politics

Correction and Update…

by MyBaconPress

Well, I have a correction to make. Yesterday, I wrote that the focus of Katie Britt’s sex trafficking story was kidnapped and forced into prostitution at the age of 16. That was wrong. The person was 12, just a child at the time. She escaped when she was 16. (Even after all these years of MAGA, I STILL can’t believe how badly people can suck.) MyBaconPress regrets the error…

After being called out for misrepresenting, Britt went on Fox Not-News to defend her statement. She pretended people thought she said the person was a woman at the time. That wasn’t the issue. She pretended to be disgusted people would try to shut down her tale of sex trafficking. Nobody was doing that. She did NOT address the fact that the victim who actually suffered the event, Karla Jacinto, wasn’t happy Britt told the story during the rebuttal. She said, “I hardly ever cooperate with politicians, because it seems to me that they only want an image. They only want a photo — and that to me is not fair.”

It’s important to note, Britt took office in 2023. She mentioned that Biden had taken 94 “executive actions” in his first hundred days and then mentioned a couple that affected the border, trying to leave the impression that all 94 actions were border-related. They were not. Twelve of them were border related. Ten of the twelve reversed actions taken by 45. So the rest was just a bit of conservative misrepresentation to inflame people’s minds. (Hey, it’s what they do.)

After misrepresenting Biden’s actions at the border, Britt said she took a different path “after she took office.” She went down to the border and met Jacinto, who told her the story. Then, with no segue, she said, “We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a third-world country. This is the United States of America. And it’s past time we start acting like it. President Biden’s border crisis is a disgrace,” Britt said. “It’s despicable, and it’s almost entirely preventable.”

So…did Britt SAY, exactly, that the trafficking occurred under Biden’s watch and in America? No. She just implied it so heavily the idea couldn’t be missed, AND she buried those pesky details – which make such a difference – so deeply it took people a little while to dig them up.

I’ll tell you this: I have a rule about cons: Their tales of terror and woe are NEVER ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’ There is ALWAYS some bit left out that should be included or some bit tossed in that should not. It’s how good lies are built and the cons are VERY skilled liars. They have to be. It’s all they’ve got…

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Also yesterday, I wrote about the case against Fani Willis and how the cons are trying to protect their Precious by eliminating the prosecutor for “impropriety.” (The actual focus was the GOP controlled legislature giving Ashleigh Merchant a bully pulpit to make whatever case she felt like making with little to no pushback.)

I don’t think they can show any impropriety. The actual charge is that Willis hiring Wade violated a Georgia nepotism law. ALL cons will tell you, Wade was not qualified for the job. Of course, they’ll also tell you that Trump won in 2020. As we’ve seen – and see constantly, cons lie. Wade is an established lawyer with a thriving law practice. He also sits as an associate municipal court judge and a state court judge. Does he have any experience prosecuting criminal ex-Presidents? No. Who does? This is all new territory because we’ve never had such a corrupt and outright criminal ex-President as we have in trump.

But after claiming some professional impropriety, the cons have focused, almost exclusively, on revealing salacious details of the lover’s affair. They have shown, over and over, that a dude took his girl on a couple of trips – and that he used money he earned by working to pay for it. Isn’t that how ALL dudes take their lovers on trips? Paying with money they work for? (Yeah, I’m setting aside criminals and criminal activity for the moment.) The idea, as nearly as I can tell, is to suggest that these two had sex – so they hate trump. That’s dumb. Most people hate trump whether they’re having sex or not.

There are other problems with Merchant’s filing. For example, it didn’t include any factual support for key claims. It was all innuendo. That’s weird enough, but here’s a quote from a Politico article called ‘A Reality Check on the Fani Willis Scandal:’
“The motion may also have violated an important ethical rule that requires lawyers to disclose controlling law that is at odds with any position that they are advocating in the case. In particular, Roman’s filing claims that Willis and Wade may have violated the honest-services and RICO statutes because they “personally benefited from an undisclosed conflict of interest,” but that theory of criminal liability was foreclosed by the Supreme Court nearly 15 years ago. The lawyers who wrote that language either did not know that it was wrong (ethically fine, perhaps, but embarrassing) or refused to level with the court about it (not fine at all and deeply ironic).”

There was an opportunity for a Georgia Democrat to question Merchant during the spectacle. He showed that the primary case she cited in her filing (Whitworth vs State) didn’t support her claim. She even admitted as much, after a bit of verbal sparring. He also made the case that impropriety refers to profiting in ways you normally wouldn’t by getting the win in a case or by getting some piece of the case to work better to get the prosecution, like getting a bonus for flipping a witness or some such. Wade is being paid whether the State wins or loses. That’s not impropriety. Prosecutors get paid to prosecute.

I actually think the weakest point in Willis’ defense is Wade, himself. In court, it came out that Wade was trying to hide some income from his soon-to-be-ex-wife. During the Georgia Senate dog-and pony, Merchant said she thought one of the reasons the legal firm Wade had with lead witness Terrance Bradley came to an end because Wade insisted on using his own trust accounts rather than the official trust accounts of the firm. So Wade appears to be maybe a little shady with money, personally. None of that indicates that he has done anything improper during the case, though.

I’ll tell you this: I hope the case proceeds. I really hate the idea of justice being derailed because two human beings exercised their infatuation with each other for a short time…

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Sometimes, I get a little pushback when I decry Daylight Saving Time. Oh, hey, you disagree? Okay. That’s easy. In view of current issues, this one is very low-level. The position pro-DST people take, though, is that they get “more daytime.” No you don’t. There are 24 hours in a day. Period. The reason you get “more sunshine” is because the Earth/Sun relationship changed to Summer mode. We get more sun.

What YOU get is the opportunity to go to bed while the sun is still up and being forced to use a little more power in the morning when most of us have to get up and go to work. Less of an issue, I guess, if you’re retired or don’t have a job.

A law passed in the Senate is trying to set the clocks to Daylight Saving permanently. It has not progressed in the House. As it happens, we’ve tried that. It was (hyperbole alert) carnage on the roadways and death to schoolkids. The program was implemented on a two year test basis but cancelled after less than one year because of the increase in deaths. That’s true.

I would be okay with leaving the clocks alone but I could only support Standard Time as the permanent choice. Fear not, my DST lovers. You’d still get the same 24 hours in each and every day. It’s the way science works…

Is Lying REALLY Their Only Trick?

by MyBaconPress

Uh-oh. Republicans have been caught lying, yet again. (It just never ends.) This time, the culprit is Katie Britt, the GOP “rising star” who gave the GOP “rebuttal” to Biden’s State of the Union speech. The GOP has angered most women by attacking women’s right to bodily autonomy, so they cynically put a woman forward to give the rebuttal – but STILL wouldn’t let her out of the kitchen, where women “belong,” right? She has already received much criticism. It started during her little chat – and from her own team. Worse, for her, these were words coming out of her mouth. Words have meanings. They can be checked. They were checked.

Apparently, MAGA never checks anything. I’ve read many conservative tales in which links have been placed to look as though they link to supporting articles or other evidence. But if you DO click through, it’s almost ridiculously obnoxious how many of those links only go to the definition of a word or some similar non-support. It’s deceptive. It LOOKS like support but it isn’t. It’s a kind of a lie.

Anyway, Britt told the story of meeting a woman on the Mexican border who had been kidnapped and held by drug cartels and then forced into prostitution when she was 16. The woman was held for several years and repeatedly raped. She was finally rescued, no thanks to Joe Biden. This is Biden’s border, Britt lied.

A journalist and author named Jonathon Katz knew the case. He checked it out. It was all true. It HAD happened to this poor woman. Um, between 2004 and 2008. It wasn’t “Biden’s Border.” It was Bush 43’s border. Yeah, a Republican. Of course. AND, by the way, it’s never going to be Biden’s Border now. Not in the minds of the majority, the rational Americans. The GOP slapped down their own border bill that promised to changed things just so they could keep the border around as a campaign issue. Actions speak louder than words. NOW the border is in disarray because the GOP won’t LET the Dems fix it. We all know it. The whole world watched that play out.

Cons, man. They’re just always the opposite of what they claim to be. They lie as easily as breathing, all while setting themselves up as the arbiters of morality. They present themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility, all while crashing the economy over and over and adding more to the national debt than the Dems ever do. (The current record holder is Trump. Barack has a higher number but much of that was created by 43, who simply left it off the books.)

Stronger on national defense? THAT depends on how you feel about love letters between the wanna-be dictator, Donny, and the actual dictator, Kim Jong Un, or the passing of nuclear secrets from Donny to the Russians, as the whispers suggest. Yeah, 43 was quick to react when “security failures” allowed the fall of the World Trade Center – but he started not one, but TWO wrong wars in his haste. I guess that leaves the party of law and order?

Oh my gods, don’t make me laugh. Are you paying ANY attention at all? Have you seen how much trouble the GOP is going to in their efforts to keep their precious from facing any law and order, whatsoever? At no time, in NO way, have they made even the slightest attempt to show the Trump is not a criminal. Instead, they’re working as hard as they can to stop the trials from even happening. Here again, actions speak louder than words. The GOP is tipping their hand. They KNOW Donny is guilty. They KNOW it. Here’s how I know.

Let’s say you wanted to prosecute, say, me for, oh, I don’t know, how about the assassination of John Kennedy? I don’t need anyone to derail that trial for me. Have at it. You can’t possibly have any proof that I killed Kennedy, because I didn’t. For MY part, I’m going to show up in court and present my exculpatory evidence: I was two years old at the time. I hadn’t yet developed any proficiency with weapons. If you can show that a two year old got himself from the LA basin to the Dallas book depository (or even the grassy knoll, an easier crawl), squeezed off a few very well placed rounds, then got himself home again – ostensibly all during nap time – I guess I deserve to go to jail, right?

I watched some of this dog-and-pony show the GOP sponsored in Georgia. They formed a very special committee to “get to the bottom” of this Fani Willis thing and subpoenaed Ashleigh Merchant, the attorney trying to get Fani removed to come on over and have a chat. They called it a “hearing” but it was really just an opportunity for Merchant to smear Willis in public for awhile with little pushback. I think the GOP thinks they’re losing this effort to have her removed for impropriety so they decided to try to boost their position. So much for law and order, right?

I’ll tell you this: The thing that remains true no matter how badly the GOP wishes it were not true? A position that depends on lies for support, doesn’t deserve to be supported. And every position the GOP supports, requires lies in order to present even the appearance of support. Like Peter, of ‘Peter and the Wolf’ infamy, it’s best just to ignore the lying GOP going forward…

Joe Is Better Than Donny…

by MyBaconPress

Donny was giving a speech at a rally in Greensboro, NC. Here’s a quote. Well, as nearly as I can spell it, here’s a quote, “We’re a nation that just recently heard that Saudi Arabia and Russia will ree… pee… too… ahhh.” Then he just…blanked out for a moment. No, it wasn’t a Moscow Mitch blank. Nobody needed to bump his head to get him started again. (Although they MAY have some wireless electrodes hooked up to some sensitive part of his body so they can zap him, should the need arise – as it did.)

Look, I get it. He’s under a LOT of pressure right now, right? He’s facing 91 Felony charges and doesn’t want to go to jail. He’s trying to manage his lawyers so he can stay out of jail. He’s trying to regain the White House so he can stay out of jail. He’s got to activate his ideologue, sycho-fanatic “judges” so he can stay out of jail. I mean, that’s a LOT of trying to stay out of jail.

In addition, there have long been whispers – and now reports from the White House pharmacy – that Trump takes a LOT of pills. They’re all prescription so he can honestly tell his fawning admirers he doesn’t use “illegal” drugs, but when you have access to the pharmaceutical stuff, who would? Word is, he likes Adderall. Adderall is a brand name medication that treats ADHD. It’s speed, all dressed up official and pretty. MyBaconPress can neither confirm nor disprove the rumors. We don’t have access to the records and he’s a lying son-of-a-bitch.

It remains true: Every conservative accusation is a confession. They’ve been attacking Joe Biden over his gaffes since the race began – back in 2019. (Or 2018, or 17, or even 16. It’s like these things never end…) Of COURSE “Biden seems impaired” is their battle cry. THEIR guy is clearly impaired! They HOPE, that by pointing and screaming and shouting and spittling at Biden, people won’t notice that Donny seems FAR worse. Oh, we’ve noticed.

“Biden is impaired” is dogma, now, in conservative circles so I imagine that any cons who tuned in to the State of the Union address were expecting a train-wreck of a speech. They didn’t get THAT, though, did they? Old Sleepy Joe did really quite well. At least some of the scheme of the cons was to try to rattle the old guy. They tried. He didn’t rattle.

In fact, he took on several of their pet peeves, directly. My favorite part, though, was when he scolded the Kangaroos right to their stupid, ideological faces. Except for Clarence Thomas, of course. He wasn’t there. I heard he was out collecting some bribes but, again, I can’t confirm that. It was probably just cowardice.

So, according to MY scorecard in the ‘Battle of the Brain-Farts,’ Biden is winning with the fewest number of serious gaffes. But the media, left AND right, simply will not stop with the “Biden is old” bit. Yeah, he’s old. So is Donny. Biden moves like an old man. So does Donny. I don’t like when Joe tries to run out on stage but I like Donny’s dual handjob dance even less. The primary difference? Biden is doing a very good job running the country. Donny crashed the economy worse than any President in history and killed more Americans than any other President in history, leaving a trail of damage and wreckage in his wake.

No, cons don’t know that. THEY think (or pretend) they live in a Hellscape of destitution and ruin. All they have to do is look outside and… well, no. All they have to do is look at the numbers and they get… um, no. All they have to do is check their day to day lives and then they have…dammit! Okay, all they have to do is tune in to their favorite, lying, talking head and they get all the confirmation they crave.

So, what? You’re not going to vote for Joe because he’s old? Then you can’t vote for Donny either. He’s old, too. Joe just doesn’t inspire you? Donny does? Joe might have a “senior moment?” Donny is having them right out in public, for all the world to see. The only thing Donny does better than Biden is crime.

But listen, nobody voted FOR Biden, before. We ALL voted against Trump. Do that. Vote against Trump. Yes, Biden is doing a very good job and has earned your vote but if you just can’t, at least vote Biden to block. It’s the American thing to do…

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Don’t forget to turn your clocks tonight. Forward. Spring forward. The whole point, it seems, is to sow chaos and confusion into people’s lives. The primary thing the time changes accomplish is disrupting people’s rhythms. It causes heart attacks and car accidents and, for a while, sloppy thinking. It doesn’t benefit anybody in any way. By all means, let’s just keep doing this oh-so-stupid thing…

Bizarro America, March 2024…

by MyBaconPress

Huh. So, the Kangaroos ruled just the way I said they would. On the one hand, it’s great to be vindicated? Not so much, really. I think the only surprise was the 9-0 nature of the ruling. Now, to be sure, they didn’t agree on WHY they think the 14th doesn’t apply but they all said it doesn’t.

The cons on the court said it can only be implemented by Congress, the exact opposite of how the text reads because, you know, “Originalists!” Oh, and “Textualists!” Specifically, the text says, “But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” Nowhere does it say, or even suggest, it’s up to Congress to impose the disability.

For their part, the lefties on the court said they were worried about a patchwork effect, some states allowing a given candidate, some states not. Of course, they would have put an end to THAT pretense by upholding the 14th, as well. Once it applied, it applied across the board, in the exact same way it does NOT apply…pretty much at all anymore.

But, I wrote at the time they decided to take the case up, they were not going to uphold the constitution so I’m not too surprised. Next up? They’re going to clear Donny of his J6 crimes by pretending he was just engaged in “official duties.” So he WILL be running. We’ll HAVE to beat him at the ballot box, which shouldn’t be too hard. BUT…

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An article by a guy named Thom Hartmann was brought to my attention. It’s called, ‘The New “Over the Top” Secret Plan on How Fascists Could Win in 2024’ (Click here). You really need to read this. I found it frightening and depressing. (Yes, I’m aware that’s poor upselling. But people would feel deceived if I described it as a delightful read – and then read it…)

Mr Hartmann, a brilliant mind with FAR too many consonants in his name, claims to have information regarding the NEXT conservative plan to steal the upcoming election. It’s frightening because it’s imminently “do-able.” It’s depressing because no rational mind anywhere on the planet would put it past conservatives to attempt to steal this election, any more than they continue to try to steal the last one.

The plan is predicated on two things: 1) A Trump/Putin loss, making the steal necessary, and 2) GOP control of the House of Representatives. Now, I don’t know about you, but I expect, after the wasted time, foolish follies, ineffectual “leadership,” and just general all-around clown show that has marked the Republican majority in the House, Americans are likely feeling the need to have some rational grownups in charge and will try to send Democrats back and put them in control.

That’s when step one of the plan kicks in: MAGA Mike Johnson – who worked tirelessly to help steal 2020 for Donny – simply refuses to swear in the new Democratic members, citing “voting irregularities,” and artificially (but legally) keeping conservative control of the House. Conservatives have been screaming about voting irregularities since 2015. Every single one of them knows ten, maybe fifteen, stories of some cheat “everyone knows” happened and they’ll be MORE than happy to share/shout them at you. Over and over and over again.

Not ONE of them has even the smallest scrap of evidence to support their claims, of course. They brought the crap they could scrape together into sixty different court rooms. Sixty! They lost every one. (MAGA thinks the cases “weren’t heard.” They were. They lost because there was no evidence.) No matter. Scream about it anyway.

The basic plan is this: artificially create a “Constitutional crisis” that throws the election to the House of Representatives, still artificially controlled by the GOP, who puts the Dumbass back into power (and destroys America in the process). You really should read this article (second chance click here). It will NOT uplift your spirit but it WILL inform you.

Frankly, I was a little hesitant to forward the article. After I read it, I thought, “Well, what’s the point, then?” I mean, it’s depressing, mostly because I have no doubt this is right up MAGA alley. I really gave it some thought. Finally, I arrived at something. Hartmann writes about the event, hijacking the certification process, and then jumps to the long-term consequences of GOP control and he does a masterful job of taking the reader along with him. It took me awhile – my emotions had to settle down – but I finally arrived at a question: what about January 4? January 5? What about January 7th? That is, what happens in the immediate aftermath of the hijack?

An issue not addressed; is the plan to NEVER seat the Democrats who won? Currently, Democrats control the Senate. Assuming rationality maintains Senate control, is there NO action the Democrats can take to intervene? In Hartmann’s analysis, there is little mention of Democratic responses, or of the responses of the American people. Some of the harm the GOP wants to do to the country can be accomplished with Executive Orders but some of it would require legislation. Would Senate Democrats be in “compromise” mode while the House was being held hostage?

What will the American people do when the House is held hostage to the GOP? Will we just get up and go to work or will we hit the streets, “France style” and do some screaming and yelling (and burning and rioting) of our own? Hartmann thinks the former because so many Americans were so tepid in their response to the GOP theft of the Supreme Court seats.

There’s a thing about liberals, though. We don’t want to fight. We would rather solve problems with our minds. Over time, that attitude can be mistaken as meaning we won’t fight. Cowards, you know. But historically, there is zero evidence to support that position. Yes, we might be slow to fight – because we don’t want to. But once we decide a fight is our only option? We fight. We usually win. See, the advantage of the slow-to-fight position is that we ensure we’re on solid moral ground. Having the moral high ground helps. It motivates.

Think of it this way: Russia should have simply overwhelmed Ukraine. Ukraine was disarmed a while ago and Russia is always heavily armed. But the Ukrainians are fighting for their homes and their families and the Russian soldiers are fighting because they were told to. They don’t have a legitimate reason to be killing and dying in some foreign country and they know it. It’s the same reason the powerful United States lost in Vietnam. Motivation.

Something that has become clear over time? The cons KNOW they’re lying about all the various charges they toss around. There’s no question. No, of course they’re not going to admit that to you. (False pride is a bitch of a taskmaster.) But they know. I’m sure of it because of all the times they readily refute their own talking points in trying to make another.

So the left will have the moral high ground and BOTH sides will know it. But that’s only if they fight. If Hartmann is right, we’ll just get up and go to work and wish it was different. If we do that, though? If we just throw up our hands with a “we’ll get ’em next time” attitude? We get what we deserve. The American people have had to fight to protect this country before, even against others who might have been called “fellow Americans.” It seems now the actual, most looming question is, will we fight for America one more time?

Donny’s Decline…

by MyBaconPress

Donny has incorporated his “explanations” into his stump speech. The whole Nikki/Nancy thing caught a lot of people’s attention. I’m referring, of course, to the speech when 45 repeatedly said that Nikki Haley did a terrible job protecting the Capitol from his assault. Donny never admits error, one of the surest signs of a weak mind. So, when someone pointed out the error, he claimed it was intentional. He said – and continues to say – that he just interchanges the names back and forth because he doesn’t like either of them.

By that standard, I could interchange Donald J Trump and Adolf Hitler. I don’t like either of those guys so, what’s the difference, right? Well, when a sentence starts, “When Hitler so badly bungled his pandemic in the US in 2019…” it doesn’t make any sense. Hitler didn’t bungle the pandemic, Trump did. It doesn’t get any better in reverse, “When Trump launched WWII, leading to the murders of 14 million people, 6 million of them Jews…” Nope. No better. Because that wasn’t Trump. It turns out, the names don’t become interchangeable just because someone doesn’t like both of them.

He’s such a snowflake. The left started pointing out – and making jokes about – Trump’s inability to speak the language, complete a thought, or keep people straight on the who did what scale and Donny just HAD to respond. Not only did he put out a video speaking to his malapropisms, pretending they’re intentional, it has become a talking point in all of his speeches.

What a waste of time. He’ll never convince Americans his gaffes are anything other than evidence of his mental decline (perhaps outright stupidity) and MAGA will never believe he was anything less than “funny” when it comes to his gibberish.

Sure, Biden is old and does “old guy” things. But Trump is old, too, and does “old guy” things AND seems delusional and unable to track from moment to moment. Remember, it’s not BIDEN regularly taking cognitive tests because someone around him thinks it’s a good idea and a solid brag point. That’s Hitler, er, Trump, who, in fairness, CAN still recognize an elephant, though, he’s more likely to call it a “Heffalump…”

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Here’s irony: The US has started dropping humanitarian aid to Israel’s victims in Gaza. This has become necessary because the US supplies many of the bombs and other weapons Israel is using in Netanyahu’s current effort to “cleanse” Gaza of Palestinians.

It seems to me there should be a better way. Maybe…tell Israel we’re not sending any more weapons if they’re just going to use them for war crimes. War crimes is currently the American bailiwick – “enhanced interrogations” anyone? – and we do not like competition.

I can only guess, because Biden doesn’t take my calls, but I suspect there’s some treaty obligation binding Biden’s hands so he has to resort to trying to offset the damage he’s participating in by trying to help the people on the suffering end, while supplying the weapons of that suffering. It’s times like this “Presidentin'” doesn’t look fun at all…

The Right Ain’t Right…

by MyBaconPress

Well, the corrupt conservatives on the Roberts Kangaroo Court have stepped in to help their Precious. That’s a bummer. They’ve decided they’re going to hear the case regarding whether the President of the United States has absolute immunity. He doesn’t, of course. The Constitution doesn’t say he does and the Federalist Papers have a word or two on the dangers of kings and such, making clear the intent is that the President was never intended to be anything more than a citizen. First among equals, perhaps, but just a normal citizen, subject to the laws of the country.

Every other court that has heard this “question” has issued a ruling against 45. Of course he doesn’t have immunity. These turds on the Highest bench, though? First, they’ve narrowed the question. Does he have absolute immunity “…for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office?” Those are weasel words, the small crack he’s going to slip through and avoid prosecution for coup attempt.

What the corrupt high court should have done was simply refuse to hear the case. That would have supported the correct rulings from the lower courts and moved things along. Of course, that’s the problem. Things would have moved along against their Precious. EVERYONE knows he’s guilty. He CANNOT go to trial.

They scheduled the hearing for April 22 on a so-called expedited schedule. That’s a very slow “fast” if you ask me. What they could do is hear this bullshit case at that leisurely rate, then hand down their decision at the last minute after they “deliberate” until it’s time to go pick up their bribe checks – No, the President isn’t immune from crimes committed in office. Sadly, now that they’ve taken up the “issue,” that is the best case scenario.

Because what I fear they’re going to do is pretend to accept Donny’s assertions that he wasn’t battling to stay in office at all. Why, he was simply working, as President, to ensure the integrity of the election, an ostensibly “official act” and therefore, not guilty of a crime at all. Yeah? What about January 6th? What about phone calls coercing officials to “find votes?” What about fake electors? “Hang Mike Pence” seems like a rather extreme “test of the system” to me. You can expect them to hand down THAT horrifying call as they slink out the back in the dead of night – the way they do with all of their cowardly, ideologically driven decisions.

For conservatives, though, the important thing is the story they can tell, not what happened…

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Donny scored a second “victory” of sorts yesterday, too. In New York, when you lose a civil case, you have to post the amount you lost in a bond before you can appeal. Donny’s team asked a judge named Anil Singh to stay the amount, asking if, instead of the full $454 million he’s supposed to put up, could he put up only $100 million? The judge said no. So what was the “victory?”

The judge ALSO ruled that the bit about him not being able to borrow from New York Banks or serve as a corporate officer was too extreme and he DID issue a stay on that part of the order. So, now Donny can borrow from banks again (assuming one would be stupid enough to loan to him) and, likely, he’ll be back running his criminal organization in no time at all.

Keep in mind: at NO time, has Trump made even the slightest effort to prove he is innocent of these crimes. He’s using legal technicalities to weasel out of responsibility and even those technicalities wouldn’t work if it wasn’t for fawning sycophants who really, really want to help Donny – and so they do…

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I don’t know and, I mean, I really don’t know what the cons think they’re going to get when they finally succeed in turning this country into a fascist dictatorship. What I do know is that they’re not going to get whatever benefit they think they’re getting. Fascist dictatorships don’t work that way. They never have. The cons should have paid more attention in school.

It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen and, sadly, I’m not just seeing it. I’m living it. Conservative America already sucks. How bad is it going to get when their paranoid, angry, and delusional little minds are in charge of everything, with no guardrails? I guess we all get to find out together. Shit, man…

Out Of The Bottle…

by MyBaconPress

Remember when the New Hampshire primary was happening and a robo-call went out pretending to be Joe Biden telling people to “save their votes” and not cast a ballot in the primary there? At the time, the Democrats were trying to make a different state the first state to vote in the Primaries and didn’t want to have one in New Hampshire so it seemed like a Democratic effort to undermine the primary there. Biden won, anyway. But, guess what?

A Democratic operative named Steve Kramer has admitted he commissioned the AI call. He said he employed “easy to use online technology” to deploy the call. It cost him around $500 bucks. He was employed by Democratic candidate Dean Phillips at the time but has not implicated Phillips in any way. The two aren’t working together anymore. Kramer commissioned the thing from a magician and hypnotist named Paul David Carpenter who said it cost him $1 and took him about twenty minutes to manufacture with software from an AI firm called ElevenLabs.

On the up side, the Federal government has since outlawed automated calls using AI generated voices. They say it’s a threat to democracy and it is. So, that’s good. The thing is, now that we know how easy it is for anybody with even a little practice to do, AI generated phone calls are suddenly a real and present danger and any slaphead can – and, therefore, will – make one.

To his credit, Carpenter expressed regret over how Kramer used the work product and as the law enforcement investigation heated up, Carpenter got with authorities. My favorite quote from that story? “Nobody wants to become well-known for something shitty.” (He should pay closer attention to MAGA. Some people, apparently, don’t mind…) But he said it would take “mere minutes” for people to learn to do what he did. “Pandora’s Box is opened,” Carpenter said.

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

Hey, it looks like Americans finally did the right thing. It was probably an accident. Apparently, we’re all tired of the gouging in the stores and at the gas pump and even when we try to buy a car – so we’ve stopped. Well, slowed. Fewer name brand items are finding their way into our carts. People are buying used cars instead of new. People are driving less. In short, we’ve finally closed our wallets.

We’ve been told – a lot – by corporate media that all that price gouging is “inflation.” Probably Joe Biden’s fault. Of course, it isn’t inflation so much as greed. But now that Americans have closed their wallets, the prices are starting to slide. They won’t come down much but they are coming down and more importantly, they’re not going up anymore.

Now all we need the Federal government to do is reverse their oh-so-stupid rule change made in 2011 that allowed Wall Street to start buying up all the single family homes so Americans can compete in that market again and the cost of housing can fall, too…

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

Donny is running around claiming for the deceived that he’s just like Navalny, a persecuted political prisoner just murdered by Vladimir Putin. I can see some differences, just in the description. But the details count, too. Navalny was first poisoned, then imprisoned, and ultimately murdered, on the charge of “extremism.” What the hell does that even mean, extremism? That’s a pretty subjective charge, if you ask me.

Donny, on the other hand, faces 91 separate charges in four different jurisdictions, each of which is well defined – not subjective – well supported by evidence, and has been in the books for years. Donny hasn’t been poisoned. I’ve heard he lives in fear of being poisoned. The story is, that’s why he eats so much fast food and uses the smallest ketchup bottles. It’s harder to poison him that way. But that’s just his snowflake paranoia. Nobody is actually trying to poison him.

If justice does prevail in his case, and he does end up in prison, he’ll come out just as fat as he is now. He won’t be starved while being held. Oh, and…he’ll get out. That, too, is different than Navalny’s fate. Why, it’s almost as if 45 is delusional.

Currently, the United States doesn’t have a corollary to what Putin just did to Navalny. Donny has promised to start all of that if he gets back to the White House, of course, but right now, no. We don’t. Well, we ARE still holding a couple of people in Gitmo who have never been charged but remain in prison, nonetheless, so that’s close. But even they are being fed and not tortured. Nope, a terrified little con, 43, ruined America’s record on that.

Cons, and it’s always cons, justified that by calling it something different. Enhanced Interrogation wasn’t torture at all. Just ask the guys doing the torturing, I mean, interrogations. (DO NOT, for the god’s sake, ask the victims, er, “subjects of the interrogation.” My guess is, they have a different take entirely.)

Ah, crap. Just when I wanted to go all holier-than-thou on Russia, too. It turns out, the US DOES imprison people for political reasons and hold them “indefinitely.” That, too, was brought to you by the terrified, little minds of the conservative movement. I don’t know what’s wrong with those people. I just know they’re wrong…

Not Quite Right…

by MyBaconPress

Leave it to lying Fox Not-News to put whatever spin they can on a story. The Story? Well, the headline read, “Nikki Haley’s campaign against Trump has siphoned thousands of ‘large dollar’ donors away from Biden.” It’s not a lie, exactly. According to the Fox Not News story – so take THAT for what it’s worth – something like 5,200 people who donated to Biden in 2020 gave money to Haley in this cycle.

Then, reluctantly, they casually drop that Haley has also siphoned off more than 10,000 donors to Donny in 2020, 3,000 in January alone. So, obviously, Fox Not-News highlights the smaller number and buries the larger number because it fools the deceived more readily.

I get it. We all distressed by how old the two leading candidates are. I can understand people trying to support someone younger. But Nikki Haley is STILL a nut-ball righty. She STILL wants to do terrible things to people – except rich people, of course. She will STILL bring most of what Donny wants to bring.

I know there was a backlash in 2020 among some conservatives who didn’t want to vote for Donny but intended to vote. That left them Biden. They were never “Biden people.” As nearly as I can tell, there ARE no “Biden people.” There are only MAGA and “Not Trump” people. And, no, I’m not being critical of the job Joe has done. I think he’s done a very good job, for the most part. If he were, say, twenty years younger, I wouldn’t even hesitate to vote for him again and I will cast my ballot for him in November.

I just think it’s so… Fox Not-News to highlight the smaller number as the event, while burying the larger number. It’s no wonder cons have no idea what’s actually going on in this world…

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

MTG has done it again. She’s angry at Judge Engoron for being a good judge. She thinks he should get in trouble for his ruling against her precious. In her rant, she says Engoron should be “disrobed.” She wants to see him naked because he ruled against Donny? Weird…

Then again, isn’t she the person who perpetrated revenge porn against Hunter Biden on the floor of Congress because, hey, classy is classy, am I right? Apparently, she just likes looking at naked dudes. That’s her business – although I decry the involuntary nature of the exposures. What happened to getting permission?

I’ll tell you this: I don’t want to see any of it. It’s just none of my business…

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

Hey, the United States is FINALLY back on the moon! Yay! It’s been fifty years. What a crying shame, waiting fifty years. But the drought is over and we’re back, baby. The lander was sent up by a private company. It’s a pretty amazing machine for moving cargo. If I have this right much of the lander was 3D printed! It’s not designed to last long. It’s going to freeze in a few days. Knowing humanity as I do, there is no plan to go back and clean up the mess.

Given the opportunity, I think I might have named it something else but if I were on their team, my attitude would be, “Hey, when YOU build YOUR moon lander, you can name it anything you want!” Fair enough. I’m not trying to start a fight, here. But Odysseus? Isn’t he the guy who kept getting lost and sidetracked on his journey? Is that solid optics? Then again, the lander DID trip on a rock and is now laying on it’s side so, maybe Odysseus is appropriate after all. Apparently, it’s still functional. Just having a lie-down. Science is cool…

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

The thing that gets me more than any other part of Donny’s trials? The literal trials, I mean. He’s making NO effort – NONE – to try and demonstrate innocence. Instead, he’s stalling. He’s filing frivolous lawsuits. He’s raising stupid “questions” and “legal challenges.” People tease him and call him dumb when he claims, say, that Constitutionally, people with brown hair can’t prosecute ex-Presidents. Sure, it’s a stupid claim. But it’s going to be reviewed in a higher court. It buys him a month, maybe two.

Hell, his suck-ups on the Roberts Supremely Corrupt, Kangaroo Court can take up the “question” of perfect immunity and wait until they’re leaving for their annual three month vacation to issue their “Of course not” ruling late in the night of June 30 as they slink off to pick up this year’s bribes. Yes, he’ll “lose” his challenge. But he’ll win his delay. And in this case, justice delayed really will be justice denied. The very worst part? It seems to be working.

One of the stall tactics he and his co-defendants tried, was to attack the credibility of the prosecutor in the Georgia election interference trail, Fani Willis. Willis had an intimate relationship with a member of her team, Nathan Wade. The question is, did Willis hire Wade because she was in a relationship with him? That would violate a Georgia nepotism law. It looks like Trump’s team may have landed a pretty heavy blow.

Willis and Wade both testified that the relationship started after Wade was hired but they have both stated they knew each other prior to becoming intimate. Wade said he had visited Willis’ home prior to being hired but estimated the number of times to be around 10. They agreed Wade had never spent the night at Willis’ house until AFTER the relationship got personal.

Now cell phone data shows Wade in Willis’ neighborhood more like 35 times prior to the hiring, and on at least two of those times, the phone, at least, arrived late at night and left early in the morning. Now, to be clear, this is cell phone TOWER data. All it really shows is Wade was somewhere in Willis’ neighborhood several times before the hire date.

Maybe Wade has another friend, or perhaps an at-the-time side-honey, in the area who pings off the same tower. Maybe Wade is a stalker and lurked outside Willis’ home without her knowledge from time to time. Maybe he’s NOT a stalker but really, really wanted to ask her out. He would go over and then lose his nerve. Of course, maybe the relationship DID start earlier and they were “bumping uglies” before the hire. I don’t know. There are so many ways a thing can be, it doesn’t make much sense to decide which one it was. But if there WAS such a third party, that person had better stand up right effing now.

Because it doesn’t LOOK good and she can be removed for even the appearance of impropriety. That will end his Georgia case, wipe it right off the books. The ONE case he couldn’t pardon himself out of, nor get his corrupt AG to drop charges because it was a state case. Donny won’t win the case on the merits – he’s a guilty man – but he’ll beat the rap, as the saying goes. Justice denied…

Where Stupidity Leads…

by MyBaconPress

“Couples Store Living Babies In Freezer In Mobile Infirmary Medical Center!” WOW! Who among us ever thought we’d see a headline like that? Fortunately, nobody. Oh, and nobody ever has, either. (Except lucky, lucky you, who just read it here…) I’m happy to report, I made it up. Kind of.
“Uh, would you stop?”
“Yeah, okay.”
See, in Alabama the state Supreme Court has ruled that fertilized IVF embryos are actually living, breathing children with all associated rights and privileges.

The case began when some slaphead (who didn’t work in the facility) mishandled some of the containers and dropped them, “killing” the embryos inside. Now, I have no wish to make fun of the potential parents who lost their embryos. Their loss is irreplaceable and I know, for a fact, IVF is commonly the very LAST chance a couple gets to have a child. Certainly, I think the facility should be on some kind of legal hook for allowing said slaphead to gain access to the embryos in the first place. But murder?

It turns out that it’s a God thing. Instead of the Constitutional separation of church and state, the Alabama Court made a ruling based on what they hope their invisible super friend wants. I’ve noticed that the correlation between what a person, personally, wants and what they think the invisible cloud being wants is stunningly high. It’s like, their god always wants exactly what they want. Amazing…

I think this ruling has a LOT of details to work out and define. For example, shouldn’t the people who store babies in freezers be charged with a crime? Freezers are commonly bad for babies yet Alabamans are putting them in there with wanton disregard for their safety. Hey, what if a couple falls on hard times and can no longer pay the fee a company charges to store their babies in freezers? It seems to me, the company is now on the hook to maintain the “babies” in perpetuity or commit murder, most foul.

But it’s not all bad. How about THIS very clever idea I just had: can we, then, freeze a bunch of now-babies? (Without paying the fees, of course. That cost would offset my brilliant plan.) Then, we claim each and every one of our frozen “babies” as dependent children on our taxes! “Yep, 35 kids. Whaddya gonna do? I love my family! ‘Nother tax credit, please.”

In my experience, when one starts at stupid, one ends up at MORE stupid…

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

Remember those “shoes” Donny sold? It turns out, they’re not shoes. Well, not yet, anyway. He had something like three actual pairs made. The rest – he sold 1,000 pair – are being made on a pre-order, drop ship basis. It has been reported that one can obtain the exact same shoes, without the gaudy matching gold ‘T’ for $19.95 on the web. I feel certain an evil schemer like Donny wouldn’t just buy some of those super-cheap-ass, twenty dollar shoes, add a ‘T,’ and pump the price up to $400, right?

MAGA paid their money today. They might get their shoes starting in around June of this year. You know, maybe. The most important part of the fine print on the transaction? No refunds. Whatever you get, you get. Thanks for the money, suckers.

Oh, one thing. I had written he was selling them for up to $300 dollars/pair. Turns out, that was wrong. It’s $400.00/pair. He pre-sold them all. That comes to roughly $400,000, less expenses. He DID give one pair away, though. He auctioned it off. Do you know who won that pair? A Russian oligarch! Russians, Russians, Russians…

You know, for a guy who insists he has nothing to do with Russians and that Russians have nothing to do with him, he sure is surrounded by a lot of Russians…

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

Oh, and on the topic of Russians, the entire GOP seems to be obligating themselves to Putin and the Russian oligarchy. It seems the GOP, particularly MAGAGOPCORP were using Russian misinformation in their trumped up effort the impeach Joe Biden. Smear-mongers like Jim Jordan and James Comer were all over the conservative media insisting they had the goods on Biden. It was, they promised, very good stuff. They had exactly what they needed to prove Joe Biden took bribes. It all came, we were told from a very dependable, proven FBI informant.

And then, this “very dependable, proven FBI informant” was arrested for lying to the FBI and providing false information, originally provided by Russian intelligence services. It turns out, for good intelligence work, when one receives information from such a potentially undependable source, one seeks confirmation before acting on said information. But what does MAGA know about good intelligence work? (Or any intelligence, for that matter?)

They took the initial information and ran with it. The FBI had not confirmed the information. MAGA made no effort to verify anything in the “report.” Too risky. If there was even a possibility the information might not be true, they didn’t want to know. They should have, though. Now they just look dumber than they normally do. THAT, in and of itself, is quite the feat.

“Fear, not, evil minions,” Jim Jordan says, “we’re going to move forward with the impeachment anyway! We still have LOTS of ‘evidence’ (-ish) and we’re sure gonna use it. Oh, we’re gonna get this guy. Yeah. Lots of evidence. And we’ll show it to you, too. Eventually. Maybe. It is TOO real. Tell you what, we’ll hold this football and you come running up and kick it!” You don’t suppose they’re going to snatch it away at the last second again, do you?

Presidents Precedence…

by MyBaconPress

It always concerns me when I see something, ANYTHING, from Fox Not-News I agree with. I worry my brain may be rotting. Fortunately, for me, they made this one a no-brainer. There’s a group out there that ranks ex Presidents. They call themselves the Presidential Greatness Project and self-describe as the, “…foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics.” The 154 respondents to the survey included “current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association…as well as scholars who have recently published peer-reviewed academic research in key related scholarly journals or academic presses.”

That all sounds fine, like they might know a thing or two. I was still having trouble with the source, though. Fox Not-News is infamous for bringing on “experts” who know nothing and talk a lot anyway. But this particular team seems to have gotten it right. So, why did I read something from Fox Not-News? Because I wanted to know where they put the MAGA Precious. The source being the source, I suspected they’d have have him number one or two. Of course, Murdock got mad when Donny cost him $750 million dollars so, there was that. And THAT seems to have been the deciding factor in Fox reporting the story.

The Presidential Greatness Project placed Donny at dead last. Frankly, I think they STILL have him ranked a little high. We had one President who refused to wear a coat to his inauguration despite the wet weather and then gave the longest inaugural speech in history – in the rain. He caught pneumonia (just like your mom always said you would) and died about 30 days later. He never did anything as President, STILL higher than Donny. And that’s perfect. Doing nothing was FAR better than all the damage Donny did. Dead last. Perfect.

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

I’m not a fan of Presidents Day. I think it’s kind of a slap to George Washington, making him share time with the likes of Reagan, 43, and the Precious. George Washington, I would celebrate. Reagan? The tool of Charles Koch, who introduced and popularized so-called “trickle down economics” and tricked people into believing in “welfare queens?” No. 43? The guy who lied the US into, not one, but TWO wrong-way wars that cost thousands of lives and billions (trillions?) of dollars, all for nothing but oil profits? Absolutely not. The moron MAGA Precious? The guy who lost more American jobs than any other President in history, killed more Americans than any President in history, committed more crimes than any President in history? Oh, HELL no!

I’ve never liked Presidents Day because it’s wrong to “honor” the failures along with the successes, just because of their job title. I’ve tolerated it – because I don’t have a choice. But Donny ruins everything. Now that HE has to be included on the list, I move we go back to Washington’s Birthday and leave the others aside…

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

Donny finally got politically pressured into saying something publicly about Navalny’s murder at Putin’s hands. As you can imagine, it was stupid. He never mentioned his overlord and handler, Putin. He mentioned Navalny, then launched into how Navalny’s murder made him “more and more aware of what’s happening in this country.” Not yet, Dumbass. And if we can keep you out of the Oval, never. Pretty simple, really…

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

Okay, so Gavin is trying something to put some lipstick on this pig but it’s actually just a waste of taxpayer dollars. He said he was going to provide tiny houses throughout the state for homeless people. Lots of city leaders resisted the idea. They cited zoning laws and “neighborhood resistance.” NOW he’s just sending money for the purpose. $30 million dollars for 1,200 tiny homes. Hyperbole alert: I’m not sure 1,200 tiny homes would solve the problem in my home town, let alone all of California. But he gets to say on the campaign trail that he tried things, and that seems to be the important part.

There is, and continues to be, exactly ONE WAY to reverse homelessness: Stop Wall Street from buying single family homes. Period. Nothing else will work. Everything else is window dressing – and a waste of resources…

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

I woke up the other day with a sore throat. It was BAD. It was swollen. I could barely swallow and when I did, I regretted it immediately. Even breathing was a challenge. I’m normally a “Give it some time, it will go away,” kind of guy but I knew this was more than that. I needed help. Unfortunately, I only had Kaiser. But I was desperate, so I called, trying to find out if they have Urgent Care. Good luck just trying to see your doctor. Instead of Urgent Care, I got a phone appointment. Someone would get back to me within, you know, a few hours. Great. That’s exactly what a person in severe pain wants to hear; wait a few hours.

I DID, finally, get a call from a doctor who seemed competent. He knew his medicine, I guess, but he didn’t know anything about Kaiser procedure. He asked me a bunch of questions about my throat. He told me he’d write a prescription for something to reduce the swelling so I could swallow and, although he doubted I had Strep, thought a swab would be a good idea, just to be on the safe side. That all sounded reasonable. THEN, he told me to stick by my phone and someone would call me back with details – how to get the meds and the swab.

In standard Kaiser fashion, no one ever called. I spent yet another night in brutal pain, constantly concerned that I might choke to death on my own fluids. Hey, the threat was real. I had a VERY tough night and choked three times, seriously struggling just to breathe. In the morning, I went back to my patient portal and started looking, again, for Urgent Care or a number to call to find out what the hell happened. Buried deeply in the doctor’s notes, I discovered that the meds had been ordered but I had no idea which pharmacy. So, I decided to call the Pharmacy and see if they could guide me.

Kaiser buries it’s contact information very effectively on their website. I’m not too bad with computers and such but it took me quite awhile to find a number. I did, though. When I called, I was told I had to order the prescription. Sure, the doctor wrote it, but why the hell would Kaiser fill it until I specifically asked them to? So I asked them to. I was cheerfully told I could pick up those meds in about five days. FIVE days?!? I’m choking, here. Oh, well, in that case, I can just order the pills and go into the Pharmacy and they’ll expedite the order. Lovely.

I still had no plan for the swab but wanted the pills so I took off for the local Kaiser office. Now, it so happens that, in this building, the lab is right next to the pharmacy. It made sense to me that I could go put in the order for the pills, then go to the lab for the swab. I ordered the pills, then went to the ‘Walk-in’ line at the lab and stood there. And stood there. And stood there some more. A couple of ladies behind me in line commented on how the line hadn’t moved for some time. I was impressed by the level of understatement.

There was a woman, one, behind a counter, processing patients as quickly as she could. But Kaiser has TWO lines for the lab. One if you have an appointment, one if you’re a vile, ugly, little walk-in – and the appointment line, obviously, gets priority. The check in process seems to involve some really time-consuming stuff, too, so it takes awhile. I did, finally, get a turn.

I told the woman why I had come and she said, “Oh, we don’t do that here. They should have done that at the doctor’s office. You’ll have to go back to the doctor and let them do it.” Is now a good time to remind you that it was a telephone appointment? That would have required an awfully long swab. I didn’t even know where the doctor’s office was. For all I knew, it was in Timbuktu – and I don’t know how to get there.

I went and got the pills. Then? I had to get to work. Yes, really. (This is America. Sick days are for losers. Get to work.) In truth, I didn’t work hard and I didn’t work long. Fortunately, it was a short day. I came home and called Kaiser back. How the hell do I get the swab? I was told I’d get a call back. This time, I did. The young woman on the phone cheerfully told me that I needed to go to – are you ready for this? – Urgent Care for the swab!

So, where, I asked, is this mystical Urgent Care I wanted in the first place but never got? Oh, that’s building so-and-so in suite number whatever. You can go in the morning. Kaiser’s Urgent Care is one of their best kept secrets. I never went. The pills the doctor had prescribed had opened my throat and the symptoms were already subsiding, which would NOT have happened had it been Strep. But what a complete sh*t show.

It reminded me of a story I know about Kaiser. Back when Richard Nixon was President (yet another conservative scumbag we’re now supposed to “honor” on President’s Day) there came a time when he was quite concerned that America might have to do what every OTHER civilized nation on the planet had done and provide national health care to it’s citizenry. (Fortunately for the Capitalists, they avoided that fate.) Nixon preferred the Kaiser model – because, according to him, they had nearly perfected the art of NOT providing health care. They’ve had decades since then to perfect that model.

It’s just another of those moments where I count myself a victim of the ‘Greatest Country on the Planet.’™