middle-east

Energy, Not Bombs…

by MyBaconPress

I didn’t know this, did you? In Iran, the now-dead Ayatollah had issued a fatwa against building, storing, or using nuclear weapons – in 2004. A fatwa is a legally recognized religious ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a qualified Islamic jurist in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge, or government. The fatwa still stands. By the way, my source for that is Tulsi Gabbard, under oath, testifying before Congress.

According to the Ayatollah Trump just killed because Trump pretended the Ayatollah was pursuing nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons were a violation of Islam. This is not a he-said, she-said. There was a fatwa in place. Unlike Christians, Muslims take Islam VERY seriously. It’s a safe statement, if there was a fatwa in place banning nuclear weapons – and there was – Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons.

Iran has always maintained they’re trying to build nuclear power plants for energy, not bombs. Now I learn there’s a fatwa in place banning nuclear weapons. Even if I wasn’t inclined to believe the Iranians, I know they take fatwas seriously. I believe Iran was not building nuclear bombs, nor have they been trying to. Donny’s lying. Probably, Israel is lying.

Not only was Iran NOT pursuing nuclear weapons when Donny started this most recent bombing, they weren’t pursuing nuclear weapons when Donny bombed them before. In fairness, it should be mentioned that if said fatwa was issued in 2004, and it was, then Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons during Biden, Trump 45, Obama, or most of Bush 43, either. Since 2004 that we can prove, ‘Iranian nuclear bombs’ have been a boogeyman.

But now that the old guy, who opposed nuclear weapons as a violation of Islam, is dead, nobody knows how the new guy will react to that question. So, to recap, Trump killed the guy known to be opposed to nuclear weapons and put in place a guy nobody can say for sure, one way or the other. Nice work, Dumbass…

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Meanwhile, our delusional dotard has declared his war-that’s-not-a-war over, nearly over, and just behind us in a little while. Iran said, “Wanna bet?” He has claimed he’s negotiating with Iran. Iran says, “No he’s not.” He says Iran’s military is obliterated. You know, like he “obliterated” their nuclear capability last June. The results must be the same because Iran’s “obliterated” military keeps attacking various sites.

His war is over but he needs $200 BILLION dollars for it. Also, he needs boots on the ground. Cons are actually trying to make the case the “boots on the ground” doesn’t “count” in Iran because they won’t be in cities. So the war is very definitely over, kind of, but he needs $200 billion dollars and more soldiers. Got it. Sometimes it seems like even HE doesn’t understand what he’s doing.

He DOES seem desperate. His lies are simply of lower quality, these days. He seems to be just pitching stuff out there in a blind panic. His now-debunked claims about the talks were in response to the crashing stock market. It worked for a minute. Then all of the investors realized he seems to be talking to himself and nobody else so they started pulling back again.

His “Tales of Success” seem to crash and burn before they even finish leaving his lying mouth these days. He doesn’t seem like the large-and-in-charge, silver-tongued misleader so much as a desperado trying to find an out. Think of Butch and Sundance in that little Bolivian town – just as the Bolivian army moved in. I could be wrong. Satan clearly takes care of his own and Donny has survived a LOT.

But I’m not sure he’ll be able to get even MAGA onboard with his stories on this one. Every time they pull up to a gas pump, they’ll remember why they’re paying so damn much of their limited incomes to gas companies and no, it’s not Biden’s nor Obama’s fault. And that doesn’t even mention what happens if they have to, gods forfend, go to an airport…

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Democrats want the ICEholes to take off their masks and use body cameras when they’re “working,” so they held up funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans are fighting back. The thing is, in this fight about ICE, the TSA has also been captured and there aren’t enough TSA agents working to keep people moving through airports.

Democrats keep trying to pass a bill that funds all of DHS except ICE, meaning TSA agents would get paid, so they would get back to work. Republicans won’t agree to the partial funding so they keep voting no. No, that’s not quite right. According to John Kennedy, not the great one, the crappy one from Louisiana, the GOP was onboard with the plan to fund everything BUT ICE. Trump said no. Trump said.

Republicans keep blaming Democrats because Dems won’t vote for total funding without ICE reforms and Democrats keep blaming Republicans because cons won’t agree to the partial funding bill because The Felon told them not to. Meanwhile, people are still stuck at airports – and it’s ALL because Donald Trump won’t let his toadies pass a partial bill…

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Donny being the whiz-bang of a “thinker” that he is, has deployed ICEholes to airports to pretend they’re TSA. Qualifications? Pshaw! Since when have qualifications been important to this regime? But here’s the thing: in sending ICE to work TSA, 47 has also ordered the ICEholes to remove their masks while working TSA!

So, two things. One, the entire point of the funding battle is to get ICEholes to remove their masks. It’s a whole thing, with the end result being that ICEholes are removing their masks anyway. ALSO, since ICEholes are removing their masks in airports, people moving through with their phones should take photos of the agents, while their faces are uncovered. Then, later, when the masks go back up, we can match the photos with masks to the photos without masks and more easily identify killers…

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Mail in ballots are a fraud? He says this as he takes his own mail-in ballot to the post and mails it. Yet again, Donny has found something that HE gets that YOU don’t. Like, health care. Gasoline. A place to live. Decent food…

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Well, this should be interesting. President Pedo has set up an energy embargo against Cuba. Because he attacked Iran, the world is suffering oil disruptions like the world has never seen before. Big disruptions. Huge disruptions. Donny thought he would address that problem he made by lifting sanctions on Russian oil, thereby helping Russia in it’s fight against Ukraine with a sudden infusion of cash.

Now one of the tankers full of oil Russia is suddenly allowed to sell, despite sanctions, is on it’s way to Cuba to help alleviate their energy crisis. You remember, the one caused by Donny being a dumbass. It’s expected to arrive in Cuba in the next five or six days. The world is wondering how the White House is going to respond.

My guess? Cuba is about to offload about 700,000 barrels of Russian oil. In order to stop the oil, Donny would have to cross Putin. Donny never crosses Putin. What 47 needs now is an excuse, a story to tell. He needs a way to explain why, even though it goes against everything he’s been saying publicly, it’s okay that Cuba is about to offload about 700,000 barrels of Russian oil. But either way, Cuba is about to offload about 700,000 barrels of Russian oil…

Mueller Did NOT Clear Trump…

by MyBaconPress

Oh, thank goodness. It appears our brain-drained, national embarrassment has a plan after all. He told Iran that if they don’t open the Strait of Hormuz, he was going to bomb things. Why didn’t he think of that earlier? I’m sure the idea that bombs might drop will cause the Iranians to stand down and apologize for their “offense” of reacting to having been bombed without cause before.

Well, no, of course that’s not what the Iranians are saying. THEY seem to be taking a page from Donny’s “clever and cagey” book. Why would they tell you what they’re really going to do, right? So they say they’ll bomb US assets in the region, where ever they may be. But that’s probably just clever and cagey talk, right? Iran probably wouldn’t bomb things just because somebody bombed Iran, right?

That was Donny’s clever and cagey strategy with Hormuz in the first place. A General told him not to bomb Iran because Iran could close the strait so easily. Donny, instead, listened to his “gut.” That’s the same “gut” that’s going to tell him when the war is over, by the way. His “gut” told him Iran wouldn’t close the Strait. That was all the evidence he needed. He went ahead with his plan and discovered his “gut” is a lying son-of-a-bitch…

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Hey, I think this is related to the “Israel” portion of Donny’s stupid, illegal war. There has been an uptick in attacks on synagogues. It’s hard to say, for sure, living in such a blatantly racist nation like we do, but I suspect at least some of the attacks are in protest against the actions of the Israeli government. If you think attacking a synagogue is an appropriate response to the actions of a government, stop it.

I know what politicians say. They say what they need to say to appease their voters. But the Israeli government is no more loyal to Judaism than the US government is loyal to Christianity. That is, not at all. Lip service is required. Actual practice is not. Blowing up – or driving into – synagogues is not sending a message. It’s just killing innocent people who have no more control over what’s happening in their name than you have over control of what’s happening in your name…

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Robert Mueller has died. Mueller discovered that the Russians did, in fact, interfere in the 2016 “election.” The second line of Mueller’s report read: “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” That’s pretty clear. So, obviously, Donny effing hated Mueller.

Mueller also reported this: “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice we would so state.” He added, “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Mueller added that the only reason he didn’t bring criminal charges against The Felon is because he thought he couldn’t because of a memo from the Office of Legal Counsel. That suggests that if there had been no memo, there would have been charges.

Mueller also noted that Donny tried really hard to obstruct his investigation. The primary reason he wasn’t as successful as he wanted to be is because many of his staff at the time were still more loyal to the law, the country, and their own futures than to him, unlike the staff of toadies merrily destroying things today. The result was, they often declined his requests, resigning instead.

Trump told White House Counsel Don McGhan to tell Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire Special Counsel Mueller, then lie about his recollection of the President’s request. That’s probably completely unrelated to Trump, when answering written questions, claiming HE couldn’t recall things more than thirty times.

By the time the Mueller Report came out, Donny had a loyal toady in control of the DOJ. Bill Barr stashed the report – illegally, mind you – on a stand-alone computer and put out a “summary” that declared Trump cleared of all charges. Mueller gave a presser in which he insisted that was NOT what his report concluded but MAGA media ran with Barr’s false message and to this day, MAGA believes Donny was exonerated. He wasn’t.

But see, that was Donny getting away with it – again. (Satan really does take care of his own.) I see it, in part, as the reason Donny is so smugly certain he’ll get away with this Trump/Epstein cover-up, too…

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Remember when Texas said they were going to redistrict to make sure Texas turned red permanently? Remember when California, in response, said, “Okay, we’ll redistrict, too, to make California blue.” Republicans really loved the ‘cheat for red’ concept but felt tricked by the ‘cheat for blue’ response. And, yes, gerrymandering IS cheating, blue or red.

Texas’s map was challenged in court and shot down as likely illegal in lower courts but finally, the corrupt Supremely Kangaroo Court stepped in and saved them. California used a careful, well-thought-out process. We had an election and passed Proposition 50. The majority approved. The new maps were put in place. Lawsuits were filed but the process was found legal so it’s going forward.

Now there’s a sheriff in Riverside, California, Chad Bianco, who is “investigating” Prop 50. He has seized 650,000 ballots. He’s trying to prove that Democrats cheated in the election by adding votes. Sure, it’s a stupid position but it’s near and dear to the MAGA heart. They’re constantly amazed that their hate-filled, horrifying, failed and irrational positions don’t resonate with more voters. The only thing their microscopic minds can imagine is that Democrats must cheat.

Democrats don’t need to cheat for things like this. Proposition 50 was a rational and predictable response to an irrational attack from red states. California didn’t start this, Texas did. I don’t even like gerrymandering. I think both gerrymandering AND the winner-take-all electoral distribution corrupt elections and disenfranchise voters. Both should be barred by law.

I don’t care who counts votes, so long as the process is transparent and repeatable. Have at it. But it turns out, Chad is a Republican and is running for Governor of the state. That seems like something of a conflict of interest, to me. It’s to his personal advantage to find some “problem” with the voting. Some people have enough integrity to pull something like that off, but I haven’t seen it from a Republican in a long, long time…

Who Hurts And Who Doesn’t…

by MyBaconPress

You don’t get health care. It’s too expensive. You don’t get housing relief. It’s too expensive. You don’t get any services or support whatsoever. It’s too expensive. But Whiskey Pete Hegseth gets to spend $93 BILLION dollars – in one month – on lobster, crab, and a Grand Piano…

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Insufficient information. It’s a hallmark of conservative “thought.” They keep prattling on about a 47 year war with Iran. That’s because Iranians captured the American embassy in 1979 and held the workers hostage for over a year. It turned out, the Reagan campaign had (allegedly) made an illegal deal with the hostage takers to hold them until after the election when he would reward them with weapons. They did and he did. Really, that was treason.

BUT… that wasn’t the first shot in our troubled history with Iran. That was a response to our first shot in Iran. During the 1950’s, one of the very first foreign entanglements of the at-the-time nascent CIA was to overthrow the Democratic Republic the Iranians had just installed and return the Shah – a king – to power. It was deemed better for the oil markets if Iran stayed tied to the Shah so the Democratic Republic had to go.

THAT is what led to the current political structure in Iran. THAT is what led the Iranians to capture the embassy in the first place…

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On March 7th, trump characterized his illegal war in Iran as an “excursion.” Some people think he recently learned the word “incursion” and tried to use it like a big boy, only to mess it up like a trump. So, quick question: if you’re the parent of one of the soldiers who have died because of Donny’s damn dirty war, how do you feel about hearing your beloved child died during a quick little excursion?

It’s okay, though, because on March 9th, he declared the war “very complete.” What a relief. Gas prices were spiking in the way he was warned but didn’t believe. By the 10th, Whiskey Pete was simultaneously bragging about all that great bombing we’re doing but assuring everyone we can stop whenever we want.

Oh, but then the 11th got here. Trump insisted there was “practically nothing left to target,” and declared that “we won,” but then changed “we won” to “we still have to win this thing.” By the 12th he was back to tough talk and focused on bombing – in an illegal war HE started and that, according to him, we had already won. It could just be me, but I’m of the opinion that if a war is won, one can stop with the bombing, right?

On the 13th, Whiskey Pete again highlighted some damage done by the US/Israeli assault and declared Iran’s leaders desperate and in hiding. Iran responded by pointing out that OUR leaders all seem to be on Epstein Island. Then the trumpster insisted his record oil prices are a temporary blip and the war will be over when he feels it in his bones. Meanwhile, Iran doesn’t seem to know it’s over since they keep firing weapons we’re assured they don’t have at ships in the Strait of Hormuz, choking off the oil supply in exactly the way trump was sure they would not.

Today, word is -according to the most dishonest regime in US history – Iran wants to make a deal but the US isn’t ready because the terms aren’t good enough. Meanwhile, weapons Iran doesn’t have continue to wreak havoc and we’re still bombing despite his war being “very complete” days ago and, of course, people are still dying. That doesn’t sound over, to me.

Trump sure does look like a buffoon doesn’t he? So, you will not be surprised to notice, MAGA is coming to terms with his illegal forever-war of regime change and they’re increasingly on board, if polling is to be believed. No, it doesn’t make sense to me, either. The dumber that guy looks the more aggressively MAGA defends him – and, boy, are they having to be aggressive right now…

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Trump: “If I didn’t terminate the Iran Nuclear deal, this world, right now, would be a different place.” Sometimes, he tells the truth by accident…

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That moron has never said anything other than high energy prices are bad and destructive – until his damn, dirty war increased energy prices higher than most people can even remember. Now, all of a sudden, high energy prices are good for the US. Why? Because we produce more oil than any other country so more expensive energy means more money for us. “US,” he says, knowing full well it means more money for oil companies, not Joe Sixpack.

So, not only has he completely flipped on high energy prices, he has ALSO just discredited his own “drill, baby, drill” message by pointing that we already produce more oil than anybody. Why the hell would we need to produce even more? He’s just stupid on stupid…

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Hegseth: “The only thing prohibiting transit in the Straits right now is Iran shooting at shipping. It is open for transit should Iran not do that.” Well, duh. Except, you know, Iran IS doing that and they intend to KEEP doing that in response to Donny’s damn, dirty war…

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“…people have no idea how valuable a good interpreter is. But over the last year, the world has witnessed the supreme power of the United States. We’re the most powerful military country in the world.” That’s trump, during a speech. It’s unclear how the “supreme power of the United States” relates to a “good interpreter.”

I CAN tell you this, though. Being “the most powerful military country in the world” is often the very last “most” empires get. In fact, HAVING the most powerful military in the world is often the very thing that puts the final nail in an empire’s coffin. It’s very expensive. The US has been working feverishly, day and night, to reduce revenues to the state but increase output to the Pentagon for 46 years. Donny wants to add billions more – to well over a trillion dollars of the US budget.

It’s a last gasp. Of course Donny was running the show when it ran into the ground. It’s what he does…

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Speaking of which, his website for deplorables, so-called ‘Truth Social,’ is crashing and burning financially. The company that owns it, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), has burned through a rather stunning amount of cash. $712.1 million dollars, in fact, on revenues of $3.7 million. At one point, shares of TMTG went for nearly $80 dollars/share. Now it’s down to $9.73 and dropping.

Fear not, most of the executives managed to enrich themselves by selling off their shares before the plunge got too bad. Now the shareholders are his day-to-day, rank-and-file loyalists. The little guys will be the only people hurt in the crash – just the way Donny likes it…

MAGA On The Case…

by MyBaconPress

I hear that Team Evil tried to work out a cease fire with Iran shortly after attacking her without cause or provocation and killing their Supreme Leader. I hear that Iran has declined the opportunity. It turns out, when one lights a fuse in the Middle East, one most commonly gets exactly the explosion they should have expected. President Pedo thinks the world is so impressed by US military power he can just bomb and leave as he pleases.

The headline in this morning’s ‘Guardian’ says, “Kuwait mistakenly shoots down three US fighter planes, as US says Iran’s “reckless” attacks threaten regional stability.” Kuwait mistakenly shoots down THREE US fighter planes? It’s being described as a ‘friendly fire’ incident. The crews are all safe but the planes? Not so much. I know MAGA is going to lap it up, but blaming Iran for threatening regional stability is pretty much what the DOJ is doing with the Trump/Epstein files and ICE: blaming the victims.

“Oh, those little girls shouldn’t have been so alluring,” and “Oh, those people shouldn’t have been so brown” are both terrible positions. “Iran responding to our unwarranted, unprovoked, illegal and unconstitutional attack destabilizes Middle East stability” is equally nonsensical.

I honestly can not believe people are going to die as a political maneuver by Sleepy Don in an effort to maintain power. I’ll tell you what’s worse. Cadet bone spurs said flatly, “The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties, that often happens in war.” I’m not the first to notice the similarity to the character Lord Farquaad in the movie ‘Shrek’ who says, “Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

Trump, declaring his contempt for the common man.

Yet again, Trump is displaying his fundamental contempt for work-a-day Joes. He does that a lot. He pretends he loves them. He makes MAGA laugh. They love him. He does not truly reciprocate the feeling. I think after the revolution, any legal age offspring of the political “leaders” should be required by law to take up a position on the front lines of any war or battle these warmonger cowards decide to start. If it’s important enough to send my children, it should be important enough to send their own…

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I remember during one of the Gulf wars, Saddam started sending SCUD cruise missiles pretty much everywhere they could reach. We were told here in the US that Saddam’s missiles were being taken care of by American Patriot missiles. We were told that the Patriots were shooting down, literally, 100% of the SCUDs Saddam shot off. Ha, ha, isn’t Saddam silly?

Then, one day, as support for the war began to wane a tad, here at home, ‘Time Magazine’ was emblazoned with a cover photo of a great big crater right in the middle of Riyadh. What a threat Saddam posed! So, we claimed to be shooting down 100% of Saddam’s SCUD missiles until they needed to whip up a little support, then, suddenly, the magical Patriot missiles magically missed one. It turned out, the Patriots weren’t quite as perfectly devastating as the American people had been led to believe. The already rich contractor who built the things made tons of taxpayer money, though, so no one is allowed to complain.

Israel is said to have a “Golden Dome” of protection. Nothing can get through. But if you’re like me, you noticed that Iranian missile falling into Tel Aviv. You know, having gotten through. I mention that because Sleepy Don wants to build a “Golden Dome” for America, too. That, I’m sure, will be expensive. Oh, AND, it doesn’t seem to work.

I’ll tell you this: I think I’d rather see them stick to the defenses we already use and divert the money they were planning to pass on to their rich friends to universal health care for Americans…

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According to the CDC, as of February 26, 2026, there are 1,136 confirmed measles cases in the United States. In all of 2025, there were 2,281 cases. We’re on track to bury that number – along with several of the victims who contract the illness. In 2024, there were 285 total cases in the US. In 2023, there were 59.

Word is, measles kills about 95,000 people around the world every year. The sudden increase is said to be down to “vaccine hesitancy.” People are “hesitant” to get their kids vaccinated. Instead, they’re eager to risk their child’s life to measles because they’re afraid of a story an unethical doctor made up to try and make money. After the revolution, can we please make ‘Critical Thinking’ a mandatory class every year from Kindergarten through twelfth grade? Clearly, we need it…

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The economic fallout from Team Evil’s management continues to grow, unabated. The DOW dropped 521 points on Friday. It closed at 48,977.92, well below Pam Bondi’s sacred 50,000+, meaning the DOJ now has to release all of the Trump/Epstein files. No, I don’t understand the relationship, either, but Pam assured us she didn’t have to release the files because the DOW was over 50,000. Maybe she can explain it…

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Dubai is a playground for the rich and richer. Except now. Now everybody is trying to get the hell out. It’s a rather dangerous place to be, and rich people don’t like to be in dangerous places. They have poor people for that. So here’s the story of suffering you may not have heard. The price of private planes in the region has skyrocketed. Rich people are being gouged by other rich people just because they want to get out of harm’s way. Maybe they can start a GoFundMe…

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Some clever sod has created a “Walk of Shame” near the White House. It’s made up of stickers that resemble the “Walk of Fame” stars but they name people identified in the Trump/Epstein files. Each sticker includes a QR code that opens a link to information about that particular assailant.

It looks like Trump’s damned and dirty little war of distraction hasn’t distracted at all. I’m guessing we’re going to have elections, too. It’s almost like he’s going to waste all of those lives and all of that money for nothing. Oh, AND, expect the price of gas at the pump to go up, not to mention other imports that will likely be affected by the upheaval in stability. Thanks, MAGA…

Collective Insanity…

by MyBaconPress

Are we all really supposed to just forget that the US had an agreement with Iran to stop nuclear weapon production? Felon 47 objected to it because it was negotiated by Obama’s team. So, in his first term, Trump unilaterally pulled out of the deal. He said it was a terrible deal but I’ve seen him work enough now to know that he wouldn’t know a terrible deal if it slapped the orange off of him.

After the ill-advised, unilateral pull-out from the Iran arms deal, Iran started enriching uranium again. To be fair, it should be noted that Iran says it’s nuclear ambitions are peaceful, intended for civilian power purposes. No, I’m not saying I believe them, necessarily. That’s just what they say. Anyway, Trump “decided” to bomb Iran’s enrichment facilities after Netanyahu told him to.

The US bombing raid met with some less-than-stellar reviews. The regime that always claims complete and perfect success, claimed complete and perfect success. Analysts around the world suggested the bombing raid did damage but not as much as was being touted by the regime, which was claiming complete obliteration. When questions were raised regarding the actual efficacy of the raid, the regime repeated, LOUDLY, “COMPLETE OBLITERATION!” and “WHAT PART OF COMPLETE OBLITERATION DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?”

Recently, workers rebuilt a bridge here in my home town. It took a little over a year. I suspect a bridge is a less complicated build than a uranium enrichment facility. The point is, Iran could certainly rebuild it’s facilities after “complete obliteration.” But wouldn’t it take more time than it took to rebuild a bridge? Isn’t it difficult to obtain uranium to enrich? Doesn’t that take time? Doesn’t the enrichment process, itself, take time? Doesn’t it take even longer to refine uranium to weapons-grade standards?

But only six months after “complete obliteration,” the new claim from the lying US regime is that Iran is only mere weeks from obtaining WMDs. WMDs?!? Where have I heard that one before? It’s a test, see? How stupid are you? CAN they take you to war using the exact same lie Bush 43 used to illegally invade Iraq? I guess we’re going to find out. Either they were lying about complete obliteration in the first place or they’re lying now.

If he hadn’t been such a teeny, tiny man, if he hadn’t been so desperately insecure, and so completely jealous of Obama, he might have just kept the deal that was already in place. Now he’s going to war in an attempt to get the deal that already existed that he walked away from unilaterally and voluntarily. Hey, MAGA, remember when he decried foreign entanglements and promised to stay out of them? Get your kids ready. It’s time for The Sandbox III.

MORE people dying because he’s a moron. A new war-of-choice. An illegal war, remember. He STILL has so much support among his base. At some point, one has to acknowledge the collective insanity of it all. And remember, we’ve all seen him “work” over this last year. Any deal he actually gets will be less than the deal he abandoned. I can practically guarantee it. I still want to see the complete, unredacted Trump/Epstein files…

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“We didn’t ‘intentionally withhold’ those pages from the Trump/Epstein files. We simply ‘did not provide them, with purpose.’ See? That’s entirely different.”

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Well, it looks like Paramount is the winner in the Warner Bros/Discovery hostile takeover. That means everyone else loses. It’s going to be MUCH harder to find decent, trustworthy information from US sources. The One Percent are building a media misinformation empire intended to deceive and confuse. This merger will do tons of damage to an already teetering media landscape. Cons are trying to convert all media to a Fox Not-News format, that is, protecting the Pedo. All propaganda, all the time.

Cons are already attacking CBS news. Now they get to destroy CNN but they’ll also gain control of programming at HBO. What do you think that’s going to do to ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’ and ‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver?’ Do you think it will have any impact on HBO’s documentaries?

We can still get reasonable news from the BBC. There are other dependable foreign sources we can turn to but many of them involve reading and, apparently, Americans can’t be bothered anymore. There’s a guy, Seth Stern. He’s chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. He pointed out that the new company will readily throw the news organizations under the bus for business or political reasons, then added, “But censorship is bad for business. WBD executives and shareholders should recognize that selling companies that depend on the first amendment to a censorial White House puppet is not only morally wrong but harmful to their bottom line.”

I know I’ll be cancelling subscriptions…

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So, last month, the on top of everything Trump regime shut down airspace around a New Mexico airport so they could shoot down a bunch of party balloons. In fairness, they thought the balloons were drug cartel drones. I would have imagined they could tell the difference but, apparently not. Now, just to make sure we know they don’t know what they’re doing, they’ve finally shot down a drone!
“Well, that makes it sound like they DO know what they’re doing.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t finished. It was a US drone being operated by the border patrol.”
“I think you just said we shot down one of our own drones…”

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Recently, for reasons I can’t define, I’ve been watching a lot of historical clips on YouTube about WWII and it’s aftermath. What happened to equipment? What happened to the Nazi leadership? What happened to complicit civilians? I recommend it. I find it comforting. It helps me remember that a once-civilized nation that loses it’s collective mind CAN find their way back to decency.

I’m always particularly unimpressed by the way so many of the Nazi leaders took their own lives rather than try to justify their positions to the world. It makes it seem, to me, like they knew there was no justification. Even if they thought it was because the world was so stupid, they knew they’d never convince anybody they had done the right thing. Call it the lack-of-courage-of-their-convictions.

After the war, Germany went through a “de-Nazification” program, in which Nazis were purged from government positions. We’ll have to do the same with our Nazi— er, MAGA conspirators. What, we’re just going to leave Aileen “Loose” Cannon in her judicial role? I don’t think we can afford that. People like her would just keep inflicted their faulty ideologies on the country. They’ll have to be removed.

It’s likely going to take a while to deprogram the MAGA rank and file, too. Those guys have been conditioned and they’ve been conditioned good. They’ll need help getting back to civilized frames of mind. Still, remembering that Germany went from sane to insane back to sane again is a comforting reminder that hope is still possible as the US descends into it’s own collective insanity…

What A Confused Mess…

by MyBaconPress

Our story so far: As nearly as I can work it out, Israel has been murdering Palestinians at a shocking rate in Gaza, claiming they’re wiping out Hamas. Apparently, EVERY Palestinian in Gaza is Hamas as far as Israel is concerned. Israel claims Iran has been financially backing Hamas in the fight, so they decided Iran should be involved, too. Never mind that Israel could NOT continue this fight without backing from the US. In Israel’s calculation, a country backing Israel is good, a country backing Israel’s opponent is an unforgivable outrage.

Israel repeats a long-ago debunked claim that Iran is working toward building a nuclear weapon and gets the Foolhardy First Felon to bomb some facilities in Iran. Then, the Felon posts in social media that he has brokered a cease-fire between the two countries. Iran “responds” to the US bombing by launching some cruise missiles at a US base in Qatar. Qatar is upset that Iranian missiles violated Qatari airspace but seems to be taking a measured response. Israel uses the launch of Iranian missiles at a US base in Qatar as a pretext to unload a huge number of bombs on Iran.

Donny knew it was going on. He says he got Bibi on the phone and told him not to drop those bombs. Bibi said he had to, the mission had already left. Donny claims he told Bibi to turn the planes around and posted to social media that the planes would do a “friendly plane wave” to Iran and go home. But the planes did a very unfriendly bombing of Tehran, instead. Iran fired back, because of course they did.

It should be noted, Israel is doing pretty much whatever it wants despite any agreements, international laws, or war crimes that might be involved. After the way they’ve been behaving in Gaza, I don’t trust the Israeli government. (The government, not “Jews,” so blow it out your ear.) The fact that the two countries were still exchanging fire after the announcement of the cease-fire really irritated Donny who said, “I gotta get Israel to calm down now,” as he left the White House, Reuters reports.

“Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I’ve never seen before, the biggest load that we’ve seen…We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”

But speaking of not know what one is doing, he came out immediately after the unprovoked attack and claimed Iran’s nuclear facilities had been completely obliterated. It turns out, Iran’s nuclear facilities were mildly damaged and should be back up and running in a few months.

MOSTLY, this raid proved that the vaunted ‘Bunker Buster Bomb’ doesn’t work very well. Each one of those bad boys costs $20 million dollars. Each one. The US dropped 14 of them during the raid. $280 million dollars in bombs alone, that doesn’t count the cost of the B-2 bombers required to carry those bombs or the support planes to protect the B-2s for a setback of only a few months. Hell, that’s not even good business.

The Felon and some of his followers are all giddy now. Oh, he’s going to get the Nobel Peace Prize THIS time. The dude is obsessed with trying to get a Nobel Peace Prize. Obama got one (that he, candidly, didn’t deserve) and now Donny desperately wants one. He’s obsessed. And, apparently, he’ll kill anyone to get one.

Personally, I’ll be surprised if one gets a peace prize for an illegal bombing raid. “No,” MAGA will say, “it’s for the cease-fire.” Yeah, the cease-fire after the illegal bombing raid. You can’t just eliminate that part of the equation. The Nobel committee won’t. Besides, Netanyahu is still in charge in Israel. Do you really think he’s going to stand down? Especially now that the world knows America’s great big, very expensive, vaguely suggestively named bomb (“Massive Ordnance Penetrator”) only did minor damage?

But the plot thickened on Wednesday, when a new intelligence assessment from Israel was issued. It determined that the bombs really DID do bigly damage to Iran’s nuclear capability. So, to review: that’s Hyperbolic Donny and Netanyahu – both of whom desperately want to look tough, decisive, and successful – saying the bombing was the bombing of their dreams and everyone else – including Donny’s own intelligence services – saying it was just a scratch.

There’s no sense in arguing about it at this point. The whole world will know which was correct by how quickly Iran gets it’s nuclear program up and running again. But, based on the veracity of every other thing 47 says, I’m guessing that will be sooner, rather than later…

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Right now, as far as the world is concerned, the only thing keeping the American dollar going is Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve. He serves a predetermined term and that term runs another eleven months. He’s solid. He knows his stuff. He keeps standing in the way of Hyperbolic Donny’s efforts to obliterate the US economy. So, of course, 47 hates him and attacks him as “stupid” and “very dumb.” But Donny’s too stupid to know what stupid looks like, clearly a widespread affliction today in this once-great nation.

The Felon’s attacks on Powell are political, so, of course, he claims Powell is acting politically. As of today, the Fed doesn’t do that. It’s an independent group that is supposed to act on economic data alone and, as of today, it does. That means Powell doesn’t toady up to 47. THAT means 47 wants him gone. But because of the rules, he can’t just fire him.

Instead, Donny says he’s going to name Powell’s successor early, before the end of Powell’s term. THEN, every time Powell makes an economic decision, the regime can trot out their preferred monetary moron to say HE would have done things differently, politically, whatever Donny wanted, undermining Powell’s decision.

So, the dollar has fallen to a low not seen since the world was trying to crawl out from under the wreckage of Donny’s epic mishandling of Covid-19. It turns out, there are a LOT of ways Donny can destroy the US economy and he’s going full throttle on all of them…

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Mike German, an ex-FBI agent, said immigration agents hiding their identities ‘highlights the illegitimacy of actions.’ He’s right about that. These guys KNOW that what they’re doing is wrong and the masks are the proof. But it’s worse than that. Now, bad guys are cosplaying as cops (copsplaying?) so they can do bad guy things, inadvertently supported by potential actual cops hiding fearfully behind their own masks.

SO, what stops, say, a terrorist from, oh, I don’t know, Iran maybe, from dressing up as a cop to gain access to some sensitive area and do some severe damage, possibly in retribution for some recent bombing?

Masked cops are just bad in every measurable way, and they’re likely making the whole country far LESS safe. Is there ANYTHING Donny doesn’t destroy? Anything at all? I’ll wait…

Regime Change Begins At Home…

by MyBaconPress

Let the spinning begin. Yes, I mean the head-spinning. Apparently on orders from Bibi Netanyahu, the US bombed Iran in an effort to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb the world agrees they were not trying to build, but which Donny has pretended they were trying to build for some three decades. Wait, actual bombs fell in response to a delusion? Absolutely.

The US is blaming Iran. Bear in mind, the US and Iran had entered into an agreement that prevented Iran from building nuclear weapons and, by all accounts, they were honoring that agreement. But because Donny is an irrational moron, he unilaterally pulled out of that agreement, for no reason other than Obama had negotiated the thing, and tried to force a new one on Iran, which Iran declined.

By all accounts (except Donny’s) Iran was sticking to the framework of the Obama agreement anyway. But they got attacked by Israel and they responded. The Israeli attack was kind of superficial and the response was also “measured.” But then it happened again. Israel attacked, this time with more devastating effect and Iran responded again, also with more devastating effect.

So now, because Iran responded to Israeli attacks, the US just HAD to bomb Iran, see? Clear as mud. It reminds me of nothing so much as an abusive husband beating his wife over some trivial “offense” while saying, “See what you make me do?” But the US sends in some planes, bombs three locations, then withdraws the planes safely. A “successful” mission, based on the fact that all of the planes that went in came out again. They DID hit their targets, too. Yay! Let’s celebrate US power.

Regime 47 officials took turns stepping up to the microphone to tell Americans how awesome we are. We hit our targets. We set back their nuclear program. We did amazing and wonderful damage and we came away unscathed and, take their word for this, there will be no repercussions whatsoever because that’s the way things work in most fantasy lands.

It turns out, Iran had an inkling that Donny might bring bombs and had moved everything important out of those facilities. Yes, the US did damage but they didn’t destroy the facilities, despite Donny’s hyperbole. Israel has since followed up by bombing access roads to those facilities but the roads and the facilities, themselves, can be repaired.

Iran can be back up and running in fairly short order – and THAT assumes the three sites bombed were the only sites available. Is it at all possible Iran had a fourth site that had gone undetected and, therefore, unbombed? Here’s the really ironic part: the very best way for Iran to put an end to all of this aggression over whether or not they have a nuclear weapon, is to develop a nuclear weapon. The US tends to shy away from bullying nuclear nations.

All of this hand-wringing over whether Iran can have nukes is kind of stupid. I mean, what are they going to do with them? Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is a real thing. Israel plays coy but the whole world knows Israel has nukes already. Iran can’t nuke Israel without Israel responding in kind – and BOTH sides face a very high risk of radiation blowback.

Are we really so afraid that “a madman might get nukes?” Well, guess what? A madman has full control over an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons right now! If that’s a legitimate basis for regime change, shouldn’t the US start at home? I say we get rid of our own madman with nukes before we worry too much about some guy somewhere else who doesn’t even have any.

Matthew, Chapter 7, verse 5 sums it up nicely: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye…“

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Don’t be distracted by Donny’s dirty little war. Remember, the GOP is trying to take away your health care so they can give tax cuts to the wealthy. For as long as I can remember, the GOP motto is: comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted…

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Here’s a weird one. Some nutball opened fire at a church in Detroit on Sunday. Please note the LACK of speculation as to the shooter’s motives at this point. All we know, for sure, is that a 31 year old, white gunman opened fire. He shot a security guard in the leg. The newspaper article I saw in the Guardian said the security guard then shot and killed the gunman. That’s all kind of normal stuff, right? Standard American carnage.

But it turns out, the wounded security guard managed to shoot back only AFTER a church member ran over the gunman in a truck. You’ve got to admit, that’s a twist ending you didn’t see coming, right? Apparently, another thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a truck. THEN the guard shot and killed the gunman.

Okay, first, props to the driver of the truck. His quick thinking and bold action almost certainly saved lives. But then a weird little thought popped into my head. If I’m attacked, I’m allowed to use whatever force I need to use to protect myself – but no more. You’re allowed to defend yourself. You’re not allowed to escalate. If I manage to subdue my attacker, I’m not allowed to then grab a board and start pounding. The guy’s not a threat anymore.

I know it isn’t going to happen, but I found myself wondering if the security guard might get into trouble. I presume that once the congregant drove over the shooter – in a truck – the shooter was likely disabled long enough for someone to get the gun and secure the shooter. That is, I’m not sure the security guard needed to shoot and kill the gunman. It seems like excessive force.

The details on this shooting are still a little murky, but no, I would NOT have the guard face charges. It just crossed my mind that he could. If the gunman was down, having been run over by a truck, why did the guard open fire? But, like I say, murky details. Maybe the shooter was getting back up, like the Terminator. Either way, I don’t have any sympathy for the gunman and I feel like he should have holstered his weapon instead of shooting at people.

MAGAmerica is an insane, bloodthirsty place and and we have all just come to accept these regular shootings as part of our daily lives. It’s MAGA “freedumb.” You’re free to get shot anytime some nutball chooses…

The Pale Rider Rides Again…

by MyBaconPress

Donny says HE invented the term “America First” so HE gets to choose what it means. Here’s the thing. HE did NOT invent the term “America First.” He revived it from Nazis. It was a slogan used by American Nazi sympathizers in the 1930s. 1930s Americans can be forgiven for being attracted to pretended Nazi ideology. The Nazis hadn’t Nazi’d yet. The modern Nazi, these days calling themselves MAGA, deserve no such grace.

This is all in relation to whether or not Felon 47 should use America’s biggest, non-nuclear bomb in Iran to “stop Iran from having nuclear weapons.” The question of whether or not he should bomb Iran and drag America into yet another moronic and wrongheaded Middle East war created quite a rift in MAGA-land. Should he or shouldn’t he? Two firmly held camps. The left started to get a little excited that it might be a “MAGA civil war.”

I don’t think such a threat actually ever existed. Remember, this is the crowd that actively killed their parents and grandparents during Covid-19 just to score what they thought were a few political points. Do you really think they’re going to split over bombing Iran? Now that he’s done it, he’ll just tell the “don’t do it” crowd to sit down and shut up – and they will. They’ll fall in line because that’s what they do. Independent thought is NOT a virtue in MAGAmerica.

This bit is funny: Pakistan announced on Saturday – before the bombing – they were going to nominate Felon 47 for a Nobel Peace Prize. He really wants a Nobel Peace Prize. He just doesn’t deserve one. He thought he might get it for ending Putin’s war in Ukraine. He brought his best game to that one, inducing the infamous “Stop it, stop it, STOP it!” chant – but it didn’t work and he was out of ideas.

He has been FAR too supportive of Israel’s attempted genocide, too. It turns out, one cannot supply weapons to a maniacal government and encourage that government to use those weapons to murder as many women and children as they can and be in the top running for a peace prize. The whole world knows Israel would not be able to continue in Netanyahu’s insanity but for American weapons – now happily supplied by Felon 47, for a small fee, of course.

He failed in Ukraine and he failed in Gaza so he apparently decided his best path to a peace prize might be in bombing the crap out of a foreign sovereign nation over a fraudulent and made up story. Damn, it feels like I’ve seen this movie before. The actors are different and it’s set in a different country but the plot… the plot is very familiar. Hackneyed, even.

Here’s an interesting tidbit. Outside of American (and probably Israeli) media? The entire world agrees that Iran does not have nuclear weapons, is not planning on having nuclear weapons, does not have enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons, is not building nuclear weapons. Even Tulsi Gabbard, his own National Intelligence Director, said Iran isn’t trying to build a bomb.

The whole threat of Iran’s “nuclear weapons” is Iraq’s WMDs all over again. Remember how that worked out? Remember when Kindasleazy Rice terrorized people with this lie, “The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. It couldn’t have been. Saddam didn’t HAVE WMDs.

He had been thoroughly defanged by the time the US went in the second time. MAGA was left pretending that some rotted and rusted chemical weapons found buried deep in the sand in the middle of a desert counted as WMDs, despite the fact that Weapons of Mass Destruction had been clearly associated with nuclear weapons.

Iran does want a nuclear power plant and such a beast requires enriched uranium, too. But the level of enrichment is vastly lower than that required to build a nuclear bomb and, again, Iran is making NO effort to enrich uranium to that extent. Well, they weren’t. It’s pretty clear the best path to avert American bullying is to HAVE a nuclear device, and Donny has now, likely accidentally, made that fact very clear to Iran.

Another promise made, another promise broken…

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I often accuse MAGA of lacking morals. I make the point because of all the immoral stances MAGA supports. It’s a judgement call, subjective. But the more I hear about 47’s big bill, the more sure I am. Remember, one of the main themes of this nightmare is to inflict as much pain as possible on struggling Americans in order to make a very small segment of our country – rich people – I was going to say “more comfortable,” but they won’t BE more comfortable. How could they? They’ll just have more money on their pile.

It turns out, one route to all of that suffering is this slashing of Medicaid. That’s going to have widespread effect on the whole nation, things one might not initially think about, like closing rural hospitals. Obviously, the White House minions are pretending that cutting needed money won’t hurt anybody or anything. In fact, the less people have, the happier they’ll be, right? So, who needs medical care?

Are you having a heart attack because you were rage-screaming at the television about “Libtards?” Did you shoot yourself in the leg while you were cleaning your gun? Did your wife go into labor unexpectedly, three months early? Wow, you need a doctor, and fast. Too bad, though. The nearest doctor will be roughly two to four hours further away now that the only medical facility in the area lost funding to the Medicaid cuts and had to shut down. Try not to bleed out, okay?

Oh, I know, MAGA was told the Medicaid cuts actually only represented fraud, waste, and abuse. You’d better check that out more closely. The GOP – I should say, the very wealthy GOP – is taking money people need so they can give it to people with no need. Rural hospitals WILL shut down. Here’s the thing: one cannot just close down a hospital, realize it was a massive mistake, then reopen the thing as though nothing had happened.

This is not like DOGE firing everybody in sight, realizing the people they fired did an important job, and bringing them back a few days, weeks, or months later. Once those hospitals close, it will be very difficult to re-open them. Once rural Americans have lost their only local access to health care, that local access will likely be gone for a long, long time, maybe forever.

Only MAGA can stop this thing. I’m a lefty. I live in California. My representatives are already against this monstrosity. If I lived in a red state, my representative would just dismiss my input as radical lefty stuff. Only MAGA can make clear to MAGA politicians that this bill will cost those politicians more than they cost the victims of the bill and they’d better do it soon – or hope that no emergency medical situations come their way…

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…