit slutty,” about Anita Hill, the person accusing Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his SCOTUS hearing. He attacked a book that accused Thomas of being a “habitual user of pornography” and insisted the authors had no evidence. Then, again in ‘Blinded By the Right’ he wrote, “When I wrote those words, I knew they were false. I put a lie in print.”

The left embraced him and extolled his “brave honesty.” I never trusted the guy. It’s just too convenient that he decided to switch sides only AFTER being exiled from his previous position. He founded a group called “Media Matters for America,” which he later left for “undisclosed reasons.”

Brock was happy to write whatever the right wanted, so long as the checks cleared. Then, when the checks stopped coming, he had a sudden change of heart and started cashing Democratic checks, instead. His loyalty seems, first and foremost, to himself and he just writes what his benefactors want to hear, true or not.

I feel pretty much the same way about current darling to the left, the turncoat Michael Cohen, the trumpster’s one-time “fixer.” He didn’t just wake up one day and decide to do the right thing. He got arrested and convicted for his actions working with The Felon and when 47 threw him under the bus – as he almost always does – Cohen had a sudden “come to Jesus” moment. He, too, strikes me as an opportunist, taking the money from where ever it’s coming from.

BUT… it’s also true that he really was an insider. It’s true that he really does know The Felon and the way he thinks. Cohen expects the trumpster to come after Medicaid (in process) and Social Security (started). Cohen wrote an essay on Substack in which he opined that 47’s “base might be rabid, but even the most die-hard MAGA voter has a breaking point. And when grandma’s Social Security check disappears, when their Medicaid is yanked away, when the reality of Musk’s economic war on the poor sets in; who do you think they’re going to blame?”

“You screw over 72.5 million people, and you pay the price,” Cohen continued, referring to the number of Americans on Medicaid. “Unfortunately, they will suffer. But, there is a light at the end of the tunnel…Musk’s economic jihad against working Americans will be the thing that sinks Trump’s presidency and the Republican party. And for once, the chaos will actually work in the favor of the American people.”

No, I don’t trust Michael Cohen, but I want SO BADLY for him to be correct about this…

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The right is in full attack mode against Amy Coney-Barrett for her part in upholding the Constitution. She sided with the three left-leaning justices in favor of the idea that contracted work completed should be compensated according to the contractual agreement. Now the right is just bashing hell out of her.

They say she’s evil. They say she’s “rattled.” They call her a DEI hire. All of this because she did the right thing. And do you know what? If YOU were the contractor who did the work, YOU would want to be paid, too. You wouldn’t want to hear that your money is suddenly “frozen” because some mental mite made an illegal choice.

But the thing that REALLY gets me? Chief Kangaroo John Roberts ALSO sided with the majority and the Constitution. That’s HOW they got to the 5-4 decision they eventually handed down. I haven’t heard word one about Roberts. All of the vitriol seems to be pointed at Coney-Barrett. I wonder why that might be?

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When Steve effing Doocy challenges something a Republican administration does, you KNOW the GOP has gone way awry. Doocy asked why Zelenskyy was challenged (by MTG’s paid-shill boyfriend) for not wearing a suit, but Musk never wears one in the Oval and no one says anything.

The Felon’s Spokesliar, KKKaroline Leavitt, said of Musk, “He wore one tonight,” referring to the joint-party rally speech The Felon gave. That was her only line, her dodge. “He wore one tonight.” Do you think SHE thinks she handled that one smoothly? Do you think SHE thinks she nailed it? Her line was stupid and everybody knows it. Well, everybody but MAGA and that’s really who it was for…

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Right now, the entire world is looking away from the US the way Americans look away from homeless people. “It’s a shame,” we think to ourselves, “but what can be done?” We move on with our lives, hoping for the best. That’s how the world is viewing the US since the rise of MAGA. “What a shame.” They look different directions. The world will spin without US hegemony. As it happens, the US needs the world, more than the world needs the US. Who knew? Well, everybody but MAGA, that’s who knew…

Not Making Sense…

by MyBaconPress

I guess making America great again involves crashing consumer confidence in the economy, since that’s what’s happening. Consumer confidence dropped more in February than it has in four years. (Quick question: who was in charge those last four years?)

According to the Guardian, “Views of current labor market conditions weakened,” the business research group, The Conference Board, said on Tuesday. “Consumers became pessimistic about future business conditions and less optimistic about future income. Pessimism about future employment prospects worsened and reached a 10-month high.”

I wonder how mass firings of tens of thousands of workers and a trade war could have done that?

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Raise your hand if you’re as sick of Susan Collins’ Shtick as I am. She says she’s “very concerned” about the mass firings in the Federal government. She’s forever saying in the media that she has “questions” about things, then being a loyal, faithful, and true vote for evil and destruction. We’re not fooled, Susan. STFU…

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I’ve head about this planned one-day economic shutdown set for Friday. I’m all in but I also don’t think one day will be enough. It’s likely MAGA has heard about it and will make a greater effort to BUY on that day to offset decent people’s actions. In my opinion, we should strive to squelch our conditioned tendency to buy anything at all for as long as it takes. I mean, one has to buy basics and such but anything that CAN be put off, should be put off. Just a thought…

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Suddenly Gavin Newsom is acting all MAGA. He had decided that cities need to eliminate homeless people or they’ll be punished. The cities, I mean. The homeless people are already being punished. As it happens, although the problem shows up in individual cities and towns around the state, homelessness is a STATE problem.

There’s ONE way to fix the homelessness problem in California – and everywhere else. Stop Wall Street types from buying single family homes and require them to divest from those they already own. Period. EVERYTHING else is just a waste of time and money. It equates to shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Stopping Wall Street types from buying single family homes in California would take an act by the state legislature. It SHOULD be nation wide, but the GOP clowns in Congress are ONLY concerned with tax cuts for the greedy rich and don’t give two figs about Joe Six-pack. City by city won’t work. It MUST be state wide.

So, essentially, Gavin is blaming the victims, whether that be the homeless themselves or the cities they live in. Force the big investors out. The problem will go away in about the same ten years it took to balloon to this size. DON’T force the investors out and the problem will not ever go away. It can’t. It doesn’t happen often, in life, but it really IS that simple…

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Apparently, Russia is praising Washington’s new “more balanced” stance on Ukraine. That appears to be Russian for “telling the same lie we tell.” 47 has taken to saying Ukraine started the war. That’s some intractable stupidity, right there. And, listen, gaslight away, but the whole fucking world knows who started that war. When I hear someone say otherwise, I don’t stop and think, “Oh, time to reassess.” I think, “What a moron…”

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Listen, I know corporate media has a tendency to find a topic and hammer on it, but have you SEEN the number of aircraft incidents that are occurring around US airports, these days? On Tuesday, a Southwest Airlines jet had to pull up again after touching down because a private plane taxied onto the runway.

It was an error (or perhaps disregard) on the part of the pilot of the private plane. They call it a “near miss.” (George Carlin pointed out that it’s a “near hit.”) I don’t think one can righteously pin this on 47’s attack on the FAA. But the overall perception of flying as suddenly FAR more dangerous since his attack is getting worse by the day.

I’ll tell you this: I won’t be surprised to hear that people are actively avoiding flying, these days, if they can manage it. The airlines will start whining about the money they’re losing but the system MUST be perceived as safe if people are going to participate and with The First Felon running the show, nothing seems safe anymore…

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I think MAGA is being conditioned to believe that Musk’s actions are “audits.” He’s not slashing and burning agency after agency because it’s a good way to cut his own taxes. He’s “auditing” them, and that just HAPPENS to result in a scorched-Earth practice that coincidentally “frees up” money to pay for tax cuts for the super rich. A classic lose-win.

Dear MAGA: these are NOT “audits,” no matter what they tell you. An audit takes time. It’s actually a lot of work. I don’t care HOW good you are at the computer, one can NOT just look at a computer printout and make valid decisions about spending. It doesn’t work that way. It’s okay that you don’t understand that, but, maybe, not supporting positions one doesn’t understand is the better part of discretion…

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As every thinking American knows, DOGE is illegal and Musk’s actions are illegal. MAGA conditioning renders MAGA incapable of anything more than a “So what?” But people with better moral compasses have been trying to pin down 47 on whom, exactly, runs DOGE. It could be anybody, we’re told, but whoever it is, it certainly isn’t Musk. Uh-huh…

The problem is, there are proper, legal procedures to establish a new Federal agency AND to install a director of that agency and, obviously, the criminal maladministration has done neither. Ergo, the illegality of the whole thing. But Elon’s self-serving role seems to be a weak point in the whole scheme, legally, and interested parties are looking closely. So the White House recently named the actual director, a woman named Amy Gleason.

Musk, so the story goes, is just a senior advisor to The Felon. GLEASON is making all the decisions. She was in Mexico when the announcement was made, wholly unaware of the developments in the demented minds of GOP. Meanwhile, it’s MUSK who shows up for the press conferences, MUSK who issues the orders, MUSK who fires people, and MUSK working to protect the actions of his, er, Gleason’s illegal agency.

Hmm. Have you noticed? Sometimes, 47’s stories don’t make complete sense…

Thoughts On Day One…

by MyBaconPress

I’ll start here: Dear World, I will NEVER believe that we, the American people of the United States, elected this guy. I can’t prove it. You won’t see me in court making false claims. But too many weird things happened out in the open. We saw them. How many happened that we had no idea about? Trump has an idea, though. He said of Co-President Musk, “He journeyed to Pennsylvania where he spent, like, a month-and-a-half campaigning for me in Pennsylvania, and he’s a popular guy, and he was very effective. And he knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers. Those vote-counting computers. And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide. So it was pretty good, pretty good. So thank you to Elon.”

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Hey, remember when MAGA pretended to be all butt-hurt that Americans were calling them Nazis? Quick hint: if you don’t want people to call you Nazis, maybe don’t go around throwing Nazi salutes, yeah?

Musk throws Nazi salute

And, for clarity, he did it twice. It was no accident…

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The Felon took the oath but never laid his hand on the Bible. He made Melania stand there, holding the Bible, but he never once laid his hand on it. One can only imagine the flames that would have certainly ensued. (That’s just a joke, of course. I’d have to imagine the Anti-Christ can handle touching a Bible…)

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He ran on (among other lies) terrifying his base about the idea that other countries were “opening their prisons” and sending dangerous criminals. Day One? HE opened American prisons and released around 1,500 dangerous criminals. Every charge from a con is an admission…

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He withdrew from the World Health Organization. That’s some serious dumb, there. I mean, he has personal experience with letting his guard down regarding worldwide illnesses and infections. Remember Covid-19 and the millions his fecklessness killed last time? I don’t think a person is stupid for making mistakes. Anybody can make mistakes. But making the SAME mistake – with such dire consequences?

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Many on the left are worried about the damage he’s going to do, legislatively. They should be. But I’ve been thinking he’s going to unwind any and all efforts to battle climate change and on Day One, he pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement. The resulting natural disasters sure to follow will take up most of everyone’s time, just trying to survive. Europe says they’re going to “stay the course,” but I’m betting the US can pollute faster than the EU can clean it up…

On the other hand, his position focusing on fossil fuels, the energy of yesterday, means he’s putting the United States way, way, WAY behind the power curve when it comes to renewables. Other nations get to develop those technologies and the US will be left behind. That’s just pure stupid…

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In an early test for his bought-and-paid-for, crony-filled Supremely Kangaroo Court, he signed an order trying to end birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship is guaranteed in the Constitution. It was put there by the 14th Amendment. Executive Orders aren’t supposed to have the weight of overruling the Constitution. The ACLU has already filed a lawsuit, challenging the order. Will his court uphold the Executive Order or the Constitution? Isn’t it mind-boggling that Americans can’t just know the ‘roos will support the Constitution? We’ll have to wait and see what they do…

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I’d bet that the rest of the world is going to keep calling the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico. (Me, too, by the way.) I mean, is he really SO racist he can’t even SEE the word ‘Mexico’ without freaking out? Then again, running around with his Sharpie, changing the word ‘Mexico’ to ‘America’ on every map in the country should keep him busy enough to distract from the real damage. Quick, somebody find this guy a Sharpie…

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When Biden tried to get a law to help with the border, MAGA screamed that he could have just done it with an Executive Order. The Felon spent some of his day rescinding many of Biden’s Executive Orders – because one can. Easily. A law? Well, that’s a bit harder. It looks like Biden was right to want a law, after all…

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Steve Bannon (the bringer of the Base) swore he was going to get Musk (the bringer of the money) out by inauguration day. Co-President Musk was right near Trump. Bannon wasn’t even there. It looks like Bannon’s efforts to eliminate the billionaire boys club from Trump’s world have been… less than successful. You might want to pay attention, MAGA. This is your future…

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Sooner or later, I have to believe MAGA will start to bitch, pretending the left is being mean to them by pointing out all the various and sundry ways they’re getting burned by the lying Felon. Suck it up, snowflakes. We’re just trying to help. You refuse to see by yourselves, so we point it out. You’ll still refuse to see, of course. But we’re just trying to help…

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Drill, baby drill? Nope. I mean, he’ll open the lands. The oil companies will take the leases, too. Having the leases artificially fattens up their bottom line. But will they actually drill? Well, according the the oil companies, no. THEY say they’re happy with the current production and have no plans to increase it…

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One of those Executive Orders The Felon rescinded, by the way, lowered prescription drug prices. The Felon thinks people should have to pay whatever the pharmaceutical companies want to charge, based on their whims (and the desperation level of the patient.) Fortunately, MAGA probably doesn’t use prescription drugs so they, likely, won’t notice the sudden spike in drug prices…

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

Elon’s getting an office in the White House complex. This way, he can be close to his co-president and have immediate input with The Felon. MAGA can still attend rallies and buy his cheap crap – none of which is made in America. Hey, they can even write letters if they want to. They’re allowed to sing his praises and worship his every step.

But Elon gets the immediate access and the office down the hall…

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

So, Day One was a whirlwind of destructive activity. There were a lot more EOs signed. The Heritage Foundation was ready to go. It wasn’t even a full day. He released violent prisoners and took action aimed at harming Americans – not to mention the rest of the world. Lawsuits are already flying. Day One and the United States of America is thrown into chaos and uncertainty. It’s going to be a long, long ride – and there ARE no safety rails. Good luck…

What’s Left…

by MyBaconPress

The oligarchs aren’t just coming for the USA. I don’t know, is that comforting? Elon, anyway, is sticking his nose into European politics, as well as taking on the mantle of President-in-effect here in the US. In the UK and in Germany, most of the people resent his interference. I’d say that’s the same as here, in the US.

Most people in those countries are pretty sure Musk doesn’t understand their countries, certainly not well enough to be chiming in. A small percentage, 13% in each country, think it’s a great idea for Musk to stick his face in. Based on the US experience, I would expect that number to grow. Conservative media isn’t just manipulating American conservatives. It reaches around the world, spreading lies, promising perfection, delivering misery.

Now, here’s the problem. Currently, Musk is viewed as a know-nothing meddler, and not much more. Only 20% of those polled thought he would have much influence. But that number grows over time. Nobody thought much of Musk’s intervention in American politics, either – until he brought $250 million dollars to buy the “election” for The Felon. (I wonder how many “votes” $250 million dollars buys…)

The thing is, Europe has been down the fascist road before. They know a little something about it. They have laws they can implement to push back. Right now, they’re in “What does he know?” mode. They’re trying to just talk back, tell him to butt out and mind his own business. Based on the fall of the US, I’d say they had better start using those laws, sooner rather than later – or they’ll get to do it all over again…

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

As required by law, Jack Smith generated a report on his decision to prosecute Trump and then stand down due to a technicality. He broke it into two parts, Trump’s election interference with regard to his January 6th assault on the Capitol and the stolen documents case in Florida.

Obviously, Trump tried to stop both reports from being made public. I don’t know why. The people who care can’t do anything and the people who could do something don’t care. But he tried, anyway. He lost on the first part. That part got released. Guess what? Basically, it says Trump is a criminal who would certainly have lost the case and been found guilty as charged, had Musk not brought that beautiful $250 million dollars that bought so much “support.” (Okay, no, Smith’s report didn’t mention Musk’s buy-in, but the rest is correct.)

The second half of the report has been stalled because there are still defendants in the case, so it’s still pending. Releasing the report could affect the case. Dems tried making the case to Merrick Garland that he should just drop the case and release the report. We live in a corrupt country now. The Trump maladministration isn’t going to prosecute that case so it’s dead, anyway. THEN, it would be up to Trump’s corrupt AG to “decide” if the second half of the report – the one that, likely, ALSO shows just how guilty Trump is – should be released to the public.

I suspect the toady AG will NOT serve the public and instead, serve ‘the boss.’ (No, not Musk, Trump.) The Dem position is/was, drop the case that isn’t going to happen, anyway, and release the report so that at the very least, the country – and the world – can see exactly what they’re dealing with.

I’ll tell you this: Garland hasn’t been a very good AG. I’m guessing by the time he makes a decision, we’ll all be enjoying the summer sun and it will be FAR too late…

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Well, the announcement has been made. The inauguration will take place indoors. It will be too cold to be outdoors. If I had been planning on going, I wouldn’t now. I would only go because I wanted to see the guy, right? If he’s not even going to be there, why go? I’d get a better “seat” watching the thing on television.

The Felon is going from “small crowd” to likely “no crowd.” I presume he’s hoping for a ratings bonanza on television. Me? Oh, I would LOVE to watch, really, but I have… um… I have this, uh, paint! Yeah, that’s it! I’ve got to watch some paint dry so I’m sure I’ll miss it. Oh, bummer…

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Julie Su, Biden’s outgoing acting Labor secretary, is quoted as saying, “You can’t be pro-billionaire and pro-working class.” That is exactly right. Trump is going to have to choose, money or MAGA. He literally can not choose both. (He CAN lie to one and cow-tow to the other, though…)

I think the money is going to get the service and MAGA is going to get excuses…

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

According to the ‘Wall Street Journal,’ Trump is planning on launching his assault on the American economy on Tuesday in Chicago. In this case, ‘assault on the American economy’ is defined as sending in the ICE agents. 100 to 200 of them. Hey, as promised, I know. Word is, there’s no special focus on Chicago. That’s just where they’re starting. They’re planning operations all over the place. How diligent. MAGA must be walking around sporting little chubbies… for now.

I know, they’ve been told all of the undocumented people are lawbreakers and bad, bad, bad people. MAGA media put Laken Riley on a loop all day, every day (hyperbole alert) and every MAGA now knows people from south of the border want ONLY to rape and murder them.

The thing is? In the real world, the world undocumented people are about to forced out of? Those people are all out there, working jobs, spending money, and contributing to the economy! These were among the “essential workers” back when Covid-19 made it’s rounds. These are not the pampered and protected CEOs, these are the workers. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but, you know, the people who do the effing work. Yeah, rip ’em out. Move them along. That won’t possibly have any effect on the economy, right?

I’ll tell you this: if you have to consider the cost of anything, because you’re not a billionaire, you had better hold on to your wallet – tightly. The economy is about to crash and the oligarchs are coming for what’s left of your money…

The One Percent Effect…

by MyBaconPress

Because, of course he did. President non-elect Musk came to America in 1992. He became an American citizen in 2002. HE says his early stay in America represented a “legal grey area.” The Washington Post says he was almost certainly working without proper paperwork in 1995. He came to this country on a student visa but then dropped out of school, rendering the visa null and void. He stayed anyway. That is to say, Elon Musk was an illegal alien, here taking American jobs.

Let’s deport him, first…

Oh, hey, while we’re on the subject of Elon, he started backing away from his “f*ck yourself in your face” stance on H1B visas, saying the program is “broken.” Here’s an idea: let’s change the program. See, I believe that no matter WHAT they say about Americans not being up to the work, their actual attachment to the H1B visa program is that they can pay foreign workers less than American workers. So, let’s require employers making use of H1B visas to pay the people they hire from overseas a premium, say, 10% over market.

I’d bet that, suddenly, there would be plenty of qualified Americans and they would be FINE for the job. Just fine…

Quick update: Laura Loomer has bent the knee to Musk in the H1B visa fight. Loomer lost. She stood down and is pleading with Musk to please reinstate her “@premium features.” She said she had productive conversations with “@AdrianDittmann and others.” @AdrianDittmann is supposedly a “burner” account owned and operated by Musk, himself. (Musk posts something, see, then ‘Dittmann’ comes on a declares Musk’s post “genius.”) Trump has been known to promote himself using a fraudulent persona, too, one ‘John Barron.’ I guess it works.

So, when you see a new account named ‘Bark Macon’ declaring all of my writing, thoughts, and perceptions pure and unadulterated genius with never before seen insights into the most complex issues, don’t be suspicious, okay?

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$86 Billion dollars. No, really. 86. Billion, with a ‘B.’ Trump’s choice for ‘Border Czar,’ (remember when MAGA hated ‘unelected czars’?) Tom Homan, the POS primarily responsible for family separations during Trump’s first maladministration, says Trump’s mass deportation plan would cost a lot. $86 Billion dollars is just his opening number. Some estimates go a high as One Trillion dollars. (I suspect a touch of hyperbole, there, though.)

I don’t know where they’re going to get that kind of money but it seems as if they’re going to have to do a great deal of damage to a huge number of people so they can do a great deal MORE damage to even more people. What a goal. That has GOT to be a hard way to live. Can you imagine living your life trying to harm as many people as possible, and, worse, really loving your job? These “people” will be laughing about the pain and misery they inflict. I’m shaking my head.

But, really, where WILL they get that money? Do you think they’ll take it from the Pentagon? They should. If all of these undocumented people are such a threat to national security, shouldn’t “team defense” pay to do battle with them? But they won’t do that. Nobody is allowed to touch the bloated “defense” budget. That leaves you and me. The little guys. The Small Folk. The Social Safety Net.

Holy gods, it’s no wonder Trump wanted the debt ceiling eliminated. If he follows through on this, he’ll do so much damage to the national debt, hell, he’ll probably earn the top spot in the run-up-the-debt challenge. I think he already holds it, but I suppose it depends on how you count it. Barack gets the blame for the largest increase, but that was because his predecessor had run not one, but TWO wars on credit cards and had NOT included their costs in his budgets. Obama put the numbers where they should have been all along and, viola, ‘boosted the debt.’ But much of that debt was Bush 43’s from his ill-advised wars.

After Barack and his accounting correction comes Trump. MAGA likes to excuse Trump’s increase because much of it was associated with Covid-19. (They don’t make excuses for anyone else. Just Trump.) The fact is, Trump OWNS Covid-19. HE was the one who disbanded the pandemic response team and allowed the pandemic to grow to the proportions it did through his fecklessness. The fact that his failed management of the virus cost a lot of extra money is STILL on him. So in MY mind, he already owns the top spot because HIS increase was HIS fault.

We’ll see how things play out. He hasn’t even taken office yet. There’s no sense in fretting about what may or may not happen until he does it, or tries to. But that’s a LOT of money, $86 billion dollars. Hey, I wonder why the corporate media isn’t covering this much?

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Alright now, hear me out. Denmark offered to buy the US and give everyone health care and a better education system. I suspect it was a joke, based on President-elect Thirty-Four Felony’s claims to Greenland. Still, the US is yesterday’s news, now, right? I mean, look around. It’s pretty clear. The One Percent have destroyed a potentially pretty great thing. We had a chance. For a short, wonderful while, there, we did pretty well.

But then Greed stepped up, supported by Stupid, to do battle with Decency. Sadly, Greed won. Many of us tried, but in the end, with Stupid’s help, Greed won. What looms in our immediate future doesn’t seem like it’s going to be pleasant at all for the masses. Yes, I’ll wait to assess, but the LOOK of the very near future doesn’t seem as bright to me as it must seem to MAGA.

My first thought was just to try to secede. That hasn’t worked well in past attempts, but maybe we can keep Trump from finding out we’ve left. We can easily distract him, just by telling him we think he’s pretty. (Oh, yeah, like you’ve never lied before…) Someone ELSE might realize we’ve left, though, and come and try to bring us back so we, likely, would need some backup. So I was thinking…

Can we GIVE ourselves to Denmark? Probably not all of us, but California, for sure. Whichever blue states want to go, we’ll take with us, the New Denmark. I’d try to learn Danish, but they know English so we could get by. The red states? We don’t want them. (We can create an underground railroad, of sorts, to get blue people out of red states.)

See, I’d prefer to be a citizen of a country that wants to do well by all of it’s people, not just the rich ones. I’d prefer to be a citizen of a country that respects the individual and doesn’t see them as faceless drones intended to work until they drop, making someone ELSE rich. I’d prefer to have continued to have been a citizen of Better America, but that’s gone now. We’re left with…this. And, frankly? This sucks.

So maybe Denmark WAS kidding. But maybe, just maybe, we could work something out with them. I’ll tell you this: I sure would like to try…

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What, they have someone worse? The GOP is currently having a challenge finding the right person to act as Speaker of the House. Apparently, they got angry at MAGA Mike Johnson for DARING to keep the government open over the holidays. That’s true. I’m not making that up. Because he passed the Continuing Resolution that kept the government open, MAGAGOPCORP, Inc, is looking for someone better. And by “better,” of course, I mean far, far worse.

MAGA Mike’s actions prevented a LOT of suffering during the holidays and MAGA is furious with him for doing it. They WANT someone who can and will inflict pain on the most vulnerable people without batting an eye. Even a trace of decency is too much decency to these guys and doing the right thing – EVER – is an immediate deal-killer.

Pay attention to the names MAGA puts forth for this role. Win or lose, those are the people MAGA thinks are just selfish enough, just cruel enough, to be the “better” House Speaker. Harm without concern. Denmark is looking better and better to me…

Contemptible Fools…

by MyBaconPress

Okay, so here’s how it works. An employer is allowed to use an H1B visa if they can’t find workers to do a job they need, as described, here in the United States. So, employers ask for, say, a computer programmer. You must know every programming language ever written. You must have never made any mistakes. You must have decades of experience. AND, you must be willing to work for, say, one third of the pay your contemporaries make.

The company can “adjust” the expectations of the requirements, so long as they stick to the pay demand. Then, they insist they can’t find the people they need, as described (because of the pay difference). THEN, they get to bring in foreign workers at lower cost using H1B visas. It’s a pretty clever trick and President non-elect Musk has been using it to his financial advantage for a long, long time. To be clear, there ARE Americans who can do his jobs – just not at the salary he offers. He doesn’t want to pay Americans, so he uses foreigners.

Well, the heat is turning up on the President non-elect. He has made clear that he intends to continue to use these foreign workers because of the cost savings. Of course, he doesn’t mention the cost savings. HE says Americans just aren’t good enough. Hell, his billionaire buddy Vivek Ramaswamy got caught up in the debate and said it out loud, “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Musk is STILL fighting for his position. He has vowed “war” over getting to use his cheaper labor. He said, “I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.” But MAGA has an entire ethos built around how bad foreigners are. They seem really very upset that their new leader is going to deport some foreigners but allow those who benefit him, and they started saying so in social media. Interestingly, they started saying so on X, where Musk had his team cancelling and demoting accounts that criticized him. You know, because of his dedication to free speech.

He’s trying to, get this, correct MAGA – by calling them “contemptible fools”! Musk wrote on his X page that “hateful, unrepentant racists” should be removed from the Republican Party, “root and stem.” Uh-huh. So much for MAGA. You’re going to remove Donald Trump, root and stem, from the Republican Party? I’m laughing, Elon.

But it appears, even MAGA can see the hypocrisy this time. They can see that even as he calls THEM racists, he continues to support far-right groups around the world who embrace racism, like Germany’s AfD. They remember when Musk Defended Scott Adams of ‘Dilbert’ fame, after Adams declared black people a “hate group” by telling white people to “stay away from them.” And NOW they see that he wants to just ignore the “foreign” status of HIS workers because THOSE foreigners benefit Musk? (Hey, isn’t that the SAME attitude Trump is taking about HIS foreign wife?)

Meanwhile, Trump tried to avoid this whole thing by playing golf. But, he finally weighed in on the conflict, and MAGA might not be happy – OR, they’ll be changing their position overnight. Trump, it turns out, likes the H1B Visa program and admits he makes regular use of it at “his properties.” It seems Trump doesn’t MIND giving jobs to foreigners instead of Americans, so long as it saves him money.

I feel like MAGA got sold a bill of goods on this one. But give them a short time to change course and they’ll all be onboard with foreigners coming and taking American jobs. Hell, in a few days, MAGA might be screaming about how we need to open the border for cheaper labor!

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Many of us have been watching to see who’s actually in charge, going forward, Trump or Musk. As it stands right now, it’s looking like Musk, but the future is hard to see. Here’s a hint, though, of whom MUSK thinks is in charge. During his dust-up with MAGA about how he gets to keep using foreign labor, someone posted on X, “Never insult the monarch,” a comment Laura Loomer shared. Musk’s reply? “I’m constantly insulted on this platform!”

To me, that feels very much like Musk sees himself as “the monarch.” That doesn’t leave much room for Trump, does it?

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

This is funny. Trump promised he was going to bring down prices and he promised it would happen fast. He said he could end the war in Ukraine easily, before he even took office. He said his tariffs were going to fix the American economy. He said these things many times, in many places during the campaign. His supporters believed him, so they voted for him.

Oh, but NOW, he’s back-peddling. FAST. No, prices won’t come down, quickly or otherwise. “It’s hard,” he said. No, he can’t end the war in Ukraine easily. Maybe he won’t even DO tariffs, now. On the left, we see those as campaign lies. He said things that weren’t true and he almost certainly knew they weren’t true, but he said them anyway. His campaign though?

They’re saying he’s just “shifting away from the sales pitch rhetoric that is typical of campaigns.” Shifting away from the ‘sales pitch rhetoric?’ That’s some fancy language for ‘lying on the campaign trail.’

Revivals and Exceptions…

by MyBaconPress

Have you noticed? He’s staffing his administration with a LOT of the losers he endorsed in various campaigns. No, let me say that differently. He’s staffing his administration with a lot of the people he endorsed for various political offices who went on to lose their races. Think Herschel Walker. Yeah, the guy CAN carry a football. No, he doesn’t seem able to carry a thought, but if the US finds itself in a fourth and short situation in the Bahamas, we’ve got our guy.

It’s almost as if Trump has a pathological need to try to prove that the people he endorsed deserved to be endorsed and that Trump was right and the voters were wrong. But I remember some of the people he endorsed. I think Trump was wrong and the voters were right. Time will tell. But it’s not just failed people he’s re-introducing.

Trump seems to be recycling bad ideas from the first assault, too. He thinks the US should own and control Greenland. Apparently, in his mind, that also means Denmark should just hand Greenland over. They’ve already had to respond to his “thought” with a stern, “No! Greenland is not for sale, barter, or trade. Nor are we just going to hand it to you. Just, no!”

Maybe he can send Herschel over to discuss the matter…

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The thing I had not heretofore considered about President non-elect Musk? Most Americans have been waiting and watching for the clash of the outsized egos. The thinking has been that those two egos cannot exist in the same space for any length of time. Sooner or later, the thought goes, there will be a clash and Trump will show Musk the door. But then I remembered something: Putin.

In all the world, there’s one person on the planet Trump has never said one negative word about: Vladimir Putin. Trump has something nasty to say about everybody, no exceptions. Okay, ONE exception. Putin. No matter what Putin says or does, Trump just bends the knee. Putin seems to have something on Trump that, well, trumps Trump’s ego. Donald does as he’s told by Vlad. And now, maybe Musk, too.

It’s entirely possible Elon has the same kind of control. Musk put up a LOT of money to help get Trump “elected.” We can only guess at the other kinds of things he did, but whatever it was, it put Musk in the driver’s seat. That could explain why Musk gave an order and Trump jumped to deliver…

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On the one hand, we’ve got Puppet-elect Trump out there, threatening the American people with high prices on everything because of his tariffs. On the other, we’ve got President non-elect Musk, who has massive business interests in China, one of Trump’s favorite targets.

If Trump slaps his promised (and threatened) tariffs on China, Musk feels it. Musk’s Chinese Tesla plant can make nearly one million cars a year. That’s quite the investment. Do you think Musk is going to let Trump impose tariffs when it will have THAT kind of impact on Musk’s businesses?

Maybe he can carve out an exception for Musk’s cars – or Ivanka’s purses – or all the cheap-ass crap he has made in China, then sells to his gullible supporters here. By the time he finishes his carve-outs, the only thing the tariffs will hit – again – will be soy beans. The soy bean farmers should be used to that by now. He already put them on the government dole once with his policies – then bragged about getting the farmers the money they needed to get by…

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Oh, and speaking of Tesla, like everything Tesla puts out, the so-called “Cybertruck” is quite the little death machine. Well, okay, it’s not that little. It’s not a truck, either. For whatever reason, in a crash, Teslas have a tendency to burst into flames. Do you remember when Musk tried to show how the windows couldn’t be broken on a Cybertruck? The window DID crack – Musk seemed embarrassed – but it didn’t break. Ooh, aah! Oh, wait. What happens with you NEED the window to break because it’s the only way out of the burning Tesla?

Yeah, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I think those Cybertrucks are beyond ugly. Oh, also, you get to pay around $119,000 dollars to own one of those butt-ugly things! (I mean, how tiny IS it?) Oh, AND, that little bugger WILL kill you, given the chance. They just started rolling off the assembly line in November of 2023 and Tesla has already had TWO major recalls on the things. And, yes, they HAVE killed people who couldn’t get out of the burning vehicle after a crash. I’ve long thought of Teslas as rolling crematoriums.

The Ford Pinto killed far fewer people before being pulled from the market because of their tendency to burst into flame in an accident. I wonder how many more have to die in burning Teslas before we take appropriate action…

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

Okay, this is not so much a “correction,” per se, as an update. It was way, way back, oh, some four days ago now, I wrote about how when Elon ordered the Continuing Resolution (CR) killed, the GOP ALSO killed funding for research into cancer in children. The reason it’s not a correction, exactly, is that the statement is technically true – it’s just misleading.

See, the House passed a separate bill to continue the funding – way back in May of 2024. The leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, sat on the House’s bill for awhile. That is to say, Schumer could have brought up and passed the funding back in May, but he didn’t. He sat on it and put it into the CR, instead.

How do I know this is true and not just MAGAGOPCORP, Inc propaganda? The actions. Actions speak louder than words. Musk order the CR killed, the GOP obeyed. (That “killed” the cancer research funding.) The GOP tried to pin the impending government closure on the Dems but it was FAR too clear to anyone and everyone that this was all GOP, all the time. Hell, even MAGA could see it.

So, the GOP basically ended up passing the original bill at the last minute with a few minor things changed. One of those “minor” things was the removal of the funding for research into cancer in children. Oh, how the Dems crowed about that. “They killed cancer research for kids! They killed cancer research for kids!” The left, predictably, got upset. I wrote about it.

THEN, the very next day after the modified CR was passed, the Senate passed the funding for research into cancer in children bill the House had passed back in May of 2024. (Interestingly, that didn’t get NEARLY the coverage on the left the ‘killed the funding’ narrative had received.) But the Senate couldn’t have passed the bill if the House hadn’t already authorized it. That’s the way that works.

The ONE thing Schumer can point to in response to the charge that this was all a cheap political manipulation is that the CR bill included $190 million for the research, while the previously approved House bill only covered the original $120 million. When the Senate finally passed the House bill, it was for only $120 million, but if I were MAGA, I’d suspect (by which I mean ‘know without question’) that the attempted increase in funding was, itself, a cheap political manipulation.

Why, I wonder, would the One-Percent-serving, corporate media make such hay about the funding being “killed” when, in reality, the funding just got handled differently – which, itself, was only sparsely reported? Why, it’s almost as if the One-Percent-serving, corporate media WANTS to see the left and the right fighting and used – I’m sorry – abused their power to foment a little discord. We ALL need to be careful about what we read in our oh-so-corrupt society…

President-non-elect Musk And His Puppet…

by MyBaconPress

By Wednesday, MAGA Mike the Johnson had come to an agreement to keep the government open. It was just a continuing resolution (CR). MAGAGOPCORP, Inc can’t pass an actual budget. (That’s hard!) Still, it was a deal. The government would keep functioning. BUT…

President-non-elect Musk ordered his pet, puppet-elect Trump, to shut down the CR – and Trump did as he was ordered. Let me repeat that: Trump told the House to shut down the CR because Musk told him to. Okay, so, first, I’m feeling for MAGA, right now. You’all voted for Trump because you thought he would do a good job. Hell, I’d bet you thought HE was going to DO the job. But you GOT Musk. On the left, we’re disappointed we didn’t get our candidate. MAGA should be disappointed they didn’t get their candidate, either.

Obviously, team Trump is out already, trying to reinforce the idea that Trump isn’t taking orders from Muck, immediately after Trump obeyed an order from Musk. It’s a hard thing to sell right after so publicly doing the thing you claim you’re not doing. Musk orders Trump to kill the bill, Trump kills the bill, then Trump insists he doesn’t take orders from Musk.

Musk tried to maintain the cover as well. “Oh, shucks, I’m just pointing things out,” is a paraphrase of his words. “If Trump does as he’s told, well, that’s his choice.” Uh-huh. And if Trump doesn’t do as he’s told? Stay tuned. Eventually, Trump will forget he’s supposed to bend the knee to Musk and he’ll do something off-script.

Trump says he’s okay if the government shuts down. Trump says if the government is going to shut down, it should happen while Biden is still in office and not him. Trump thinks, get this, that Musk can order Trump to kill the CR – which he does, the Republicans in Congress dutifully obey, and Americans and even MAGA will think it has something to do with Biden? Americans aren’t that stupid. Is MAGA?

This threat is being reported even in MAGA media. Now, to be sure, MAGA media is claiming it’s because Democrats won’t agree to the sudden, newly re-written agreement. Democrats were good with the first agreement. THAT’S the one they’ll sign on to. But this shut down is clearly happening because Musk made a call, Trump followed instructions, and the GOP in Congress obeyed, regardless of the fallout. It doesn’t really matter who is sitting in the Oval Office today. Everybody knows, Musk called for it, Trump endorsed it, the GOP in Congress DID it. Sure, blame Biden…

Of course, shutting down the government won’t have any effect on the billionaires forcing the shutdown. They have plenty of money. They’ll be fine. Millionaires will be fine as well. SO…are you a millionaire or a billionaire? No? Well, your “savior” is turning his back on you right now, because Musk told him to. He’s not even President yet. (And I’m not even sure which one of them I mean.)

Cons and the corporate media are going to work overtime to try to convince the world that the shutdown is the Democrat’s fault. But it isn’t. The Democrats made a deal. They were on board. The government would have stayed open. The Republicans balked and walked away – because Musk ordered it.

Do you remember when the left started saying about the right, “Hey, that looks like fascism!” and the right pretended to get all upset and “offended?” “Oh,” they said, “we HAD to vote for Trump because you said we were acting like fascists.” Uh-huh. It turns out, the House of Representatives taking orders directly from a not-elected, not-appointed billionaire is pretty much the definition of fascism. Oh, and I don’t CARE if you’re “offended.”

A government shutdown just before Christmas? That probably won’t harm the economy at all, right? I mean, how could it hurt? WHO could it hurt? But do you know what? Musk doesn’t care. Trump doesn’t care. Neither one of them will even feel it. MAGA rank and file? The vast majority of actual Americans? They may not be able to say the same.

UPDATE: At the last minute, the GOP went with the first deal. Well, there were a couple of minor changes but it was essentially the first deal, the one the Dems had already agreed to. The government stays open for now, much to the chagrin of incoming ruler Musk and his puppet Trump. I’ll tell you the truth, this is one of the last stopgaps we can hope for in the incoming insanity. It’s easy for Musk and Trump to insist upon harmful damage to everyone so they can benefit themselves, but asking Congress to inflict that damage willy-nilly might well result in some push-back.

Trump had demanded the removal of the debt ceiling. Do you remember when cons were dead set against ever raising the debt ceiling? Now, Trump KNOWS he plans to blow up the national budget and he NEEDS that debt ceiling gone – thus the demand. GOP passed the CR without removing the debt ceiling. I might put that this way: the first confrontation of the incoming Musk/Trump maladministration resulted in a resounding failure for the incoming Musk/Trump maladministration.

My, that’s an awful lot of chaos Musk and Trump caused, especially when one considers the total nothing they got out of it. I’d say this particular stance did more harm than good. It exposed Trump as beholden to Musk. It exposed Trump AND Musk as completely indifferent – perhaps hostile – to the needs of the American people. It introduced instability to economic markets for no reason at all.

Merry Christmas, MAGA. It looks like you’re getting what you voted for…

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Okay, so economic rule number one is this: the Dow Jones Index (there’s no such thing as the Dow Jones Industrial Average anymore) is NOT the economy. I tend to think of it as a CEO happiness index. When CEOs are happy, like they have been under Biden, the Dow goes up, just like it has been under Biden – to record levels, in fact.

When CEO’s are worried about something or outright unhappy? Well, the Dow goes down. Have you noticed, yet, that each day we get closer to Trump taking over, the Dow is going down? TEN straight days, the Dow has ended down. On the 17th of this month, the Dow lost 1,123 points. That was just ONE DAY! Friday, finally, there was a little bargain hunting and the Dow recovered a small amount, preventing a record one-week falloff.

When the Dow is doing well, you see it in a little box in the corner of your television screen on every local news program. You don’t see it right now, though, do you? It magically disappears when the Dow is tumbling. CEO’s don’t seem happy with Trump’s plans and that concern is being reflected in the Dow. But, hey, drones over New Jersey, right?

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As it happens, the decline of America has coincided perfectly with the rise of right wing media. It might be comforting to know that right wing media has not ONLY infected America. It’s on the rise in Europe, too, and suddenly, the far right is having a heyday there, as well.
“Why would that be comforting?”
“Yeah, I guess that was a poor choice of words. How about ‘informative?'”
Whichever. Either way, it turns out propaganda works very well and a huge swath of gullible people are falling for it here AND abroad.

It ALSO turns out that President non-elect Musk is intruding in German politics as well as American politics. Musk is exposing himself – which makes him a hero to cons. No, I mean he’s exposing himself AS a far-right nutball con. Musk IS the meddlesome funding king of the right the cons always pretend George Soros is on the left.

So, Germany is angry at Musk, right now. Musk has tried to include himself in their functions by supporting far right political group, ‘Alternative für Deutschland’ (AfD). In Musk’s opinion, “only the AfD can save Germany.” In some ways, the fact that Germany is fighting off a far-right, fascist movement concerns me more than the same fight we’re fighting here, in America.

Germany has experience with this already. Their experience was NOT good. They effing KNOW better! But the propaganda works very well. As the saying goes, a lie will get halfway around the world before the truth can get it’s shoes on. (It’s commonly attributed to Mark Twain but may not actually be his…) It doesn’t matter who said it first, it’s correct. Stack lie upon lie upon lie, like the far-right media does, and one gets lost in the lies and it’s very hard to get out.

Musk interfering with Germany AND the United States at the same time? Inconceivable! Oh, here’s a probably completely unrelated thing that has nothing to do with anything. Tesla is currently recalling over 700,000 of their god-awful, death-trap ‘Cybertrucks.’ Their motto? ‘The Tesla Cybertruck: for when even the biggest pickup won’t compensate for your tiny, tiny penis.’ Perhaps the Tesla CEO should pay more attention to his company and spend less time chiming in on politics he clearly doesn’t understand. (The very worst thing that can happen to a rich person is when they start believing their own hype. They’re not geniuses. They’re thieves. Nothing more, nothing less…)