NFL

One Fraud After Another…

by MyBaconPress

Through the years, I’ve picked up a thing or two about the Dow Jones Industrial Average. For one, it’s not that anymore. Now it’s the Dow Jones index. It tracks financial stocks, not industry. Another, and this is important, is that the Dow is not the economy. I mention that one because of this one: the Dow, specifically, is nothing more than a CEO happiness indicator.

Corporate “news” likes to trumpet increases in the Dow as if it means YOU are doing better. But you aren’t, are you? You’re struggling more than, what, ever? The Dow keeps reaching record highs and you keep finding your wallet lighter and lighter. Nobody’s telling you, but the two are absolutely related.

After the Dow changed from an industrial index to a financial index, it’s meaning changed. When it was an industrial index, it measured the health and strength of the US economy. Now? Well, now it measures how well rich people are doing. Now, every uptick of the Dow means they have more and you have less. Every. Single. Tick, tick, tick. They have more, you have less. Tick, tick, tick. Celebrate a robust Dow at your own peril…

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It’s weird to realize, but do you know who – more than anybody else – does NOT believe in Capitalism? Capitalists! Oh, you don’t believe me? Watch them. Actions speak louder than words. The story is about buying and selling. Succeed you win, mistakes, you lose. But that’s just the story. In reality, their “Capitalism” often consists of stealing and selling, not buying and selling. While it seems true that succeeding equals winning, in practice, mistakes don’t equal loss. They equal Socialism, where the population bails them out financially and gives them a second run at it. Then a third. Then a fourth. Then… well, ad infinitum.

Even Capitalists think Socialism is better than Capitalism, and you can know it if you just ignore their words and pay attention to what they do. Actions speak louder than words. I’ll tell you this: Since even Capitalists reject Capitalism, I think I will, too…

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Okay, back to this. Sorry. I’ve been watching videos of the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis. I’ve also been listening to Team Evil describing the events surrounding the shooting of a person in Minneapolis – apparently on the same day. Question: was there a second shooting in Minneapolis on the day Renee Good was murdered? One that nobody is aware of except the lying liars of Team Evil? Because the events they’re describing? Those events have nothing, whatsoever, to do with the events shown in the videos. None.

In the shooting Team Evil is referencing, the killer was run over by a vehicle and is now recovering in the hospital. In the Good murder, the killer kills the driver, spits an epithet at her dying body, then turns around and walks away. Then he gets in a car and drives off. That’s not what “recovering in a hospital” looks like.

Also, where is this driving school the puppy killer Kristi Noem pretends is out there? She said, it’s on video, that protestors are being trained to use their vehicles to drive into ICEholes. Really? Where? By whom? More importantly, why? How much training do you suppose that takes? But since it’s clear Good’s intention was to NOT hit Ross, either she didn’t get the training, or she failed the course, right?

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I’ve heard two different concepts from Donny recently that I suspect are intended to seduce his base into thinking he’s doing something for them. The first was his proposal to stop Wall Street from buying single family homes and the second was to cap credit card interest at 10%. Both of those ideas would benefit work-a-day Joes.

But stopping Wall Street from buying single family homes would hurt their bottom line. Capping credit card interest rates would mean less money for the issuing banks. If you think Donny is going to do anything, anything at all, to hurt rich-people investments just to benefit working class people, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. (Again.) That is to say, I’ll believe it when I see it.

But it DOES prove that he knows there are things he could do to help the American people, right? He knows what to promise. That means he knows where, and how, we, the people, are hurting. Honestly, I don’t think he’ll do one thing for the working class. But at least we know he knows – so we also know, he just doesn’t care…

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I really don’t understand The Felon’s obsession with Greenland. It’s important to note: Greenlanders don’t want to be part of the US, and why would they? Why would citizens of a First World nation want to move backwards into a failing, submerging nation like the US? It would represent a giant step backwards. Compared to Europe, the US is rather primitive. Greenland becoming part of the US would be like the US pulling out all of it’s plumbing and throwing it away.

Donny says he needs Greenland for national security. Not true. The US already has a huge military presence in Greenland. We already have permission to expand that presence. Owning the island won’t make any difference. I became convinced he really just wanted the natural resources available there, but then I saw Rasmus Jarlov, the former Danish business manager in an interview saying the US already has “unlimited military access to Greenland they that don’t use and they could extract all the minerals that they wanted if they would just put up the investments, so there’s nothing they need in Greenland that they don’t already have exclusive access to.”

So if he already has the military presence he needs and he already has access to the minerals, what’s the point? Based on everything else I’ve ever seen from the guy, he wants to steal something. Maybe the problem with extracting minerals from Greenland is that they might have to pay Greenland something for them. Then again, maybe he’s just insane and he can’t stop himself from starting WW III. It’s also an excellent plan to fracture NATO and we know his master, Putin, wants that.

There’s a case to made for pure stupidity, too, and Donny makes it, himself. “The fact that they had a boat land there 500 years ago doesn’t mean that they own the land. [I’m] sure we had lots of boats go there also.” So, Donald Trump thinks the US had “lots of boats” going to Greenland? 500 years ago? He said it, and Joe Biden didn’t make him say it…

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Good football games yesterday. The Rams beat the Panthers and the Bears beat the Packers, both with exciting finishes. Bears/Packers was boring for three and a half quarters, then it really picked up. So next week’s schedule for the NFC is foreseeable. The Niners play the Eagles this evening. If the Niners win tonight, they travel to Seattle next week and the Rams go to Chicago. If the Eagles win tonight, the Rams travel to Seattle and the Bears host the Eagles. Either way, next week the Seattle Seahawks host an NFC West rival. That should be fun…

What’s Important and What’s Not…

by MyBaconPress

You’ve got to hand it to MAGA media, they’re very good. Fast, you know? Pretty much as quickly as Donny’s bombs fell on Venezuela, cons had been conditioned to answer the question, “How happy are Venezuelans that Maduro is gone?” A lot of them, apparently. Not all of them, I’ve noticed, but a lot of them. No one is interested in defending Maduro. But that’s the wrong question, isn’t it?

Look, if some foreign, sovereign nation decided to swoop into Mar-a-Lardo and bundle up our national nightmare for an unplanned visit to the Hague to stand trial, the vast majority of this nation – hell, the vast majority of the world – would fall out partying and celebrating. Not everyone, of course, but the vast majority of us. Would that make it okay? See, the question conservatives should be asking is, “What right does the United States have to invade a foreign, sovereign nation without provocation?” THAT, is the right question. Oh, and just for the record? None. The proper answer is none.

Oh, I know. It’s easy enough to blow off that question, “What if some foreign, sovereign nation decided to swoop into Mar-a-Lardo and bundle up our national nightmare for an unplanned visit to the Hague to stand trial?” We’re the biggest, meanest country on the block and you know no one could pull that off, so it’s easy to be smug. But that, too, is sidestepping the proper question, which is, ‘What right?’

Donny has no legal authority to take the action he took. He just did it. This is just a sidebar, but many are pointing out that the US is asserting that the US can enforce laws against Presidents of foreign nations, but simultaneously asserting that the US can NOT enforce laws against the US President. That’s just some pretty convoluted thinking, right there. But I digress.

In one action, he has instigated an illegal regime-change, nation-building, forever war – AND set the rest of the world on edge, wondering where his delusions might strike next – and MAGA seems to be all in. That part, I have to admit, blows my mind. 47 ran on “no wars.” MAGA used to throw the “no wars” thing in people’s faces – even as the US was still fighting in Afghanistan. No wars, no wars, no wars. Yeah, yeah.

Now he’s going to sacrifice American soldiers and American taxpayer money so he can illegally steal another country’s natural resources. In retrospect, he DID tell the oil companies that if they gave him lots and lots of money, they could dictate his actions vis-à-vis our government and their corporations. Apparently, they chose “Venezuela” and another oil war was on.

“No, it’s not a war,” many MAGA are saying, “it’s more of a… police action.” Oh, really? Were those police officers that invaded Venezuela? Or were they United States military troops? Wait, haven’t we heard that one before? Oh, yeah, over the war cowardly Cadet Bone Spurs worked so hard to avoid. Vietnam was ‘just a police action,’ too. 58,000 American soldiers lost their lives and countless more were injured and damaged – and that’s only our side.

All of that death and destruction over a “police action.” And now, Donny says he’s going to stay in Venezuela. He’s going to install his preferred government because when has THAT ever gone wrong? Then he’s going to “run” Venezuela – into the ground, if his past is any indicator. He actually said, “We can’t take a chance that someone else takes over Venezuela who doesn’t have the interests of Venezuelans in mind.”

What, like him? He went in to steal their natural resources and funnel the money – ALL of the money – to himself and his rich friends. How well do you suppose that’s going to serve Venezuelans? We really ARE living in the Upside Down…

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I put these two bits together because they reflect my day. The first, an issue of great weight and importance. The second, a low-level time-suck intended to bring pleasure through entertainment. I woke up to the news that 47 had bombed a foreign, sovereign nation. It cast a pall over my day. So I looked forward to a little entertainment in the evening – and got yet another bomb.

But there’s an obvious, huge difference between, “People died” and “My preferred team did not prevail in their sporting competition.” The juxtaposition was jarring. If it seems jarring here, too, well, that was my day…

So, yeah, they looked good – but that was just the uniform. Other than that, it was pretty ugly. Someone should have called the Forty-Niners and told them they had a real football game to play. Clearly, nobody did. The Niners apparently thought it was a scrimmage and didn’t show up. The Seahawks did, though. Kyle Shanahan got all stubborn again. The Seahawks are the very best at shutting down the run. So, Kyle kept trying to force the run. Oh, BOY did that not work. But Kyle kept trying.

I know, McCaffrey only carried the ball eight times, how stubborn is that? Well, considering the Niners only had the ball, like 15 times, that’s pretty stubborn. Yeah, okay, hyperbole alert, but not by much. The Niners only had 9 first downs in the whole game. How many carries is one going to get when one’s whole game is three-and-outs? McCaffrey could NOT move the ball on the ground. The recommended reaction is to throw quick, short passes until the defense softens up a little. Kyle didn’t do that or, at least, he couldn’t make it work.

When there was a hat-tip to the reality that the Niners weren’t going to run on Seattle, Kyle tried to pass from formations with the QB under center. The problem was, Seattle could blast right through our offensive line like it wasn’t even there. So after Purdy took the snap and dropped back, he kept finding Seattle players in the backfield with him. I think Purdy should have taken more snaps from the Pistol or the Shotgun to give him an extra beat. Kyle wasn’t taking my calls, though.

Okay, the truth is, the Niners should have been out of contention somewhere around Week 4 or Week 5. The team has had so many injuries, especially on Defense, it’s a bit of a wonder they were even able to field a team, let alone be playing for first place in the NFC. It WAS a terrible game and a sad portent of what the Niners playoff experience is going to be like this season – but it was an amazing season from a team that shouldn’t have been where they are (were)…

A Promise, Re-promised…

by MyBaconPress

Zelenskyy must be feeling pretty good. Safe and secure, you know? Word is, Donny promised Zelenskyy strong, 15-year security guarantees. Oh, good. I wonder if those “guarantees” are any more solid than the original US promise of security guarantees to Ukraine for surrendering the nuclear arsenal they ended up with after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In 1994, the US, the UK, and Russia signed an agreement with Ukraine called the Budapest Memorandum. It promised respect for Ukraine’s borders, no economic or military threat against Ukraine, except in self-defense, and that the US and UK would support Ukraine in case of invasion.

When Putin first invaded, the US, kind of begrudgingly, offered weapons. Some weapons, of limited capability. The US held Ukraine to a “limited war.” I define “limited war” as a war the “limited” side gets to lose. Biden finally figured out that his strategy was poor and changed, but it was very late in the game and Ukraine had worse to face: Donny the Dumbass.

Donny started off as a Russian asset, reporting to Putin. By definition, 47 has little to no choice but to try and deliver Ukraine to Russia on Putin’s orders. Donny also started off as a self-serving grifter who doesn’t – can’t – do anything for anybody – ever – unless he gets a taste of the profits. A large taste. So Donny reneged on the deal. Now Ukraine has to renegotiate.

Maybe 47 will keep his word, maybe he won’t. As nearly as I can tell, he rarely keeps his word, so I wouldn’t bet on it. More likely, Donny will take the vig he demands from Ukraine for “security guarantees,” then turn his back on Ukraine anyway. I mean, come on, name a person or group Donny has NOT betrayed. The very best you can do is name someone Donny hasn’t betrayed yet.

Hey, is NOW a good time to remember that this is a war The Felon promised to end in one day? He said it would be easy. He was counting on his close, personal relationship with Putin. Then Putin told Trump to pound sand. Now? Nothing but excuses. People can defend him all they want but I’m sticking with the idea that if he didn’t have a plan in place, he shouldn’t have made the promises – and he REALLY should honor the agreement the US already promised…

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Here’s a paragraph from an article from ‘Military.com:’ “Historically speaking, battleships have been obsolete since at least 1921, when a simple bombing demonstration off Virginia’s coast proved the large warships are vulnerable to air attack. That vulnerability has been validated repeatedly through World War II and ever since as aircraft, submarines and cruise missiles systematically demonstrated that bigger and more expensive warships are easier to sink. They are simply not worth the costs and risks involved in building, maintaining and using in active combat.”

Hmm, battleships are outdated technology that cost WAY too much to build and maintain with WAY to little return on investment? That sounds like the dumbest choice a person could make as far as upgrading one’s navy. So, obviously, Donny has announce a new battleship. You’ll never guess the designation. It’s a ‘Trump-class battleship.” If I was going to bet today, I’d bet the thing sinks the minute it hits the water.

Cadet Bonespurs claimed the new battleships will be “the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.” Of course he did. Naturally, none of that is true. American battleships of WWII were larger and the Japanese Yamato was the largest battleship ever built. By now, Donny, of all people, should know: you can tell someone yours is the biggest, but eventually, they’re going to see it and they’ll discover the truth. There’s a reason he demands non-disclosure agreements…

Army Brigadier General Billy Mitchell tried to warn the Navy battleships were vulnerable to air attack as far back as WWI. The Navy didn’t want to hear it. Mitchell proved it by sinking a captured German warship with air-dropped bombs. The Navy didn’t want to hear it. In 1924, Mitchell famously predicted that the Japanese would launch carrier-based attacks on Pearl Harbor using aerial torpedoes against anchored and vulnerable battleships. 1924.

The Navy still didn’t want to hear it. In 1925, the Army court-martialed Mitchell for accusing military leaders of “almost treasonable administration” after they refused to heed his warnings. In 1941, Japan did exactly what Mitchell had predicted. To this day, you can still visit the USS Arizona, laying at the bottom of the bay after having been bombed by airplanes and sunk exactly as Mitchell had warned.

So, of course Donny wants to build new battleships. It’s outdated technology, easily defeated by air power. It costs huge amounts of money to build and maintain, a massive waste in view of how easily defeated they are by air power. Super expensive, nearly useless, yesterday’s technology? That’s right in the center of Donny’s bailiwick: useless, expensive, and wasteful…

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It would have been easier on the Niners had the Carolina Panthers beaten the Seattle Seahawks. But, they didn’t. The Seahawks won. The Niners had to beat the Chicago Bears to stay in the race for first place overall. The Bears are a VERY good team. The Niners have some issues this season. Nonetheless, the Niners managed the victory. It was a very good, back and forth game. At the end, it felt like the game could go either way right up until the gun sounded and the game went one way: to the Niners.

They’re playing for first place overall and that comes with a first round Bye, a chance to rest players. It can be quite the advantage. I understand why they’re putting so much into it. But it looks like they’re leaving it all out on the field, now, in these regular season games. I’m becoming concerned that what it will take to land the First Seed will cost them too much heading into the playoffs.

Then again, I’ve been underestimating this team all season long. Players keep getting injured and each injury brings a feeling of, “Well, that’s it!” So far, though, that hasn’t been it. They just keep plugging along and winning games. Next week, the Niners host those self-same Seahawks in Santa Clara. It’s yet another must-win for the Niners.

If they DO win, they earn the number one seed. They get to skip the first round and rest. THEN, for as long as they can remain in the playoffs, ALL of their games would be in Levi Stadium – up to and including the Stupor Bowl, should they get that far. That would be fun and good for the team, not having to travel at all throughout the playoffs.

If the Niners lose to the Seahawks, they’re still in the playoffs. They just get a lower seed and they WILL have to travel. Oh, AND they’ll have to play in every round and they lose their chance to rest players. I really hope the Niners win. It should be a great game. Hey, what can I say? Escapism is more important, these days, than it used to be…

TPtheUSA…

by MyBaconPress

Charlie Kirk started a group called Turning Point USA (TPUSA). It, or he, became very popular among a certain conservative crowd. TPtheUSA started an annual convention called ‘AmericaFest.’ This year, for obvious reasons, Charlie isn’t the host. His widow, Erika, has the honors. ALSO, this year, there seems to have been much infighting.

Ben Shapiro, co-founder of the conservative media outlet ‘Daily Wire,’ came out swinging and insulted conservative mouthpieces Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, and Tucker Carlson. Owens, Kelly, and Carlson then each took turns insulting Shapiro back. Steve Bannon jumped on the “Smack Shapiro Back” train, too.

Bannon’s complaint seemed to revolve around Israel. Israel was another area of contention. Some MAGA wonder if US involvement violates 47’s ‘America First’ policy. So, on the one hand, MAGA stands staunchly against antisemitism and on the other hand, they dismiss Shapiro as a Jew with a narrow focus on Israel. Of course, by now, the idea of MAGA holding two conflicting opinions most of the time is just normal day-to-day stuff.

JD Vance said anybody could be part of MAGA so long as they “love America.” Be advised, though, you have to hate the US Constitution and all of the beliefs and institutions that define America AS America. Every time they claim to love America most, I find myself wondering just what in the hell they’re talking about, the landscape?

It was nice to read about the infighting. It looks like there are cracks forming throughout MAGA as individuals split off into their own special interests and splinter groups. I’m not sure Erika Kirk is the dynamic leader Charlie was. At one point, she was presenting an award to a Utah Valley University student named Caleb Chilcutt and she said, “Despite the devastating loss of Charlie Kirk, my incredible husband at UVU, Caleb has persisted with the same grift.”

She quickly shifted to “gift” before settling on “grit,” but her accidental truth was a moment of unintentional humor. It clearly was not a smooth, easy event and the public disputes suggest trouble roiling just beneath the surface in MAGA. Stay tuned…

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Sure, 47 will keep murdering people in speedboats. He thinks he has a cover story. But it’s pretty obvious he wants Venezuela’s oil. I mean, he DID say so. Because of his dementia, he actually said that Venezuela was sitting on our oil. He was less clear about how and why the US put it’s oil under Venezuela. So now he has seized a second tanker.

Here’s a question: How long do you suppose China is going to stay quiet about all of this? The reason I ask is, 80% of Venezuelan oil goes to China. Donny ordering the seizing of tankers seems like it could be a problem. Right now, Donny thinks he’s seizing Venezuela’s oil but it seems he actually seizing China’s oil. I suspect Venezuela is going to show up for Donny’s war with quite a strong ally…

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I find it telling that the (in)Justice Department is dragging it’s feet releasing photos 47 is in because they have to be super-de-duper careful about making sure he’s not in a photo with one of his victims, and, apparently, that’s a very difficult thing for them to do. It suggests there are a LOT of photos depicting Donny with his victims…

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Tax season is fast approaching and I’ve been concerned. I suspect Donny will do everything he can to milk the working class dry. My suspicion is based on the observation that, so far, all he’s done is work to milk the working class dry. So I was surprised when White House spokesliar Kevin Hassett suggested we, the people, are just about to receive the largest refunds in history.

Then I remembered: he’s a spokesliar. Everything this White House says turns out to be the opposite of the truth. If we’re being told we’re just about to receive the biggest refund in history, be afraid. Be very afraid…

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We’re getting to the fun part of the season. You’re going to read more about the NFL, here, in the next few weeks. Like the fact that the Niners clinched a playoff spot this weekend before they even played a game. I think stuff like this is fun. The Seattle Seahawks beat the LA Rams and the Niners clinched a spot. Not only that, there’s a path for the Niners to end up winning their division AND taking the number one overall seed, giving them a first round Bye in the playoffs.

That’s wild, in view of the injuries the team has suffered this season. It’s important to note that the Niners have to win the next three games in order to achieve that goal, and winning all three is NOT going to be an easy task. The last three games are all against teams with winning records. The attempt starts tonight as the Niners take on the 8-6 Indianapolis Colts.

Indy got to where they are behind a Quarterback who got injured and is out for the season. So, the team went out and signed 44-year old veteran Philip Rivers. He’s a good player but he hasn’t been playing for a couple of years. He seems a bit rusty. Besides, in football terms, 44 years makes you Methuselah.

After that, the Niners face the 10-4 Bears, then the 12-3 Seahawks but to embrace an old Football cliche, they have to take them one game at a time. If they lose any one of those games, the attempt fails and they play the Wild Card round. Based on the injuries the team has suffered all season, just making the playoffs is a huge success. Claiming the top seed in the NFC seems almost greedy. I mean, I’m okay with it, but just making the playoffs was a hell of an accomplishment, if you ask me…

First Thing This Morning…

by MyBaconPress

The first thing I see when I open the newspaper this morning? The lede is about the shooting in Australia at Bondi Beach. A father and son murder team killed 15 people and injured dozens more in an antisemitic attack on people celebrating the first night of Hanukah. I noticed a short-lived effort on the part of gun death advocates celebrating that the shooting didn’t happen in the US and claiming that “it happens everywhere.” For the record, Australia has strict gun laws and mass shootings are rare.

Meanwhile, there was a shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. As of this writing, the shooter is still on the loose. THEN, there’s a story about how Donny’s budget cuts have threatened a crime-riddled town in Louisiana plagued by gun violence.

It’s just a lot of violence to wake up to, so I thought I’d… highlight it and put it at the top? It’s the world we live in. I think it’s getting worse, not better…

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Wow. On the topic of violence, Rob Reiner and wife, Michele, murdered? That was the last thing I expected to see when I got up this morning. Reiner was an outspoken critic of Dim Leader. So far, I know nothing of the details but it says something about the society in which we live today that the question pops into one’s mind, unbidden. Was this a political murder? It’s possible. It’s also possible it was something else so I’ll wait and see. I was just shocked by this…

UPDATE: Reiner’s son, Nick, has been arrested in connection with this event. Tragic. Is it a relief that it wasn’t some political thing? Yeah, but not much…

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Trump with six women whose identity is protected.

Have you seen that photo? It’s a big talking point right now. The right is being told this is a photo of Donny with the Miss USA pageant contestants. Maybe it is. If it’s from the island, a survivor needs to speak up and say so. Either way, though, this photo doesn’t implicate 47 in anything. Redacting the faces is dramatic, but everyone is dressed and nobody appears to touching anything untoward. So what happens if it IS just a photo of him with pageant contestants? Won’t the right use that to undermine all of the other evidence that supports the idea that Donny was in deep with Jeffrey?

That’s the thing that bothers me most about things being tossed out, presented as one thing that turn out to be another. It makes it harder and harder to know what’s true and it’s so unnecessary. Donny is the personification of all seven of the Seven Deadly Sins. Nobody has to make up terrible things he’s done. He’s got plenty of real ones. When someone does make them up, it doesn’t harm him, it protects him.

What we do know about that photo, though, is that it was released by the Epstein estate along with something like 95,000 other photos. It seems weird that Epstein would keep a photo of Donny with some contestants, but lots of things about Epstein seem weird. Donny DID own the pageants. He is said to have violated the women’s privacy during the pageants by “inspecting” facilities while the young women were changing clothes. Maybe that explains Jeffrey’s interest.

Novelty condom bearing Trump's likeness.

This photo, however, is going to be a bit tougher to explain away. This is a condom package from Epstein Island. It bears the Drumpfster’s likeness with a brag that sounds just like the “man” himself. Donny is trying to downplay his involvement with Epstein and prevent any evidence from coming out that might implicate himself. The harder he tries, the more it seems Donny wasn’t just a client at Epstein Island. He seems to have been part of the team.

I don’t have enough information to be sure. Maybe there are condom packages with images of Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Steve Bannon, and/or Alan Dershowitz. Maybe. Maybe those packages simply weren’t released. But we all know this game. If the Dems release something they think is incriminating, the GOP works to dismiss it and then releases something of their own. I suspect, because we’ve all seen the ‘Donny Condom,’ if a ‘Clinton Condom’ existed, we would have seen that by now, too…

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The Bill of Rights became law on this date in 1791. Those were good things we had, there, rights. It’s too bad a small handful of wealthy miscreants decided we had had them too long. It’s just one of many down sides to living in a fascist authoritarian regime. I thought I should mention it in remembrance of what we’ve lost…

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I want to do a follow-up on yesterday’s NFL football. The Niners won, which they needed to do. There was an outside chance they could have improved their position considerably if certain very unlikely things happened and that was fun, but those unlikely things didn’t happen so they ended up just holding their own – but that’s good enough to make the playoffs at this point.

Next week the Niners are playing the Indianapolis Colts, now led by 44-year-old QB Phillip Rivers He came out of retirement to play after the Colts lost their other Quarterbacks to injury. Physically, he didn’t look like he was in game shape but he played well. They almost beat a very good Seahawks team. That means the Niners have their work cut out for them.

The Chiefs were eliminated from playoff contention yesterday. That hasn’t happened in years. Worse, for them, their star Quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, tore his ACL with about two minutes left in the game, while he was trying to drive the team downfield for a chance to even the score. He’ll probably have surgery and miss most of next season. As I watched the Chiefs get closer and closer to elimination, I noticed an upsurge in injuries to the team. I began to wonder if the idea they were at risk of being eliminated somehow increased the chance of injury. It’s just speculation.

The Dallas Cowboys were essentially eliminated, too. There IS a chance – 6%-8% – so I can’t say they’re out, but they’re out. They have to win all of the rest of their games AND they need help from other teams. I’m okay with both the Chiefs and the Cowboys watching the playoffs from home…

Failing and Fumbling…

by MyBaconPress

Well, I did not expect the start of the day to look like this. The US seized a tanker off the coast of Venezuela yesterday. Oh, did I forget to mention it’s an oil tanker? No one is even pretending it’s part of a “drug war.” NOW, suddenly, Donny – who couldn’t find his own ass with both hands and a road map – yeah, THAT Donny, uncovered a cabal of oil cheats?

Pam Bondi got to make up the announcement. She said the tanker had been sanctioned by the US for “multiple years” due to its “involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations.” Terrorists, terrorists, terrorists! That’s just a catch-phrase these days. I think that, no matter where they are, when they look into the camera menacingly, scrunch their faces up, and spit the word “Terrorists!” it should be followed by a tension building, and foreboding fanfare. Technology in the world is getting better all the time. The regime should be able to find a small, hand-held player for such a moment. It will spice up the drama.

I think Donny is dragging the US into yet another oil war. He talked about the drugs – which, by the way, his base believes completely. He claimed drugs were being shipped out of Venezuela that don’t get shipped out of Venezuela. MAGA thinks those motorboats aren’t trying to reach the US mainland. They’re either going up the coast to Mexico or they’re heading to a ship waiting for them. When I asked why nobody said anything about waiting ships? Crickets. When I pointed out that, if true, ships might be going anywhere? Crickets. MAGA media gives them a story, not the details.

It doesn’t matter, though. Donny doesn’t CARE about drugs. That was just an excuse. Think Saddam and his WMDs, despite the fact that Saddam didn’t HAVE WMDs. He DID have oil and the US took that for a LONG, LONG time. Gratis. It was a light, sweet deal for US oil companies. (It’s actually Brent Crude, I think, but I liked the joke.) Donny is working to replicate the feat in Venezuela.

So, here we go again. The US gets into a brand new oil war, THIS time to procure a resource we shouldn’t need anymore. We have alternatives and we should be using them. How many lives will be lost? 87 and counting, so far. How much money will be spent?

Look, I don’t think that everything happening in today’s modern world is necessarily better but I don’t think it’s automatically worse, either. Renewable energy technology is better, long-term. It’s better for the environment and nobody has to bomb anybody to gain sunlight. It’s just…there. And, should the day come it’s NOT there anymore, human beings will have bigger problems than the cost of a gallon at the pump. MUCH bigger problems.

Donny SO desperately wants a peace prize, he’s willing to accept a made up knock-off from a soccer organization, but he’s STILL starting a war for all the world to see. I suspect he actually believes he’s picking this fight with Venezuela cleverly, fooling everyone. Blaming Venezuela, I guess, means nobody will notice what the US has been doing. But the US has been doing it badly. The world knows this will NOT be a righteous war. Team Evil really needs to be sent to the Hague and put on trial for crimes against humanity. And, the sooner, the better…

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If you’re surprised by this, you’re definitely MAGA. None of the pretend indictments against Letitia James or James Comey or anybody else the current incompetent regime accuses of mortgage fraud have held up in court. None. But they DID prompt reporters at ProPublica – real reporters, not MAGA media, opinion-spewing talking heads – to look into other mortgages, maybe those taken by some other potentially interested parties – like Donald Trump, for example.

So… guess who actually DOES commit mortgage fraud by claiming rental properties as primary residences to get better loan rates. Go ahead, take a guess. I’ll wait…

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Oh, sure. He imposes tariffs and wipes out the US soy market (again). Then, because his tariffs wiped out the soy market, he’s going to (again) give billions of dollars to the farmers who prefer to earn their living than need handouts. Donny gets to CLAIM he’s helping the poor, down-trodden farmer, but he’s really helping the banks that hold the notes these farmers need to pay back. If the farmers crash and burn, the banks are hurt. Donny NEVER cares about the little guy.

The regime is trying to convince the rubes that China stopped buying soy while Biden was running the show because they suffer from BBS, Blame Biden Syndrome, and blame Biden for everything. The fact that it’s so easy to check these details and understand them as the lies they are doesn’t bother them because they know the rubes will NOT check. They just believe…

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If you’re not a football fan, please bear with me, here. This deserves to be noted. In a Monday night game on the 8th of this month, the Quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, Jalen Hurts, threw a pass. It was intercepted by a guy named Da’Shawn Hand, of the LA Chargers. Hand was starting to return the interception when he was chased down by Eagles running back Will Shipley, who knocked the ball free from, well, Hand’s hands. The ball popped free and shot straight forward – into Jalen Hurt’s hands. At this point, Hurts started with the ball, threw it, and has it again, okay?

So, Hurts began to run with the ball but immediately had the ball punched out by Chargers defensive tackle Jamaree Caldwell from behind and it rolled forward about 10 yards before Chargers linebacker Troy Dye recovered the ball. It was something to see. Word is, this play makes Jalen Hurts the first player in NFL history to turn the ball over twice in a single play. How’s THAT for a record that will never fall? I’m not sure it’s a stat Hurts is going to want people to focus on, though…

Abominations…

by MyBaconPress

It’s a United States government office, but Donny has plastered his name on it. It was, properly, the United States Institute of Peace. Now it’s called the ‘Donald Jessica Trump Institute of Peace,’ or something like that. (At least, that’s what I think his middle name is. I learned it from Randy Rainbow, but can’t verify Randy’s research methods.) After all, Donny DID “win” the FIFA Peace Prize they made up for him. And he HAS murdered many people in the Caribbean, supported genocide in Gaza, AND refused to help victims of an illegal invasion in Ukraine, despite a promise from the US that we would help Ukraine if Russia attacked in exchange for giving up nukes.

Donny fired the hand-picked architect he selected to build his new White House abomination. Like other things in his world, it’s not big enough to make him happy. He really, really wishes it were bigger and he keeps looking for someone who can help him out. That effing barfroom is already bigger than the White House, itself, and he wants to make it bigger? Someone ought to explain to him about gaudy ostentation. Then again, he just fired the architect who tried…

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In Donny’s diminished and delusional state, he has randomly decided that if a person is rich and was prosecuted for crimes under the Biden administration, the charges must be made up and the prosecution a fraud. He has no basis for this belief. He presses it because HE was nearly convicted for so many of his crimes during the Biden administration and he is STILL trying to convince someone – anyone – that he was being framed.

He wasn’t. He was being prosecuted for crimes he committed, if one believes the evidence. The only reason he wasn’t convicted is because he and the Heritage Foundation had a long-term plan for a coup that included corrupt (read: loyal to a fault) judges named by the Federalist Society. Many of those “judges” had been put in place already and they helped a brother out, you know?

So when he received a request for a pardon from one-time Democratic House Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas – along with a generous “donation” check, of course – he granted it. Cuellar apparently said the magic words, “Biden did it for political reasons.” In my mind, it’s rather important that Cuellar and his wife, who was also charged, were not yet convicted. They were charged with accepting bribes.

Apparently, when Donny granted the pardon, he assumed Cuellar would be so grateful he would switch parties and run as a Republican. Okay, so, first, run?!? He was busted taking bribes. How does one run for office, having accepted a pardon to escape the felonies he was facing? I guess if you’re brazen enough, you run anyway. This IS happening in Texas, after all.

And Cuellar IS running again. He filed the paperwork. He’s running in Texas as a Democrat and Donny is irritated about that. Donny expects loyalty he never, ever displays himself. I’d like to say that Texas is facing something of an IQ test to see if they’re dumb enough to elect an accused felon to public office, but they’ve already elected a convicted felon to public office so I guess the test is finished and the Texans can put their pencils down…

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Apparently, this doesn’t make sense to Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Destroying Education, but it turns out, if one reduces staff, one also reduces productivity. When this wrecking ball of a regime came in and started smashing things, most of the workforce of the Department of Education was laid off. That was supposed to save money. It didn’t, because a penny saved somewhere in government gets shoved into Donny’s pocket instead.

Look it up yourself. Donny came in and thrashed the government by laying off thousands of employees, yet his maladministration has spent more money so far than any other group in power in US history – even his own, who held the spending record before THIS group of clowns set the current record.

Now McMahon is calling back a bunch of Department of Education employees in an effort to reduce the backlog she created when she laid them off – but only temporarily. I guess if one hasn’t procured new employment by now, going back makes some sense but I’m not sure I would if I had an alternative. Why help the Bozos be clowns? Woeful mismanagement brings woeful results. Are we surprised? Every day, the extreme incompetence of this regime comes into clearer and clearer focus…

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Well, the Niners didn’t play this weekend. Bye week, you know. Still, they improved their playoff position. Pretty neat trick. It’s one of the things I like about this time of year. If you have a shot at making the playoffs, EVERY game you play now is very important. Many of the games other teams play become important, too. The Niners moved from the seventh seed to the sixth because the Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears.

Meanwhile, game by game it’s looking like the Kansas City Chiefs’ dynasty is coming to an end. It happens. I learned ALL about it, the hard way, when the Bill Walsh Niner dynasty finally came to it’s end. The NFL is kind of structured to make dynasties hard to maintain. Eventually, your team will be picked apart by other teams. The players you keep? They get old. In football, “old” starts at about 32.

This is only tangentially related but I hear Taylor Swift has set a date for her upcoming nuptials. June, 2026. This means nothing to me. I’m not saving the date as I don’t expect an invitation. BUT, Tay-Tay is marrying Travis Kelce, the star Tight End for the Kansas City Chiefs. In June, Kelce would normally be in ‘football’ mode, getting ready for the upcoming season. THIS June, he’ll be in ‘gettin’ married’ mode. To me, this date foreshadows Kelce’s impending retirement, yet another sign of the decline of a dynasty…

Flips, Flops, Flaps, and Flubs…

by MyBaconPress

I don’t know what’s going to happen in the special election in Tennessee. It’s a heavily Republican district. The guy who just retired, Republican Rep. Mark Green, won his 2024 election by 21 points. The Drumpfster won that district – Tennessee’s 7th – by a similar margin. This election should be a walk for Republicans.

But the Republican, Matt Van Epps, is running on, “Ain’t Trump great?” at a time when NOBODY thinks Donny is doing great. Van Epps is promising to support Donny in every way. Like all of the other Republicans in Congress, he provides his own knee pads and has had his spine surgically removed to better serve his Precious.

Meanwhile, the Democrat, State Rep. Aftyn Behn, is running on the economy. The race is looking close enough that both team’s national committees are spending big money. Van Epps’ campaign asked Donny to come to Tennessee and Behn’s team got an appearance by Kamala, which may or may not be a good thing.

There’s a second conservative in this race, Jon Thorp, though he’s running as an independent. A normally Democrat-supporting PAC is pushing Republican voters to vote for Thorp, claiming Van Epps is a RINO. That’s a “Republican In Name Only.” There are also DINOS. Millions of dollars are suddenly being thrown at this campaign.

I don’t have high confidence the Democrats can flip a gerrymandered district that supported the Republicans by more than 20 points, but it says something that the district is seen as “in play.” If anyone can vaporize a 20+ point advantage in only ten short months, it’s Donny…

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Donny is suggesting he’ll send everyone a “tariff dividend” of $2,000. He won’t. He hasn’t made enough in tariffs to send everyone $2,000. Worse, now that his dinosaur-like brain is beginning to register the damage his tariffs have done to the economy, he’s going to lower some of them, reducing the amount of money available to send out. But he loves that $2,000 dollar number, doesn’t he?

It came up again with health care. Now, instead of the ACA supplements Americans need, he says he want’s to give each person $2,000 to cover their own health insurance. So, first question, is that the tariff dividend AND the health care cash? Is he promising to send everyone $4,000? Or is it the same $2,000, promised for two different things? Is that annually? No one knows, but it seems like it’s intended to be a one-time good deal. $2,000 to cover health care in the US – for the rest of your life. That seems like a workable plan. If you’re rich…

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Well, the great negotiator is offering his failed position on Ukraine again. The Drumpfster keeps offering up the same options: Ukraine gives Putin what he wants, and in return, Putin accepts it. That’s a hell of a plan, and for reasons no MAGA mind can fathom, Ukraine isn’t interested. When Ukraine rejects the surrender agreement, Donny just shuffles the talking points and re-issues it as a “new plan.”

The latest “new plan” being proposed is being described by many people as a Russian wish list. Some are saying it was written by Russia and translated by the US. The US denies that claim. Yeah, that’s convincing. Initially, Donny warned Ukraine they had to accept this plan by Thursday, but the regime have since walked that all the way back to “it’s just a proposal, at this point.” When all is said and done, it looks like there’s no “peace plan” at all…

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But speaking of Russians writing things, the latest revelation coming from Musk’s racist website, Brand X, indicates that many top MAGA accounts are actually foreigners manipulating Americans. X added a feature showing the country of origin on X accounts and people started using the feature to look up the origins of popular MAGA accounts. Russians are on the list. So is Chile, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Morocco, Eastern Europe, and Thailand.

Look, it’s possible there’s a MAGA living overseas for some reason who maintains a pro-MAGA account, but I’d bet the lion’s share of these accounts are actual foreigners who intend actual harm to the US – and they’re achieving their goal by feeding MAGA derangement and fear…

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Yeah, the NFL. Specifically, the Niners. More specifically, Brandon Aiyuk. He’s a wide receiver. (For the uninitiated, he catches passes.) He’s very good at it. In 2023, Aiyuk was ranked seventh in the NFL. He wanted to be paid accordingly. He actually wanted to be paid a little better. It turned into a conflict between him and the team. He ended up getting a four year, $120 million dollar contract. $30 million dollars a year to catch a ball? And $27 million for 2026 was guaranteed! Yeah, America’s priorities are right in order, aren’t they?

Anyway, Aiyuk came out for the next season and promptly got seriously hurt. Really seriously. He missed the rest of that season and hasn’t played a snap this season. All of this is standard stuff in the NFL. It’s a violent game. People get hurt, sometimes badly. The team, the player, and the fans all just wait until the player can return and we get back to it. But for some reason, as yet undisclosed, Aiyuk hasn’t been doing what he’s supposed to do.

This caused the Niners to void the guaranteed money in his contract, a notoriously difficult thing to do. Now it looks like Aiyuk will be leaving the Niners and it could well be sooner rather than later. Aiyuk was a great player before his knee got destroyed. He might never be the same. That, too, is common in the NFL. Whatever team picks Aiyuk up will almost certainly be desperate at the Wide Receiver position. So desperate, they’ll take a chance on Aiyuk. But it looks like the Niners won’t be on that hook, after all.

Aiyuk is ONLY a question mark at this point. He’ll want lots of money because he played one good season, but he’s been out two years and he really (I mean, really) damaged his knee. I’m kind of glad the Niners get to move forward without having to put up with any more of his rehab shenanigans. The team might be losing a very talented receiver. They’ll definitely be losing a big problem. That’s okay with me…

The Brightest Lights…

by MyBaconPress

Ever since Zohran Mamdani got elected Mayor of New York City, every corporate talking head from across the dial has been required to come out loudly in favor of “Free Market” Capitalism, as though there’s some threat to it out there. The most recent I saw was Bill Maher on his show ‘Real Time’ from his November 14 broadcast. He went so far as to show a nighttime satellite photo of South Korea, brightly lit up because of all of that beautiful Capitalism it has, like this:

South Korea at night.

See? Only Capitalists can afford lights, right? THEN, he showed a nighttime satellite photo of North Korea, so dark it looked like they had to pool their resources to buy even the single light bulb they share as a nation:

North Korea at night.

Pretty convincing stuff, eh? Well, unless you know that North Korea is a Communist nation. It’s not Democratic Socialist at all. Trying to convince me that Democratic Socialism is bad by showing me the failures of Communism is a bit like me trying to convince you ice hockey sucks because that “strategic battle” between the pitcher and hitter is pretty boring. Did I convince you? HOW? Telling you something I don’t care for about baseball has nothing to do with ice hockey. If it convinces you, it’s because you know nothing of hockey or baseball.

It’s weird that Maher might have made such an error, isn’t it? Love him or hate him, I think everyone would agree that Bill Maher is not a stupid person. Still, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and pretend he made an honest mistake because the alternative is to point out that he’s intentionally trying to deceive by knowingly presenting false information, more commonly known as “lying.” If one has to lie in order to defend their position, their position probably doesn’t deserve to be defended, right?

Do you know the happiest country on Earth, the country with the overall happiest population? Finland, a Democratic Socialist state, though they call it ‘The Nordic Model.’ (It’s technically listed as a Constitutional Monarchy.) It’s a mixed economy. But no country has included more elements of Democratic Socialism and they’re the happiest country on Earth eight years running now. Besides, NO country is perfectly whatever it claims to be.

Take the awesome and perfectly perfect US. We claim – no, we insist – that we’re a “Free Market” Capitalist nation and nothing else, ever. Well, until some corporation makes some catastrophic Capitalistic mistake and runs, hat in hand, to the US government to demand a little socialism in the form of a financial bailout. It happens here in the Greatest Country On Earth™ FAR more often than you might think. The American corporate motto seems to be ‘Socialism for me, brutal Free Market Capitalism for thee.’

Oh, and for Bill Maher, since I know he’s probably reading, here’s a nighttime photo of Finland, all lit up:

Scandinavia at night

In fact, that’s all of Scandinavia, all Democratic Socialist and all lit up. Using the Maher standard of measuring the success of a given economic system based on how brightly a country shines at night, it looks like Democratic Socialism is doing okay…

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I can’t say I feel badly, exactly, about what’s happening to Marjorie Taylor Greene. She seems to have gained access to more accurate information recently. I don’t know her source, but she has been coming out on the right side of an increasing number of issues, recently, and it’s weirding me out. She has become SO fact-oriented, the Trumpster kicked her out of MAGA. (“No facts in MAGA!”) Now she’s getting death threats and other abuse.

Nobody deserves death threats or other abuse for expressing their opinions, right or wrong. Still, it’s nice that she’s getting an opportunity to see how her team, Team Evil, treats people with whom they disagree. I’ll tell you this, though: if she wants to join Team USA, I think we should let her. I do not, can not, forget who and how she’s been, but Maya Angelou taught us, “When you know better, do better.” MTG seems to know better, now, and she seems to be trying to do better. Right thinking people ought to support that…

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“It’s not just that they’re doing things that I don’t agree with politically, it’s that there’s so much malice and vindictiveness attached to all of it….” Bill Bryson, author of ‘A Short History of Everything.’

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Here’s the thing about the MAGA anger that 47 isn’t doing what he promised. This is the first time they’ve known, known without question, that Donny is lying to them. I mean, when he says he and Xi have a great relationship, who can say? We certainly weren’t in the room while they were talking. Maybe they do. ARE fishermen off the coast of Venezuela drug runners? Donny said they were and I’ve never had the chance to talk to them. Maybe they were.

They can do that all day on a wide-ranging variety of subjects. Pretty much everything, in fact, they can’t or won’t check. But they don’t have to check to see if prices are lower or higher. It smacks them in the face every time they walk into a store. They’ve still got Donny’s whiny voice in their heads, “Prices are low, the lowest they’ve ever been. We’ve got the best prices.” Meanwhile, they’re buying off-brands or not at all because things are so expensive.

I suspect that as they internalize the reality that Donny is straight-up lying to them about the economy, they’ll start to see other areas where he may have been less than honest. How about job losses? Over the course of last month, I’ve seen many headlines about larger companies laying off workers. How many? 100 people! 1,000 people! 10,000 people! 466,000 people! 2 million people! A trillion people! (I learned that from Donny. BIG numbers are better.)

Okay, 153,000. That’s the estimated, actual number. It’s estimated because the regime isn’t offering that information any more. (We get excuses, instead.) The actual numbers make Donny look bad, so he stopped reporting them. But I’d bet some of those 153,000 people were MAGA and when Donny tells them the economy is booming, they wonder why it exploded all over them. In short, Donny’s lies aren’t distant anymore. They’re not about things MAGA doesn’t understand and may or may not be true. Donny’s lies are hitting home, THEIR homes and for the first time, they see it…

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Big day for the Niners today. Brock Purdy, their starting Quarterback who has missed a ton of games with a bum foot, is coming back. So is one of their better Wide Receivers, Ricky Pearsall. That should improve the offense. Well, at wide-out anyway. Backup Quarterback Mac Jones did a VERY good job while Brock was out. I hope Brock plays well or the QB controversy gets somewhat louder.

The Defense is still the big question mark. The team has lost their veteran leaders for the season. They’re playing with backups and rookies. The up side? They have a very good Defensive Coordinator in Robert Salah, and they have a soft stretch in their schedule. It gives them something like five weeks to tighten up and get it together. Here we go, Niners…

BIG Lies…

by MyBaconPress

Dr Ooze, said in a speech that Americans were on track to lose 135 BILLION pounds before the midterms. 135 billion pounds? Wonderful! We’re EACH going to give up around 400 pounds. Actually, I’m a little concerned. I confess, I carry a little extra wight – but not 400 pounds! For most of us, losing 400 pounds is like the Dumbass insisting he can lower drug prices by 1,500%. First you get to zero, then you keep going.

This regime just LOVES to make up numbers and they MEAN for the made-up numbers to be as impressive as they can be. THAT means BIG. The numbers have got to be BIG. If the numbers are BIG, the achievements are big, too, right? So Donny can’t just lower drug prices by 100%. Anybody could do that. (They can’t.)

It’s GOT TO BE 1,500% to impress MAGA, and Dr. Ooze isn’t impressing anybody by claiming Americans will merely lose 40 pounds each. Who could be impressed by THAT? No, it has to be 400 pounds because that’s a bigger number. Idiocracy, thy name is America…

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Well, there’s talk of a plan to end the shutdown. It comes out of the Senate. It would have to since the House has gone walkabout. It appears to have support from enough turncoat Dems to pass the Senate. It does not include the health insurance subsidies the Dems have been holding out for. The Senate’s Republican leader, John Thune, has promised he would allow a vote on a bill to deal with the credits by the second week of December.

He won’t. The GOP has gone so far as to withhold food from hungry people in an effort to put pressure on Democrats to surrender their demands. “You want health care? STARVE, peasants!” Now, all of a sudden, they’re going to just get reasonable and do the right thing? Uh-huh. You bet our lives!

Even if Thune does do the right thing, MAGA Mike the Johnson has said he won’t bring such a measure to the House floor. Besides, how can he bring anything to the House floor when the House Republicans are out quivering in their hidey-holes, fearful of having to address the problem of Donny’s very close friend Jeffrey Epstein in public and on the record.

My feelings on the topic were best summed up by Greg Casar, chair of the congressional Progressive Caucus. He said: “A deal that doesn’t reduce health care costs is a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them. Republicans want health care cuts. Accepting nothing but a pinky promise from Republicans isn’t a compromise – it’s capitulation.”

I guess it’s back to desperation catastrophic coverage and preexisting condition denials for “The Land of Opportunity™!” A citizen of ‘The Greatest Country On Earth™?’ These days, I feel more like a victim…

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Have you SEEN the ramping up of disdain from all corners when it comes to Democratic Socialism? If you’re a talking head on American television, left or right, you MUST come out against Democratic Socialism. It’s BEST if you also mischaracterize Democratic Socialism. Call it Communism, that scares ’em!

I heard Bill Maher talking about how it never works, socialism. That’s wrong. He MEANS communism. Right now, the happiest, the freest, the most successful (if you measure success by best-serving the largest number of people) countries on Earth are Democratic Socialist. The act that made America great in the first place was FDR sprinkling in elements of Democratic Socialism to the US as a way to stabilize normally erratic so-called “Free-Market” Capitalism. He called it the New Deal.

This latest round of pearl-clutching started because Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, just became the mayor of New York City. The so-called “Free-Market” Capitalists run scared every time socialism rears it’s head. The thing is, socialism rears it’s head from time to time because it seems to be a better system and the masses keep figuring it out, then figuring it out again.

Mamdani once said in passing during a speech in 2021, “But then there are also other issues that we firmly believe in, whether it’s BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel), right, or whether it’s the end goal of seizing the means of production, where we do not have the same level of support at this very moment.”

“Ooh, he said, ‘…seizing the means of production,'” terrified Capitalists cry, “He MUST be a commie! If seizing the means of production means one MUST be a commie, look to Donny, who just strong-armed his way into a deal giving the US government a stake in Intel. And MP Materials. And Lithium Americas. And Trilogy Metals. Not to mention the US government’s “golden share” of US Steel Corporation. Apparently, we’re communists already, da comrade?

Here’s what all the naysayers have in common: they’re all rich. Okay, maybe not rich rich but they’re doing very, very well, compared to most of the regular working stiffs. Pick a system, any system. The people who are doing well in that system probably like it very much. Why would they see problems? The very BEST one could hope for is a flaccid acknowledgement that it could use some “tweaks” here and there.

The thing people have to understand is this: Democratic Socialism is a capitalist system. It’s just controlled Capitalism. Those of us being crushed under the weight of so-called “Free-Market” Capitalism think it could use a little control…

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The Niners had a football game yesterday. Somebody should have told them. It looked like the team failed to show up so the coaches went into the streets and grabbed up anybody they could find who might fit the uniforms and put them out on the field. They played accordingly. If the game HAD been played by amateurs, well, they did a fine job. Hats off!

But if the people who showed up for the Niners identify as professional football players in the NFL? They might not want to tell anybody for the next couple of days. Maybe, let the memory of that stinker fade a bit. The Rams were firing on all cylinders and the Niners were still looking for their keys.

It seems strange, but that loss put the once-first-place Niner’s playoff hopes in jeopardy. They still have a winning record. They’ll still show on the “in the hunt” sections of playoff predictions. But the NFC is very competitive and the Niners are trending in the wrong direction. With their defense collectively in the Intensive Care Unit, they don’t have much hope of turning things around. RATS! Oh well. There’s always next season. Always. Next season…