Epstein

The Benevolent Employer…

by MyBaconPress

I’m surprised people are surprised. Big Tech is pushing AI into everything. The developers have been pretty open about the notion that their fabulous new invention will put people out of work, possibly by the millions. People, as it happens, aren’t as impressed with that idea as the billionaire tech bosses. People are looking forward to getting jobs and living their lives. Every job AI replaces is one less for a person to do, and, obviously, that’s the whole point.

That’s why I’m surprised people are surprised. It’s as if people are just now discovering that “employers” don’t like employees and have wanted to eliminate them going back as far as time. If employers can get the benefits of the work without having to pay someone to do the work, they will. Previously, the best business model for “employers” was slavery, where the master got to keep all the surplus the slaves produced. He had to maintain them (kind of) but he didn’t have to pay him.

People seem to think employers employ people out of some altruistic impulse. That IS a story, of sorts, that gets sold in America. It’s called ‘The Benevolent Employer.’ It’s a fictional story about how people hire others for the good of the community and to do beneficial things in society. I don’t know why people cling to the story.

Everything we’ve seen in this world says otherwise. Capitalists hire because they have no choice. They don’t LIKE employees. Capitalists want profit, period. If they can increase profit with employees, that’s what they’ll do. If they can increase profit without employees, they’ll do that, too. And AI has them licking their chops they may have finally found a way to get revenues without suffering employees to do the work.

I mention it because college commencements are taking place around the country and people have noticed a phenomenon. Every time someone mentions AI, the crowd erupts into boos and cat-calls. The masters want us all to embrace AI as it destroys our futures. We’re not properly enthusiastic about it. In fact, it turns out we’re all a little angry about the implications. I think that, alone, is a good reason to pump the brakes a little. But I also think that ain’t gonna happen…

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Well, like everything else he touches, 47 seems to have put his curse on the World Cup. In fairness, it’s not ALL him. FIFA is a greedy and corrupt organization, trying to squeeze every nickle out of every penny regardless of what that might do to their product. Trump is a greedy and corrupt individual. Between the two allegedly criminal entities, people either can’t afford to go to the games or they don’t feel safe showing up.

The truth is, the masses WILL pay big bucks to attend a sporting event like this one. We see it at the Stupid Bowl every year. As long as people have credit cards, they’ll show up to these things. Well, unless the economy is struggling and everyone is worried about what happens tomorrow. THEN they tend to close their wallets. The point is, I think the high prices are having LESS impact on the World Cup.

But deploying ICEholes to the games? The thing we know is that the story about rounding up dangerous illegals is now and always has been bunk. They’re rounding up brown people, legal and otherwise. Would you spend all the money FIFA is asking just to show up and be detained by ICE? People have televisions. They can watch the matches in the comfort and safety of their homes without ever once being hassled by ICEholes. There was a lot of economic investment for this event and now it looks more and more like it’s going to be a bust…

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They’re calling it the ‘Great American State Fair.’ It was supposed to have a bunch of musical acts but as the acts realized they were being recruited to sing at a trump event, they cancelled. Whiny little bitch trump said he’d just give an epic speech, instead. He is, after all, more famous than Elvis – at least according to him and his overactive ego.

In an effort to suck up to the object of his affection, a Tennessee Representative named Tim Burchett has come up with a plan, an effort to “save” the ‘Great American State Fair.’ Burchett’s idea is to bring in unknowns, has-beens, and never-weres. If they sing patriotic songs, they should be in, whether anybody has ever heard of them or not. Also, there’s always Kid Rock, who I was a little surprised wasn’t on the original bill in the first place.

Burchett might be on to something. People already understand this is a political event. Team Evil tried to downplay that idea and it didn’t work, largely because most people aren’t as stupid as Team Evil thinks. But MAGA? Well, as we know, they can’t be fixed. So embrace the MAGA angle. Get Lee Greenwood to come in and croak out that song he has. Good thinking, Burchett. If they can’t get anybody good, get somebody MAGA…

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The LAST time 47 infested the White House, some contractor stole a bunch of records from the IRS and released them to the public. Donny’s tax returns were among them. So, Donny decided to sue the irresponsible government that allowed such a thing to happen, his own. That is, Donny sued himself over his own failure. He thinks that might be worth $10 billion dollars.

The whole thing came down to a settlement in which the trump family would be protected from prosecution for all time and a fund to pay off J6 rioters would be established, instead. Now the judge in the case, Judge Kathleen Williams, has decided to reopen the case. She said she wants to investigate some “grievous allegations,” suggesting that the hasty deal to resolve the case was “premised on deception.” She ordered Trump’s lawyers to tell her by June 12 whether the lawsuit should be formally reopened because “the court was the victim of a fraud.”

Thirty-five former federal judges urged Williams to reopen the case so she could examine the details of the settlement. They pointed out that the basic suit doesn’t represent an issue of controversy since The Drumpfster is at both ends of it. THAT, they conclude, constitutes a fraud on the court. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

Donny may slither out of legal danger – after all, Satan takes care of his own – but he may not get to sue himself and he might not even get his J6 slush fund. That would be a nice change, something decent…

The Obsessive, Old Man…

by MyBaconPress

Very old, Lying Donny spent two hours obsession-posting yesterday. Two hours. Twenty-five posts. That means he posted an average of every 4.8 minutes. He’s upset that seven of the nine musical acts his team had announced for a concert backed out as they realized who was involved. These musical acts don’t want to be associated with trump because trump sucks. So, he got a better idea. He’ll give a speech! Ooh, ah.

So, obviously, if people are staying away in droves because of how badly 47 sucks, he has to claim people love him. He described himself as, “(T)he Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else…” Like his speeches, none of that is true. Not even close.

He also wrote: “So, by copy of this TRUTH,” (A nonsense sentence, if ever there was one), “I am ordering my Representatives to look at the feasibility of doing an AMERICA IS BACK Rally on Wednesday, Washington, DC, same time, same location. Only Great Patriots invited — It will be a Wild and Beautiful Celebration of America!”

Oh, crap. The LAST time he promised “Will be wild!” an army of his deluded, devotion-blinded supporters attacked the United States Capitol, injuring and killing police officers, defacing the building, and threatening to capture and hang the Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence, in what they later called their “day of love.”

So now I’m left to wonder if our National Embarrassment is holding a rally or a riot. With this guy, it could go either way…

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Here’s one from the weird file. A coach/teacher named Paige Adams (35) got “caught” having sex with an 18-year-old, a legal adult. The case is being presented as “sex with a student” and, apparently, the 18-year-old IS a “student.” But he’s not HER student. He’s not on any of her teams. Hell, he doesn’t even go to the school she worked at, Cold Springs High School.

Conservative media is trying to whip up a frenzy about it by focusing on the fact that she’s married and he’s a “student.” For her part, she has pointed out (in court) that he is a legal adult and he doesn’t go to the school she worked at and never did. She had no educational association or authority over him, so it was, basically, just two people who got caught up in an affair.

Her husband is divorcing her. I can see that. But what’s the crime? Why is she facing 30 charges? Conservative media is focused on the salacious. These two people in a consensual, legal, sexual relationship sent sexually related texts to each other. There’s a lot of focus on that. It’s a great excuse to publish some of that sex talk while pretending to be outraged by it. But I’m of the opinion that it’s common for two people in consensual, legal, sexual relationships to be sexual with each other. I’m not sure why Adams in in legal trouble…

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So, bear this in mind. Do NOT try to use the mail to return your mail-in ballot. Conservative toady and previous Postmaster General Louis DeJoy sabotaged the mail system to slow things down. Now the Robert’s Supremely Corrupt, Kangaroo Court is considering a ruling that says states can’t count the ballot if it’s not received by election day.

Currently, if the ballot is postmarked by election day, it gets counted. But cons know they can’t win a fair and honest election so they do everything they can to make sure it’s as difficult as possible to vote. The goal is to dilute the vote by making it hard to do. Yes, it does affect some Reds, too, but more Dems use the mail-in process and cons know it, so they attack the mail-in process. In typical conservative fashion, they attack the process by lying about it. Hand carry your ballot to a drop point…

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On the left, many are on a death watch for the lost old dotard. As far as I know, nobody is planning on doing anything to bring that about, and nothing I write here should be construed to the contrary. It’s just that by looking at what’s left of the man, we think he’s getting closer to being called home every day – and it’s a day we look forward to. And yes, I AM aware he recently had a physical and was reported to be the healthiest man in the history of healthy men. I’ve got to confess: I suspect this White House lies from time to time.

But WHEN the topic of his inglorious passing comes up, one of the first responses is, “But then we’d have JD Vance.” Uh-huh. That’s true. Do you know who else thinks Vance would be a terrible president? President Pedo, himself, if reports are to be believed. Now, to be fair, when the White House was asked about it, they issued exactly the propaganda one might expect. “Oh, no,” they claim, “The President loves Vice President Vance.”

But this all came up because of leaks from the White House that suggest otherwise. Donny doesn’t like JD any more than anybody else. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Vance is the threat 47 is. He doesn’t have the “rizz.” More, he doesn’t have the support. He’s a weirdo, and everyone knows it…

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Just for fun, there’s a wing of conservatives out there SO obsessed with trans-sexuality, they’re starting to see transsexuals everywhere. In fact, they’re looking for transsexuals. They really want to find as many as possible. They want transsexuals badly. If they decide someone is – MUST BE – transsexual, but can’t find any evidence, they make the evidence up. It’s much easier to be “right” that way. It has gotten SO out of control on the right, there’s now a name for searching out the trans – ‘Transvestigation.’

Clever, right? They’re going to do an “investigation,” see, on who is transsexual, right? So? ‘Transvestigation.’ I mean, obvs. They very cleverly sussed out Michele Obama after a photo of her in a dress was altered to include a “bulge” where a “bulge” would indicate masculinity. Total proof, since nobody has ever heard of an altered photo before. Clever sods, they are.

And now they’ve found their latest and greatest. TWO of them, in fact. That’s how these things work. Once you know HOW to identify them, anybody you want can suddenly be transsexual. For example, quality “thinker” Candace Owens found some elementary school photos of Erika Kirk with a short haircut and wearing what looks like boy’s clothes. That’s all the evidence needed, let me tell you. Now, “he” is Erik Kirk to the transvestigators. Got him!

The other transsexual hiding in plain sight? Well, that would be Sydney Sweeney, obviously. I mean, just LOOK at those girls – I mean, that girl. She’s clearly a dude. You can tell, according to the transvestigators, because her “neck is so much wider than her head.” (I’ve done a very thorough, comprehensive review. It isn’t.) She did a short stint as a darling of the right but now that she has clearly been identified as born male, she’s dead to them.

It’s a good thing these transvestigators sussed out these to men/women now, before meeting them in person. Now these shut-in incels know better than to ever have sex with Erika Kirk or Sydney Sweeney having sussed them out as born male. Assuming, that is, they ever, EVER found themselves with the opportunity to sleep with Erika Kirk or Sydney Sweeney, that is…

Corruption Du Jour…

by MyBaconPress

So, do you suppose E. Jean Carroll will be eligible to receive a payment from 47’s thieving “victim of government weaponization” fund? After all, Lying Donny’s DO”J” is opening a criminal investigation of her for the crime of…um…well, they’re hoping to find something.

I mean, they have a story, of course. They always have a story. Often, the story is stupid, but they have one. In this case, they’re checking to see if she committed perjury even though the courts have already ruled that she did not. (I suspect that will be her defense when 47’s corrupt DO”J” finds that “investigations are warranted.”) She said something in a deposition she apparently believed was true that later turned out to be different than her understanding. At worst, she misspoke.

When you hear about this in the media, they often refer to E. Jean Carroll as having “accused Trump of sexual assault.” In fact, Carroll is the adjudicated victim of his sexual assault, right? I mean, the case went to trial and was heard by a jury, who agreed he had sexually assaulted her. He has a judgement against him right now. He hasn’t paid it, yet, but the verdict came in and the punishment has been handed down.

E. Jean Carroll shouldn’t be described as a “woman who accused trump.” She should be described as “a victim of trump’s sexual assault.” It’s more accurate…

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Hey, speaking of that slush fund I suspect trump plans to rob? The one he’s trying to set up as a compensation fund for individuals who were unfairly targeted by the federal government? Couldn’t he just STOP targeting individuals for unfair treatment by the federal government? THAT would solve the problem, too.

NONE of the people HE thinks of as targets (primarily himself, of course) were targets of unfair treatment. (He’s just a liar.) But HE keeps pursuing illegal investigation after illegal investigation against anybody he perceives to be an enemy. (He’s a thin-skinned liar.) He loses them all. They’re just for harassment purposes. The targets keep showing the “investigations” to be vindictive and selective prosecutions, not based in facts, and judges keep throwing out the charges. Donny’s a loser.

If he’s going to pay out for unfair targeting, so far, he owes (as a partial list): E. Jean Carroll (of course), James Comey, Jerome Powell, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Sen. Mark Kelly, Rep. Jason Crow, Rep. Maggie Goodlander, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, former Democratic Congressional Candidate Kat Abughazaleh, John Bolton, Adam Schiff, former CIA director John O. Brennan, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, Sen. Alex Padilla, SEIU California President David Huerta, Hillary Clinton (obviously), New York Attorney General Letitia James, Rep. LaMonica McIver, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS Chris Krebs, Former Chief of Staff of DHS Miles Taylor, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Then again, their compensation, though deserved, shouldn’t come from a taxpayer supported fund. THEIR compensation should come directly from Lying Donny’s pocket…

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Well, the so-called “trump accounts” are launching. Those are accounts seeded with $1,000 for your new baby. Both Scott Bessent and Ted Cruz have described the accounts as a backdoor to “privatizing” Social Security, which, long-term means ending Social Security. Are YOU willing to sell YOUR child’s future for $1,000? I think I’d pass on the 530A, tax-preferred investment accounts…

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Team Evil tried to get a bunch of musical acts to come and perform for his 250th birthday celebration. No, not the dotard’s 250th, though it seems like it, in his case. The country. The thing is, Team Evil had to deceive their target performers. They were less than honest about what the show was and who might be supported. As performers found out, they’ve dropped out.

One act that was listed as booked and performing said they were surprised to see their name on the handbill. Truth be told, I was surprised to see that band name, too. I mean, Milli Vanilli? The Milli Vanilli I knew included Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus. They won a Best New Artist Grammy. Then, after getting caught lip-syncing during a performance, it turned out they weren’t singing on their new album, either. They had to give their Grammy back.

The new iteration of Milli Vanilli is a pair of sisters, Jodie and Linda Rocco, along with some of the original lineup. I’m not sure I’d go with that band name, if I were them, Milli Vanilli. The NAME is scandal-plagued. It’s hard enough getting somewhere in that business but taking a name already associated with “We’re faking it” can’t help at all…

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This is one of those moments I look forward to. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., has ordered Lying Donny to take his name OFF of the Kennedy Center within two weeks. More, he has to stop with his gaudy “renovations.” It turns out, only Congress can change the name of the national institution, having given it a name already.

President Pedo, always gracious in defeat, cried, “Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND.” I challenge his baseless assertion that he “brings institutions back, physically, financially, and artistically.” That boy is a destroyer of institutions.

Besides, I’ve seen his “decorating” work. I don’t like it. More than anything, the Drumpfster lacks class. His changes always seem gaudy, to me. Tacky. I preferred quiet dignity to his boorish ostentation…

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Pam Bondi shows up to a “deposition.” She refuses the oath, she refuses to answer any questions about Lying Donny, and she throws Todd Blanche under the bus by blaming him for all of her failures. Then she leaves. If I showed up at a deposition and refused the oath, I suspect I would be held in contempt until I complied. Why isn’t Blondi? I think she should be sitting in jail until she decides to cooperate…

Deal Or No Deal?

by MyBaconPress

I wonder what he means. I wonder if HE knows what he means. He wrote that a deal he gets with Iran will be the “exact opposite of the JCPOA disaster negotiated by the failed Obama Administration.” The JCPOA is the ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’ Obama negotiated with Iran. Donny didn’t like it because Barack did it and Donny is the most petty of petty individuals. Then 47 goes on to claim the JCPOA was a direct path to nuclear weapons for Iran, but that’s because he lies about everything.

In fact, it was a solid arrangement that kept Iran from developing nuclear weapons for a long time to come. It was probably easier to negotiate than one might imagine, since Iran issued a fatwa against “building, maintaining, or using” nuclear weapons as contrary to Islam in 2004. The negotiations sounded like, “Will you promise not to do that which you have already said you don’t want to do?”
“Um, sure.”
“Okay, then, here’s some of your money back.”

Of course, now Lying Donny has killed the people behind that fatwa so he may have opened the very doors he says he wants closed. He does that a lot, the exact opposite of what he says he wants. Mr. ‘Make America Great Again’ has brought this once-great nation to it’s knees and to the brink of insolvency, for example. Nothing great about that. Really, when you get right down to it, he sucks at this ‘President’ stuff.

There are people out there suggesting he’s getting ready to surrender in Iran. I’m not sure he’s smart enough, even for that. Every day that passes, energy prices rise, costs for everything go up, in fact. It’s becoming burdensome and will move on to unsustainable very quickly. His whole oil war is a great reminder of one of the best reasons to move away from fossil fuels in the first place: nobody fights over sunshine. That stuff is everywhere.

For some reason, the price of a barrel of oil has dropped below $100. The story given is ‘hope of peace with Iran.’ Are these Wall Street types really so stupid as to keep being at the end of his yo-yo string? How many times can he claim peace is just around the corner and then start bombing things – or threatening to – before Wall Street realizes it’s more market manipulation than successful peace strategy?

In the end, that part doesn’t matter to me. The price at the pump is steady. It doesn’t fluctuate up and down like the barrel price is doing so their costs go up and down but their revenues are as strong as ever. Record highs, in fact. MY wallet is hurting, though, as, I suspect, is yours…

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Yeah, that will probably work. The Team Evil DOJ website is quietly removing references to the J6 attack. Do you think that will work to get us all to forget it? I suspect the removal has something to do with the fact that he’s planning to give them money for their treachery. It sort of increases the need to minimize the “treachery” part. One can almost hear the wheels turning in their twisted little brains – if we remove the reference, nobody will know what happened.

Do you know what? We all know what happened. Records exist. More, the internet gets backed up on a regular basis. A lot of people don’t know that, but it’s true. It’s possible, if you know how, to go back and read things in the archived web that were once posted and have since been removed – like all of the information they’re hiding…

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Is it a conspiracy theory, or an actual conspiracy? The term ‘Conspiracy Theory’ is, essentially, belittling an idea. It’s intended to make the person suggesting a conspiracy sound paranoid, perhaps slightly around the bend. If I suggest Donald Trump and his friends are making money by manipulating the stock market with comments and tweets, one can dismiss that as a ‘conspiracy theory’ easily enough.

But look at a definition of ‘Conspiracy.’ “An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.” If Donald Trump and his friends are making money by manipulating the stock market with comments and tweets, that’s likely an actual conspiracy, not just a conspiracy theory.

Just because I have a theory that Trump and Co is a criminal enterprise robbing the entire nation blind as fast as they can doesn’t mean I’m riddled with “conspiracy theories.” Really, it just means I’m paying attention…

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So how long do you think it will take Kevin Warsh to start dropping interest rates? Of course, he promised he was going to be independent and do only what was called for according to economic conditions. But my guess is the only “economic condition” he plans to respond to is whatever Lying Donny tells him. Worse, I suspect Warsh will start dropping the rates at oversized clips.

Commonly, the rates move in eighth or quarter points. That leaves room for response in case of error. I suspect that when Warsh starts fulfilling the Drumpfster’s dreams, rates will drop a point at at time, maybe more.

I’m not the only one thinking we’re facing a world-wide financial crisis and I’m not alone in thinking the US is particularly ill-prepared for such an event. We’re currently led by a bunch of clowns pretending to know what they’re doing. Clearly, the nation can coast for awhile but sooner or later, an actual and honest crisis is going to hit – or be caused directly by the Dumbass, himself.

The Keystone Kops might be fun to watch but when you have an actual emergency, if the Keystone department is all that shows up? You’ve got a real problem…

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Hey, is now a good time to remind you that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were best friends and likely co-conspirators in a sex trafficking scheme for years and years? He’s trying very hard to distract people because he wants people to forget that. People are not forgetting that. Don’t you forget that…

Tactic Or Trumpery?

by MyBaconPress

Look, I don’t know what’s real when it comes to these “shooters.” On the one hand, their “attacks” are about the most useless, impotent charges they might possibly plan. I mean, ‘just run through the checkpoint?’ What the hell is THAT? Killing a President is hard. It’s supposed to be hard. The days of the unprotected booth at the theater are long gone, largely because of that ONE unprotected booth at that ONE theater.

People work really hard to protect Presidents – even this one. (Sidebar: could you imagine laying down your life to protect that fat, old, lying, cheating, grifting weasel?) If you want to try to kill the President, make a plan. Take your time. Wait for your moment. Grabbing your gun and charging security checkpoints isn’t going to work. They have guns, too. They’ll use them. So far, in direct charges, security is 1 for 2 when it comes to hitting (and killing) the “attackers.”

It’s possible these are what might be called “leading edge” would-be assassins. These are people attacking blindly, in fury. They represent the fringe of humanity. These are not deep thinkers. These are not careful, meticulous planners. That’s WHY ‘grab-your-gun-and-charge’ feels like a possible answer to them. As the attempts continue – and I believe they will – they’ll become more sophisticated.

But every time one of his supporters (or some other patriotic American) decides it’s time for him to die, it’s an opportunity for the White House to tout the ballroom. That gives it a “staged” feel. The “attempts” are ridiculous. They have zero chance of affecting Our National Embarrassment. Oh, but we’ve got to have a ballroom. For clarity, I’m not saying they ARE staged. It’s just that the always-the-same immediate response leaves the impression that the attempts are an effort to help get the ballroom more than any real effort to get the Dumbass…

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So, have you heard that it took an extra long time to get a handle on battling the Ebola outbreak because the first samples sent to the lab traveled at the wrong temperature? That used to be a task USAID handled because they knew what they were doing. 47 doesn’t understand things so he didn’t know what USAID did in the world. When Evil Elon decided it was only wasting money, Lying Donny shuttered the thing. I guess some people (MAGA) think Elon did a good thing. I think Elon is killing a lot of people…

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The US has indicted Raul Castro for an official act he took something like thirty years ago. He shot down a couple of airplanes the government considered a threat. He did it without warning and without evidence that the planes were, in fact, a threat. Now Castro stands indicted.

So what does that say about the boats Lying Donny keeps blowing up in the Caribbean? You know the ones. They’re the boats he blows up without warning and without any evidence that the boats, are, in fact, a threat. I think Lying Donny has now, accidentally, made the case against himself for his boat murders…

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He “does not know what he is doing. You have this damaged individual that you have now thrust into a position of power with no skills, no background, nothing but this damaged psyche who you have now given all the power in the world to, and ask them to behave properly.”

We all know who that references, don’t we? I mean, isn’t it obvious from the description, the words? You didn’t have to stop and think about it. You didn’t even hesitate. You knew it as you were reading it. You KNOW who the “he” is in that description. Hell, even MAGA knows. They won’t admit it, of course. Stubborn is stubborn, but they know. We ALL know who that’s about.

Only, it isn’t. That’s a quote from an historian who was talking about the third Roman Emperor, Caligula. It’s hard to describe some of the worst characters in history without accidentally describing 47 as well. That’s quite the crowd he matches up with…

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Okay, so this time they’ve trotted out Little Marco Rubio to claim Lying Donny’s stupid war of choice – Lying Donny being the only President stupid enough to fall for Netanyahu’s pitch – is nearly over. I guess that means we should expect a late nite post from the Dumbass himself, threatening to bomb Iran some more.

How does one strike a bargain with a person or group when that person or group is doing everything in their power to convince you that they have no intention of honoring the bargain? That’s Iran’s dilemma, today. They’re trying to negotiate peace with a crowd that’s not dealing with reality. How can one trust anything they say?

Now there will be hype and tons of speculation about what might be in the promised, pending “agreement.” The Strait of Hormuz will re-open and they’ll have talks about limiting Iran’s nuclear capability. More importantly, the prediction markets will pay out some big money to some “anonymous bettors” because private profits are always an awesome look during very public wars.

The only question in my mind, will 47 get as good a deal as Barack had negotiated oh, so long ago. You remember, the one the Drumpfster tore up because he was so stupidly certain he could negotiate a better deal – which he clearly can not. So far, he can’t even get AS GOOD of a deal as Barack. That’s because Barack was a much, much better president and a much, much smarter man…

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I hope it works. In southern California, there’s a huge tank of highly toxic chemicals threatening to explode or at least leak. This is highly toxic stuff. If/when it gets out, it looks like it will directly affect some 40,000 people, long-term. Officials have evacuated as many as 78,000 people. A large swath of Orange County looks like a ghost town.

Somehow, a chemical reaction started in the tank. A bunch of liquid monomers – essentially a bunch of single molecules – are reacting with each other and becoming polymers, forming a solid. Oh, AND, generating heat. The current hope is that cooling the tank while the chemical reaction plays out can keep it from exploding. No one knows if that will work, though.

Right now, officials have deluge guns flooding the tank 24/7 in an effort to keep it cool – only to discover the temperature is still going up. But it’s going up slower, so they keep spraying. Maybe, just maybe, they can contain the temperature increase until the reaction stops. Then again, maybe not, at which time… BOOM!

It seems weird, to me, that a tank that dangerous could be stored where so many people live, but that seems to be the price of a modern society…

A Moment Of Clarity…

by MyBaconPress

Listen, I don’t want to be all depressing, here, but I’m going to be. Sorry. Sometimes, I get these moments of clarity. Here’s one now. We’re all on pins and needles, waiting around for the next election. We all know the stakes. Democrats take back Congress and maybe save the Constitutional Republic, or Democrats do NOT take back Congress and our once-great nation devolves fully into shithole dictatorship, run by the One Percent, FOR the One Percent. But let’s wind back to that ‘We all know the stakes’ bit.

This coup has been in the works for fifty years. The planning started in the 70’s. The execution began with Ronald Reagan, forty-six years ago. Loyal toadies have been inserted into every aspect of our government. Judges loyal to conservatism and not necessarily the law, have been installed. The One Percent didn’t much bother with lower courts. They infested appellate courts with toadies to overturn otherwise proper decisions of the lower courts. The “check” of the courts is severely weakened.

Enough loyalist Congress critters have been put in place to paralyze Congress and if something DOES get close to happening, the “leader” of that institution just closes the doors and runs away. The only things that actually get through seem to be inexorable (like the trump/Epstein files), or often by surprise, but if MAGA Mike, the Johnson can stop things from happening, he will. The “check” of Congress doesn’t even exist anymore.

Election oversight officials – as many as possible, anyway, have been chosen based on their loyalty to conservatism, not the Constitution. These are people like that anti-American Tina Peters, who allowed a team in to tamper with voting machines after the 2020 election, hoping for a different outcome – or hoping to create one.

Our last line of defense? The Fourth Estate, the public press, the “news.” News outlets have been purchased and corrupted to broadcast propaganda, not information. The One Percent have spent billions buying, controlling, and corrupting the free flow of information here in this once great nation. In short, it has been a very careful, very comprehensive plan to corrupt every aspect of American governance. The GOAL was to leave us no place to turn for rescue.

As I’ve mentioned (twice, now), we all know the stakes. THEY know the stakes, too. Do you really, honestly think they’ve gone to all of that trouble, all of that expense, over all of that time, just to watch the whole thing crash and burn in a single election? Or should I say, “election?” Would they have done that without some kind of fail-safe?

We all know, ONE general election remains to try and save ourselves. THEY know it, too. They are but ONE general election away from consolidating their control and completing the coup. After all of that time, money, planning, troubleshooting, and effort, does it make sense that we’re looking at anything LIKE a free and fair election?

Once again, I remind you, JFK said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” I think we’d better keep our powder dry…

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I saw a snarky opinion piece from the ‘USA Today,’ celebrating the end of ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.’ He repeated all the old lies about the show’s cancellation. Well, they may not be completely false. They might just be misleading or misdirections. The main point of the column was that Stephen had only himself to blame because he made jokes about the Inglorious Moron and some people (mostly, the Inglorious Moron himself) didn’t think those jokes were funny.

This is really simple. Lying Donny has thinner skin than an onion. He didn’t like jokes Colbert made on his network show. He kept watching, though. Finally, he got his chance. The parent company that owned Colbert’s show wanted to merge with another company and they needed regulatory approval from Lying Donny’s corrupt government for the merger to take place. There was a condition: Colbert had to go.

See their BS (CBS) said the show cost too much. ‘The Late Show’ was the number one rated, left-leaning late-night talk show. The opinion piece pointed out that ‘Gutfeld!’ on Fox NotNews averages 3.3 million viewers. THAT, he says, proves that moronic conservative opinion is more popular than the liberal position. Classic twisted “thinking” from the right.

If you’re going to compare popularity of positions, you have to add up the lefties. See, there are four major broadcast networks. Three of them broadcast liberal hosts. One of them broadcasts Gutfeld. That means the liberal viewership is divided between three networks while the cons are all focused on one. So, yeah, ‘Gutfeld!’ gets 3.3 million viewers. The hosts from the left? 6.56 million viewers. Well, RATS! Facts usually thwart MAGA.

As it happens, television in general is declining in viewership. Really, they don’t seem to be even trying to produce anything watchable these days. And now the move to make is to cancel your number one show and replace it with pablum? THAT ought to help viewership, right? At this point, in my not-so-humble opinion, NONE of the networks are worth watching anymore. Oh, sure, I’ll still tune in football games on See their BS but other than that, I’ll be moving away from Paramount products in general. They’re just putting out crap anyway…

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Here’s a thing to remember: you know the slush fund that dumbass is trying to create so he can steal even more of your money and give a bunch of it to J6 traitors? That results from a lawsuit about Lying Donny’s taxes being released, just like he promised he would but never did because he lies about everything. The theft fund is supposed to be a “settlement.” So, who infested the Oval Office when Donny’s taxes were reveled? Why, that would be Donny, himself.

It seems 47 was suing himself over his own incompetence and now wants a settlement of your tax dollars to he can give your money to people who assaulted police and attacked the Capitol. Go ahead, try to tell me we don’t live in Bizzaro America…

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$174,000 dollars each year. That’s how much we pay – entry level – Congress critters. And what do they do for that money? Not much, it seems. Every time they get faced with a vote the GOP might lose, MAGA Mike the Johnson shuts down the House. I’d LOVE to be able to shut down the office and take a paid, month-long vacation every time my boss gave me an unpleasant task, wouldn’t you?

Like the GOP-controlled Congress, I would, likely, spend a LOT of time doing what I want to do and not what I’m paid to do. THIS time, the Johnson shut down the House because he feared there was enough support to pass a war powers resolution requiring our National Embarrassment to end his stupid, costly, war of choice in Iran. But the GOP knows they can’t have Congress functioning well or they might interfere with this amazing money grab that’s going so well for Lying Donny and his richest associates.

This is the eighth time the House has avoided doing their jobs on this subject. They’re taking their salaries, I’ve noticed. I was taught that if you’re mucking about on company time, you’re essentially stealing from the boss. Well the House is definitely mucking about on company time, and we, the people are the boss, so they’re stealing from us. (Again!) Let’s fire them and get some people in who will do the job…

Happy News To Start…

by MyBaconPress

I couldn’t let this special, special moment pass without comment. I’m so happy. Have you ever heard that commercial on the radio about donating your car to a charity called Kars4Kids? They have the most annoying jingle in the history of jingles. Once you hear it,you’re stuck with it, like herpes. The ad is SO annoying, I decided long ago that if I ever DID give a car to charity, it would be ANY charity other than Kars4Kids.

So, right here, I’m going to add an apology. I’m aware, now that I’ve mentioned it, you’re going to have that nightmare jingle playing in your head for a while as an earworm. Sorry about that. If it helps any, I’m suffering writing about it, too, but, in this case, it’s worth it.

The special moment? We may never have to hear that ad again – once the earworm fades, that is. A California judge ruled that the hated Kars4Kids jingle and ad campaign was misleading. One hears the ad and infers the charity helps disadvantaged children, right? It’s right in the name: Kars4Kids. Kids. And it does help kids – just not the kinds of kids you expect and not in the way you expect.

Instead, Kars4Kids supports a group called Oorah, a Jewish organization that helps fund young adult trips to Israel. So, kids, yes, but adults, too. Hell, send the whole family! It’s on us. (Someone gave us a car!) The judge ruled that the obnoxious ad is misleading. It fails to disclose the religious affiliation of Oorah and it knowingly leaves listeners with a false impression of the mission of the group.

The judge ordered the group to pull ALL of it’s advertising in California for 30 days and when they DO come back, they have to be more honest about who they are and what they’re doing. That means a definite reprieve from that effing jingle for at least 30 days and likely, forever. Frankly, if there IS a God, I would rather he protect the world from the evil of 47, but if the best the “All-Powerful” can do is relief from false advertising, well, I guess I’ll take it…

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The top story in the Guardian, this morning, reads, “‘We’re not ready’: US lags on pandemic preparedness after Covid, experts say.” Duh, you think? Wasn’t that Sleepy Donny’s goal? He tore everything apart around Covid. You don’t think he put anything back, do you? That would take foresight. Sleepy Donny is very much an in-the-moment person – when he’s awake, of course.

Biden, sure. Biden has foresight and his administration announced a policy to restore preparations against pandemics but Donny wants that money for himself. He doesn’t want anybody else to have it. He shutters important agencies, allowing things like pandemics, then brags about saving money. Honestly, given a choice, I’d rather he try to save those lives first but in the US, money is God.

This is yet another example of the US quickly becoming a submerging nation. That’s my own term and no, I don’t mean, “We’re sinking below water.” At least not literally. Countries breaking free of Third World status are commonly referred to as “Emerging Nations.” A First World nation feverishly working to achieve Third World status – see the US under the Drumpfster – is clearly submerging…

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Beetlejuice fan (ahem!) Lauren Boebert seems to be on the outs with 47, these days. She’s not a new face in the defection file, but her situation is coming clearer. She was once loyally MAGA. She doesn’t seem to hold that status anymore. MAGA seems to be fracturing and Boebert, along with Marjorie Taylor Greene, is helping to lead people out.

MAGA started off to be an America first movement. The message 47 used to draw people in was that America was suffering from mismanagement and too much focus on the rest of the world. MAGA promised to focus American resources on Americans. That was the context of every speech he gave. We all know his promises, now better classified as lies. (If you really can’t call his false statements lies, you can always dismiss them as ‘campaign rhetoric.’)

Fix the housing crisis, lower the cost of living, no more foreign wars, release the Trump/Epstein files. Oh, remember this one? ‘Drain the swamp?’ That one sold BIGLY. They ate that up with a spoon. No one ever explained to them that the US maintained it’s power, at least in part, by helping the rest of the world so MAGA just wanted that to stop. Much of it HAS stopped and now, China has stepped in to help those people. Now China is the primary power on the planet and the US is yesterday’s news. (That’s what Xi meant when he referred to the “Thucydides Trap.”

Slowly but surly, as one campaign promise after another got 86’d, Boebert found herself at odds with Sleepy Donny, sure, but also MAGA in general. He didn’t release the Trump/Epstein files (because he’s a liar). He didn’t avoid foreign wars (because he’s a liar). He hasn’t lowered the cost of living (because he’s a liar). He hasn’t fixed the housing crisis (because he’s a liar). In short, he has made America worse, not better and certainly not “great again,” (because he’s a liar).

Some MAGA, like Boebert and MTG, have noticed. They’re still loyal to the idea of taking care of Americans first. They’ve just noticed that Donny, by every measure and metric, is taking care of Trump first and has pretty much turned his back on Americans, in general – even loyal MAGA. So there’s a new movement starting, America First and it’s starting without Donny the Dotard as it’s “leader.”

They’ll need a better name. ‘MAGA’ stuck because it was easy. Americans are nothing if not lazy as hell and we’ll shorten everything we say. ‘America First’ is so many syllables. But ‘AF’ already means something. (For the uninitiated, ‘AF’ means ‘As F*ck’ and is meant to indicate lots and lots. “Oh, man, it’s hot AF!” Like that.) So, they can’t just become ‘AF.’ They can go with a popular common trend and give the movement a technological-sounding name. Maybe they could call their movement “I Like America First,” or iLAF. Just a thought…

Idiocracy On Full Display…

by MyBaconPress

I find myself just shaking my head a lot. This country seems to have lost it’s collective mind. Utah officials have approved a data center twice the size of Manhattan! According to ‘The Guardian,’ The Stratos artificial intelligence data center footprint will cover more than 40,000 acres (62 sq miles) over three sites. The facility will require about 9GW of power – that’s more than the entire state of Utah currently consumes. Oh, and it will suck up a significant amount of water in an area that has been hit by severe drought in recent years.

Shall we define “significant amount of water?” How does 16.6 billion gallons each year sound? I’d say “significant.” To be clear, that’s all the data centers in Utah, not just this new one. Still, local residents are already being told to conserve water because there isn’t enough. The Great Salt Lake is literally drying up, and someone thinks that’s the perfect spot for a water intensive industry? That’s straight up insane.

In fairness to the data centers, they are trying to use less. The newer facilities are switching to closed-loop water cooling systems to reduce usage. The downside is, the closed systems use more electricity to operate and the increased electricity demand means more water usage by the power company so they’re not so much fixing the problem as shifting the problem.

Oh, did I write ‘problem?’ The companies that benefit from the data centers don’t see any real problem. They’re just sure some solution will make itself known over time. Republican (of course) Governor Spencer Cox is all gung-ho on the project as well, citing (this is true) desalinization plants as the long-term possible solution to the water problem. No word on where landlocked Utah is supposed to get it’s ocean to desalinate.

No matter how hard conservatives try, magical thinking will not overcome reality. We can’t wish away or simply ignore problems. It’s brain-dead foolish to insist that some future, unknown (keyword: unknown) solution will magically appear and keep plowing forward. Long-term, it’s not even good business. Investing billions of dollars in a “maybe we’ll figure it out” kind of way seems reckless.

This unfettered Capitalism is making a small handful of people magnificently rich and doing untold – and likely irreparable – damage to the vast majority of us. The ‘Idiocracy’ is in full bloom, here in the United States and, if the news is any indicator, around the world. In fact, it looks to me like anywhere conservatism is taking root, Idiocracy is also on full display. I used to have more faith in humanity than I do now…

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Oh, look! Yet another promise made, promise broken. 47 was going to eliminate inflation, remember? That was his promise. Has he done that, or has MAGA started offering excuses why it was, oh, I don’t know, President Eisenhower’s fault? These guys aren’t particular about who they blame, just so long as they don’t blame the guy who is actually responsible.

It’s driven by the clever trap he sprung on himself – completely unsuspecting, by the way – when he decided to choke off the world’s oil supply by attacking Iran. Many people – big people, strong people – were saying, “Don’t do it. It would be a dumb plan, the dumbest plan,” but he did it. Other Presidents were too smart to get caught in that snare but Donny did it. Donny did it.

Oh, AND, according to him, he doesn’t care about your financial problems. His words: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. Not even a little bit.” His focus is on making sure Iran doesn’t build the nuclear bomb they swore off as contrary to Islam in 2004. So you’re paying a higher and higher price so he can keep Iran from building the bomb they unilaterally chose not to build 22 years ago.

Wages haven’t risen at the same rate. We fall a little further behind every day. We’re like the frog in the pot of water. We haven’t perceived the temperature yet but when we do, it will be too late…

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Speaking of frogs, Donny is about to get his toady in as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The guy got confirmed by insisting he would be independent. Then he ran to Donny and said, “Duh, I told ’em what you said to tell ’em, boss. Duh, gee, boss, they actually bought it, boss!”

The Fed is (was) an important support for the American dollar. Making it subject to the whims of a moronic madman isn’t a good idea in any way…

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It looks like Democrats are getting ready to fall into their standard campaign issue: “We’re not Donald Trump.” It’s not enough. I think they should highlight HOW they’re not Donald Trump. Rather than just rip 47, they should specify what they’ll do differently. We all know the wreckage the Drumpfster is inflicting on the nation. All the Dems have to do is describe, essentially, the opposite.

It’s not that I disagree with pointing out the problems with the opposition. I just don’t think it’s enough. You’ve got to have a vision, too. You need a plan, something for the team to get behind. You need more on offer than just, “We’re not that guy…”

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47 seems to actually believe that the world will just accept whatever garbage he spews as true and correct. Nobody does, of course. MAGA pretends to, but even they know he’s full of, um, falsehoods. For example, it doesn’t matter how high the cost of his (originally) $200 million dollar ballroom balloons, and it doesn’t matter how many delays occur because of all of the legal violations he’s piling up in just plowing forward, the ballroom is always under budget and on time, no “ahead of schedule.”

The last time he made that ridiculous claim a reporter asked him about it, pointing out that the cost has risen from $200 million dollars to a billion dollars, now. Donny responded with his standard decorum. “I’ve doubled the size of it, you dumb person. Doubled the size. You are not a smart person.” She seemed pretty smart, to me. Design changes add cost, busting budgets. He tried to prosecute Jerome Powell for the same thing, design changes leading to increased costs.

There was only one “dumb person” in that exchange – and it wasn’t the reporter…

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Hey, is now a good time to remind you that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were best friends and likely co-conspirators in a sex trafficking scheme for years and years? He wants people to forget that. People are not forgetting that. Don’t you forget that…

Define ‘Reality…’

by MyBaconPress

I hear there’s a war that’s not a war over there in Iran. It’s over but it’s not really over. We have a cease fire but we keep shooting and so do they, which is not what I think ‘cease fire’ means. Trying to make a deal with an unstable madman leading an untrustworthy and undependable government is a very difficult thing – but Iran keeps trying.

It’s clearly an important war – just so long as you don’t CALL it a war. We MUST prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. You know, like the ones they swore off as contrary to Islam in 2004, when they issued a fatwa that called it contrary to Islam to build, maintain, or use nuclear weapons. They seem to take their religion pretty seriously, likely part of the reason Christians don’t really get it.

These days, Christianity seem more like an a-la-cart religion. They like to choose the parts that work for them and ignore the rest. I mean, have you SEEN their new golden idol? They were very careful to note that it was NOT a golden idol before they dropped to their knees and supplicated the thing. It seems they STILL haven’t figured out that this particular object of worship ain’t grantin’ favors or answering prayers without a little taste for his own beak and, even at that, ONLY for the richest of the rich. Hope springs eternal, I guess.

Meanwhile, Israel is over there killing people in Lebanon at a, well, a Biblical rate. We’re in on that war, too. We’re not as directly involved. We just supply weapons to Israel and keep Lebanon’s protector, Iran, busy. Our unstable national embarrassment likes to say that he has solved <pick a number of> wars. (He just makes up the number. You can, too.)

So he has “solved” some unknown countless number of wars nobody knew anything about but can’t solve any of the current conflicts we can ALL see. You remember the wars he said he would end on Day One because it would be so easy? Sometimes, I suspect he hasn’t got a clue…

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It’s said on the left that 47 will do whatever the last person he spoke to convinces him to do. One example is in fruit-flavored vaping pods, which contain nicotine and are used in e-cigarettes. The US stopped selling them because the flavors made the nicotine products more attractive to kids and more people thought we should not be trying to hook children to nicotine than thought we should.

The cigarette companies, for example, really want to sell fruit-flavored vaping pods. It turns out, their product kills their customer base. They must recruit new addicts on a daily basis or there’s a real risk of losing market share. Why, yes, now that you mention it, that IS, actually and honestly, killing people for profit, a staple of Capitalism. Kids are easiest to hook and fruit-flavored vaping pods are a great tool for exactly that.

A representative from RJ Reynolds tobacco company met with President Pedo on Saturday, May 2, in Florida. It seems likely that the required bribes were paid or promised, though I have no specific information to that effect. The next thing we knew, the Dotard was demanding the FDA authorize the sale of the fruit-flavored vaping pods. For reasons we don’t know, the FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, dragged his feet a little. He didn’t authorize the sale until Tuesday.

Word is, there’s been a whisper campaign against Markary originating in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It’s possible, Markary isn’t insane enough for this team. According to Politico, Makary has “alienated a range of HHS officials and interest groups, including anti-abortion activists, opponents of vaping regulation and some drug manufacturers. He clashed with Chris Klomp — HHS chief counselor and the director of Medicare — over several matters including personnel decisions, according to a senior HHS official granted anonymity to discuss the interpersonal dynamics.”

Now the White House is scrambling to find someone worse. Markary, apparently, had that thing, that… what do you call it? Um, integrity? Is that the word? Yeah, that’s it. Markary had some. Not a lot, mind you. One does not last a year with Team Evil if they have much integrity, but he had some – and it was still too much. Out he goes. A newer, more loyal but dumber commissioner will be found – the US will take yet another embarrassing step into self-imposed darkness. Lovely…

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Speaking of the FDA, there’s a drug out there called metformin, and it’s the leading Type 2 diabetes medication. AS the leading Type 2 diabetes medication, lots of people are taking it. It seems to work. NOW, scientists are on the verge of figuring out HOW metformin works. Doesn’t that seem odd to you? It does to me.

“Here, this drug seems to do what we want it to do.”
“Great! How does it work?”
“Oh, we don’t know. We think it probably has something to do with the liver.”
“Well, if you don’t know how it works, how can you be sure it isn’t affecting some other part of the body?”
“Look, do you want the profits or not?”
“Of course. I understand the corporate priority. I was just curious.”
“I’ll tell you what, if metformin causes some long-term problem down the road, we’ll come up with a new pill for that, too. How does that sound?”
“Well, um, profitable. Okay, then!”

Now there’s a new theory that metformin works by increasing glucose in the gut and not by affecting the liver. A “theory.” Don’t get me wrong. It’s important that a drug does what it’s supposed to do. I just think it might be nice if we knew HOW it does what it’s supposed to do before we start giving it to thousands of people…

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Once a reality TV personality, always a reality TV personality, I guess. Sean Duffy is, ostensibly, our Transportation Secretary. Obviously, doing THAT job is verboten in this regime so he sought something else to do. He went on a road trip with his wife and nine children. They made a TV show out it. I’ll bet you buttons to beans you and I paid for it. “Reality.” That’s what they call it.

Maybe in the reality of a taxpayer funded government worker but in MY reality, a nationwide road trip would require a long-term loan just for the effing gas…

Not Much Of A Choice…

by MyBaconPress

Have you seen the video of Katie Porter “directing expletives” at a staffer? Porter seems to be recording an interview when a staffer walks into the shot, prompting Porter to say, “Get out of my f*cking shot.” (Apparently, that asterisk leaves you completely mystified about what word was used…) The staffer in question wasn’t phased.

She didn’t retreat, feeling rebuked. She delivered information Porter needed in the moment for that conversation. I think what that video actually showed was that Porter uses the “F” word. Those of us who do, often just shove it into sentences rather haphazardly. My own observation about the use of that word is that it makes the speaker sound angry, even if they’re not. That seems to be the issue with Porter.

Katie Porter is a policy wonk and I honestly think she would do a good job as governor. She would be my first choice except for that video. I don’t care about it, but it works beautifully to smear her as unstable and an angry woman. As of this writing, she’s sitting at 8% and I really don’t think she’s going to be the choice. There was a time when I would have voted for her anyway, because that’s how democracy is supposed to work. I can’t do that anymore.

Now it’s all strategy. Who can win, what might we lose? The front-runner right now is a British talk show host who wants to trump California. I genuinely do not understand why cons continue to think talk show hosts are qualified to be in government but we can’t seem to shake that belief and now Steve Hilton is a real threat.

Who is in second place? Well, that depends on which poll you look at. It’s either Xavier Becerra, Tom Steyer, or Chad Bianco. Bianco is an “Are we sure that election was fair?” guy so MAGA just loves him. Steyer, of course, is a billionaire who insists he’s a class traitor who will only work for the little guy and not for the billionaires. I’ve heard that promise before. Didn’t the Drumpfster take that position? It hasn’t worked out that way, has it? Worse, can you tell me when it ever has?

I think I have to vote Becerra, like it or not. Sadly, I’m FAR closer to “not” than “like,” but we, the people, don’t really get to choose anymore, if we ever did. Our constitutional republic is in a shameful, embarrassing state…

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“Oh, supply chain problems. Haven’t you hear about the Strait of Hormuz? We’re forced to raise prices at the pump to maintain profitability.” Uh-huh. Quarterly earnings reports are out. Gas companies are reporting record profits. Not “maintained profitability.” Record profits. That means, by definition, that those companies started charging increased prices the minute they had an excuse – Donny’s Dumbass War – and long before they actually needed to.

47 is just helping the oil companies extract money from you while making lots and lots of money for himself via “prediction” markets. (It’s not much of a “prediction” when you know what’s about to happen, like announcing progress in talks.) At this point, it’s pretty much a full-on grifter economy…

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So, when hackers get into your Amazon account, the hackers tend to buy gift cards. Amazon knows this. This is an ongoing problem and it’s been “ongoing” for years now. Amazon isn’t much help. I’m speaking from experience, here. Recently, hackers got into my Amazon account. I was asleep. In the morning my email inbox was full of “purchased” and “here’s the redemption code you need.”

I’m not sure how the hackers get the redemption code when it comes to me but this has been going on for a long time and they keep doing it so there’s value to them somewhere in this process. Anyway, the first thing I did was go remove all the payment methods on my Amazon account, effectively stopping the scam. So, I did what we do, right? I contacted the people who I need to contact, replaced vulnerable cards, changed passwords, upped my security, all the while wishing harm and evil on the pricks who rained this darkness into my world for no reason other than their own greed.

But I keep getting messages from Amazon. “Update your payment method so we can finish this transaction.” Um, no. There are orders pending on gift cards. If I put in a payment method, Amazon takes my money for something I never ordered, never received, and don’t want. Easy, right? Just go click on the ‘Cancel Order’ button. Hey, guess what? On gift cards, there IS no ‘Cancel Order’ button.

I feel an urgency, here. I want those transactions stopped and I can’t do that from my own account. The obvious solution? Contact Amazon and get them to cancel the orders. Yeah, good luck with that. Have you ever tried to contact Amazon? I’ve tried to find a way. It MUST be possible, but it ain’t easy. I challenged one of the purchases, intending to challenge the rest, but they do that one at a time that way. You can do a day at a time, but this assault crossed days as the clock passed midnight.

I used to read a blog called ‘Bartcop.’ The guy who wrote it, not named ‘Bart’ and not a cop, had a rule of thumb: when a person or entity makes a “mistake” that puts money in their pocket, expect them to make that “mistake” over and over again. It’s a solid rule. So what happens if we apply it to Amazon’s failure to correct this “problem?”

Is it really outrageous to wonder if Amazon knows about this scam but does nothing to stop it because it’s a (possibly) substantial revenue stream for Amazon? All they have to do is stop delivering gift card electronically or require verification for each new purchase from the main account holder. A pain in the neck? Yes. A protection for consumers? Hell yes. Will Amazon risk a revenue stream? It doesn’t appear so.

So THEN I find myself wondering if Amazon works with hackers in India to get into accounts and order gift cards. (One feels vulnerable after such an encounter.) Certainly, they make little to no effort to actually stop the practice. In law, there’s a rule, “Silence is consent.” Maybe in retail, “inaction is permission.” If I CAN stop hackers from stealing from customers, but I don’t, maybe I’m not bothered enough by the practice to try. Maybe there’s something in it for me.

Yeah, I recognize that sounds crazy, and it likely is, but this is exactly the kind of question one asks, gets attacked as paranoid, then gets exposed in a New York Times investigative report as actually what happens…