news

Violations…

by MyBaconPress

It’s just such a weird feeling, being bummed police have captured a murderer. But I am. I’m not alone, either. The guy who shot the CEO of a health care denial company, we now know, is named Luigi Mangione. He was spotted at a McDonald’s Restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania and ratted out. Okay, turned in. Police showed up and arrested him.

Then, the Mickey D’s in question began to be bombarded with negative reviews. Google finally had to step in and remove the low ratings. The restaurant was being hit with bad reviews because that’s where Mangione was captured, not because of anything having to do with their business.

The corporate press is trying to trivialize the reality that people seem to support his Mangione’s actions. They’re calling him the “hot assassin” and pretending people only support him because of celebrity culture. They keep trying to reinforce the idea that shooting “important” people is a very bad idea.

This is just a guy with a beef who shot another guy. Murder, right? No, the CEO gets the honor of having been “assassinated.” ‘Assassinate’ is defined as murder for political or religious reasons. The corporate press wants the world to see the CEO as an innocent victim but the population, the people who deal with the fallout of the CEO’s leadership, keeps seeing the act as revenge – killing the man who killed so many.

The thing that strikes me about all of this is how the population isn’t letting itself be manipulated. We all KNOW murder is wrong. We’re not all sure this qualifies as a murder so much as an act of self-defense. I think the One Percent is about to start pressing very, very hard on the day-to-day workers, trying to extract whatever they can, however they can.

I think the population may well be far more angry about it than the One Percent have taken into account and I suspect there will be MORE vigilantes out there aiming for self-described “important” people. I think Mangione will go to jail, but I ALSO think it might take awhile to find a jury willing to convict…

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Effing Israel. Assad falls in Syria. The country is in a vulnerable moment, trying to determine what shape it’s going to take moving forward. But Israel saw an opportunity – and started bombing. Can you believe it? They say they’re just carving out a “buffer zone.” It’s one of their favorite stories, we need a buffer zone. I suspect the “buffer zone” Israel REALLY wants is one in which no Muslims can be found from the Mediterranean Sea to just beyond the Persian Gulf.

It’s a land grab, pure and simple. It’s kind of what Israel does, steal land. They’ve been doing it to the Palestinians for decades and now they see an opportunity to annex some of Syria and they didn’t waste ANY time.

Is this really behavior their god is going to protect?

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Yeah, this is dumb but here it is. I saw an article telling workers how they can plan a perfect “workation.” Get it? It’s a mashup. ‘Work’ and ‘vacation.’ See, you go on vacation, but you still work. Ooh, cute. Let’s mash that up and make it sound like something cool, working while on vacation. Yeah, workation, that’s the ticket.

Hey, you know what? Pound sand. If I’m on vacation, I’m not working. If I’m working, I’m not on vacation! This seems like an idea the One Percent is trying to inject into the populace and what a stupid, stupid idea it is. Besides, it comes out at a time when employers are demanding their employees return to the office. How the HELL do I go someplace restful (to not rest) AND show up at the office?

It reminds me of when the One Percent tried to convince people that working only as hard as people were being paid to work amounted to “quiet quitting.” Never forget, rich people literally used to work people to death. They worked children over the course of ten hour days. These guys, left to their own ends, will do ANYTHING for profits and they really don’t seem to understand worker’s reticence to be abused that way.

I doubt “workation” is something that’s going to catch on. I just wanted to mention it…

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Well, both sides ARE doing it. Joe Biden is commuting sentences of low-level criminals. The individuals in question did some real time, then got sent to home confinement because of Covid-19. They’ve BEEN on home confinement since and apparently there hasn’t been any problem. So, Biden just commuted many of their sentences (something like 1,500) in an effort to protect them from the incoming threat.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, the Governor there is a Democrat but their state legislature is controlled by Republicans. So, the Republicans have voted to strip the Democratic governor of the state of most of his powers. Oh, and the incoming State Attorney General is a Democrat, too, so they stripped him of some of his powers, as well.

It’s a naked power grab. The thing is, the GOP is set to lose control over their legislation in the 2025 session so it may not be too serious of a move. When the Dems come in, maybe they can reverse the law.

The effing GOP is relentless in their thefts, power grabs, and hypocritical manipulations. Damn, I miss the days when people had honor…

Protecting Ones Self…

by MyBaconPress

It’s kind of wild, isn’t it? Watching the entire world, rushing to “Trump-proof” their area of responsibility is a little inspiring, a little sad. I don’t think they can do as much as they hope to do, but I’m glad people are trying.

I think the single most important factor Trump had last time was that nobody believed him. The idea that someone THAT undeveloped might have actually ascended to the highest office in the land was, simply, ludicrous. But the more the nation and the world interacted with this…guy…the more they understood: we need to protect ourselves.

I’m sure our allies are currently drying up back and forth communications, certain that any intelligence they share will end up in Putin’s control. Businesses are already trying to position themselves to survive the tariffs, if possible. Work-a-day Joes are just scared, mostly defenseless, wondering just how bad it’s going to be. Although, the recent, oddly celebrated shooting of the CEO of a “health care insurance” company has offered up a telling possibility.

The powers that are about to be at the top, should really take that shooting into account. It seems the American people really ARE angry at the way we’re being treated. It seems we may be more angry than many of us have presumed. It seems we may have less distance to revolt than I would have thought, anyway.

Americans KNOW we’re being Capitalistically abused in our quest for health care, for example. We KNOW it’s possible to create a better, not-for-profit system that provides superior care for FAR less money. Most developed nations have done exactly that. Yet, here, in the United States, the so-called Greatest Country On Earth™ can’t work it out. We simply cannot, for some reason, figure out a way to remove the leaches that have attached themselves to the system just to suck the life-blood of the desperate.

As the One Percent have succeeded, slowly but steadily, in reversing the benefits of the New Deal, life has become more and more expensive and it’s getting increasingly difficult just to keep up. And now there’s a crowd coming in that promises to make matters worse, not better. It’s an entire government BY the One Percent, FOR the One Percent and if there’s anything the One Percent do not understand, it’s the day to day challenges of NOT being in the One Percent.

The CEO of a health insurance company got shot and the country responded with a collective, “Good!” Not even a ho-hum. An actual, “Good!” That suggests an anger level much deeper than I had imagined. I mean, I know MAGA is angry. They’ve been angry about everything for as long as I can remember. It’s part and parcel to their operating system. But they’re usually angry about stupid things, made up offenses, imaginary threats, that kind of thing. Still, anger is anger and that shooting has kind of opened up my eyes.

I do believe the US is ripe for revolution. We KNOW the One Percent are having their way with us and we’re not much enjoying it. But we ALSO know that we’ve been a bit spoiled for quite some time. I’ve tended to discount how quickly the anger would bloom because I think people will put up with lots and lots of crap for a long, long time.

But we the people have been told we have to suffer for the bottom line for over forty years, now, and, perhaps, we’ve had it already. Now, here comes Trump to make sure we pay through the nose and suffer in new and more spectacular ways. But if the recent shooting is any indicator, they may want to slow their roll just a little bit. JFK seems to have been more prescient than I had guessed: violent revolution seems inevitable.

Note to the monitors: this is not a threat of any kind. I’m not calling for violence. I don’t want the violence. I’m simply acknowledging that I can see a path for it and wondering if the One Percent are seeing things the same way. (Sometimes, the rich and powerful misread the reality of the masses. Assad, anyone?) For clarity, it’s conjecture, not a threat…

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I’ve seen a lot of promises about all the various and sundry things Trump is going to do “on Day One.” I suspect Trump is going to play golf on day one. And day two. And day three. That pretty much defined his first maladministration. Why the hell wouldn’t it define the second? In order to do ALL the things he has promised to do “on Day One,” he would have to, wait, what’s that word he doesn’t know? Right, ‘work.’ He would have to work.

There are certain things I’m hoping for (counting on?) to help protect us from the threat of Trump, and his indolence is one of them…

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Nah, not buying. Whenever the gun argument heats up, gun rights advocates (GRAs) invariably mention that guns can’t go off by themselves. It’s a point of dogma for them: guns don’t go off by themselves.

Trump’s choice for Surgeon General, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, shot her father in the head when she was just 13 years old. Well, that’s not her story. SHE says she was “looking for a pair of scissors kept in a tackle box on a shelf above her dad’s bed one early morning.” She accidentally knocked the tackle box off the shelf. It fell down and a .380 fell out of it, which then magically discharged, shooting her father in the head.

She wrote in a book about how she had to just sit and watch her father die but she never mentioned what killed him – her. The ‘New York Times’ had to go get the police report of the incident to discover the details. She got away with it. It was classified as a “tragic accident.”

Maybe it was, I don’t know. Then again, maybe Daddy never did THAT again. (I mean, why DO 13 year old girls shoot their father in the head?)

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…

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

Doing The Right Thing – And Not…

by MyBaconPress

I guess the right is viewing it as a flip-flop but if you didn’t know Ole’ Sleepy Joe was going to pardon his son, Hunter, you were living in a dream world. (And, as it happens, MAGA is starting to discover the world they’re expecting is, in fact, a dream. A pipe dream, to be sure, but that’s still a dream…) I’m glad Joe did it.

I’m not defending Hunter’s actions. He broke the (very minor) law and a punishment was recommended that was in keeping with how these things are handled. So, first, there’s a “how these things are handled,” suggesting Hunter Biden is not the only guy to check off the box that says he’s not buying a gun while being a drug user and, as a rule, people don’t go to jail for it. Well, unless they’re the son of a President currently under attack by political opposition.

When MAGA heard Hunter was going to get the same thing other people get for the same offense, they were outraged and insisted on something worse. You know, because of how much they hate, hate, hate abuses of the law. So, Hunter found himself in deeper trouble than he should have been in – for political reasons. Why, it’s almost as if the cons were weaponizing the law…

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I was born in the LA basin and I don’t remember ever seeing a truly blue sky until I was about eight years old – when we moved out of the LA basin. There was a time in this once-great nation when the air pollution in some cities was so bad, people were dying of smoking-related diseases – even though they had never smoked. The air quality was so bad, there was a concern it would cause birth defects. There was a river near Cleveland, Ohio, the Cuyahoga River. It was choking with chemical contaminants. It was said that if you accidentally fell into that river, you went straight to the hospital – and God help you. It had spontaneously burst into flames.
“Wait, did you just say a river burst into flames?”
“Yes. A river burst into flames because of chemical contaminants.”

Cons like to pretend these issues should be handled on a case by case basis. As it happens, that had been the way various cities and states had been forced to handle it prior to 1970. The case-by-case approach had created a mish-mash of rules that made it hard to know the law in any given area – and that made it difficult to enforce the law. Mindless human activity, combined with very mindful corporate activity had damaged the environment so badly, it was becoming unsafe to breath the air, drink the water, or dig in dirt.

So, in 1970, Republican Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. The idea was to pull together responsibility for the various environmental efforts from around the country and set common standards. He even spoke of the need in his State of the Union Address from January of that year. Remember, this is a Republican speaking:

“Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and beyond factions. It has become a common cause of all the people of this country. It is a cause of particular concern to young Americans, because they more than we will reap the grim consequences of our failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later.

Clean air, clean water, open spaces-these should once again be the birthright of every American. If we act now, they can be.

We still think of air as free. But clean air is not free, and neither is clean water. The price tag on pollution control is high. Through our years of past carelessness we incurred a debt to nature, and now that debt is being called.”

Yes, there is still work to do. Corporations are forever finding ways to pollute as “cost cutting measures.” But we came a LONG way in cleaning things up. The EPA has the power to clean up areas that had become SO polluted they couldn’t sustain human life anymore, the so-called Superfund sites. (Look up Love Canal.) The companies that DID the polluting – when it wasn’t the military – often just walked away. Too costly to clean up their mess, you know. So the EPA forced them to.

Hmm, the EPA has the power to force corporations to clean up after themselves? Oh, the huMANity! But…but…what about the cost?!? What about maximizing shareholder value? What about the plight of the CEO, who might have to try and get by on only $350 million dollars a year if he has to clean up after himself? Maybe less. Oh, weep for the struggle.

All of that probably explains why corporations haven’t been too keen on the EPA since the day it was formed. As a result, corporations have wanted the EPA gone pretty much since the day it was formed. Fortunately, they have Donald Trump, now.

He hasn’t even taken power yet and his people are already gleefully attacking the agency, working to weaken it’s ability to do it’s job if they can’t get rid of it entirely. They plan to attack scientists who disagree with Trump, who knows nothing. They plan to eliminate protections from political interference with the agency’s work. They don’t LIKE that the EPA knows about – and works to prevent – climate change.

They think if they can make the EPA stop warning about climate change, climate change will just…go away. They think this because they randomly decided climate change is a fraud – even as summers get hotter and hotter and winters get wetter and wetter and storms get stronger and droughts last longer. LIVING the reality of climate change isn’t enough to convince some people climate change is real.

So, here we go. The thing is, climate change IS real. Denial won’t change that. With these actions, efforts to protect the environment will fall off and corporations (and you can bet your ass on this) will start dumping toxic wastes and other contaminants all over the environment as quickly as possible. Sure, it kills everything and everyone, but it saves money. Get your priorities straight, people!

I guess if we’re looking for “bright” sides, what I can come up with is, now that MAGA is sidelining the EPA, humanity will likely NOT survive long enough to suffer many of the other extremes I hear MAGA threatening.
“That’s a bright side?”
I suspect it’s a bright as we’re going to get from this crowd…

Attacking The Defenseless…

by MyBaconPress

Do you remember the beginning of this century, when greedy corporate interests crashed the economy through corruption and fraud but managed to blame field workers? One of the results of that crime was a new agency in government, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal watchdog that helps protect consumers from predatory financial practices. Keywords? “…helps protect consumers from predatory financial practices.”

So, naturally, that’s one of the areas Elon sees as the place to cut. He wants to just “delete” the CFPB. It turns out, predatory lenders don’t LIKE an agency that protects consumers from predatory financial practices. Go figure. Fortunately, they have totally-in-touch-with-the-common-man, extremely weird Elon Musk in their corner to help protect them from the dangers the victims pose to the predators.

I suspect this will be the most successful and repeated pattern of the incoming chaos; harm to the most vulnerable…

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Speaking of which, Mike Rounds (R – of course) has introduced a bill to eliminate the Department of Education. The thing is, he introduced it to the current congress, not the GOP fevered congress coming in January. I wonder why he did that. Cons don’t even have a majority in this congress. Why not wait until the next?

Either way, apparently, he needs a super-majority in congress to get that bill through, whether this congress or the next. He says he thinks he can do it through reconciliation, meaning he would only need 51 votes but others say he can’t do it that way. We’ll all find out together.

The Department of Education is just one of the departments Trump has attacked. Shortly after taking this “election,” he said the education department was staffed by many people who “in many cases, hate our children.” He’ll have a briefing, soon, explaining to him what the Department of Education does. Then he said, “we want states to run the education of our children, because they’ll do a much better job of it.”

Some of them will, sure. Some won’t. Kids in Massachusetts will do just fine. Kids from West Virginia? Well, thay stil wont no howe to spel. But, in fairness, they don’t now. Still, just in case he can’t eliminate the DOE that way, Trump is all set to attack on another front: he put Linda McMahon in charge of the department.
“Who?”
“You know. That super-qualified wife of the guy who ran big-time wrestling. She doesn’t like the DOE because it makes ‘some people think they’re so smart.'” Much of what the DOE does can be shuffled to other departments but some of it will fall through the cracks.

In my opinion, one of the more important functions of the Department of Education is ensuring and enforcing fair access to education for disable students. That part will likely disappear. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that one of the first groups the cons have chosen to attack is disabled kids. Who, after all, is more vulnerable than that?

I’m not sure WHY this next bit suddenly popped into my head. Do you think there’s some sort of message, here?

“For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’” (Matthew 25:42)

I’ll tell you this: you’d think the “let’s put the Bible everywhere” crowd would have SOME idea of what’s in the book they pretend to love so much…

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The lowly Raiders were in a good position to knock off the top-seeded Kansas City Chiefs with a field goal. On a critical third down to position the ball for the kick, the Raiders center snapped the ball early. The QB wasn’t ready for it. The ball fell, uncontrolled, to the ground and a Chiefs player fell on it. Bummer for the Raider fans. But, no. An official had blown a whistle, ending the play. He ran onto the field indicating a false start. A false start is an automatic penalty. The opposing team doesn’t get to accept or decline. In effect, the play just “didn’t count.” The ball just gets moved and the team gets the attempt again.

We all saw the indicator from the official. It was clearly a false start signal. But a false start call would have meant the fumble never happened and would have left the ball in the hands of the Raiders. A false start call would have allowed the Raiders to attempt the game-winning field goal, after all, and, perhaps, hand the Chiefs their second loss of the season. A false start, in this case, would certainly have messed up the betting by having a deep underdog unexpectedly defeat the super-favorite.

That’s no problem for the NFL. They just had the officials huddle up and “discuss” the penalty. The zebras came up with an effective workaround: they called an illegal shift. That little “adjustment” allowed the Chiefs to decide if the penalty was accepted or not. They declined the penalty (meaning the play counted) because one of their players had fallen on the ball. In short, the NFL just…took the ball from the Raiders and gave it to the Chiefs, sealing the Chiefs “victory.”

People are STILL waiting for some explanation from the NFL. I suspect no explanation will be forthcoming. How do they “explain” controlling the outcome of games in order to maximize gains from their ‘Fanduel’ partnership?

I’ll tell you this: It’s not “betting” when the outcome is a foregone conclusion…

Corruption Plus Greed…

by MyBaconPress

Wow, it looks like people in the Trump orbit plan to enrich themselves in their positions. Who could have guessed? We’ve already seen Boris Epshteyn, who wants people to pay him – substantially – to put in a good word with Trump for a job. Now we get Elon, who, let’s face it, needs an infusion of cash in order to make it through the week. Sometimes, he’s the richest man in the world. ALWAYS, he “needs” a little more. To my mind, that’s the same mental illness that makes a person weigh in at 600 pounds…

You see, thanks to conservative deregulation, the larger internet providers have been buying up many of the smaller providers and making decisions about where profits can be mined and where there just aren’t enough people to justify certain expenditures. It’s the corporate way. Because of those calculations, the large internet providers won’t lay fiber optic cable in some areas. Not enough return on their investment.

So, the Biden administration put together $42.4 billion dollars to help rural communities hook up to various high speed internet systems through smaller, local services the large services haven’t swallowed – yet. Elon’s Starlink program didn’t qualify. It’s too slow. So, naturally, Elon thinks the program should be shelved. I mean, he doesn’t qualify, why should anyone qualify, right? Sure, he could have tried to speed up his system to meet the requirement but that would be hard so, better to just eliminate the requirement.

Fortunately, the areas that won’t have that zippy broadband because Elon sees a great place to cut funding will still have access to Elon’s crappier Starlink service. Oh, and it should be noted that as people sign up, the service is getting even crappier…er…slower. Do you see any problems with the idea of a richie-rich guy – a guy who can never be satisfied, a guy who only understands ‘more, more, more’ – having control over the fortunes of his competitors?

Ah hell, who knows, maybe he’ll be visited by three ghosts, here, pretty soon…

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Trump ran on, among other things, a promise to impose backbreaking, VERY destructive tariffs on pretty much everybody. Some of the countries he has mentioned specifically, have pushed back, announcing that if Trump DOES invoke his ill-advised tariffs, they would do the same. Let the trade war begin, right? Fortunately, Trump has been having phone calls with these countries and now has an excuse to NOT impose those crippling tariffs.

He can just tell MAGA that he got on the phone with these people, talked real tough to them, and they collapsed in the face of his awesomeness so now the tariffs won’t be necessary. The truth, of course, is that his entire campaign was a lie and no tariffs were ever necessary so what he needed was an excuse. Now he pretends his phone calls have solved the problem even before he took office and conservative media will support that story like it’s true and MAGA will eat it up with a spoon.

But at least he may not impose those tariffs, aggravating inflation and sending the economy into the tail-spin he managed during his last maladministration. He’ll find another way to crash the economy, you just watch…

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I haven’t been writing about the NFL as much as I expected to this season. That’s mostly because my Niners suck…er…I mean, ‘are struggling…’ this season. But the thing that is making the game almost unwatchable? Effing penalty flags! Oh! Em! Gee! It’s gotten SO bad, if two plays happen consecutively without a flag, it’s astounding. (I’m not sure it has happened even once this season, two consecutive plays without a flag…) Sometimes the broadcaster goes back and shows the violation and it’s clearly a good call. Sometimes the broadcaster goes back and shows the “violation” and it’s clearly NOT a good call. Sometimes, they don’t even show the problem. The game just moves on. Slowly. Oh, my gods, so slowly…

I continue to believe the NFL is manipulating the outcomes of games via their officiating crews. It’s likely more a matter of point shaving and beating the spread than dictating winners and losers but it STILL helps fortify their “investment” into ‘FanDuel,’ the online gambling site with which the NFL has “partnered” to take your money.

Not to put too fine of a point on it, if you think you’re “betting” on NFL game outcomes, you’re not. You’re really just posting how much money you intend to gift the NFL today. Don’t be an idiot. NEVER “bet” in a situation where your “bet” is controlled by the group who stands to profit if you lose.

But, hey, at least the Niners don’t have to contend with Head Coach Matt Eberflus, the Head Coach of the Chicago Bears. No. Strike that. The EX Head Coach of the Chicago Bears. That guy. The other day, I watched, perhaps, the greatest single failure of coaching I think I’ve ever seen -hyperbole is very big in sports – and it was all on Coach Eberflus.

All he had to do was line his team up for a field goal attempt to tie the game and send it to overtime, giving his Bears a reasonable chance to win. His Quarterback got sacked, making the field goal a greater challenge, but there was still time on the clock and he still had a timeout. ANY other team would have tried to position the ball a little closer then taken their shot at the field goal. Eberflus…did something else.

He very carefully used up the time left on the clock and then ran a desperation play that failed as time ran out, losing the game by three points. You can read that sentence over and over and, if you know the game, it will never make any more sense than it did the first time you read it. But that IS what he did. The team ran back to the locker room after losing with that timeout in their pocket. It was one of the most amazingly bad clock management moments in the history of the game. And the Bears agreed, parting company with Eberflus the next day.

Some guys just never make it as Head Coaches and I believe Eberflus is one of those. I wonder how many people in Chicago will forever refer to him as “Everflub…”

United We Stand…

by MyBaconPress

Union is better than non-union. Please read that carefully. I did NOT say unions are perfect in every measurable way. I said union is better than non-union. Right now, we have a corporate media trying to control our thoughts, feeding us misinformation that serves the One Percent whether that harms the rest of us or not. Right now, our society is awash in failed, outdated thinking and just plain bad concepts – because the One Percent want us to believe this really is the best way, even though it clearly is not.

It works a lot. They made huge inroads in false narratives people believe. But it’s heartening to see that it doesn’t work all the time. I’m referring to the fact that, despite the false story-on-repeat that unions are ineffective, corrupt, and serve only to take hard-working people’s money, unions are making a comeback, and it’s about time. The most recent story I’ve heard about is a Whole Foods in Philadelphia filing for a union vote.

A long, long time ago, I realized that the thing that MADE the “good jobs” the good jobs was that they were UNION jobs. It was one of the things corporations used to bust unions – just send the job to some foreign country and let a captive child (or adult) do the work for pennies a day. Great for the corporation’s bottom line, bad for American workers.

We became a “service economy” and the thing about service jobs is that they HAVE TO BE done here. How do you get a fast food worker to hand you your fries from China? Most of the service jobs in America had not been unionized. Of course, they were seen as low paying jobs and people accepted it for a long time. But ends gotta meet. Life keeps getting more and more expensive (because corporations don’t know the meaning of the word “enough.”) and something has to give. Finally, people are starting to realize that the “something” that has to give has to be the corporations that have all the money, and unions are the way to get that done.

To be sure, with this last “election,” the One Percent has pretty much unwound this once-great nation to pre-New Deal days. (We’re going to have to re-fight nearly ninety years worth of gains.) THAT means the fight for unions is going to look like the old fights. That commonly meant physical fights. It means the companies involved will do any and every underhanded and sneaky thing they can do to stop the unions. Because we’re now a fascist nation (the marriage of big business and government), the government will help the rich.

But – not to put too fine of a point on it – the workers are, well, the workers. WE generate the money they keep. How many Amazon orders did Bezos personally ship last year? He doesn’t get to BE the self-described genius if he has to ship all the orders himself. He needs workers and, really, he needs them more than the workers need him.

Yes, our society is largely built around getting a job but that can change if it has to and the working class will do better than the upper class. We’re not afraid of hard work and we work together better. (We have practice at that.) Besides, there’s nothing stopping a working class person from starting a business. It’s just that right now, thanks to conservative driven deregulation (and the aforementioned fascism), it’s harder for small businesses to compete.

Really, the only power the working class has IS as workers and if we collectively decide not to do their work, what do they do? Take our homes? Hell, they’re doing that anyway. Make things more expensive? Well under way. They harm us with the money WE generate for them and a union is the perfect, non-violent way to force a little equity. I did NOT say equality. Equity. Fairness.

I’ll tell you this: I hope to see this union movement keep moving forward. You want to talk about taking our country back? How about if the working class takes the country back from the New Robber Barons by managing our labor?

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There’s a guy, Boris Epshteyn, who works for Trump. He stands accused of trying to extort money from people who want to work in the Trump maladministration in exchange for putting in a good word with the boss. He’s not asking for petty cash or small change. He asked one guy for $100,000 dollars – every month! (It seems they expect these office holders to generate huge incomes from their positions and the boss needs his vig.)

Epshteyn says it isn’t true and dismisses the charges as “false and defamatory” (because of course he did), but several people have come forward to tell similar stories. I know, this is probably some left win propaganda, right?

Well, the story is compiled by lawyers working for Trump so, maybe not. It should be noted that as of this writing, the internal investigation that generated this finding has been concluded and there doesn’t seem to be any actions contemplated for Epshteyn beyond a kind of “probably not” denial. Apparently, this is the way the boss wants it.

Consider: if people who aren’t willing to pay aren’t getting the jobs, what does that say about the people who ARE getting them?

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I don’t know much about Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, but I like what I do know. Trump has been threatening a 25% tariff on Mexico if they don’t do something to stop the flow of immigrants across our so-called “open border.” So, she shared a little truth with him. Mexico IS doing something to stem the tide. They have an entire program dedicated to sending people back home before they ever get to our southern border – and it’s working.

Donald certainly won’t admit this, but apprehensions are down. In fact, in recent months we’ve seen fewer apprehensions than we saw during Trump’s own effort, meaning there are fewer people trying to cross illegally. In short, the problem has been addressed by Biden without tariffs and the programs in place on both sides of the border are having the desired effect. At this point, my biggest question is: why is this information coming out only now, AFTER the “election?”

But Donald doesn’t want to confess Biden’s success. Yet. Oh, he will. On January 22, 2025, he’s going to announce all the wonderful and awesome control we have on the border, now. He’ll cite numbers to prove it from 2024, when he wasn’t president but because he’ll be the ostensible president when he says it, MAGA will believe it was all him, all the time. Is there another way to say that? Oh, yeah. Trump will, as usual, take credit for other people’s work.

Oh, President Sheinbaum also pointed out that the flow of guns from America to Mexico is one of the main things supporting the illegal drug trade that flows back from Mexico. She suggested that if we did something about that, they could more readily do something about the drug problem. In short, she hit him with facts. I’m sure MAGA hates her now. You know their motto: if the facts don’t support us, kill the finder of the facts…

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The new year looms and it promises to be something of a rough ride, but we have today. I hope we can set aside differences and enjoy the day together. Have a little turkey. Watch a little football. Hang with the family, maybe. Enjoy the day. So, from My Bacon Press to you, I want to wish all my reader a very heartfelt, Happy Thanksgiving!

Not All Bad…

by MyBaconPress

There’s a Senator from Iowa, Joni Ernst, who is set to lead Trump’s new department, and possibly massive bureaucracy, the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ for her state. She says she wants to make the federal government “squeal.” I hope she wasn’t envisioning the infamous scene from ‘Deliverance.’ But I’m curious what she did mean.

I expect all of this cost-cutting the GOP keeps talking about to fall on the weakest and most vulnerable citizens, in general. Oh, sure, they may make noise about cutting from programs that assist the wealthiest and government subsidies that benefit corporations but the wealthiest and the corporations have powerful voices in the government these days. (That’s the beauty of fascism, in their eyes.) THEY won’t lose out, so the weakest will be the scapegoats, right?

But, in fairness, the first program Ernst suggested dumping was this so-called high speed rail line in California. It’s probably the single largest boondoggle I’ve seen in the state for a long time. It’s MASSIVELY over budget. It has taken FAR longer to become active than originally projected. It was supposed to travel from one large population center to another but has since been pared down to travel between two places nobody needs to get to in a hurry.

Oh, and it’s NOT “high speed rail.” Not if you think if high speed as a bullet train. This one is expected to go faster than a regular commuter train but not nearly the speed of bullet trains of Japan or Europe. In short, I have opposed the pretended high speed rail project in California since I first heard of it but it just keeps going forward. I suppose there is a huge amount of money being funneled to a small number of self-described “important” people as long as the project continues, so the project continues.

Listen, I’d even go so far as to say I would support a high speed rail line that traveled from, say, LA to Sacramento or the bay area if it was a) high speed and b) functional. But this ain’t that. The project currently sucking up money has failed. It just won’t die…

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Okay, I confess, I have extreme trepidation about this incoming team. For the most part, it’s going to be ugly and most Americans – and much of the world – will suffer. But within that framework, there are going to be sort of “fun” things to watch. Like the inevitable battle of egos between Donnie and Elon.

Trump and Musk are, without a doubt, two of the most self-important blowhards the world has ever seen, will ever see. They BOTH see themselves as god-level geniuses with some kind of mystical vision that allows them to understand things the small folk just can’t. They never see anybody they love more than the face in the mirror.

Right now, they’re working together but there WILL come a time when their interests diverge. There WILL come a time when both outsized egos will KNOW they have the right answer – but their answers won’t match. THAT is when you’ll see the breakdown between them. Set up an office pool. You can do it by the month, week, day, or even hour. When did Trump’s ego clash with Elon’s ego to the point they consciously uncouple?

Yeah, I know. That’s kind of a small comfort, isn’t it? Yeah, it is. I fear it’s what we get for the foreseeable future, small comforts. We have to take them where we can get them, right?

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

I STILL say it’s better to remain engaged with your MAGA than to shut them out. For one thing, you KNOW MAGA is getting false information that’s misleading them. THAT doesn’t make them bad people and if you back away, where are they supposed to get better information? BUT…for another thing – and this one might be a bit more difficult to take – if the corporate media is feeding MAGA misinformation on the right, what makes you think the SAME corporate media, the one that benefits so nicely from the ongoing battles between Americans, aren’t feeding misinformation to the left, as well?

Yeah, it’s more subtle. The left is not as vulnerable to outright misstatements. I have long held that the media misdirects the right on facts and they misdirect the left on intentions. The media fools the right on details of events but fools the left on what people might DO about it. And, sometimes, the media deceives the left using “editorial decisions.”

Do you remember Hunter’s laptop? On the left, we, at first, didn’t even know about it. The media really DID suppress info about that laptop so as to not hurt Biden’s chances in the election. I still don’t think the laptop had anything of actual value on it. That’s not the point. The point is, it WAS Hunter’s, the media DID know about it, and they DID suppress the “story” until after the election.

AND, in a very real sense, the media suppressing that story on the left allowed the right to just run with any and all conspiracy theories it wanted. The left never got any chance to push back in the run up to the election so the right was out voting on that, at least in part, and the left didn’t even know it existed. I’m saying, don’t get smug. We don’t have a monopoly on truth.

If we stop talking to our political opposites, we surrender any chance of uncovering the stories intended to manipulate the left. We actually make it easier for the corporate media to foment anger via “editorial decisions.” My actual and honest first choice would be to seek a way to make media – left AND right – more responsible in it’s reporting.

One of the things I noticed early on about conservative media was their insistence that cons don’t risk listening to lefties. I actually heard Rush Limbaugh say to his audience once, “You don’t need to do any thinking. That’s what you have me for.” The right created that wedge as a tool to assist their destruction of the Constitution, and it worked. What makes you think adding to the “divided house” will help in any way? Bear in mind, our actual enemy is the one percent, who understand how tariffs work, not Uncle Conservative, who doesn’t…