MAGA

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!

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

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.’

Wasted Efforts Waste Time…

by MyBaconPress

Oh. Em. Gee. Would you PLEASE stop? I keep seeing all these posts on the left suggesting that Trump can’t be President because of wording in the Constitution. Two things; One, true, the Constitution DOES say – in the 14th Amendment – that “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

We all remember January 6th and Trump’s insurrection. MAGA pretends it was something else, but Americans remember. One can tell from the language of the amendment that the paragraph is self-actuating. It’s automatic. Take an oath, then engage in insurrection and you’re no longer qualified to hold public office at any level – unless Congress specifically goes to the trouble of removing such disability.

But, two, The Roberts Supremely Corrupt, Kangaroo Court of the United States has already ruled exactly the opposite of what the amendment actually reads and determined (after the checks cleared, of course) that Congress has to pass a specific law to KEEP someone from taking office if they’ve engaged in insurrection. Of COURSE it’s a bastardization of how the law actually reads. Hell, it’s literally the exact opposite of the text. But the corrupt court has ruled and that corrupt ruling will stand until a better court overturns it.

So now, desperate people on the left are pretending that if they can JUST get Congress to pass that law needed to disqualify Trump from ascending to his throne, they can stop him. Once and for all: no, they can’t. Sure, the Supremely Kangaroo Court is corrupt. Sure, their ruling IS wrong. Absolutely, you could stop him with a law – if you could get Congress to pass it. The Senate would be on board, I’m sure.

But not the House, okay? The House is as corrupt as the Supremely Kangaroo Court and they’re loyal to Trump. Several of them gave speeches after the attempted coup denouncing Trump’s efforts. They pointed their crooked little fingers right at the guy and declared his behavior unacceptable. But that was only a few hours before reappearing and apologizing for telling the truth and re-asserting their absolute, undying devotion to the insurrectionist.

No rational person wants Trump to take the power he’s about to assume. But wishful thinking on our part isn’t going to change anything. “IF we can get Congress to…” Yeah, well, you can’t, so move on…

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

Have you ever wondered how Romans knew what was going on in the world? I don’t mean modern Romans. They just open their newspapers and read. I mean ancient Romans. They knew what was going on in the world. They knew what was happening in Rome. They could follow actions of their Senate. Ancient Romans were QUITE cosmopolitan, as a people. So if you can’t just go into your living room and turn on Walterus Cronkiteurous, how DID ancient Romans get their news?

It turns out, ancient Rome had newsreaders. Romans would collect in designated places at designated times and a person would just read the news for all to hear. It kept Romans informed. Well, for a while, it kept Romans informed.

When Julius Caesar seized control of Rome, the newsreaders kept on reading news. It just wasn’t the news the people needed to make quality decisions. The newsreaders switched from informing the population, to misinforming the population. Nobody realized. Why would they? The newsreaders were still reading, right?

Well, turn on your TV. The newsreaders are still reading. But they’re reading what the One Percent-serving, corporate media want them to read and nothing that doesn’t serve the One Percent. Why, it’s almost as if allowing the rich people to buy up all of the media outlets wasn’t such a good idea, after all.

Back in Better America, we used to stop crap like that. We had rules that limited the number of outlets any one entity could control. AND, the rules covered multiple platforms. If you owned a television station in one market, you might not be able to own a radio station, too. The idea was that leaving control of media outlets in different hands created different points of view. It worked, too. That’s WHY the One Percent had to get rid of it by consolidating (or closing down) the outlets.

We should go back to that rule. We should break up the media conglomerates and eliminate monopoly control over the national message…

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

Would someone please go and find the form Matt Gaetz filled out when he bought HIS guns? DID he check the “Nope, not using drugs” box, even though we know he was using cocaine, “molly,” and probably other things? We KNOW how MAGA feels about that. We saw them with Hunter, demanding his head on a pike for checking that box. I’m sure MAGA will apply the exact same standard to Matt Gaetz, right? And according to MAGA, that should mean years, maybe decades in prison. (Yeah, they’re okay with the statutory rape thing but, by the GODS you will not check that box if you use drugs…)

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

It’s looking more and more like President non-elect Musk has a different agenda than his puppet, Trump. Trump ran around telling people he was going to round up and deport any and every (non-white) person he could find if they were here illegally – OR if they’re perfectly legal but they’re family of an undocumented person. Wouldn’t want to break up families, eh? Trump wants them ALL gone and he has sworn to get rid of them.

President non-elect Musk, on the other hand, thinks bringing in foreigners to do jobs Americans could do is perfectly a-okay and he plans to keep doing it. “Yeah, we’ll get rid of your immigrants who keep your food costs down, but we’re NOT getting rid of MY immigrants who keep my payroll down.”

MAGA hasn’t responded well. There was a LOT of push-back. Some of the MAGA faithful were foolish enough to push back on X. You remember X, right? That’s the failing social media site some billionaire overpaid for so he could turn it into a total and complete free speech zone – only to bird-dog, “moderate,” and censor the site so heavily people have been fleeing to better places. But those who stayed?

Well, if they criticized the unelected would-be king’s position, they found their accounts shut down or demoted. But THAT, in turn, has caused them to turn on the unelected would-be king. It’s turning into an all-out civil war between MAGA and Musk.

Far right-wing, um, personality Laura Loomer is angry. She thinks, maybe, Musk and Ramaswamy only infiltrated MAGA for their own purposes. (It’s a dim light, but it’s a light…) She wrote, “I have been more loyal to President Trump and his agenda than ANYONE. And I have only been punished for it. Pay attention MAGA. This is how you will all be treated now that Big Tech has infiltrated MAGA. “President Musk” is starting to look real.”

Then, X sent out a message to all of her subscribers, telling them that SHE had shut down her account and cancelled all of the subscriptions. She insists she didn’t do it. (But, in fairness, MAGA is full of stunts.) She’s not the only one being punished by ‘Mr. Free Speech, so long as it’s not aimed my way.’ Dozens of other accounts criticizing Musk and Ramaswamy’s position also claimed that their checkmarks and badges had been taken away.

Maybe Trump needs to reiterate – again – that HE’S the king. Of course, Tywin Lannister is still there: ‘Any man who must say ‘I am the king’ is no true king.’

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…

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

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…

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

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…

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

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…

A “Christian” Example?

by MyBaconPress

Wow. When President non-elect Musk decided to stick his privileged nose into the business of America, he DID create some upheaval. Cons had to cut something to try and make him happy. The thing that made Musk happy to cut? Cancer research for children. Yeah, that’s real.

A young lady, 10-year-old Gabriella Miller, died of an inoperable brain tumor. In 2014, an Act was passed in her name that funded research. It offered up $126 million over the following decade toward pediatric cancer research. It had to be re-authorized in 2024. The 2024 plan was to allocate $190 million for the next 10 years.

Pay attention to the kinds of numbers Congress talks about. Really, $190 million dollars over the course of 10 years is a drop in the bucket. It’s nothing. Here, let’s do a comparison. The average salary of a Congress critter is currently $174,000/yr. That’s base pay. They get perks and benefits and the leadership positions all get premiums, but let’s use that number. There are 535 voting members of Congress between the House and the Senate. Ready?

$174,000 x 535 = $93,090,000 per year.
Multiply their oh-so-generous annual salary by 10, the number of years the cancer research bill would have covered. It comes to $930, 900,000! We’re going to give those useless pieces of, um, politicians $931 million dollars over the next 10 years to do little more than posture and pose, but $190 million dollars to research cancer in children was just too much – a bridge too far – for Musk, so it had to go.

Here’s the real key. It was an easy target, low-hanging fruit. How many voters have kids with cancer? Personally, I think ONE is too many, but the hard truth is, whatever the number, there aren’t enough voting parents of kids with cancer to be a threatening bloc. So, maybe the cons can just quietly dump research into cancer in kids and save a few bucks.

Just like Jesus would have wanted. You know, because of “Christian morals…”

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

My favorite thing about the pseudo-Christians (which is most of them, these days) is the unintended consequences of their oh-so-pure attitudes combined with their complete LACK of knowledge as to exactly what is in that book they pretend to revere, the Holy Bible. But in Texas, Canyon Independent School District Superintendent Darryl Flusche has announced that the Holy Bible, as a whole, is not suitable for inclusion in school libraries due to a Texas law intending to protect schools from sexually explicit content, though some individual stories from the Bible remain.

The law he cites, House Bill 900, defines sexually explicit material as “any communication, language, or material” that describes sexual conduct in a way that is “patently offensive” according to the Texas Penal Code. He didn’t specify which sexually explicit material he was referring to. Was it the rapes? The Coitus Interruptus? The incest? Who knows?

Apparently, NONE of those things, all of which are actually in the Bible, are deal-killers. Listening to the pseudo-Christians squeal about it is quite telling. One parent, a woman named Regina Kiehne told school officials, “It seems absurd to me that the Good Book was thrown out with the bad books. It just makes sense to have the Word of God in our school library. After all, it (the Bible) is the book of wisdom.”

In other words, the kids NEED to read the story of Lot’s daughters getting him drunk and sexing him up, right? I guess it helps explain why Uncle Daddy gets to do those things to the young girls. Did Ham sodomize Noah? Texas school kids need to know. Oh, maybe they get their examples of “morals” from Moses!

Oh, c’mon, you remember. It was that time he told his soldiers, “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. Hubba-hubba.” (Numbers 31:17) (I may have added a bit at the end, there.) That’s when the Israelites had been commanded to commit genocide against the Midianites. They had already killed all the men. So now they just needed to kill the rest – even babies, if they were boys! But not the virgin girls.

“Christian morals,” indeed…

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

I live by a basic adage. It goes like this: When your out-go is greater than your income, your upkeep will be your downfall. It’s a good rule. It has the advantage of being undeniably true. The GOP has been working as hard as they can for the last 40+ years to convince everybody that the government of the United States is overspending and the ONLY way to address that problem is by cutting spending. Guess what? That’s wrong!

As it happens, there are TWO ways to address that problem, not one. Yes, one IS to cut spending and we should ALL want to be on the lookout for wasteful spending. (Pentagon, anyone?) It IS, after all, OUR money they’re spending. But there’s a better way. They could raise revenues. Think of it as getting a better job. (That’s what working Americans do when they want more money and can’t get it where they’re at.)

That involves tax increases. It’s clear that much of our society can’t face another tax shift from the wealthy. The rich really need to participate at a rate commensurate with the rate they extract from our society. That’s reasonable. It’s possible for the country to increase it’s revenues to address our financial woes. Financial woes, by the way, that have been artificially created by the very self-same greedy people who think they deserve more than others because they steal more than others.

Whenever I write this kind of thing, I get push-back about how the rich pay the most taxes, so how is that fair? Yes, the rich pay most of the taxes, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, but they control the vast majority of the wealth. They SHOULD pay the most taxes. Just looking at the hard-dollar amount they pay is insufficient information. One needs to consider the rate they extract and the percentage of wealth they control.

Here’s a fact: high taxes on high incomes causes the wealthy to actually do that which they pretend low taxes might someday encourage them to do…

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…

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

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?

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

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…)

A Proposal I Can Get Behind…

by MyBaconPress

Trump and his people are floating the idea that they might eliminate Daylight Saving Time and keep the country on standard time. That’s a good idea, if you ask me, but someone at ‘The New Republic’ doesn’t like it at all. I just read this sentence from one of their articles: “His promise would make Standard Time, which we are currently in and which people overwhelmingly hate due to the increased darkness, permanent.”

So, how stupid is that? I hate to break it to the writer, but the “increased darkness” she’s experiencing is because it’s late fall and nearly winter. See, the days get shorter and shorter in North America (therefore, ‘darker’) because of Earth’s angle relative to the position of the sun. Then, on one very special day we call the ‘Winter Solstice,’ the days start getting longer again – because the angle of the Earth relative to the sun shifts a bit. It happens that way EVERY SINGLE YEAR and will continue to do so long after humanity has wiped itself off the planet. It has nothing to do with clocks. It turns out, if we don’t change our clocks, the days will get longer anyway.

That’s the kind of ignorance people are up against, these days. Changing the clocks twice a year is just stupid and dangerous. It serves no functional purpose. Oh, and leaving the clocks on Daylight Saving Time year round actually kills people. That’s not a theory. The US tried it once, in 1973. We set up a two year program and left the clocks on Daylight Saving Time. So many people died – kids, mostly – the program was cancelled after the first year.

But that was leaving the clocks permanently on Daylight Saving Time. (It made it too dark for kids to safely walk to school or the bus stop so moms started driving their kids to school. So much for saving energy, which it doesn’t do, anyway.) Trump is proposing to leave the clock on Standard Time – and that’s a proposal I can get behind…

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

One of the things MAGA has long-since been conditioned to gripe about is all the people who work in government who weren’t elected. I don’t mean the day-to-day functionaries, though they bitch about them, too. I’m talking about, for example, the so-called “Czars” (or Tsars or Tzars. We probably should have asked them how to spell it before we eliminated them.)

These are high-ranking, high-profile political appointees put into position by an elected official, but they’re not elected themselves. Right up until this last “election,” MAGA has known, without question, they hate, hate, HATE the czars – specifically because they’re high-powered appointees who were NOT elected by the people.

It’s just a wild, random guess, mind you, but I’m thinking that, suddenly, now that Trump is appointing Czars, MAGA is going to be on board – every one of them. Yay, let’s hear it for high-ranking, high-powered, not-elected appointees!

MAGA is a very easily manipulated, re-directed group…

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

I have to confess, I’m a little irritated that ABC has settled with Trump. Trump sued ABC because George Stephanopoulos said he (Trump) had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll. Technically, you see, Trump has only been found liable for sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll. The ruling didn’t include the word ‘rape.’

People didn’t start applying that word until the judge sitting in the case clarified that, yes, forcible penetration with one’s fingers is a form of rape. Nevertheless, ABC is going to pay $15 million dollars to the Trump museum/foundations AND air an apology for “mischaracterizing” the E. Jean Carroll verdict.

ABC didn’t have to pay. They could have relied on the Judge’s words to defend themselves. I suspect ABC settled because Trump is about to seize power and they’re afraid of what he can do to them from the Oval Office. That is to say, they KNOW he’s likely to abuse his power and they don’t want to be on the receiving end of it. Yeah, okay.

I’ll tell you this: the ONE thing we know, now, is that we shouldn’t trust ABC going forward. We KNOW they’ll tailor their “news” reporting to whatever makes the mad king happy – and that makes them an untrustworthy source…

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

Man, you don’t see it very often and there’s a reason. A football player named De’Vondre Campbell was on the Forty Niners NFL team. The team needed him to go in and play. He said, “No.” Apparently, he was irritated that he had been demoted for a better player. When his number came up and he was called to play, his tantrum caused him to refuse – and then leave the field.

If there’s one thing the NFL won’t stand for, it’s a player who refuses to play. It takes a LOT to even get in to the NFL. Most of the players there are grateful for the opportunity. There’s another guy on the Niners, Fred Warner, playing with a fractured ankle, fercrissakes! Campbell won’t play because he feels slighted.

Campbell will be off the team as quickly as they can arrange it. I seriously doubt any other team in the NFL will pick him up. Campbell’s tantrum cost him what’s left of his career but, hey, maybe that’s the point. He has played for nine years and his game has dropped off. Maybe he’s done, anyway, and this was just a high-profile way to leave the league. Whatever he intended, it IS a high-profile way to leave the league. And don’t let the door hit you…

#FAFO…

by MyBaconPress

Hey, didn’t Donald promise, over and over and over again, that he would NOT touch Social Security? Didn’t he promise, over and over and over again that he wouldn’t raise the eligibility age by ONE DAY? He did. I know he did. There’s video of him making that exact promise at rally after rally. He promised! AND…doesn’t Donny ALWAYS keep his promises? That’s the MAGA story, anyway. But wait. What do we have, here?

Suddenly Trump and his billionaire buddies think your Social Security is WAY too high and, wait, what’s this? Yes, it needs to be cut. Billionaires are SURE you’re taking too much. How very selfish of you, taking payment on the insurance you paid into your whole working life. And now the billionaires are here, planning to put a stop to that.

Now that he’s taking office, Trump has also admitted that he can’t really do anything to bring down the price of eggs. Huh, whaddaya know? “It’s hard,” he says. He’s the first to tell you he “won on groceries.” Now he’s confessing he can’t do all that much about groceries, which means, of course, that he “won on lying about groceries.”

We’ve all heard, by now, the (admittedly anecdotal) stories of factories revoking or limiting expected Christmas bonuses because they have to use the money, instead, to prepare for the economic damage resulting from Trump’s promised tariffs. It turns out, the end users DO pay the increases, just like people tried to warn.

These things are all traveling together under a banner called #FAFO. Fair warning: the first ‘F’ in that is a generally accepted “bad” word, though I confess, it’s one of my favorites. FAFO stands for ‘Fuck Around and Find Out!’ Until very recently, it was most commonly tossed out by young, often intoxicated men looking to engage in a rousing round of fisticuffs.

It translates, roughly, to, “Oh, my goodness, if you continue on this apparent intended course, you might well discover some unforeseen and certainly unfavorable consequences to your actions.” There’s nothing tough about that, though, so they shorten it to ‘Fuck around and find out!’ The phrase has been co-opted by the left since the “election.”

I’m not sure how I feel about it. I don’t THINK it’s taunting. I wouldn’t like it if it was. I continue to believe the right has, more than anything, been deceived. I don’t think there’s any honor in taunting someone about being deceived. Anybody can be deceived.

It’s certainly not Schadenfreude. The left can’t take pleasure in the suffering of the right since the left will suffer the exact same consequences at the exact same time. Hell, it’s not even “pleasure.” ‘Satisfaction’ is probably a better word. It’s been pretty well established that cons have to live a thing to understand it.

I THINK it’s vindication, that is, proof that someone or something (in this case, the left) was right, reasonable, or justified. It’s GREAT to be vindicated, even when the vindicated person is going down with the ship as well. “I KNEW it wasn’t ‘unsinkable!'” Sure, he’s going to drown, too, but there’s a very brief moment where he gets to enjoy the satisfaction of having been correct – before the panic and desperation set in.

I think the left is just trying to make sure the right doesn’t miss the details of what their votes have wrought. It’s a matter of ‘don’t tell them they were mistaken, show them they were mistaken.’ These days, the only positives the left can see in the future will be watching the deer-in-the-headlights look on MAGA faces as they realize they “fucked around” – voted for Trump – and now they get to “find out” that Trump was lying to them all along.

This is pretty simple. The left used it’s knowledge and experience to politically scheme it’s way right out of power. Completely. There are just enough Dems left in Congress that they might – might – be able to stop some of the more egregious things, but they can’t enact anything. In short, anything that happens in the next couple of years lies directly at the feet of the GOP. They have nobody else to blame.

Sure, conservative media will try. They have to try. But the GOP has all the power. Eventually, even MAGA should be able to figure out that the people doing them so much harm are, in fact, the very Republicans they’ve been supporting. I suspect the left is going to KEEP pointing it out.

Here’s the thing, though. I don’t want the left to get smug or taunt the right. It’s one thing to show someone the error of their ways. It’s another to “punish” them. Remember all those arguments with Uncle MAGA? Remember how he would not back down from his positions no matter what evidence you provided? We’re going to need that tenacity on our team once they realize the left isn’t their enemy, the One Percent is. So let’s leave a door open that allows them to save a little face as they come back to reality…

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

Well, bless their hearts. I mean, how sweet, like the innocence of a small child. According to CNN, Republicans in Congress are certain Trump has no plans to go around them in trying to reach his goals of cutting two TRILLION dollars from the budget. GOP Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, who serves on the House Appropriations Committee said, “We worked very hard to stay in the majority and get the majority in Congress. I’m sure that the ‘thank you’ for that is not, ‘we don’t need no stinking Congress.’” (Uh-huh…)

GOP Rep. Max Miller of Ohio, who claimed that all stakeholders involved want the same thing echoed, “They have no choice but to work with us, they have to.” (Heh, Heh…)

And GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the incoming Senate Appropriations chairwoman for the next Congress – and ALWAYS an excellent judge of character and summarizer of situations -told CNN ahead of her one-on-one meeting with Musk, “To me, that violates the separation of powers.” (Ah—ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! )

Meanwhile, (you might want to sit down for this) Trump is laying the groundwork to see how much he can cut by going around Congress. He wants to use a process called ‘impoundment.’ It’s illegal, of course. See, Congress spends the money, not the President. When Congress allocates money for something, whether useful or stupid, that money goes where Congress allocated unless Congress acts again. That’s in the Constitution.

Trump has put a guy in place who thinks none of that matters. The guy is Russell Vought, co-author of Project 2025. You remember. That’s the project Trump swore he had never heard of and didn’t know the people behind it, even though many or most of them had worked in his previous maladministration. Vought thinks the President can just, on a whim, redirect money or refuse to spend it where Congress said, so long as he calls the practice some official sounding name, like ‘impoundment.’

It’s one of the many, many…okay, many battle shaping up within the GOP itself. The Congress critters ARE going to protect their own jobs. WHEN Trump tries to bypass them, they will assert their official roles, quite probably aggressively.

You see, Trump doesn’t give two figs about whether or not you ever see your Social Security. He has plenty of (your) money and he’ll be just fine. It’s the same with Musk and Ramaswamy. These are billionaires with NO IDEA of what life is like for normal folk. Worse, they don’t care. But the Congress Critters DO care. Not because they actually care, mind you, but because they want to keep their phony baloney jobs and keep raking in all that beautiful lucre.

Now, one does have to take into account that Musk has directly threatened Congress Critters who don’t do exactly as they’re told by Trump. He swears he’s going to use his glorious pile of ill-gotten money to attack any GOP member who defies Trump in the next “elections.” That kind of puts the GOP in Congress in a tough position: If they cut Social Security, or Medicaid, or the VA budget, or even welfare they’ll likely be voted out, anyway. If they don’t, Musk works against them.

That’s a lose-lose proposal from the incoming Trump maladministration. Congress must be SO excited to be in THAT position. But at the very least, if a threatened congress critter could go back and tell his constituents that he is being “primaried” because he insisted on protecting Social Security, I’d bet he would overcome Musk’s money. Maybe they’ll #FAFO…

After Upheaval…

by MyBaconPress

I have to say, I didn’t really expect it. The Assad government in Syria seems to have fallen. This latest insurgence was fast and effective. Nobody is sure if Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian “President” (read: dictator) has actually fled the country or simply relocated to keep the fight going after Damascus fell.

On the one hand, Syrian army command informed officers on Sunday night the Assad regime had fallen. But the Syrian army ALSO said operations continue in certain areas of the country. Confusing.

Syria was seized by Hafez al-Assad in 1971 and he ruled through a vast “security” network. He used a broad network of detention centers and government surveillance. Apparently, most people in Syria know of someone who was “disappeared” by the government. Hafez then gave the government to his son in 2000 and he kept doing things people didn’t like until now. 24 years under Bashar, 53 years overall.

I hope the new government has a plan for the peace after the fighting. That seems to be the tricky part in running a revolution. How does one manage the peace after? The people there seem pretty happy about the fall, today. Here’s hoping it works out well for them…

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

Speaking of dictators, I’m not sure why Trump went to the meeting with Presidents Macron of France and Zelenskyy of Ukraine in Paris. Is he trying to learn more about the conflict so he can make better decisions? How does that square with his obligation to Putin to do as he’s told, when he’s told?

Hope springs eternal, I guess. Zelenskyy is hoping he can penetrate a dull and closed mind a little bit and Trump wants to look “engaged” so he attends the meeting. But after the inauguration? My projection is that Trump will be parroting Putin and Ukraine will be in deep trouble.

Time will tell…

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

I have a quick question about the Ethics Committee report on Matt Gaetz and his oh-so-perverted ways. Is it really necessary for anyone to see that report, now that the GOP has closed ranks and refused to release it? I mean, Gaetz stepped down from his cushy, phony-baloney job to keep that report from coming out, just as one would expect from someone who expected to be exonerated.
“Hey, we investigated whether or not one of ours was engaged in human trafficking by taking underage women across state lines for drug-fueled sex parties and then showed off photos of his “conquests” around on the House floor. We made a report.”
“Can we see the report?”
(If the report had cleared Gaetz:) “Sure. Here it is. It clears his name entirely!”
(Since it didn’t:) “Oh, we don’t release those reports. We keep all that stuff in a super-secret hidey-hole and there’s really no reason for anybody to see anything about it at all.”

There’s a reason the GOP always operates without evidence. Evidence always works against them. House members were complaining about Gaetz showing those photos before the investigation even began. We KNOW that part is true. So, if they were complaining about the photos Gaetz was showing off, is it so far of a leap to infer what the photos showed?

Their love of Trump has them actively protecting sexual predators. Gaetz wants to be Governor of Florida and he parrots the One Percent’s talking points perfectly. Why should a little sexual assault interfere with that? God, they must be so proud…

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

If you’re looking at the NFC playoff picture, my Niners are listed as “on the bubble.” That means they have a far, FAR outside chance of making the playoffs. I doubt they’ll be making the playoffs. Practically speaking, the entire NFC West division would have to retire from football, en masse, for the Niners to have a realistic chance. They’ve had a tough season.

What can I say, we fans expected more. Hell, they were in the Super Bowl last year and they’ve been competitive most years since Kyle Shanahan got there. But this season, too many injuries to too many key players, combined with some really unimaginative coaching, terrible kicking, and team/player turnover proved too much. The team, essentially, collapsed.

They might beat the Bears today. The Bears are also a struggling team so it’s possible. But the rest of their schedule? I’m thinking, this season, the Niners go 6-11. That’s not good. I respect the way they’ve played through the adversity. I presume the team will be looking at the problems and addressing them in the off-season. The Niners are a good team. They’ve just had an unforgiving year with too many obstacles to overcome. I’m already looking forward to next season…

When You Make Peaceful Revolution Impossible…

by MyBaconPress

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Um…Pardon Me?

by MyBaconPress

Every once in a while, I get a little irked by the left. I’m not sure I mean the rank and file left. This is very definitely the politicians. They keep coming out and condemning Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter. Even though everyone… no, EVERYONE knows Hunter was being used as a political pawn in a smear campaign, the left is saying it’s bad that Joe protected his kid.

The story is, the left just handed Trump the excuse he needs to pardon the most vile people in the country and get away with it. Really? Do you think Trump needs an excuse to pardon the most vile people in the country? Because I remember him doing exactly that the last time he infested the White House – no excuses needed. All he had to do was pretend the justice system had been “weaponized.”

Sometimes, I hear people saying the left should learn to fight like the right. I’m not sure I agree with that all of the time. I don’t think one can adopt the tactics of a scoundrel effectively without becoming scoundrels themselves. But the left shouldn’t avoid doing the right thing because it hands Trump “an excuse.” Trump makes up his own excuses if he doesn’t have one and Trump’s odious behavior shouldn’t have a bearing on, well, anything, really. Sometimes, doing the things the right does isn’t underhanded and this is one of those times.

Anytime anyone wants to start comparing the “crimes” of the left with the crimes on the right and the nature of those pardoned by the President, I’m in. Hunter checked a box on a form. Now, compare that to the thieving, sexual assault, and downright traitorous behavior from the right – much of which Trump pardoned.

And then pipe down, yeah? Joe did the right thing…

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

The right is trying to dismiss criticism of Trump’s pick to destroy the DoD, Fox Not-News liar Pete Hegseth, by pretending that, because the charges come from anonymous sources, they’re probably false. Um, have you SEEN what MAGA does to people who come forward with charges against a rightie? Doxing, harassment, and death threats. (This is based in the now infamous ‘Scream facts away’ doctrine.) I think I’d prefer to keep a low profile, too.

Of course, one person DID come out, if involuntarily, describing his horrifying behavior in great detail: his mother. His own mother thinks he has some serious problems and needs to get help. From what I hear, his mother is correct. Hegseth looks like a mighty uphill battle and worse, he looks like a mighty uphill battle Trump would likely lose.

Trump apparently thinks so, too. According to Politico, Trump is now considering Ron DeSantis for the job, among others. That’s likely just a feint, though. Keywords: “among others.” Trump chose confirmed bootlicker Marco Rubio to serve in his maladministration. Rubio is/was a senator from Florida. Trump wants DeSantis to name Lara Trump, Donald’s daughter-in-law to the post. So Trump is dangling a carrot to DeSantis.

I hear MAGA is unhappy with the pick. DeSantis stood up to Trump, you know. I don’t know why they’re okay with Rubio. Rubio is the guy who pointed out how small Donny’s hands are. If I were DeSantis, I don’t think I’d trust Trump to keep his word…

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

Joe Rogan says he just had to vote for Trump because Tim Walz was caught in a couple of lies. Just think about that for a minute. Walz intimated he had carried a gun “in war,” but he never really faced combat. Walz also suggested he was in Hong Kong during the Tienanmen Square crackdown but he wasn’t. He WAS in Hong Kong, just not during the events in question. Those “lies” – an inflated resume, really – were just too much – a bridge too far for Rogan.

So he went with honest, puritan Donald Trump, instead. Uh-huh. That certainly checks…

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

Corrupt judge Clarence “Buy me” Thomas recently said he was considering retirement – but only if Trump won the “election.” Of the move, Moscow Mitch McConnell said, “It’s a brazen admission. And the incoming administration would be wise to explore all available recusal options with these judges, because it’s clear now that they have a political finger on the scale. This sort of partisan behavior undermines the integrity of the judiciary.”

No, wait. No, that’s not right. Moscow Mitch didn’t say that when Thomas conditioned his retirement. Thomas’ condition was a-okay with the right. It made perfect sense to them that a judge may or may not retire based on the person who would name their replacement, assuming that judge was conservative.

Moscow Mitch is pretending to be all upset that two Democratic-appointed federal judges decided not to retire for the same reason. No, the McConnell quote from above is what he said about the Democratic-appointed judges. I see. When a Republican conditions their retirement on who gets to fill the seat, that’s okay. When a Democrat does it, that’s some kind of underhanded trumpery. Got it…