Oh, those wacky Arizona Roepublicans. First, they celebrate the fact that they have one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the nation. It was already on the books, just waiting for some dysfunctional sycophants to overturn Roe v Wade and when Roe was overturned, the Arizona GOP was giddy. Then the GOP from sea to shining sea started reaping the rewards of their “success” by losing election after election.

Eventually, it dawned on them that maybe people aren’t happy about overturning Roe. To be clear, the GOP doesn’t care if people are happy. In fact, they prefer when people are not. But they DO want to win elections so, they started lying about Roe, acting as if they have no idea how that happened or even who did it.

They also started lying about their intentions for restrictions in the future. After the Arizona State Supreme Court upheld their cruel little law, the Arizona GOP made the rounds in the media, insisting the law went too far and this can not, WILL NOT stand. But, hey, the GOP controls the state legislature, right? If anybody can overturn their restrictive law, it’s the state legislature, right? So, let’s get to work…

No. Just, no. They won’t even bring the legislation repealing their law up for discussion, let alone a vote. Let’s think this through, shall we? What could it possibly mean, when the Arizona GOP claims they want to change a law and absolutely has the power to do so but when given the opportunity, they decline to proceed? I think it means actions speak louder than words and the Arizona Roepublicans lie, lie, lie.

I’ll tell you this: You should never pay any attention to what any Roepublicans anywhere say. People can, and will, say anything, especially cons. Words are easy to string together. Instead, pay attention to what they do – and vote accordingly…

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

Recently, I was turned on to a website by a young friend of mine. The site is called ‘Ground News.’ It’s a news aggregator but is a little different from some of the others. THIS site collects stories from around the web – both sides – and groups them by subject. But the best part is, they also rate the truthfulness of the stories. They show the political leanings of the publisher – left, center, or right, AND they show how much attention each “sphere” is giving the story.

That last bit is pretty cool. You can see it with a glance. They use a bar under the stories coded blue (on the left), white (for center), and red (on the right). It illustrates, in real time, something I’ve suspected for a long time: cons often don’t know what’s going on in real life because nobody’s telling them. At least, nobody they trust.

As an example, auto workers in Tennessee recently voted to join the United Auto Workers union. The story was covered by left-leaning sources and center-riding sources but there were only two mentions in right-leaning sources. One was from a local paper in Tennessee and the other was, um, in German and printed in Frankfurt, Germany! That one was likely not really helpful for English readers in America.

The little bar below the stories showed a long blue bit and a long white bit and a just barely noticeable red bit. So, with just a glance I can see that the left knows about the unionization success and so do readers of center-based news, but cons haven’t heard anything about it. (They’re only told when unions “fail,” or appear to. That’s because their dogma teaches that unions are bad and they MUST support the dogma. It’s FAR more important than the truth.)

Some don’t show any red at all. I’ve only seen a couple of stories that work the other way, a white bar, a red bar and little to no blue and when I have, they’re rated ‘Mixed Factuality’ or ‘Low Factuality.’

I’m new to the site, but I recommend ‘Ground News’ if you’re looking for accurate information. You could also use it to find pure gobbledygook, too, I presume, if that’s what you’re interested in but why would anybody want to do that?

MAN, I’m having a tough time with free speech right now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a supporter. But people with bad intentions have realized lying is a possible component of speaking freely and they’re doing it as aggressively as they can. In truth, it’s all they’ve got, lies. So, lie, they do. That’s one of the supposed reasons Elon Musk bought Twitter. He thought they were being FAR to civilized in controlling hate speech and lies and he wanted to unleash the worst impulses of internet anonymity again.

I think that, alone, would have created an insurmountable problem for him, long term, but he also antagonized the user base. He shook things up, all right. People began leaving in droves. So, he did what any pretend genius, real opportunist would do, he surrendered – voluntarily – the successful brand name he had paid so much for in the first place and replaced it with the generic, less-than, comparison brand, Brand X. THEN he started running ads for some rather unsavory things, and putting those ads next to brands that just want to sell toothpaste (or whatever) and those advertisers started fleeing. Elon called them names and threatened them in an attempt to charm them back.

Oh, but Elon knows better than everyone, right? He’s the big boy genius who just…knows things and should be properly attended (worshiped?), right? (It’s never good when these narcissistic delusionists start believing their own press…) Not according to the EU. The EU has a law, the Digital Services Act, that attempts to prevent hate speech, racism, and fake news on platforms in the European Union. So, while Elon is promoting hate speech, racism, and fake news by inviting known horrible humans back to his flailing platform, the EU has been watching and now they’re about to crack down on the guy.

His company (whatever the hell it’s called today) can be fined up to 6% of it’s global income (so, after a few years of Musk leadership, something like $1.28?) or be banned from operating across the EU entirely. I hear his next book it going to be called, ‘How to Turn $44 Billion Dollars Into a Small Pile of Scrap Metal in Just Three Years.’ It could just be me, but I’m not sure his dedication to hate speech, racism, and lies is paying off…

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

Then again, there are those just…speaking their “truth.” Donny was at a political rally this last Saturday and said that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” That’s so…”Mein Kempf” of him. It’s kind of a wonder he didn’t name any of his his horrific offspring ‘Adolph.’ He has already called his political opponents “vermin,” you know, like any good dictator-wanna-be does, and described his plans to build camps. After all, OTHER dictators have camps. He wants HIS camps, too. And he knows just who to fill them with – anybody he doesn’t like. All of this after his infamous calling of the “Jews will not replace us” crowd some “very good people.”

NONE of this is a “tough on immigration” stance. It’s outright, pure, unadulterated racism…

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

I’m not religious, but Donny is as close to “evidence” of it’s truth as I’ve ever seen. I recently heard a couple of talking heads…uh…talking, and one of them asked the other, “Why has nobody been able to replicate the success of trump in his rhetoric?” They adopt his style, they use his language, but they just don’t generate the following Donny gets.

Mostly, I think Donny gets away with it because he was raised to be exactly this kind of horrible human being with no conscience and absolutely no scruples or shame. His parents should be posthumously prosecuted for child abuse. But there IS another possibility.

I suspect that, perhaps, Donny is ‘The Beast’ of Biblical fame, the herald of the Anti-Christ. As such, he has protection from Satan none of the others have. If you take the story metaphorically, so the “Beast” doesn’t have seven actual heads, but seven different faces, he fits nearly perfectly. By extension, this makes MAGA unwitting followers of Satan. They sure act like it. Hell, they seem to enjoy it.

No, I’m going to stick to the “no conscience and absolutely no scruples or shame” bit…for now…but his followers are definitely in thrall to Satan…

I hear much talk about the “liberal media” (often pronounced “librul”) and the “conservative media”.  I’m here to say there’s no such thing.  What we suffer in this once-great nation is corporate media.  To be sure, corporate media targets it’s message (or lack of information, depending) through various outlets towards liberals or conservatives but the thing it has in common regardless of intended audience is that it protects corporations.

Corporate media works to deceive all Americans.  I’m fond of saying corporate media deceives conservatives on facts and liberals on intent.  What I mean is, conservatives believe (and they actually believe) that the economy crashed because the big, bad “gubment” forced poor, defenseless banksters to make bad loans.  They believe it because that’s what they were told by sources they trust.  Many of them can cite – in detail – various segments of the Affordable Housing Act as evidence of government malfeasance.

Perhaps a little background is needed.  The government kept receiving complaints from minority borrowers that loans for which they applied were being rejected even though the borrowers were certain they qualified for the loans.  As it happens, they were correct so Congress critters sat down and wrote a law.  The idea of the law was to “encourage” (read: “force”) banks to make more loans to minority borrowers.  The legislation included a cudgel: the government was going to review the banksters portfolios and if the number of funded loans didn’t include a certain percentage of loans to minorities, punishment would be swift and sure…

That’s what conservatives will tell you.  That’s the information they have.  Hmm, whaddaya know?  The government DID pass a law requiring banks to lend more to minorities.  But it wasn’t “no matter what”.  There’s a piece missing.  The part conservative serving corporate media leaves out is this:  “…consistent with sound lending practices”.

Five words but they make all the difference.  If conservative serving corporate media includes the phrase, the entire conservative position is undermined.  They’d be left to argue that making loans to borrowers who can’t pay them back based on falsified documentation qualifies as a “sound lending practice”.  Good luck.  See?  Conservatives deceived on facts…

For their part, liberals actually believed the government would do something to address the problem that would benefit the victims of the bankster’s fraud.  They believed it because liberal serving corporate media told them the government would do something to address the problem that would benefit the victims of the bankster’s fraud…if only Americans elect the “right“, er…I guess, correct candidate.

Well, we (liberals) did elect the guy who said he would help, the guy who promised us “change” and “hope”.  Of course, he didn’t.  See?  Liberals deceived on intent…

You know who benefited?  The corporate banksters and Wall Street.  They made a LOT of money while they were inflating the bubble.  They made a LOT of money after the bubble burst.  They are making a LOT of money re-inflating the bubble right now and they’ll continue to profit after THIS bubble bursts, too.  (Because the guy who made the promises hasn’t even done anything to change the corporate environment that encouraged the fraud in the first place…)

And all the while, corporate media makes money playing cheerleader for the banksters by deceiving conservatives on facts and liberals on intent.  I wonder how long Americans will stand for it?