Trump

Complete Ruin…

by MyBaconPress

Okay, here’s a thing you can do that you may find comforting. Felon 47 likes to make up people. He uses a phrase, “a lot of people are saying…” We never know WHO, because he’s just making it up to make MAGA feel like they’re with a group. So do yourself a favor. Insert the word “imaginary” between “a lot of” and “people”. “A lot of (imaginary) people are saying…” See? It’s much more accurate – and it feels better…

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Felon 47 is out there telling people he thinks he can run for a third term. Last Sunday, The Drumpfster was asked on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ if there were plans for him to stay on in a third term as president. “Well, there are plans,” he said. “There are – not plans. There are methods – there are methods which you could do it, as you know.” Actually, no. I DON’T know. The Constitution of the United States of America is pretty specific, “No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.”

As usual, he accidentally told the truth. “There are plans – not plans.” Do you know what? I’m guessing plans. Really, if you didn’t expect him to refuse to leave office at the end of this term, YOU are the fool. Right now he thinks he can talk everyone into it, but when he can’t, he’ll just invoke his “plans.”

“A lot of people want me to do it,” Donny pretended. Yeah, you and your demons. (A lot of imaginary people want me to do it!” See? Better!) A lot MORE people – real people – DON’T want you to do it – or even try. The vast majority of Americans just want you to go away…

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“Only the weak will fail.” That was a post from The Drumpfster trying to buck up work-a-day MAGA as they watch their financial futures melt away. I mean, of course they’re faithful. Obviously, they’re loyal. But as they add up the extra years they get to work, now, while he “resets” the government, they’re likely – quietly, of course – getting a tad nervous. So he offers up some moronic platitude and they loyally bend over, “Thank you, sir! May I have another?”

Here’s the thing. First Felon 47 has plenty of money. MAGA knows this is true – he got it from them. Now, his addle-minded tariffs are taking a toll on MAGA’S retirement funds. They’re nervous, but they’ll let him. If he wants it, he can have it, as far as they’re concerned. They’ll eat dirt or something. It’s true, he’s hurting everyone, not just work-a-day MAGA. But at a certain point, it becomes a different kind of “hurt.”

For instance, according to ‘Business Insider,’ just since the day he “liberated” Americans from all of that pesky money, (Thursday) Elon Musk has lost $11 billion dollars. That’s a lot. But he’s STILL worth $322 billion dollars so I suspect he’s going to be okay. Felon 47’s recession isn’t going to affect him.
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has lost $15.9 billion but he’s still worth $201 billion. Felon 47’s recession isn’t going to affect him.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, has lost $17.9 billion, but he’s still worth $189 billion. Felon 47’s recession isn’t going to affect him.
Warren Buffet, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, “only” lost $2.57 billion but he’s still got $165 billion to fall back on should times get hard. Felon 47’s recession isn’t going to affect him.
Bernard Arnault is the chairman and CEO of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods conglomerate. He lost $6.22 Billion but still has $163 billion to work with. Felon 47’s recession isn’t going to affect him.
Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, “only” lost $291 million. Not bad. I guess he’ll be fine with only $162 billion left over. Felon 47’s recession isn’t going to affect him.
Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, lost $8.1 billion but he’ll manage with the $160 billion he has left. Felon 47’s recession isn’t going to affect him.
Larry Page, co-founder of Google, lost $4.79 billion. He’ll tighten his belt, though, and rely on the remaining $138 billion he has lying around. Felon 47’s recession isn’t going to affect him.
Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft, lost $2.85 billion. Now he only has $131 billion. Felon 47’s recession isn’t going to affect him.
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, lost $4.46 billion from his $130 billion net worth. Felon 47’s recession isn’t going to affect him.

Collectively, that’s a lot of money they’ve lost. Collectively, they STILL have a lot MORE money. They, likely, won’t even MISS the billions they’ve lost, accidentally making the case for taxing the rich to make them pay their fair share. I mean, when you don’t even miss it when it goes, why not? Anyway, I guess I can understand how the billionaires are managing to weather the financial storm Felon 47 has conjured.

How about you? How much have YOU lost? How much do you have in your other pocket, to fall back on, just in case? Maybe it’s true. Maybe you just have to “ride out the crash” until he reaches his glorious (mythical?) “other side.” That’s how the billionaires are handling it. Absorbing the loss.

But, I’ll tell you this: if you don’t happen to have billions of dollars to fall back on, or even hundreds of millions (you deadbeat), your ride to the other side might well involve complete ruin…

An Age’s Most Uncertain Hour…

by MyBaconPress

“…And I dreamed I was dying…
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
and looking back down at me, smiled reassuringly.
And I dreamed I was flying…

And high up above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty sailing away to sea.
And I dreamed I was flying…

Well we come on a ship they call ‘The Mayflower.’
We come on a ship that sailed the moon.
We come in an age’s most uncertain hour,
And sing an American tune.
Oh, but it’s alright. It’s alright, it’s alright.
You can’t be forever blessed.
Still tomorrow’s gonna be another working day
and I’m trying to get some rest.
That’s all I’m trying, to get some rest.”
(- Paul Simon, American Tune, 1973)

That’s an earworm I’ve been living with since shortly after January. I have no idea as to what might have set it in motion…

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First Felon 47 fired General Tim Haugh, Director of the US National Security Agency (NSA). Oh, he also headed US Cyber Command, which coordinates the Pentagon’s cybersecurity operations. Do you know why he was fired? Laura Loomer, a social media personality suggested it because he was good at his job and loyal to national security, MORE loyal to national security than to Donny. In this mess, loyalty is everything, qualifications don’t matter, as evidenced by his TV team and social media advisors. 47 also fired Haugh’s civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble. She was qualified, too. Had to go.

Now we’ll have someone in the role who is loyal to the Drumpfster and no one else. Good at the job? Who cares? He’s loyal to 47. I’m sure it will be someone of the same caliber as the crack team of “Jeniouses” that invited a reporter into their classified chat and didn’t even know it. Quality work there, guys…

Did you see the part about Haugh being in charge of Cyber Security? Most intelligent people believe our next war will be fought via computer. You’d think you’d want someone in the job who can at least turn the thing on. Not Donny, no way. Loyalty, nothing else…

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Our National Embarrassment has issued executive orders blocking security clearances and canceling federal contracts with law firms who have worked with his perceived enemies. These are big, powerful law firms. They’re just chock full of smart lawyers ready to fight. You just KNOW these guys are going to… wait… what?

Bent the knee, eh? Willkie, Farr, & Gallagher, where Kamala Harris’ husband is a partner, has agreed to provide $100 million dollars in free legal services. They’re the third “major” law firm to buckle, after Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps. Well, that’s not entirely right. Donny hasn’t issued an Executive Order against Willkie, yet. They just stepped up and volunteered to bend the knee. (My, that DOES sound like most Democrats, these days, doesn’t it?)

It’s likely I don’t understand the ins and outs of this thing but I’ll tell you this: if I was a client of any one of those firms, I’d start looking for different representation immediately. I mean, if they won’t even fight for themselves, how much are they going to fight for me? I’m just sayin’…

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I AM pleased to note that Elon couldn’t buy the election in Wisconsin. He spent a LOT. He lost anyway. The election was for a State Supreme Court Judge. We don’t normally DO parties for a State Supreme Court Judge, but we all knew, for this one, based on who was backing whom. It was a big deal. Muck even went so far as to say the election was a fight to determine “the future of America and Western Civilization.”

Wisconsin is about to consider redistricting maps for the state. Wisconsin has been gerrymandered in favor of the GOP for quite some time, now, and those being cheated against are getting sick of it. Had the Republican-favored candidate won, women in Wisconsin would lose their right to choose and the gerrymandering would have continued into the foreseeable future. Since the Dem won, women will likely retain their rights (until the Feds step in) and the redistricting map will move forward.

It eliminates two “safe” GOP seats in the House of Representatives. They’re “safe” because they’re gerrymandered. It’s peculiar, the more success Americans have eliminating gerrymandering, the less power the GOP has in Congress. Why, it’s almost as if, given a fair chance, Americans REJECT the GOP agenda. Their margin is getting smaller and smaller. It really was a big deal…

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Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it. Biden left an economic mess. THAT’S why bad things like this are happening now, and not when Biden was actually in office. In fact, if I remember correctly, the economy was SO strong, Felon 47 was actively taking credit for it – even though Biden was in charge.

“THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET BECAUSE MY POLLS AGAINST BIDEN ARE SO GOOD THAT INVESTORS ARE PROJECTING THAT I WILL WIN, AND THAT WILL DRIVE THE MARKET UP.” He posted that on his Untruth Social on January 29, 2024.

“…our Stock Market is rising only because Polls are strongly indicating that we will WIN the Presidential Election of 2024” Also, Untruth Social, March 12, 2024.

“There are many people that are saying that the only reason the Stock Market is high is because I am leading in all of the Polls,” Yet again, his fingers roaring on Untruth Social, May 15, 2024.

Of course, he also posted some blame. In early August, 2024, the stock market dropped a little. That happens. It was a blip. But Felon 47 was there, “STOCK MARKETS CRASHING. I TOLD YOU SO!!! …ALL CAUSED BY INEPT U.S. LEADERSHIP!” August 4, 2024.

Now Donny’s in charge and Donny has made some very 19th century moves. Have you checked your 401k, yet? Are you looking at the Stock Market or closing your eyes, plugging your ears, and shouting “La, la, la?” Donny imposed his insane tariffs on Thursday, April 3 – infamously imposing tariffs on penguins – those damned unfair birds! The market reacted exactly as one would have expected and certainly predicted. It plunged by almost 1,700 points. (That’s $2.4 TRILLION dollars he wiped out – in ONE DAY!)

It was set to open even worse, 1,500 more points in overnight futures sell-offs. But that was just the opener. By the end of the second day, the market had shed 2,100 more points. $6.4 TRILLION dollars in value, wiped off the boards – in TWO DAYS! For those of you keeping score at home, that’s a total of $11.1 Trillion dollars wiped off the boards since 47 was inaugurated.

What was it the Drumpfster wrote? Oh, yeah, “STOCK MARKETS CRASHING. …ALL CAUSED BY INEPT U.S. LEADERSHIP!” I guess if I’m being fair, I have to give him credit for that one. Inept US leadership IS crashing the market. The only part he missed was which President was the most inept. (The world agrees, though: it’s Trump – by a wide margin…)

Believe it or not, MAGA isn’t worried. MAGA has been conditioned to believe these are short-term pains. Yes, they’ve been told, it’s going to hurt at first, but then things are going to bloom in a way you’ve never imagined. THAT, at least is a kind of truth. MAGA isn’t capable of imagining anything other than glory for their “Dear Misleader” so they really would NEVER imagine the market doing what every decent economist in the world knows it’s going to do.

Having conditioned them to accept the crash as “a plan,” he has only to keep moving the goal posts by telling them the blooms are coming soon. The pain? Oh, they’ll feel that, daily, but they expect blooms in the near future. Any time, now. Just around the corner. No, not quite yet, but it’s coming. Hang in there. Be strong. He said it, so MAGA STILL expects their flowers to bloom.

You know, the way your flowers “bloom” after you pour ‘Round Up’ on them. Sure, they wilt at first but then they… I mean, they… well, they’re supposed to… Hey, what’s up with these flowers?

Let’s start blaming Joe Biden now, and avoid the rush…

A Terrorist State?

by MyBaconPress

Well, at least he was being even-handed. Felon 47 actually imposed his “Liberation Day” tariffs. He hit everywhere. EVERYWHERE! Including a couple of islands, Heard Island and McDonald Islands. He’s HAD it with them giving us the business when it comes to trade. Unless it’s about Fentanyl. I’m not sure anymore. He’s not either, because of the Adderall. Still, he’s not going to STAND for it one day longer. He named those two islands specifically. Called ’em out, you might say. Every single person who lives there can see that the US isn’t playing around anymore!

And IF anybody actually lived there, they’d probably be upset at the destabilization of the trade relationship. But since nobody does – live there, I mean – the locals (Penguins) probably didn’t notice. To be perfectly clear: he imposed tariffs on penguins! Sometimes, I get genuinely concerned this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing…

Oh, it’s not just me, either. The Drumpfster’s mind-boggling boggled mind is destabilizing the dollar. The dollar is, well, was, the world reserve currency. In simplest terms, that means EVERYONE wanted/needed dollars because the dollar was so dependable, so strong, so… safe. Well, not with Donny driving, it isn’t.

The headline in the Guardian this morning read, “US dollar ‘at risk of confidence crisis’ as Trump tariffs rattle global markets.” Other countries are abandoning the dollar altogether, now. Increasingly, they’re turning toward the Yuan. That’s Chinese money. Donny’s hat is wrong. He’s making China great again. He’s pushing AMERICA into a depression. (I know I’M depressed…)

Mostly, I just believe he really doesn’t understand. I suspect he honestly thinks this will work. Someone told him there would be “market adjustments” so he doesn’t CARE about the crashing economy or your 401k. He thinks it will just be short-term pain. Respected economists think we’re on our way to a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread.

On the other hand, he IS an evil son-of-a-bitch. One cannot discount that. He and his evil buddies might well have a profit scheme dreamed up that involves the ultimate “bust out,” the United States of America. He and his buddies end up with trillions in Yuan (NO, he’s not buying dollars. Those things are useless. What are you, crazy?) and the vast majority of Americans will be left with nothing…

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The right seems to have found a new bogeyman to expose and expunge: empathy. Empathy is a noun. It means, ‘The ability to identify with or understand another’s situation or feelings.’ I guess there’s a concern that some MAGA might start to wonder what it FEELS LIKE to be whisked off of the street, held without charge, put on a plane, and flown to a maximum security prison without EVER being charged, let alone convicted, to “serve your time.” How MUCH time? No one can say. There IS no crime, so there IS no statute. Technically, you’ve been “disappeared.”

I kind of couldn’t believe it when I first heard about it. I mean, who thought they needed THAT? I see a ‘lack of empathy’ as entry level stuff for MAGA, a basic requirement. Yet, they’re starting to talk publicly about how empathy is weakness. Elon Musk went on the Joe Rogan show and said, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” All right, so Musk is a greed-blinded moron whom one would NEVER mistake for a decent or moral human being. Oh, AND, he has autism. It’s EASY to believe he can’t quite grasp the concept of empathy. I doubt he could do to people what he’s doing to people if he could. But among the leaders of that anti-empathy movement? “Christian” Nationalists.

The quotes around ‘Christian’ are about me not accepting them AS Christians.
“Hey! Who are YOU to judge my relationship with Jesus?”
“I’m a guy who can read your storybook and understand what it says, then watch your behavior and compare the two. When they don’t align, I draw conclusions, like it or not. When everything you do, say, think, and feel is the exact opposite of the teachings of Jesus, you just don’t qualify as Christian, no matter WHAT you call yourself. Maybe start with John 13:15…”

For those of us not so familiar with John 13:15, it says, “For I gave you an example, so that you also would do just as I did for you.” (That’s Jesus-talk for “I showed you how to behave. Do that.” They don’t, and I “discern.”) But maybe it’s just me, right? Maybe I misunderstood the message. No, I don’t think so. Here are some other examples from the “Christian” Nationalists:

JOSH MCPHERSON from the podcast ‘Family Talk’: “Empathy almost needs to be struck from the Christian vocabulary.”

ALLIE BETH STUCKEY from the podcast ‘Thinking In Public’: “Really, I think empathy as hoisted up as the highest virtue, or even a virtue at all – I think that really gets us into a really big mess.”

JOE RIGNEY, discussing his book, ‘The Sin Of Empathy,’: “Most people have a hard time imagining how empathy could ever be harmful. And therefore, if I’m the devil, where am I going to hide some of my most destructive tactics?”

Purging empathy, any possibility of empathy, is crucial to the next steps in the coup. They’re about to get outright cruel, as though they haven’t been evil enough already…
“Oh, Mark, you’re always so hyperbolic!”

In Better America, one could NOT just put someone on a plane and send them to prison in a foreign country. Just for emphasis: ‘SEND THEM TO PRISON’ in a foreign country! By definition, then, we haven’t been Better America since at least 2001, when the US started jailing people in Guantanamo Bay based on the idea that, while being tortured, someone had mentioned a name just like theirs. Nothing else, just that.

Now we’ve sent a planeload of people to a prison in El Salvador. No, I DIDN’T write about how they lost their court cases – because they didn’t GET court cases. THIS time, it isn’t ‘named under torture’ that got them tossed (permanently?) into prison. THIS time, it was the “crime” of having a tattoo on brown skin. Ooh, scary…

Human beings were summarily declared guilty and sent to a prison. The US paid that prison $6 million dollars to keep them. No trial. Just a payment. Prison. No, not just a prison. One of the most notoriously brutal prisons in the world. What was their crime? Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
“Uh-huh! They were members of a bad gang.”
“Oh, yeah? Prove it.”
“Well, we can’t…”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“It turns out, some of them weren’t really in that gang. But they were still in gangs!”
“Same answer: prove it.”
“No…”

The LAST time the cruelest incompetents misled the country, they kidnapped people’s children as a way to discourage them from coming to the US. We, the people – they did this in OUR name – never DID reunite some of those children with their families. We just… stole them. ‘Come to America, lose your children’, was the threat.

Now it’s ‘Come to America, end up in a brutal, El Salvadoran prison – for nothing.’
“Sneaking into this country illegally is a crime.”
“Yeah, a misdemeanor. Not usually maximum security prison stuff.”

They call it “Shock and Awe.” The idea is to use the threat of violence to coerce a civilian population in pursuit of an ideological goal. Hey, wait a minute. I’ve heard that before. Where have I– Oh, I remember! That’s the actual definition of ‘Terrorism,’ using violence or the threat of violence to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government in pursuit of political or ideological goals.

Thanks, MAGA. Donny’s only been in charge for just over two months, and already, the United States of America is, officially, a terrorist state! And you’re… cheering? I guess MAGA media doesn’t have to put TOO much effort into that “purge empathy” movement after all, eh?

MONEY Corrupted – Absolutely…

by MyBaconPress

Elon is out buying votes again. He says he’s not buying votes. He’s just giving a million dollars to certain individuals so they’ll vote a certain way. TOTALLY different. To be clear, both sides are pouring money into this race. It’s just the Elon is the only one out there, actually handing checks to potential voters. This is in Wisconsin. There’s an election to replace an outgoing state supreme court justice. The cons want to do to Wisconsin what they did to the SKCOTUS – corrupt it.

If they can get their con on the court, they can eliminate abortion rights and gerrymander districts to keep Wisconsin red. That will help in the US House of “Representatives,” too. (I mean, they still “represent.” The question is, for whom? It certainly is NOT Joe Six-pack.)

This should be illegal. It USED to be illegal. When I rewrote the Constitution, I added a bit that restricted political donations to the constituents of the candidate. If you don’t live in the state, you don’t get to donate to state issues, even on the Federal level. Wisconsin’s choice for, say, Senator, should be a decision of the people of Wisconsin. Nobody else should have a say.

When he went there to buy votes, he said, “And if the [Wisconsin] supreme court is able to redraw the districts, they will gerrymander the district and deprive Wisconsin of two seats on the Republican side,” Musk claimed. “Then they will try to stop all the government reforms we are getting done for you, the American people.”

Classic MAGA. When the facts ain’t on your side, lie, lie, lie. Who gerrymanders districts to keep artificial control over their government? Republicans! Oh, and all the government “reforms” we are getting done for you, the American people?” Yep, he’s “reforming” you right out of health insurance and your Social Security. The sometimes richest man in the world is “reforming” the American people right into poverty and reforming our position on scientific and technological advancement – all the way to the back of the bus. These are NOT “reformations,” they’re “deformations.” It’s just that MAGA lacks the moral clarity to understand…

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Oh, do you need to SEE what the cons plan to do once they successfully deport EVERY brown person in the country? NOW who do they get to do that back-breaking work? Well, in Floriduh, the “solution” they’ve chosen is (wait for it) – CHILDREN! There you go. Floriduh is trying to rewrite child labor laws to allow children as young as 14 to work overnight shifts – even on school nights. They want to be able to classify children as “interns” and “apprentices.” AND, I’m sure there’s no connection, they want to pass a law allowing employers to pay interns and apprentices less than the minimum wage. Rather despicable, wouldn’t you say?

Obviously, Ron DeSantis is trying to sell the proposal by (checks notes) right, lying. He said, “Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when teenagers used to work at these resorts? College students should be doing all this stuff.” Yep, that WILL sell it to the moral defectives. “These resorts.” Oh, is it the “resorts” that can’t get the crops in from the fields? Does Floriduh have a LOT of “college students” aged 14? Because 14 is the entry level the cons are looking for while DeSantis speaks of “college students.”

The cons are fluffing the outcome. It’s classic ‘lipstick on a pig’ stuff. They just want to get kids out there, working, producing for wealthy people. I mean, why wait? We can get them used to the idea that THEIR labor should fund someone ELSE’S opulent lifestyle at a young age.

Fortunately, there’s some push-back. A spokesperson for a group called, ‘the Florida Immigrant Coalition,’ Thomas Kennedy, said, “To recap, they made the state hostile to immigrants. They deported a bunch of people, or scared people into not coming, or moving out of the state. They exacerbated worker shortages, so now they’re trying to gut child labor protection standards, while at the same time passing a law that would allow them to classify these children and other workers as interns.”

“It’s insane, right?” Yes, Mr. Kennedy, it is. Totally insane. But welcome to Bizarro America, the America of MAGA dreams…

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I have to confess, I’ve been pessimistic about America’s chances, recently. I honestly believe the fascists have won, Better America is yesterday’s news, and it will take bloodshed to eliminate this Bizarro America. See? Pessimistic. When I hear people talking about voting strategies for the next election? I kind of throw up in my mouth a little. I wonder how people can be so self-deluded as to see this America-hating crowd illegally trample on people’s rights, illegally destroy the social safety net, illegally destroy people’s lives, and use the US Constitution to clean themselves in the bathroom, yet STILL think we’re going to have free and fair elections. Where in the F**K is the disconnect?

Oh, but hope springs eternal. Every day I wake up, hoping the headlines read “Trump Dead at 78,” even though I KNOW Satan takes care of his own and the Drumpfster ain’t goin’ nowhere. Hope. It can be VERY disappointing. Still, are you aware there are special elections taking place tomorrow? Recently, voters in Pennsylvania stood for the country and elected the Democratic candidate over the America-hating con. Apparently, it was something of a surprise.

There are TWO seats up for grabs in Floriduh. One is the seat vacated by the ever-clever Mike Waltz, he of the “let’s invite my journalist friend to sit in on our secret bombing mission” Waltz’s. The other seat is the seat abandoned by alleged statutory rapist Matt Gaetz. I mean, it really IS the best and the brightest who stand for The First Felon, isn’t it?

The other two seats are in Texas and Arizona, two states not known for “election integrity” or, hell, any kind of integrity, whatsoever. BOTH of those seats are available because the Democrats who held them died. (These seats are in addition to the “election” Musk is corrupting with his money in Wisconsin.)

One of the two Floriduh seats looks vulnerable to being flipped to Democratic and the other two were already Democrats in red states. Who KNOWS how it will turn out, but I find myself hoping. Despite my pessimism, eternally, hoping…

Security? What Security?

by MyBaconPress

It seems to be turning out that putting an alcoholic talking head into the role of Defense Secretary may not have been the smartest move possible. In fairness, it MAY have been the smartest move possible from these guys, but clearly, that’s not the same as the smartest move possible.

After the recent debacle of inviting a reporter to his private chat group in which the national defense team all got on a group chat to discuss an attack on Yemen with real details of the attack being offered in real time, now it turns out Whiskey Pete Hegseth is taking his wife to work with him – AND taking her into high level meetings with foreign officials in which sensitive information was discussed.

As a real quick sidebar, one of the things MAGA has been told about that crack team is that they were on secure government equipment when the chat took place. Only MAGA was told that. The rest of us knew they were on their own phones. Obviously, debates occurred. The envoy to Russia defended that fact that he was in Moscow, with Putin, at the time of the attacks by pointing out that he couldn’t have shared information with Putin because he didn’t have his personal phone. When he went into Russia, he claims, he left his personal phone behind. Debate ended. They WERE on personal equipment.

I heard a representative from Signal, the app they were using, praising the security of Signal but careful to point out that people’s handheld phones were imminently hackable by bad guys and THAT represents the security risk. Not the app, the phones themselves. And since the contact information of many of them has been found to be readily available online, it makes sense that bad guys DID hack those phones the very moment they were named to their positions.

But, getting back to Whiskey Pete, the fiascos aren’t finished. SO… which liberal, trump-hating, smear rag is saying Jennifer Hegseth was included in high level meetings with foreign dignitaries in which sensitive information was being discussed? Why the ‘Wall Street Journal.’ Jennifer was a producer on Fox Not News. That’s where she and Pete met. We have no information as to her security clearance but then, security is clearly not a high priority for our current national defense team.

It turns out, he ALSO brings his brother to these meetings. Philip Hegseth is currently traveling around with Pete on a tour of Asia. Just for clarity, that would be on YOUR taxpayer dime. I mean, where’s DOGE when you need it? I’m pretty sure I’ve uncovered some fraud, waste, and abuse. Hegseth is the fraud, he’s wasting everybody’s time, and he’s abusing his authority…

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I continue to think it’s important to remain engaged with your local MAGA. I see more and more posts and comments about how thinking Americans are just shutting out MAGA or vice-versa. Stopping communication is among the worst things you can do. It actually helps the oligarchs. Their strategy is heavily dependent on the biblical idea that a house divided against itself cannot stand. It’s just that the oligarchs have stood Jesus’ words on their ear. They know the line is true so they decided to divide the house on purpose, because a divided house cannot stand – against them.

I suspect it’s a universal observation that the “information” MAGA receives from their “news” outlets is different that the information thinking Americans receive from THEIR news outlets. That shouldn’t be, but is. The vast majority of “news” and/or “information” outlets are owned or funded by the One Percent. They make “editorial decisions” about which stories get amplified in right-leaning or left-leaning news and the stories are NEVER reported the same way. The spin is always different, too.

So if the oligarch’s goal is to divide the house with conflicting information, it becomes our job to try to heal the divide. The ONLY way I can think of to do THAT is to stay engaged. Talk to them about current events. It doesn’t HAVE to end in a shouting match, especially if you’re not trying to prove you’re right or they’re wrong. They believe their sources the same way you believe yours.

Just compare notes. You CAN get away with, “On my side, I’m hearing this. What are you hearing on your side?” THEN – and I confess, this is the hard part – DON’T guffaw or roll your eyes when they tell you. Listen to them. Don’t argue with them. Highlight the fact that their news is different than what you hear. The seed needs to be planted as to why, exactly, we’re not getting the same information. Oh, and ALWAYS consider the possibility that YOU are the one with the faulty information. Deceptive corporate media is just that – deceptive.

The point, here, is: don’t cut off your MAGA friends and family. Stay engaged. It serves the oligarchs for you to set your face against MAGA (and vice-versa) and you best undermine the oligarchs by refusing to do so. Don’t argue, discuss. When there’s no fire in the exchange, it’s possible to have a (likely short) conversation. And that’s another point. Listen to their information, share yours, move on. The longer you linger the more likely it devolves into a shouting match.

You can actually fight the oligarchy by not fighting with MAGA, but you have to keep in contact and discuss things. Maybe they’ll learn something. Maybe YOU’LL learn something. Maybe the masses can all get angry, together, at being played like a fiddle by the wealthy…

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

Yesterday, there was a world-wide protest against Tesla. Well, no. The protest was against Elon Musk, the immigrant who hates America the most and who means it more harm than any of our brown brothers and sisters from south of the border. But the Tesla Swasticar has become the focal point of objections to Musk and the entire world fell out in front of dealerships.

Mostly, the stock of the Swasticar is crashing. It makes some small gains, here and there, but I would guess that over time, we’re going to find out those small recoveries are manipulations of some kind. Shareholders are asking Musk to step down as CEO. They think he should focus on his business or focus on the government, but they’re clear trying to do both is not working. Musk’s destructive government actions are hurting the brand.

But, listen, don’t hurt the cars, themselves, okay? While I would NEVER own a Swasticar because of how dangerous they are in crashes, right now they’re just a symbol of our outrage that this billionaire is destroying our government. Recently, in Las Vegas, someone attacked a dealership with Molotov Cocktails and burned some of the cars up. (Kind of ironic, if you ask me. Leave them alone. They’ll burn themselves, given half a chance.) Now the person responsible has been arrested.

That guy accomplished nothing except blowing up his own life. I imagine it felt good in the moment. I imagine it felt like striking a blow of some kind. But burning two or three cars didn’t have much effect and now the guy is going to jail. Worse, because of Musk’s money and the corruption everywhere MAGA treads, the guy will probably go to jail for a LONG time, just to make a point. At the very least, if you’re going to go to jail for the cause make sure you do something concrete, something that makes a difference MORE than just sending a message.

For now, standing outside the dealership with a sign seems to be effective – and you get to go home in the evening, leaving you free to come back and hold your sign tomorrow, too. Do that and KEEP doing it as long as Musk is associated with Tesla. The ONLY thing the oligarchs are interested in is money and, for now, it’s the best weapon we have against them, denying them money…

Backwards…

by MyBaconPress

One of the biggest shames of the current regime is their attacks on research. Aside from the damage they do today, they’re unilaterally walking away form research advantages that might have kept the US at the forefront of science and technology in the future.

47 is very old. He’s loyal to very old technologies. He prefers coal to solar, for example. I think he genuinely doesn’t understand that the world WILL let him corner the market in Conestoga wagons – because nobody uses Conestoga wagons anymore. (The world shrugs) “Have at it.”

So he’s sitting there in his Conestoga wagon dealership while the rest of the world is zipping around in flying cars and his tiny little mind simply can NOT conceive of a reason nobody is coming in.

Like it or not, the world is moving on, technologically. Up until recently, the United States not only moved with the rest of the world, we were world leaders in many of these technologies. Now the Felon is squeezing his eyes shut, plugging his ears, and SCREAMING that Conestoga wagons are, too, coming back! Any day now. Yep, feels like “finger on the pulse” to me…

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

Mike Waltz IS going to lose his job. Not because he’s an incompetent who invited a journalist into his secret chat about bombing Yemen. 47 doesn’t care about that. But Waltz ALSO left his Venmo account open and it’s FULL of journalists Waltz engages with on an ongoing basis. Venmo is a cash payment app. Waltz is getting money from journalists? Hmm, I wonder why?

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

Hey, MAGA, I imagine you’re all happy that Elon is out there buying “elections” for the cons. Sure, it’s illegal, but so what? He’s your guy, right? I remember when you were convinced that George Soros was doing exactly that and YOU WERE ANGRY about it, so I know YOU know it’s wrong. It was wasted anger. Soros never did MOST of the things you accused him of. He was just a convenient whipping boy.

But Elon IS doing those things. He did it in the November “election” and he’s trying to do it again in Wisconsin. Full disclosure, Soros IS in Wisconsin, trying to balance the scales a bit. I STILL say allowing billionaires to buy elections rather than letting the people choose is a terrible idea. The world is waiting for MAGA fury at THIS election interference. (Crickets…)

Here’s the thing, though. It’s a dangerous precedent. It’s a bad idea. It’s a bad idea to allow a billionaire – ANY billionaire – to buy votes. Think about it. You’re ONLY happy about it because the billionaire in question is – in your estimation – buying votes for your side. But what happens when another billionaire starts buying votes for the opposition? YOU will have established the idea that it’s okay. Buying votes is illegal, or it was until the corrupt Roberts Kangaroos decided to allow it. It SHOULD BE illegal still.

See, it’s NEVER a good idea to support corruption – even when that corruption seems to be working for you. It’s like magic. Corruption that worked FOR you today will almost certainly work AGAINST you tomorrow. And YOU will have endorsed it. What do you say then?

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

Speaking of dangerous precedents, Rodrigo Duterte. Remember him? He was the mayor of a city called Davao, then the President of the Philippines. He rose to power promising to replicate the tactics he used as mayor to attack drugs and drug dealers.

From CNN: ‘“All of you who are into drugs, you sons of bitches, I will really kill you,” he told a huge crowd in one of his many characteristically profane-laced 2016 campaign speeches. “I have no patience, I have no middle ground. Either you kill me or I will kill you idiots.”’

Then he unleashed death squads. They engaged in what people euphemistically call “extra-judicial” killings. ‘Extra-judicial’ is polite-speak for murder. I say it was murder because the victims never got trials. No evidence was presented. There was never an opportunity to even refute the charge, let alone defend oneself. It was summary execution based on the word of one man, with no evidence to back it up.

The death squads just started killing people across the country. There are reports that Duterte killed some himself. Each time, he claimed the victims were drug dealers. Many of them may have been. But many of the people killed were not. Under the banner of “drug dealers,” he ALSO started killing his political opponents. For the record, he was very popular. He’s currently on trial for crimes against humanity.

Now we have a similar situation with 47. To be clear, I understand gunning people down in the streets is different that grabbing them off the streets and shipping them off to foreign prisons. But the overall situation is NOT as different as it should be. People are being rounded up and shipped out with no trials. No evidence is presented. There is never an opportunity to even refute the charge, let alone defend oneself.

But that doesn’t mean you won’t end up in one of the most brutal, high-security prisons in the world. And ALL of it is based on the word of the trumpster. Now might be the time to remind people that during his first failed effort at “Presidentin,'” The Washington Post recorded 30,573 individual, provable lies. (Except to MAGA, of course. MAGA MUST see the person they pretend him to be and never, ever the person he actually is.)

Just for fun, in four years, there are roughly 1,457 days. 30,573 lies over 1,457 days works out to an average of 21 lies a day. 21 lies. Every single day. When I know that the source I’m supposed to depend on has lied to me 21 times a day, every day, for four years? I’d like to see some evidence. I’m not comfortable destroying people’s lives based on the word of a known, proven liar.

And, hey, while we’re here, can we talk about the idea of “deporting” people to prisons?!? Look, if a person IS in the country illegally, it’s a minor misdemeanor. Minor misdemeanors are not usually handled with prison, and certainly not infamous high-security, foreign prisons with worldwide reputations for cruelty and prisoner abuse.

The Felon insisted that the people he deported to this prison were part of a gang, and, hey, maybe some of them were. But we KNOW some were not. We KNOW some got swept up because they had tattoos on brown skin, regardless of what the tattoo was. And as a matter of principle, as a fact of basic morality, none of the accused received a trial to prove any charges against them, whatsoever.

I suppose supporting corruption without ever understanding that said corruption might come back to bite you in the ass is an excellent example of some of that moral stupidity Bonhoeffer was on about…

Quality Work, All Around…

by MyBaconPress

Yeah, uh… MAGA might need to pretend that 47 has surrounded himself with the best and the brightest if they want to, but, accidentally looping in a reporter on your (presumably) top secret attack plans two hours before the attack begins? Sending him all of the details? Let’s just go with ‘not the best’ and certainly not ‘the brightest.’

It was SO, oh, let’s say, unexpected, the journalist, actually, ‘the Atlantic’ editor Jeffrey Goldberg, thought he was being hoaxed. Well, right up until the bombs started falling on Yemen in the exact pattern described in the chat. Then he knew it was real. In the end, he got to watch the major players involved congratulating themselves with strong-arm emojis and such – in real time. Apparently, these are the very best Kops Keystone could provide, and they seem to be led by Captain Laurel N. Hardy. Quality work, all around.

And just HOW did this journalist gain access to the secure communication system the law requires government officials to use? No, don’t be stupid. That “secure communication” thing is just a law. These guys don’t care about no stinking laws. It was just, I don’t know, easier to use the publicly available chat app ‘Signal.’ No one can say, for sure, how the reporter got looped in – nor whom else may have been looped in.

Besides, it’s not clear they were all on their secure systems. Tulsi Gabbard wouldn’t answer the question, which, of course, answered the question. Had she been on proper equipment, she wouldn’t have hesitated to say so. Jeffery Goldberg definitely was not. And this morning, according the the Guardian, German publication Der Spiegel is reporting they’ve found “mobile phone numbers, email addresses and, in some cases, passwords used by national security adviser Mike Waltz, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard can be found via commercial data-search services and hacked data dumped online.”

Now might be the time to mention that the regime was careful to have one of the people on the group chat in Moscow while the action took place – actually in a meeting with Putin at the time. I suppose that made it easier for Putin to get real-time updates as to what his puppet is doing. I wonder why the One Percent owned, corporate media isn’t mentioning that part too much…

I don’t know. I think active chats about active military operations on a publicly available app might be something of a security breach. Telling the opposition what you’re doing while you’re doing it seems… risky for our troops. I suspect such things significantly increase the risk that someone might monitor the communications surreptitiously. I think it lays incompetence bare.

Apparently, the person responsible was national security adviser Mike Waltz. According to Politico, a person close to the White House said: “Everyone in the White House can agree on one thing: Mike Waltz is a fucking idiot.” Yep. You can count me in on that. But in fairness, it will be news if someone finds a member of this regime who is NOT a blithering idiot.

Oh, but MAGA gotta spin. Apparently, the most important point to remember is that NONE of the responsible people were responsible. It was someone else’s fault. It’s ALWAYS someone else’s fault with these guys – the so-called “party of personal responsibility.” They’ve even tried to blame the reporter – I guess for accepting their invitation?

MAGA Mike the Johnson started the “deflect blame” tour when he said, “I think it would be a terrible mistake for there to be adverse consequences on any of the people that were involved in that call. They were trying to do a good job, the mission was accomplished with precision.” TRYING to do a good job and DOING a good job are NOT the same, Mike…

So, they had to go straight to the top. No, not Elon. They asked Donny. He went into his Sgt Schultz mode. He knew nothing. He saw nothing. Mr. Finger-on-the-pulse uses that one a LOT. He’s just hearing about it right now. I will say, he really doesn’t understand what a chat app is. He TRIED to say Goldberg “got off the line early,” pretending Goldberg didn’t REALLY know how that all played out because he hung up the phone? But he’s an artful liar and he pivoted quickly, just in case. He went with… Oh, gods are you kidding me? Really? THAT old dodge?

Now, listen. I don’t mean to be unkind, but if you STILL believe all media to the left of Fox Not News is only and always making up fake news stories just to make 47’s regime look bad, you’re too stupid to function. Does that REALLY make sense to you? There are NO honest news stories in left leaning media? NONE?!? And yet, that’s The Felon’s response every single time a story he doesn’t like appears.

Suddenly, Goldberg is a “fake news” guy, a terrible writer working at a failing publication. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME! I would think, by now, even a MAGA would wonder how that’s possible. Bad news, MAGA. The left prints honest stories all the time. Yeah, sure, they’re stories you don’t like because they make your guys look the way they really look but that doesn’t make the stories “fake.” I’m telling you, the trumpster needs a new shtick. And you need to wise up. School’s out.

But just to be sure, they ALSO ran with “no classified information was involved.” Okay, so the chat that was “fake news” by a bad writer who is making it up, is ALSO real, but didn’t include classified information. Now MAGA can choose. Some will argue it’s fake news, some will argue it didn’t matter because it wasn’t classified. They’ll ALL be wrong.

Fortunately, the solution is simple. Publish the transcript, right? The whole thing, start to finish. Then we can ALL see if Jeffery Goldberg is lying, or if it’s, perhaps, someone else. WAS Goldberg looped in on a secret military operation over a publicly available app? Release the transcripts to make Goldberg look bad. In the end, ‘The Atlantic’ released them.

Goldberg had published an edited version of the chat, to prove he was telling the truth. Then the MAGA spin machine went to work and blamed Goldberg for being there and suggesting he was making the whole thing up and besides, there were no classified details in the chat he made up. So, Goldberg published the rest. “See for yourselves,” he’s saying. Frankly, some of it looked like the kind of information one would normally consider classified.

White House spokesliar KKKaroline Leavitt challenged people, “do you trust the Secretary of Defense who was nominated for this role, voted by the United States Senate into this role, who has served in combat and honorably served our nation in uniform? Or do you trust Jeffrey Goldberg, who is a registered Democrat and an anti-Trump sensationalist reporter?” That would be Goldberg. I very definitely believe Jeffery Goldberg over the prevaricating pack of putrid people. Definitely…

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

I have to say, I used to think “Presidentin'” must be a hard job. I thought it required a certain minimum level of intelligence, a certain professionalism. I thought it would cut into my leisure time too much. (Let’s pretend that’s the ONLY reason I haven’t run.)

If Trump has proven ANYTHING, it’s that ANYBODY can do the job AND you get to play golf all day, every day. Not a bad gig, if you can steal it…

Loyalty And Betrayal…

by MyBaconPress

Dear MAGA,

Do you see it yet? Your boy is betraying you. He told you he was going to do things you like, and he DID follow through with the deportation thing. In fact, I’d say he’s gone over the top with the deportation thing, revoking legal residency status and not just focusing on the undocumented. I understand that part of the reason you haven’t really noticed is because MAGA media is telling you he’s only deporting bad people, whether in gangs or not. I suspect they haven’t even mentioned the professional soccer player whose only “crime” was a tattoo.

He promised another darling-issue-of-the-right, closing the Education Department. He seems on track to do that, too. I mean, he can’t, legally, close the department. But he CAN understaff and underfund the thing until it withers and dies on the vine. I understand you all will be out cheering that move, too.

I suspect that, ultimately, you don’t have a clear handle on exactly what the Department of Education does and it has been thoroughly demonized in MAGA media so you’ll see this as a good thing. It’s another one of those things he can kind of hide since it likely won’t affect you directly. Well, unless your child or grandchild needs a student loan or is disabled and suddenly can’t find a school that will accept him or her. But, c’mon, how many kids are disabled? And really, how many people rely on student loans, right?

So, yeah, he has done a couple of things he said he was going to do. But I STILL say he’s betraying you. Deportations and closing the Department of Education are high-profile things so they get a lot of ink. But, really, they don’t directly affect you as far as you know, so it’s all okay, and I get that. It’s easy to look away from things when they’re happening to other people.

But I still say, on the big things, he betraying you. He’s like a spouse who does household chores right on time but is STILL sexing it up with some hottie at work. Sure, give credit for the household chores but the real concern is sexing it up with the hottie at work, right? Some issues are bigger than others. Cheating on you with someone else is BIGGER than not getting the garbage out or the dishes done, right?

He said he would help with grocery prices. The price of eggs became the exemplar. He hasn’t done that at all. In fact, some of the oh-so-fun things he’s doing to the undocumented community are bound to RAISE your grocery prices. You’re going to feel that, just like everybody else. The tariffs aren’t doing anything to bring down prices, either. Just the opposite, in fact. After telling you he would help, after bragging that he “won on groceries,” he has done nothing to lower grocery prices and has, in fact, made the problem worse. When you asked him about it, he told you to shut up about the eggs.

He’s coming after your health insurance, too. Gutting Medicaid to the tune of $880 billion dollars is going to see many of you losing your health insurance. There are several states out there with trigger laws. If the government cuts their Medicaid contribution to the state for the Affordable Care Act, the state version is cancelled. Automatically. 47’s government is cutting the Medicaid contribution to your state for the Affordable Care Act.

Now you’re left to seek out more expensive, less covering insurance – and God help you if you have preexisting conditions – because health care companies sure as hell won’t. Maybe that won’t be so bad. Do you know anybody in their 60s experiencing what the industry calls ‘preexisting conditions?’ I know I do.

He told you over and over on the campaign trail that he wouldn’t cut Social Security. He’s currently in the process of cutting Social Security. He’s been laying the groundwork by issuing certain threats: checks may not be sent on time; drastic cuts in service are planned; transparency and accountability are reduced; and Social Security insolvency is coming sooner rather than later.

In fact, he’s trying to shut it down completely. He’s using a perfectly legal order from a judge – the one that stops Elon’s team from accessing YOUR personal data – as his excuse, but it will STILL result in no Social Security check at the beginning of the month. I guess that’s fine for people who don’t really need it. Is that you? Do you need it? Look, if it’s just buying you a new guitar every month or some such you may not care that you won’t be getting back all of that money you’ve paid into it your entire working life.

Fortunately, you still have your 401k, or what’s left of it. The stock market hasn’t been reacting well to the regime’s current moves and as the market drops, so does your 401k. That’s less of a problem when you can fall back on your Social Security check but now? What do you fall back on now?

He’s putting you in this position so he and his rich buddies can have a tax cut. Yeah, I know, he’s going to include YOU in the tax cuts as well, right? Except, the increasing cost of living is going to eat up any savings YOU might see in your little pittance of a cut. YOU get less so THEY can have more. Elon is the richest person on Earth – and STILL… he wants more! Is there EVER an end? I mean, how much is too much?

Listen, I’m not saying any of this to to mock you. Yes, I know we’ve had our differences and I understand MAGA may not see me as the most credible of sources but you have eyes. You can see for yourself that the things I’m telling you here are true and correct. You don’t have to confess to me that you know he zigged when he said he would zag. Metaphorically, you can smell your spouse’s lover on your spouse when they get home. You KNOW what’s happening.

Stop worrying about what people might say if you step up to protect yourself. You have an obligation to protect yourself and he had no right to betray you. You didn’t side with him so he could betray you. Pride often keeps people trapped in situations they should be trying to escape. But it’s not your fault – hell, it’s not a fault at all – that you believed him when he promised you everything you dreamed of. He promised. But his actions aren’t supporting his promise. You know it. You can see it. Hell, you can smell it.

The only question now, is, what are you going to do about it? You don’t have to stay loyal to a person who isn’t loyal to you. Everything he says pretends he’s still loyal to you but everything he DOES proves he’s not. Which do you pay attention to, what he says or what he does? Because what he says might feel good or be comforting in the moment, but what he DOES is going to hurt you, directly, badly, and soon. Listen, I’m only trying to help…

FOCUS, People…

by MyBaconPress

I see more and more people coming out to protest the failures of this regime, which are legion. That’s a good thing. MAGA may be happy, but Americans are pissed off! Increasingly, they’re showing up at protests to say so. Americans are ready to fight. We know who we want to fight and we know why we want to fight them. Our problem? We lack a central point to rally around.

Bernie Sanders and now AOC are starting to have an effect. People are coming out in droves to see them and hear them. The speeches are inspiring, too. But I’m not sure Bernie and AOC are successfully going to be the bright star people follow. While their speeches ARE good, they boil down to a litany of complaints and charges. No actions. They MAY help people vent fury but they’re not DOING anything to protect the Constitution.

At one of the rallies, I heard a woman in the crowd shout, “What are you going to DO about it?” To my ear, it was a challenge, not a taunt. It had an unspoken subtext: “Yeah, the speeches are nice and even inspiring, but they’re JUST speeches. We need action and you’re in Congress. What ACTIONS are you taking?” (Yes, the subtext was longer than the text…)

Bernie heard her. He looked over at her. Then he turned back to his speech and kept on a-talkin’. I’m a Bernie fan. I’m an AOC fan. They can describe a problem clearly and with passion. They can throw out vague affirmations. “Oh, we’re not going to let them do that!” Great. Now let’s hear the plan to stop them. “We’re going to give speeches!” Less great.

I do have to add, Bernie and AOC are bringing out thousands of people to these rallies. If nothing else, that will demonstrate for everybody how many of us are furious and ready to fight. It creates a sense of solidarity. It’s inspiring to the push-back. But it STILL needs to speak to specific actions or, I fear, the movement will fizzle, eventually.

We’ve seen people focus their fury on Swasitcar dealerships. I suspect that’s because it’s a visible, focal point. We can ALL find a Swasticar dealership and we can ALL stand outside. Even better, we can SEE results as sales drop and the stock crashes. It’s tangible action with tangible results. Right now, it’s the best Americans have got, attacking the dealerships. As a side benefit, it’s making people FEEL better as they take some kind of action. For a moment, they feel less paralyzed by events of the day.

Counting on individual action is better than nothing but it’s also next to nothing. The various splinter groups around the country are a step up but they lack focus. What we NEED is a George Washington – a trusted, central figure people can rally around. It should matter less which individual grievance one comes out to protest and more that we all agree the destruction our nation at the hands of greedy, evil “people” is unacceptable. In protecting the Constitution as an umbrella issue, you’re ALSO protecting your own, individual cause…

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

This is weird. 47 spent a few days, there, ripping on Joe Biden for using autopen to sign some or all of the pardons he issued before leaving office. 47 insisted this was a BAD thing. He acknowledged that he uses autopen but only for “unimportant” things. The “unimportant” thing he cited was return letters to fans who have written him.

THEN, he made a big deal about signing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. He invoked this particular war powers act, he said, in order to accomplish something he could easily have accomplished, legally, using other, already-on-the-books laws. Then he promised he was going to deport a bunch of Venezuelan gang members using the Act. Again, if his charges against the gang members were true, he didn’t NEED the Alien Enemies Act. But that’s what he did.

Now obviously, legal types pushed back against his invocation of the war time act and a judge agreed it had been misapplied. The judge issued a restraining order telling the administration NOT to deport the targeted group until the courts could hear the case. The regime ignored the order and sent the planes anyway.

The judge got angry and ordered the regime back to court to explain why they ignored his order. I feel like The First Felon and his crew expected to ride out the storm based on the idea that people would have to defend Venezuelan gang members. Who wants to do that? (Note: it SHOULD be every American, since the problem with what he did wasn’t the victims so much as the violation of the law.)

But… oh, rats! It turns out some of the “Venezuelan gang members,” um, weren’t. Right, they weren’t gang members. Right, some of them weren’t Venezuelan. The thing they seem to have in common is they were a) brown and, b) had a tattoo. I’m no lawyer, but I’m not familiar with any law that makes it illegal to be brown and have tattoos. Neither, I suspect, is the judge. This, as you can imagine, is going to seriously undermine any claims of “just taking out the garbage.”

So NOW 47 – you remember, he’s the guy who never uses autopen for “important” things – is out and about telling people that HE never signed the Executive Order invoking the Alien Enemies Act. He says he doesn’t KNOW when the EO was signed because he left that to other people. That sounds like autopen on an important document, to me, AND it’s a confession that maybe he didn’t know it was being signed at all, right? One of his loyal minions did that TO him, right?

Now, obviously, it’s just Donny being Donny and avoiding responsibility for anything he “strongly” does that “bigly” comes back to bite him in the ass – which happens to this guy a lot. He’s taking the position that, since he can’t know when the order was signed, he can’t be held in contempt for ignoring the judges order. I’ll bet that’s not right, though.

I HAVE noticed this: now that he’s relying on autopen as his alibi, he has shut his mouth about Biden using autopen and how “wrong” that was. At least for the moment. Fear not, that lie will be back. He really wants to take revenge against anybody who participated in prosecuting him over all of those crimes he (allegedly) committed. But for right now, he needs it to be okay for some unknown, low-level flunky to use autopen to sign his name to important papers without him knowing who or when.

He spoke with reporters and told them, “Number one, I don’t know when it was signed ’cause I didn’t sign it. Other people handled it. But Marco Rubio’s done a great job, and he wanted them out, and we go along with that.” That looks like throwing Rubio under the bus, but that’s a different piece.

MAGA will buy it, of course. Hell, they’ll buy practically anything – especially the cheap crap he has made in China and overcharges for, here. (“Wow, only $11,000 dollars for a $300 dollar guitar? What a deal!”) What I’m hoping even MAGA can’t accept is the White House explanation for the sudden (and, likely, temporary) change of stance. The White House position, and I’m not making this up, was that The Felon “was obviously referring to the original Alien Enemies Act that was signed back in 1798.” That’s what White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.

While 47 was actively trying to distance himself from the EO invoking the Alien Enemies Act, the White House was insisting that he was referring to the original signing of the original act? In 1798? He didn’t know WHEN that was signed or by whom? How about 1798 and John Adams? And we can be confident it WAS Adams. Autopen hadn’t been invented yet.

While the trumpster was pulling his “I know nothing. I see nothing!” shtick, the White House was swearing up and down and inside out that, “The recent Executive Order was personally signed by President Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act that designated Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in order to apprehend and deport these heinous criminals.”

So there you go. He didn’t do what he did, he doesn’t know anything about all those things he’s an expert on, and he knows nothing about what his underlings are doing because he has his fingers so decidedly on the pulse of his regime, um, from the golf course. Clear as mud…

Distinction Without Difference…

by MyBaconPress

There’s a logical fallacy I know called ‘distinction without a difference.’ It occurs when an author or speaker attempts to describe a distinction between two things where no discernible difference exists. I think this is the situation with the Education Department. Well, no, that’s not exactly right. I think it occurs in EVERY department that the Administrative branch can’t legally shut down – only Congress can close a department established by Congress – but claim they CAN cut off it’s money and fire the workers.

So, what’s the difference? The various buildings in question aren’t the departments. Besides, these “business geniuses” want to sell the buildings. The departments, themselves, are the functions of the office along with people who perform those functions. The fact that the buildings still exist doesn’t mean the department still exists if nobody does the work. I’m not sure why it’s legal for the current maladministration to dispose of the people and take the department’s money. How are they not, de facto, “closing” the department?

In my opinion, if you eliminate all the workers, you have, for all intents and purposes, “closed” the department. I continue to believe that’s true even if you “only” eliminate so many workers the department can’t function anymore. This all reminds me of that nasty con assoholic, Grover Norquist, when he said, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

It seems to me that if Congress authorizes any given department – you know, like they NEVER have with DOGE – there is an implicit presumption that the department will be staffed and funded. I’d like some help from any of my legal friends. Could a member of Congress sue the maladministration? Don’t get me wrong, I’m clear they won’t. Congress is CLEARLY complicit in the coup. I’m just asking if, in the long-lost Better America, could a member of Congress have sued the Administrative branch for not properly funding a department Congress has established?

The really irksome part is that there’s a goal, here: privatization. It works like this: you underfund and understaff a department, any department. THEN, when that department starts to fail, as it must, you pretend it’s because “government can’t do things right.” THEN you allow private industry to swoop in and take over because, you pretend, private business never makes mistakes (I mean, how stupid ARE you?) and will ALWAYS do the job better and for less money.

I want to say it’s a moron’s game but it’s really just destructive greed. We’ve been privatizing things for quite some time now. That dumbass idea appeared decades ago and cons have continued to push and push and push for “privatization.” Here are three LAWS of privatization:
One, privatization ALWAYS leads to reduced services and reduced efficiency in the long run.
Two, privatization NEVER lowers costs in the long run. BUT…
Three, some self-important, greed-head blowhard gets to stick his grimy and crooked little fingers into the government trough and make off with a nearly endless supply of money.

Of course, in the minds of the self-important, greed-head blowhards, the third law, there, is FAR more important the the first or the second. It’s summed up beautifully in the rock band Weezer’s immortal words: “gimme-gimme, gimme-gimme…”

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So, how is this not extortion? The First Felon abuses his office and threatens to remove the security clearances and cancel the contracts of a law firm he doesn’t like, primarily because they commonly represent left-leaning issues, or participated in one of the oh-so-many, true and honest legal cases against him. (He’s a petulant little prick, you know.)

So… no, I’m just going to post the paragraph from the Guardian, “To avoid the consequences of Trump’s order, the White House said (emphasis added), the firm had agreed to “take on a wide range of pro bono matters that represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints of our society”. The firm reportedly agreed to disavow the use of diversity, equity and inclusion considerations in its hiring and promotion decisions and to dedicate the equivalent of $40m in free legal services to support Trump administration policies on issues including assistance for veterans and countering antisemitism.”

“Nice little law firm ya got, here. Be a shame if something were to happen to it. I mean, we could protect you from any harm, for, say, $40 million dollars in free services? How does that sound to you?”

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I think it’s funny to watch Gavin Newsom tacking right – he would say “toward the center” – in an effort to kick off his presidential campaign for 2028. Is there ANYBODY who STILL doesn’t understand that 47 WILL BE “47” for life? I mean, sure, there will be “elections.” Hell, Russia has “elections.” We, the people, get THOSE kind, now. You know, the kind where ‘Dear Leader’ “wins” with 94% of the vote. (That’s 94%, because, realistically, nobody could win 100%. 94% makes it look “honest.”)

So go ahead, Gavin. Keep trashing your own reputation by snuggling up to Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk in an effort to woo the right. But do yourself a favor: stay out of tall buildings, lest you suddenly “decide” to unexpectedly jump out of a window…

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So, which speaks more loudly to you, the car sales promotional event The Felon hosted at the White House to promote “Teslers,” or the fact that after just under a year and a half on the roads, Musk’s SwastiTruck – and I mean ALL of them – are being recalled – for the eighth time? Eight times in just under eighteen months! That’s one crappy vehicle people are overpaying for.

Apparently, the rolling crematoriums just… fall apart while you’re driving down the road. Well, no, they don’t “fall apart.” They experience a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” That’s so much better.

Climbing in to a SwastiTruck gives you options. You might, in fairness, get to where you’re going. You MIGHT burn to death, trapped inside after an accident when it bursts into flame. Then again, you might just experience a refreshing blast of cooling air up your knickers as bits and pieces of your car fall off while you’re cruising down the road. “You pays your money, you takes your chances.” How exciting!

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Pretty much everybody wants violent foreigners deported when possible, despite what MAGA media tells their adherents. I don’t agree with MAGA on undocumented people who aren’t violent, but I honestly DO understand their position on those who slip past the gates. “They should do it the right way,” is fair, if a bit simplistic. (The “right way” involves a huge number of barriers.)

But now? 47 is revoking Green Cards and other forms of staying here AS legal residents. In short, they DID “do it the right way.” He’s sending them away, anyway. So now there IS no “right way” to immigrate to the US? That kind of makes MAGA look like gullible fools, doesn’t it? “Do it the right way” was the fallback position. It was hard to debate. Now The Felon has destroyed that one, too, leaving them all just looking like a bunch of xenophobic, bigoted rubes.

It’s also a pretty narrow focus on whom, exactly, they want out of the country. So, if you’re brown or poor, there’s no “right way” to enter, but rich white guys are always welcome. Hell, they can even BUY their way in with a $5 million dollar “Gold Card.”

It’s also irritating that he’s revoking people’s LEGAL status based on nothing more than his unsubstantiated assertions that this person or that is a “terrorist sympathizer.” If it’s true, show me the evidence. It SHOULD be easy. “Oh, no, we could NEVER do that,” they say, “it’s a matter of national security.” My, how convenient.

So we’re just left to take the word of someone who lies so often the actual news stories are about when he accidentally tells a truth? I prefer a credible source…