Trump

J6, Four Years Later…

by MyBaconPress

Today, January 6th, 2025, Congress certifies the stolen 2024 “election.” Tom Manger, chief of the US Capitol police, says he’s planning on using unprecedented security measures because, “We cannot be taken by surprise again.” He’s referring to how police were outnumbered and overwhelmed by the rampaging mob four years ago, when Trump prompted his loyal cultists to attack in an effort to steal the election, ironically calling it the “Stop the Steal Rally.”

Oh? Has anybody heard anything from the left, calling for a rally, or even a speech on the ellipse? Has Harris posted a message telling followers to be there, “will be wild?” Has Harris or any of her followers funded such an event? Is there a list of speakers planned, each intending to incite violence and mob mentality? Have the Democrats even mentioned an ‘unauthorized tour?’

So now, this Manger guy is going to surround the Capitol building with cops in riot gear to ensure the safety of the people inside because four years ago a MAGA mob attacked? Does he think another MAGA mob is coming? Because Democrats don’t behave that way. Yes, the left IS pissed off about the outcome of this “election” and we have questions about it’s accuracy and some of the details. No, the left is NOT going to attack Congress’s procedural process in a huge demonstration that serves mostly to send supporters to prison.

Sidebar: isn’t it funny that 34 got elected by pretending foreign countries were emptying their prisons and putting violent prisoners onto the streets of America, now that HE intends to empty American prisons and put violent prisoners onto the streets of America” by pardoning the January 6th rioters? It just strikes me as hilarious.

Trump instigated the January 6th riots. Trump paid for them. Trump called his people together. Trump whipped them into a frenzy. Trump then sent them to the Capitol to attack – and even, perhaps, kill the sitting Vice-President at the time. TRUMP did that. THEN, Trump abandoned them, knowing he could use them as a campaign issue in the next run. (He could have pardoned them before he left office. He had the time.)

At this point, one of the more glaring differences between the left and the right is that the left continues to respect the US Constitution while the right ignores the thing in whole or in part. The left respects the peaceful transfer of power even as we question the details of the “election.” The left is going to be satisfied with the imagery of the nation’s flags at half-staff on that dark day.

But some MAGA con feels the need to put on a great show, “defending” against the threat MAGA brought last time? Yeah, okay, you do you. Bonehead…

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‘The Washington Post’ was once a respected publication. Then Jeff Bezos bought it. Now it’s a biased rag. When the editorial board at the Post wanted to endorse Harris, Bezos stepped in and said no. Apparently, that caused something like 300,000 subscribers to cancel. Now, an editorial cartoonist has penned a cartoon depicting Bezos, among other rich guys, bending the knee to 43. It’s factually accurate, of course, so, naturally, the paper spiked it. (I’d guess there are more cancellations in the Post’s immediate future…)

This is the cartoon:

Rich people groveling at the foot of Trump.

It depicts corporate wage-thieves—including Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Patrick Soon-Shiong, and, of course, Bezos – trying to curry favor with the president-elect. Soon-Shiong also spiked an endorsement of Harris in the LA Times – ALSO earning thousands of cancellations. The rest have each ponied up a million dollars for his inauguration.

Dead Mickey, there, represents ABC’s flaccid capitulation to Trump in a defamation suit in which Trump said he wasn’t convicted of rape – “only” sexual assault. The judge in the case said it WAS a form of rape and most legal people think ABC would have won the suit easily, but ABC laid down to make life easier for 34.

In fairness to ‘The Washington Post,’ they had a cover story (read: a lie) at the ready. ‘We had already done a piece about rich people sucking up to Trump,’ they lied, ‘and we’re about to do another piece about rich people sucking up to Trump, so we couldn’t do THIS piece about rich people sucking up to Trump.’ Uh-huh…

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When US Army veteran Matthew Livelsberger blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside of a Trump hotel, Muck went into damage control mode by pretending the guy meant to do a GREAT deal of damage, but the Cybertruck is built SO WELL, according to Musk, it contained the blast, limiting the damage. Of course, by Livelsberger’s own statement, he meant only to create a spectacle of some kind.

Oh, but Musk wants to defend his “truck” and he couldn’t WAIT to point out that it wasn’t a failure of the vehicle. I guess that’s important to stress since other Cybertruck fires ARE so clearly caused by failures of the vehicle. (I continue to think of them as rolling crematoriums.) THEN he bragged that the Cybertruck “contained the blast.” Yeah, the guy used fireworks, not high explosives.

I suspect Livelsberger’s protest was against Musk’s involvement with, and control over, 34. Trump spent a LOT of time telling work-a-day Joes he was on their side and he was going to look out for them. They believed him. Now Trump is dancing to the tune of the billionaires and all indicators are pointing to the idea that Trump may not be as loyal to the working class as he made out.

MAGA thinks they’ve installed a champion. I think they’ve installed their worst nightmare. Only one of us can be right and we’ll ALL find out together starting January 21st. (He’ll just party on the 20th.) MAGA was built on fear and, more importantly, fury. What happens to that furious mob once they discover they’ve been deceived and used?

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Trump is wishing for a large package. According to MAGA Mikes Johnson, Trump wants ONE big bill to cover his tax cuts for the rich, the border plan he spiked for political reasons, AND opening up national parks to drilling we don’t really need because we’re already producing more oil and gas than ever in history.

Apparently, they’ve been trying to decide between using two bills, one for border and energy, and the other for tax cuts, or just the “one big beautiful bill” Mr. 34 Felonies has asked for. The “one big, beautiful bill” will make it harder to negotiate. It will take longer and, remember, the cons can only lose two votes and the thing fails.

These are the kinds of details I look for, right now. Yes, these people intend to do terrible things to this once-great nation, but trying to do them all in one fell swoop makes it harder – MUCH harder. It will slow them down. ANYTHING that slows them down, benefits Americans – and even MAGA, though they won’t know it. The left is going to need to stand in their way to try and slow them down from time to time, but not if they’re going to stand in their own way and slow themselves down. THAT, the left should just help with…

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Two stories, side by side, in this morning’s ‘Guardian.’ On the left is a headline that reads, “‘We have our country back’: convicted January 6 rioters anticipate Trump pardons.” The story immediately to it’s right? “‘The tyrant is gone and the nightmare is done’: Syrian exiles hope for a brighter future.”

One nation, the US, moving inexorably into tyranny, another, Syria, celebrating the possibility of finally throwing off tyranny. Syrians didn’t seem to like it. I suspect Americans aren’t going to like it, either…

BOOM, Goes The…Fireworks?

by MyBaconPress

Tesla Cybertruck burns outside Trump hotel.

Have you seen this? It’s a pretty good metaphor for what the country expects. I haven’t commented on it, yet, because it’s too hard to say with any certainty who the guy is, a con or an American. It’s kind of freaky that it could, honestly, be either one…

There’s a possibility he did it because he and his wife had just broken up. But a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel is a political statement, not a personal one. If he was just killing himself over the breakup of his marriage, he could have used ANY car, in any place.

People who knew him say he was a conservative and that he LOVED Trump. That was a weird thing to do to Trump if he really loved him, a weird image to create. It could well be that he was unhappy he voted for Trump, but got Elon. I know I’d be irritated by such a bait and switch. I’ve also heard it suggested he was trying to kick off some kind of left vs right battle. Every once in a while, some con does some violent thing in hopes that other cons will follow suit. So far, that hasn’t happened but extremists keep trying.

Maybe something happened that caused the scales to fall from his eyes and he suddenly realized the damage he had done in his world based on his love of Trump. But in writings on his phone, authorities found he supported President-elect Thirty-Four Felonies, President non-elect Musk, and even worm-food brain RFK, Jr. So, WTF?

Apparently, he left a suicide note. It read, in part: “This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wakeup call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?” Well, we all saw what you did but, to tell you the truth, I STILL don’t get your “point.” And now you’re too dead to ask what the hell you were saying. Nice work…

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I could use some help from cons, here. On the left, we’ve been treated to several examples of “people who voted for Trump but now regret their vote.” To be sure, these aren’t MAGA. Mostly, they’re low information voters who supposedly got hoodwinked by 34’s rhetoric in the moment, then realized it was a mistake. The left is enjoying these examples under the hashtag, #FAFO. #FAFO is ‘F*ck Around and Find Out.’ The idea is, they ‘f*cked around’ in voting for Trump, now they ‘Find Out’ what they’ve done, see?

I’ve seen, maybe, 20 or 25 of these things. They get pulled together into one presentation and put side-by-side and presented under ‘MAGA is turning on Trump.’ But I’ve been thinking. Something like 77 million people (ostensibly) voted for the felon. How difficult might it be to find 20 or 30 or even 50 people who have quickly come to regret their vote? (Spoiler alert: it would be easy.)

So then I got to wondering, is MAGA media now presenting evidence of Harris voters who wish they’d voted for Trump? Many people have noticed that the corporate media works to keep left and right battling over stupid, niggling little things and some of the battle fodder is making certain each side feels “right” about their own positions. Telling consumers the other side now regrets their choice (as they see the light) supports each team’s faith in their own positions.

So I’d like to know. IS MAGA media presenting Harris voters who now say they wish they’d voted for Trump? (I just don’t want to have to consume MAGA media to find out…)

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Well, we knew it would play out like this. It shouldn’t. In Better America, it would not have done. But we live in Bizzaro America, now. Judge Merchan has set a date, January 10th, to sentence President-elect Thirty-Four Felonies for his, well, thirty-four felonies. We live in this pretend world where there’s a fantasy rule called, ‘The rule of law.’ It only exists for Small Folk, though. Rich people get a different standard. “34” is about to enjoy the rich guy standard.

He was found guilty of thirty-four separate felonies by a jury of his peers. If I was found guilty of thirty-four separate felonies by a jury of MY peers, I’d be in prison. But he’s going to get a stern talking to and pay a fine – THEN he gets to go be king!

Shit, man! I guess crime DOES pay…

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Sadly, Trump is coming back. Oh, also? Covid-19 is coming back. They were a great combination last time. Trump’s fecklessness allowed the deaths of more Americans (and MAGA, of course) than the American Civil War. Now we’re coming back for round two.

Over a million dead and around $7.8 Trillion dollars added to the debt, last time, because 34 tried to wish the illness away. (Spoiler alert: that didn’t work.) What a great time to have a self-serving, incompetent boob coming into the White House.

I’ve spent a good bit of time concerned about the various kinds of damage 34 is going to do to this once-great nation. I’m really trying to stay in the moment and only worry about things he actually does or tries to do. I STILL think that’s the best option. I’m starting to suspect that Trump’s own fecklessness is going to work against him again.

With the return of Covid-19 (“THIS time, it’s personal!”) and the need to double down on battling climate change just as the incoming maladministration eliminates all climate change considerations, this incoming group might well be so distracted handling emergencies they don’t really have a chance to deal any (or much) damage of their own.

It’s a hell of a question: are we more likely to be wiped out by Trump’s intentional actions (like tax cuts plus profligate spending), or by Trump’s unintentional actions (like ignoring real and present threats)? Inquiring minds want to know…

It’s A Little Bit Funny…

by MyBaconPress

I confess, I thought this was funny. Top Kangaroo – I think I’m supposed to call him “Chief Justice” – John Roberts wrote a year-end report on the status of his crappy and corrupt court. Roberts wrote that people need to respect the court. I think he believes it, but I laughed out loud. I think the Supremely Corrupt Court needs to respect the High Court – and maybe even the Constitution – but they have no more intention of doing THAT than I have of respecting them.

Here’s what KangaRoberts wrote: “Every Administration suffers defeats in the court system — sometimes in cases with major ramifications for executive or legislative power or other consequential topics. Nevertheless, for the past several decades, the decisions of the courts, popular or not, have been followed. Within the past few years, however, elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected.”

In theory, I agree with that. But in practice? A bad ruling is a bad ruling, and this group has a slew of them. I submit that a bad ruling SHOULD be disregarded by all and sundry. And these guys haven’t just made ‘bad rulings.’ They’ve made rulings that say the EXACT opposite of the words in the US Constitution. We’re supposed to just accept that?

He IS right, though, that the entire political spectrum has kind of turned their backs on the Way-High Court. When they overturned Roe because they think they know what Jesus wants, people on the left suggested ignoring the ruling. But when the ‘roos upheld the use of Mifepristone, the RIGHT thought they had gone too far. That’s just one example, of course.

After providing President-Elect Thirty-Four Felonies with near perfect immunity, NOW Roberts is saying “…but he’d better follow our rulings?” That’s just embarrassingly stupid. “34” spent much of his FIRST maladministration defying Way High Court rulings. At one point back then, KangaRoberts issued a public rebuke – which 34 ignored. They made 34, effectively, a king and now they think they can rein him in? Do we laugh or cry?

It turns out, the kangaroos CAN NOT go around making rulings that defy the Constitution and are based on their political or religious preferences without surrendering their credibility as judges. Actions speak louder than words. Delivering bad decisions qualify as actions. Writing, “but we still get to count” won’t change that.

Dear KangaRoberts: if you want to be respected for the job you do, you have to do a respectable job. That’s just the way it works. But, hey, you’ll always have your bribes, I mean, “friendly considerations…”

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There is video out there of Trump, while telling everyone that in reality, HE will be President and not Elon – something he shouldn’t have to explain to anyone – saying he’s “safe.” The Constitution, he explains, won’t allow Elon to be President because he wasn’t born in this country.

So, they plan to burn the US Constitution, except for that one sentence? Weird…

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During a 2016 primary debate, President-elect Thirty-Four Felonies called the H1B visa program, “very bad” and “unfair” for U.S. workers. He said, “First of all, I think and I know the H-1B very well. And it’s something that I frankly use and I shouldn’t be allowed to use it. We shouldn’t have it.” Seems pretty clear (for him) but, hey, actions speak louder than words, right?

In 2017, he issued an Executive Order called, “Buy American and Hire American,” intended to discourage the use of H1B visas. Then, in June of 2020, his maladministration tried to issue new rules aimed largely at curtailing the use of H1B visas in general. Okay, that’s consistent. He said he doesn’t like the program, then he tried to limit and even eliminate the program.

But then President Non-elect Musk told him to shut up and that H1B visas WILL NOT be touched by 34’s criminal maladministration. For his part, Trump, having already declared and demonstrated his opposition to H1B visas and taken action to curtail their use, looked Musk right in the eye and said, “Look, you son of a bitch. Okay, you win. I love H1B visas, now, and I always have because you told me to. Please, sir, may I have another?”

So, it’s a “very unfair,” “bad” program people “shouldn’t be allowed to use” and he took action to make sure the “very unfair,” “bad” program people “shouldn’t be allowed to use” wouldn’t be used by people, only to back-peddle at amazing speeds and claim that he LOVES H1B visas and always has. You know, now that Musk has declared the program sacrosanct.

I’ll tell you this: I totally believe Trump is running the show, not Musk. Sure…

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It’s just petty, right? Jimmy Carter died. While we all knew that was going to happen, we didn’t know when. As it happens, it was December 29th. Since Jimmy Carter had been a US President, the American flag flies at half-staff for thirty days after his death. It has been so ordered and the flags are lowered appropriately. Here’s the rub: Donny’s inauguration falls within that thirty day period. That is to say, while President-elect Thirty Four Felonies is trying to keep from bursting into flame as he lays his hands on a Bible – or, at least, a Bible cover – the flags will be at half staff.

From MY point of view, it’s quite appropriate. It’s a sign of respect for a one-time president – the kind ALL presidents get – even him, once he graces the world with his death. But also, most of the nation, most of the world, will be in mourning over the passing of a once-great nation. There can be NO greater symbol to mark that final passing than Trump being inaugurated to his dictatorship with American flags flying at half staff.

I’d like to address how he whined on his social media site. He wrote, “The Democrats are all ‘giddy’ about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at ‘half mast’ (he means ‘half staff.’ ‘Half mast’ refers to a flag on a ship) during my Inauguration.” (This is true. The left noticed and we DID think it was appropriate.) He wrote: “They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country, they only think about themselves.” (Yeah, Captain Bone Spurs? Tell me your dates of service before we discuss who is more dedicated to America.)

But he can’t help himself. He continued: “Look at what they’ve done to our once GREAT America over the past four years – It’s a total mess!” (Biden cleaned up the mess he left, which proves 34 made a typo. It WAS ‘a total mess!’) Trump said “In any event, because of the death of President Jimmy Carter, the Flag may, for the first time ever during an Inauguration of a future President, be at half mast.” (STILL ‘half staff,’ dumbass.) “Nobody wants to see this,” (I’m okay with it.) “and no American (he means MAGA. Americans are fine with it.) “can be happy about it. Let’s see how it plays out.”

Biden has already said the flags would be flown to show respect for President Carter’s passing for the full 30 days, as they should be, and I suspect THAT’S how it will “play out…”

The One Percent Effect…

by MyBaconPress

Because, of course he did. President non-elect Musk came to America in 1992. He became an American citizen in 2002. HE says his early stay in America represented a “legal grey area.” The Washington Post says he was almost certainly working without proper paperwork in 1995. He came to this country on a student visa but then dropped out of school, rendering the visa null and void. He stayed anyway. That is to say, Elon Musk was an illegal alien, here taking American jobs.

Let’s deport him, first…

Oh, hey, while we’re on the subject of Elon, he started backing away from his “f*ck yourself in your face” stance on H1B visas, saying the program is “broken.” Here’s an idea: let’s change the program. See, I believe that no matter WHAT they say about Americans not being up to the work, their actual attachment to the H1B visa program is that they can pay foreign workers less than American workers. So, let’s require employers making use of H1B visas to pay the people they hire from overseas a premium, say, 10% over market.

I’d bet that, suddenly, there would be plenty of qualified Americans and they would be FINE for the job. Just fine…

Quick update: Laura Loomer has bent the knee to Musk in the H1B visa fight. Loomer lost. She stood down and is pleading with Musk to please reinstate her “@premium features.” She said she had productive conversations with “@AdrianDittmann and others.” @AdrianDittmann is supposedly a “burner” account owned and operated by Musk, himself. (Musk posts something, see, then ‘Dittmann’ comes on a declares Musk’s post “genius.”) Trump has been known to promote himself using a fraudulent persona, too, one ‘John Barron.’ I guess it works.

So, when you see a new account named ‘Bark Macon’ declaring all of my writing, thoughts, and perceptions pure and unadulterated genius with never before seen insights into the most complex issues, don’t be suspicious, okay?

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$86 Billion dollars. No, really. 86. Billion, with a ‘B.’ Trump’s choice for ‘Border Czar,’ (remember when MAGA hated ‘unelected czars’?) Tom Homan, the POS primarily responsible for family separations during Trump’s first maladministration, says Trump’s mass deportation plan would cost a lot. $86 Billion dollars is just his opening number. Some estimates go a high as One Trillion dollars. (I suspect a touch of hyperbole, there, though.)

I don’t know where they’re going to get that kind of money but it seems as if they’re going to have to do a great deal of damage to a huge number of people so they can do a great deal MORE damage to even more people. What a goal. That has GOT to be a hard way to live. Can you imagine living your life trying to harm as many people as possible, and, worse, really loving your job? These “people” will be laughing about the pain and misery they inflict. I’m shaking my head.

But, really, where WILL they get that money? Do you think they’ll take it from the Pentagon? They should. If all of these undocumented people are such a threat to national security, shouldn’t “team defense” pay to do battle with them? But they won’t do that. Nobody is allowed to touch the bloated “defense” budget. That leaves you and me. The little guys. The Small Folk. The Social Safety Net.

Holy gods, it’s no wonder Trump wanted the debt ceiling eliminated. If he follows through on this, he’ll do so much damage to the national debt, hell, he’ll probably earn the top spot in the run-up-the-debt challenge. I think he already holds it, but I suppose it depends on how you count it. Barack gets the blame for the largest increase, but that was because his predecessor had run not one, but TWO wars on credit cards and had NOT included their costs in his budgets. Obama put the numbers where they should have been all along and, viola, ‘boosted the debt.’ But much of that debt was Bush 43’s from his ill-advised wars.

After Barack and his accounting correction comes Trump. MAGA likes to excuse Trump’s increase because much of it was associated with Covid-19. (They don’t make excuses for anyone else. Just Trump.) The fact is, Trump OWNS Covid-19. HE was the one who disbanded the pandemic response team and allowed the pandemic to grow to the proportions it did through his fecklessness. The fact that his failed management of the virus cost a lot of extra money is STILL on him. So in MY mind, he already owns the top spot because HIS increase was HIS fault.

We’ll see how things play out. He hasn’t even taken office yet. There’s no sense in fretting about what may or may not happen until he does it, or tries to. But that’s a LOT of money, $86 billion dollars. Hey, I wonder why the corporate media isn’t covering this much?

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Alright now, hear me out. Denmark offered to buy the US and give everyone health care and a better education system. I suspect it was a joke, based on President-elect Thirty-Four Felony’s claims to Greenland. Still, the US is yesterday’s news, now, right? I mean, look around. It’s pretty clear. The One Percent have destroyed a potentially pretty great thing. We had a chance. For a short, wonderful while, there, we did pretty well.

But then Greed stepped up, supported by Stupid, to do battle with Decency. Sadly, Greed won. Many of us tried, but in the end, with Stupid’s help, Greed won. What looms in our immediate future doesn’t seem like it’s going to be pleasant at all for the masses. Yes, I’ll wait to assess, but the LOOK of the very near future doesn’t seem as bright to me as it must seem to MAGA.

My first thought was just to try to secede. That hasn’t worked well in past attempts, but maybe we can keep Trump from finding out we’ve left. We can easily distract him, just by telling him we think he’s pretty. (Oh, yeah, like you’ve never lied before…) Someone ELSE might realize we’ve left, though, and come and try to bring us back so we, likely, would need some backup. So I was thinking…

Can we GIVE ourselves to Denmark? Probably not all of us, but California, for sure. Whichever blue states want to go, we’ll take with us, the New Denmark. I’d try to learn Danish, but they know English so we could get by. The red states? We don’t want them. (We can create an underground railroad, of sorts, to get blue people out of red states.)

See, I’d prefer to be a citizen of a country that wants to do well by all of it’s people, not just the rich ones. I’d prefer to be a citizen of a country that respects the individual and doesn’t see them as faceless drones intended to work until they drop, making someone ELSE rich. I’d prefer to have continued to have been a citizen of Better America, but that’s gone now. We’re left with…this. And, frankly? This sucks.

So maybe Denmark WAS kidding. But maybe, just maybe, we could work something out with them. I’ll tell you this: I sure would like to try…

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What, they have someone worse? The GOP is currently having a challenge finding the right person to act as Speaker of the House. Apparently, they got angry at MAGA Mike Johnson for DARING to keep the government open over the holidays. That’s true. I’m not making that up. Because he passed the Continuing Resolution that kept the government open, MAGAGOPCORP, Inc, is looking for someone better. And by “better,” of course, I mean far, far worse.

MAGA Mike’s actions prevented a LOT of suffering during the holidays and MAGA is furious with him for doing it. They WANT someone who can and will inflict pain on the most vulnerable people without batting an eye. Even a trace of decency is too much decency to these guys and doing the right thing – EVER – is an immediate deal-killer.

Pay attention to the names MAGA puts forth for this role. Win or lose, those are the people MAGA thinks are just selfish enough, just cruel enough, to be the “better” House Speaker. Harm without concern. Denmark is looking better and better to me…

Jimmy Got His Wings…

by MyBaconPress

Well, I’m sorry to note the passing of James Earl Carter III, ‘Jimmy’ to you and me. Jimmy Carter was a VERY good man. He did many good things in his life and worked every day to make other people’s lives better. It turned out, he was not so good at politics on the national level – most especially the dirty politics of the Reagan campaign. But he spent the rest of his life proving he HAD been the right man for the job and if it hadn’t been for alleged machinations by the Reagan team, he might have had a more successful presidency.

His two biggest problems? Well, inflation was high. He worked to get it down but it was stubborn. Our society was reacting to the return of Vietnam soldiers and the new paradigm of women NOT returning to the home when the men returned from war. For a while, there were too many workers for too few jobs and only time can fix that. The One Percent used it as an excuse to pretend Keynesian economics was dead. THAT allowed them to introduce the new economic “idea,” so-called “Supply Side” economics.

It’s nonsense. The implementation of “supply side” economics in 1980 has led us directly to the economic struggles we all know and hate today. It’s a direct line. It set us on the road to the fascism we live under now. “Supply Side economics” has always been nonsense (George Bush, the elder, dubbed it “VooDoo economics” because the concept was so stupid), so the cons needed someone with charisma to bring the story to the masses. Enter Ronald Reagan. No one can say how Reagan would have fared in the election left to his own devices. All we know is that earlier attempts had failed. But then Reagan got lucky.

Some people, ‘college students,’ we were told at the time, seized the American embassy in Tehran, Iran, and held the embassy workers hostage. Carter tried mightily to secure the release of the hostages. He took every action he legally could as President of the United States. He even attempted a military intervention, though he was philosophically opposed to using the military to solve problems.

What he didn’t know – couldn’t have known – was that the Reagan team was allegedly working behind the scenes WITH the Iranian “college students.”
“Wait, you’re saying an American Presidential candidate was working WITH American adversaries AGAINST American interests in an effort to win an election?”
That’s the allegation. There was much evidence to support the charge, too, but, as we all know now, if you “win,” there ARE no charges. (Kind of, in this case.) “Keep the embassy workers hostage,” the ‘students’ were told, “and the US will provide you with weapons for your fight against Iraq if Reagan wins. You can let them go once Reagan is elected.”

And that’s what happened. Literally one half hour after Reagan’s election, the hostages were released. Of course, we were told it was because of Reagan’s awesome leadership and how the ‘students’ were afraid of Reagan because he was oh-so-tough. We didn’t know about the arms deal until it blew up on them during the administration.

See, Congress had refused to fund arms to Nicaraguan “Contras” due to human rights abuses, but Reagan supported their cause. AND, they had made a promise to Iran. It wouldn’t have looked good for the “students” to come out and describe the deal in detail, so the Reagan team did what they could. You remember, that was when the CIA started IMPORTING cocaine from Central America to the US (black neighborhoods only, please), then using the proceeds to secretly buy and ship weapons to Iran – AND send some of the money to the Contra rebel groups back in Nicaragua.

It’s known to history as the Iran/Contra scandal and it might have brought down the Reagan presidency if one Colonel Oliver North hadn’t fallen on his sword and taken the fall for the scheme. Everybody knew, at the time, North had acted under orders from the West Wing, but nobody could PROVE beyond a doubt that North had acted under orders from the West Wing so North took the fall himself.

He was convicted of three felonies but the convictions were later vacated because he had been given immunity to testify before Congress. He has since been handsomely rewarded for his role in the treasonous scheme by wealthy but low-profile supporters of extreme conservatism.

I sat down to write about Jimmy Carter and his presidency. It ended up being all about Reagan and his criminal maladministration. I almost did a re-write but then I realized, that WAS Carter’s presidency. It was undone and overshadowed by traitorous actions of a political opponent – and that’s what I meant by ‘…he was not so good at politics on the national level.’

Carter couldn’t beat the Reagan team at that game because Carter was too good of a man to play on that level. He would have had to stoop to the same underhanded politics the Reagan team was using and he wouldn’t do that. Reagan and his henchmen got rich – and then ended up in Hell. North should be joining them soon. But Jimmy? Jimmy got his wings…

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I read a piece from ‘The Hill’ that suggested that Democrats haven’t learned anything from their recent campaign loss – because the GOP released the House ethics report on Matt Gaetz. No, it doesn’t make sense (the piece was written by a con), but it DOES show you the direction MAGA is moving on this issue. I WANT to call it ‘Gaetz-gate,’ since every scandal since Watergate has had the ‘gate’ suffix attached to show it’s seriousness, but I suspect ‘Gaetz-gate’ jumps the shark on that practice, being redundant, as it is.

Look, we don’t know, for sure, if Matt Gaetz did or did not sleep with a 17-year-old high school junior when he was 34. We don’t know if he KNEW she was 17 when he did. Possibly, he would have been happy with an 18-year-old high school senior if she had been available. But we DO know he was using illegal drugs and paid tens of thousands of dollars to prostitutes. We also know he was showing photos around the House floor and bragging about his “conquests” – photos and descriptions other people, apparently, didn’t want to see or hear.

In this, um, ‘article,’ the writer wrote: “…the left’s non-stop bloodlust to sensationalize, embarrass, gloat or fundraise off the report demonstrates that not only did they learn nothing from the election results, which embarrassed their candidate and their party, but that they continue to drown out the voices of the two constituencies they were once most identified with protecting: the working class and the disenfranchised.”

Huh. WAS it the left that used poster-sized, revenge porn pictures on the floor of the House to “sensationalize, embarrass, gloat or fundraise?” No, wait a minute. If I remember correctly, that was the GOP using photos of Hunter Biden. Yeah, Hunter had a drug problem, too. But he didn’t – allegedly – hire high school juniors for sex. (I’ve already acknowledged we don’t know but the GOP-created ethics report suggests Gaetz did. Take it up with them.)

The writer also wrote: “it seems as if Democrats instantly went back to their kneejerk strategy of sliming and smearing Republicans…” Yeah, that’s the left. Sliming and smearing. See how it works? When a Republican makes up claims about someone from whole cloth or overstates the importance of some small issue, that’s just good, solid work. When a Democrat reports actual, verifiable facts that just happen to make a Republican look bad, that’s ‘sliming and smearing.’

Here’s how you’ll know it was all performative BS. Sooner or later, someone will find Gaetz’s form from when HE bought guns and we’ll ALL see the check mark in the ‘not using drugs’ box. You know, the one that Hunter checked that caused MAGA such outrage. You just watch how ho-hum MAGA pretends THAT is…

Cons won’t think twice about this. They’ve been conditioned to see the left as “angry and even hate-filled” and see themselves as merely “concerned.” So, revenge porn on a private citizen as a cheap mechanism to embarrass a sitting President was simply good work, but referring to ‘President-elect Thirty-Four Felonies’ is an out-of-bounds slur?

I’m not sure ‘righteous indignation’ is the right position for MAGA. It calls to mind Matthew 7:5, “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye…“

Contemptible Fools…

by MyBaconPress

Okay, so here’s how it works. An employer is allowed to use an H1B visa if they can’t find workers to do a job they need, as described, here in the United States. So, employers ask for, say, a computer programmer. You must know every programming language ever written. You must have never made any mistakes. You must have decades of experience. AND, you must be willing to work for, say, one third of the pay your contemporaries make.

The company can “adjust” the expectations of the requirements, so long as they stick to the pay demand. Then, they insist they can’t find the people they need, as described (because of the pay difference). THEN, they get to bring in foreign workers at lower cost using H1B visas. It’s a pretty clever trick and President non-elect Musk has been using it to his financial advantage for a long, long time. To be clear, there ARE Americans who can do his jobs – just not at the salary he offers. He doesn’t want to pay Americans, so he uses foreigners.

Well, the heat is turning up on the President non-elect. He has made clear that he intends to continue to use these foreign workers because of the cost savings. Of course, he doesn’t mention the cost savings. HE says Americans just aren’t good enough. Hell, his billionaire buddy Vivek Ramaswamy got caught up in the debate and said it out loud, “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Musk is STILL fighting for his position. He has vowed “war” over getting to use his cheaper labor. He said, “I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.” But MAGA has an entire ethos built around how bad foreigners are. They seem really very upset that their new leader is going to deport some foreigners but allow those who benefit him, and they started saying so in social media. Interestingly, they started saying so on X, where Musk had his team cancelling and demoting accounts that criticized him. You know, because of his dedication to free speech.

He’s trying to, get this, correct MAGA – by calling them “contemptible fools”! Musk wrote on his X page that “hateful, unrepentant racists” should be removed from the Republican Party, “root and stem.” Uh-huh. So much for MAGA. You’re going to remove Donald Trump, root and stem, from the Republican Party? I’m laughing, Elon.

But it appears, even MAGA can see the hypocrisy this time. They can see that even as he calls THEM racists, he continues to support far-right groups around the world who embrace racism, like Germany’s AfD. They remember when Musk Defended Scott Adams of ‘Dilbert’ fame, after Adams declared black people a “hate group” by telling white people to “stay away from them.” And NOW they see that he wants to just ignore the “foreign” status of HIS workers because THOSE foreigners benefit Musk? (Hey, isn’t that the SAME attitude Trump is taking about HIS foreign wife?)

Meanwhile, Trump tried to avoid this whole thing by playing golf. But, he finally weighed in on the conflict, and MAGA might not be happy – OR, they’ll be changing their position overnight. Trump, it turns out, likes the H1B Visa program and admits he makes regular use of it at “his properties.” It seems Trump doesn’t MIND giving jobs to foreigners instead of Americans, so long as it saves him money.

I feel like MAGA got sold a bill of goods on this one. But give them a short time to change course and they’ll all be onboard with foreigners coming and taking American jobs. Hell, in a few days, MAGA might be screaming about how we need to open the border for cheaper labor!

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Many of us have been watching to see who’s actually in charge, going forward, Trump or Musk. As it stands right now, it’s looking like Musk, but the future is hard to see. Here’s a hint, though, of whom MUSK thinks is in charge. During his dust-up with MAGA about how he gets to keep using foreign labor, someone posted on X, “Never insult the monarch,” a comment Laura Loomer shared. Musk’s reply? “I’m constantly insulted on this platform!”

To me, that feels very much like Musk sees himself as “the monarch.” That doesn’t leave much room for Trump, does it?

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

This is funny. Trump promised he was going to bring down prices and he promised it would happen fast. He said he could end the war in Ukraine easily, before he even took office. He said his tariffs were going to fix the American economy. He said these things many times, in many places during the campaign. His supporters believed him, so they voted for him.

Oh, but NOW, he’s back-peddling. FAST. No, prices won’t come down, quickly or otherwise. “It’s hard,” he said. No, he can’t end the war in Ukraine easily. Maybe he won’t even DO tariffs, now. On the left, we see those as campaign lies. He said things that weren’t true and he almost certainly knew they weren’t true, but he said them anyway. His campaign though?

They’re saying he’s just “shifting away from the sales pitch rhetoric that is typical of campaigns.” Shifting away from the ‘sales pitch rhetoric?’ That’s some fancy language for ‘lying on the campaign trail.’

Wasted Efforts Waste Time…

by MyBaconPress

Oh. Em. Gee. Would you PLEASE stop? I keep seeing all these posts on the left suggesting that Trump can’t be President because of wording in the Constitution. Two things; One, true, the Constitution DOES say – in the 14th Amendment – that “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

We all remember January 6th and Trump’s insurrection. MAGA pretends it was something else, but Americans remember. One can tell from the language of the amendment that the paragraph is self-actuating. It’s automatic. Take an oath, then engage in insurrection and you’re no longer qualified to hold public office at any level – unless Congress specifically goes to the trouble of removing such disability.

But, two, The Roberts Supremely Corrupt, Kangaroo Court of the United States has already ruled exactly the opposite of what the amendment actually reads and determined (after the checks cleared, of course) that Congress has to pass a specific law to KEEP someone from taking office if they’ve engaged in insurrection. Of COURSE it’s a bastardization of how the law actually reads. Hell, it’s literally the exact opposite of the text. But the corrupt court has ruled and that corrupt ruling will stand until a better court overturns it.

So now, desperate people on the left are pretending that if they can JUST get Congress to pass that law needed to disqualify Trump from ascending to his throne, they can stop him. Once and for all: no, they can’t. Sure, the Supremely Kangaroo Court is corrupt. Sure, their ruling IS wrong. Absolutely, you could stop him with a law – if you could get Congress to pass it. The Senate would be on board, I’m sure.

But not the House, okay? The House is as corrupt as the Supremely Kangaroo Court and they’re loyal to Trump. Several of them gave speeches after the attempted coup denouncing Trump’s efforts. They pointed their crooked little fingers right at the guy and declared his behavior unacceptable. But that was only a few hours before reappearing and apologizing for telling the truth and re-asserting their absolute, undying devotion to the insurrectionist.

No rational person wants Trump to take the power he’s about to assume. But wishful thinking on our part isn’t going to change anything. “IF we can get Congress to…” Yeah, well, you can’t, so move on…

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Have you ever wondered how Romans knew what was going on in the world? I don’t mean modern Romans. They just open their newspapers and read. I mean ancient Romans. They knew what was going on in the world. They knew what was happening in Rome. They could follow actions of their Senate. Ancient Romans were QUITE cosmopolitan, as a people. So if you can’t just go into your living room and turn on Walterus Cronkiteurous, how DID ancient Romans get their news?

It turns out, ancient Rome had newsreaders. Romans would collect in designated places at designated times and a person would just read the news for all to hear. It kept Romans informed. Well, for a while, it kept Romans informed.

When Julius Caesar seized control of Rome, the newsreaders kept on reading news. It just wasn’t the news the people needed to make quality decisions. The newsreaders switched from informing the population, to misinforming the population. Nobody realized. Why would they? The newsreaders were still reading, right?

Well, turn on your TV. The newsreaders are still reading. But they’re reading what the One Percent-serving, corporate media want them to read and nothing that doesn’t serve the One Percent. Why, it’s almost as if allowing the rich people to buy up all of the media outlets wasn’t such a good idea, after all.

Back in Better America, we used to stop crap like that. We had rules that limited the number of outlets any one entity could control. AND, the rules covered multiple platforms. If you owned a television station in one market, you might not be able to own a radio station, too. The idea was that leaving control of media outlets in different hands created different points of view. It worked, too. That’s WHY the One Percent had to get rid of it by consolidating (or closing down) the outlets.

We should go back to that rule. We should break up the media conglomerates and eliminate monopoly control over the national message…

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Would someone please go and find the form Matt Gaetz filled out when he bought HIS guns? DID he check the “Nope, not using drugs” box, even though we know he was using cocaine, “molly,” and probably other things? We KNOW how MAGA feels about that. We saw them with Hunter, demanding his head on a pike for checking that box. I’m sure MAGA will apply the exact same standard to Matt Gaetz, right? And according to MAGA, that should mean years, maybe decades in prison. (Yeah, they’re okay with the statutory rape thing but, by the GODS you will not check that box if you use drugs…)

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It’s looking more and more like President non-elect Musk has a different agenda than his puppet, Trump. Trump ran around telling people he was going to round up and deport any and every (non-white) person he could find if they were here illegally – OR if they’re perfectly legal but they’re family of an undocumented person. Wouldn’t want to break up families, eh? Trump wants them ALL gone and he has sworn to get rid of them.

President non-elect Musk, on the other hand, thinks bringing in foreigners to do jobs Americans could do is perfectly a-okay and he plans to keep doing it. “Yeah, we’ll get rid of your immigrants who keep your food costs down, but we’re NOT getting rid of MY immigrants who keep my payroll down.”

MAGA hasn’t responded well. There was a LOT of push-back. Some of the MAGA faithful were foolish enough to push back on X. You remember X, right? That’s the failing social media site some billionaire overpaid for so he could turn it into a total and complete free speech zone – only to bird-dog, “moderate,” and censor the site so heavily people have been fleeing to better places. But those who stayed?

Well, if they criticized the unelected would-be king’s position, they found their accounts shut down or demoted. But THAT, in turn, has caused them to turn on the unelected would-be king. It’s turning into an all-out civil war between MAGA and Musk.

Far right-wing, um, personality Laura Loomer is angry. She thinks, maybe, Musk and Ramaswamy only infiltrated MAGA for their own purposes. (It’s a dim light, but it’s a light…) She wrote, “I have been more loyal to President Trump and his agenda than ANYONE. And I have only been punished for it. Pay attention MAGA. This is how you will all be treated now that Big Tech has infiltrated MAGA. “President Musk” is starting to look real.”

Then, X sent out a message to all of her subscribers, telling them that SHE had shut down her account and cancelled all of the subscriptions. She insists she didn’t do it. (But, in fairness, MAGA is full of stunts.) She’s not the only one being punished by ‘Mr. Free Speech, so long as it’s not aimed my way.’ Dozens of other accounts criticizing Musk and Ramaswamy’s position also claimed that their checkmarks and badges had been taken away.

Maybe Trump needs to reiterate – again – that HE’S the king. Of course, Tywin Lannister is still there: ‘Any man who must say ‘I am the king’ is no true king.’

Revivals and Exceptions…

by MyBaconPress

Have you noticed? He’s staffing his administration with a LOT of the losers he endorsed in various campaigns. No, let me say that differently. He’s staffing his administration with a lot of the people he endorsed for various political offices who went on to lose their races. Think Herschel Walker. Yeah, the guy CAN carry a football. No, he doesn’t seem able to carry a thought, but if the US finds itself in a fourth and short situation in the Bahamas, we’ve got our guy.

It’s almost as if Trump has a pathological need to try to prove that the people he endorsed deserved to be endorsed and that Trump was right and the voters were wrong. But I remember some of the people he endorsed. I think Trump was wrong and the voters were right. Time will tell. But it’s not just failed people he’s re-introducing.

Trump seems to be recycling bad ideas from the first assault, too. He thinks the US should own and control Greenland. Apparently, in his mind, that also means Denmark should just hand Greenland over. They’ve already had to respond to his “thought” with a stern, “No! Greenland is not for sale, barter, or trade. Nor are we just going to hand it to you. Just, no!”

Maybe he can send Herschel over to discuss the matter…

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The thing I had not heretofore considered about President non-elect Musk? Most Americans have been waiting and watching for the clash of the outsized egos. The thinking has been that those two egos cannot exist in the same space for any length of time. Sooner or later, the thought goes, there will be a clash and Trump will show Musk the door. But then I remembered something: Putin.

In all the world, there’s one person on the planet Trump has never said one negative word about: Vladimir Putin. Trump has something nasty to say about everybody, no exceptions. Okay, ONE exception. Putin. No matter what Putin says or does, Trump just bends the knee. Putin seems to have something on Trump that, well, trumps Trump’s ego. Donald does as he’s told by Vlad. And now, maybe Musk, too.

It’s entirely possible Elon has the same kind of control. Musk put up a LOT of money to help get Trump “elected.” We can only guess at the other kinds of things he did, but whatever it was, it put Musk in the driver’s seat. That could explain why Musk gave an order and Trump jumped to deliver…

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On the one hand, we’ve got Puppet-elect Trump out there, threatening the American people with high prices on everything because of his tariffs. On the other, we’ve got President non-elect Musk, who has massive business interests in China, one of Trump’s favorite targets.

If Trump slaps his promised (and threatened) tariffs on China, Musk feels it. Musk’s Chinese Tesla plant can make nearly one million cars a year. That’s quite the investment. Do you think Musk is going to let Trump impose tariffs when it will have THAT kind of impact on Musk’s businesses?

Maybe he can carve out an exception for Musk’s cars – or Ivanka’s purses – or all the cheap-ass crap he has made in China, then sells to his gullible supporters here. By the time he finishes his carve-outs, the only thing the tariffs will hit – again – will be soy beans. The soy bean farmers should be used to that by now. He already put them on the government dole once with his policies – then bragged about getting the farmers the money they needed to get by…

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Oh, and speaking of Tesla, like everything Tesla puts out, the so-called “Cybertruck” is quite the little death machine. Well, okay, it’s not that little. It’s not a truck, either. For whatever reason, in a crash, Teslas have a tendency to burst into flames. Do you remember when Musk tried to show how the windows couldn’t be broken on a Cybertruck? The window DID crack – Musk seemed embarrassed – but it didn’t break. Ooh, aah! Oh, wait. What happens with you NEED the window to break because it’s the only way out of the burning Tesla?

Yeah, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I think those Cybertrucks are beyond ugly. Oh, also, you get to pay around $119,000 dollars to own one of those butt-ugly things! (I mean, how tiny IS it?) Oh, AND, that little bugger WILL kill you, given the chance. They just started rolling off the assembly line in November of 2023 and Tesla has already had TWO major recalls on the things. And, yes, they HAVE killed people who couldn’t get out of the burning vehicle after a crash. I’ve long thought of Teslas as rolling crematoriums.

The Ford Pinto killed far fewer people before being pulled from the market because of their tendency to burst into flame in an accident. I wonder how many more have to die in burning Teslas before we take appropriate action…

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Okay, this is not so much a “correction,” per se, as an update. It was way, way back, oh, some four days ago now, I wrote about how when Elon ordered the Continuing Resolution (CR) killed, the GOP ALSO killed funding for research into cancer in children. The reason it’s not a correction, exactly, is that the statement is technically true – it’s just misleading.

See, the House passed a separate bill to continue the funding – way back in May of 2024. The leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, sat on the House’s bill for awhile. That is to say, Schumer could have brought up and passed the funding back in May, but he didn’t. He sat on it and put it into the CR, instead.

How do I know this is true and not just MAGAGOPCORP, Inc propaganda? The actions. Actions speak louder than words. Musk order the CR killed, the GOP obeyed. (That “killed” the cancer research funding.) The GOP tried to pin the impending government closure on the Dems but it was FAR too clear to anyone and everyone that this was all GOP, all the time. Hell, even MAGA could see it.

So, the GOP basically ended up passing the original bill at the last minute with a few minor things changed. One of those “minor” things was the removal of the funding for research into cancer in children. Oh, how the Dems crowed about that. “They killed cancer research for kids! They killed cancer research for kids!” The left, predictably, got upset. I wrote about it.

THEN, the very next day after the modified CR was passed, the Senate passed the funding for research into cancer in children bill the House had passed back in May of 2024. (Interestingly, that didn’t get NEARLY the coverage on the left the ‘killed the funding’ narrative had received.) But the Senate couldn’t have passed the bill if the House hadn’t already authorized it. That’s the way that works.

The ONE thing Schumer can point to in response to the charge that this was all a cheap political manipulation is that the CR bill included $190 million for the research, while the previously approved House bill only covered the original $120 million. When the Senate finally passed the House bill, it was for only $120 million, but if I were MAGA, I’d suspect (by which I mean ‘know without question’) that the attempted increase in funding was, itself, a cheap political manipulation.

Why, I wonder, would the One-Percent-serving, corporate media make such hay about the funding being “killed” when, in reality, the funding just got handled differently – which, itself, was only sparsely reported? Why, it’s almost as if the One-Percent-serving, corporate media WANTS to see the left and the right fighting and used – I’m sorry – abused their power to foment a little discord. We ALL need to be careful about what we read in our oh-so-corrupt society…

A “Christian” Example?

by MyBaconPress

Wow. When President non-elect Musk decided to stick his privileged nose into the business of America, he DID create some upheaval. Cons had to cut something to try and make him happy. The thing that made Musk happy to cut? Cancer research for children. Yeah, that’s real.

A young lady, 10-year-old Gabriella Miller, died of an inoperable brain tumor. In 2014, an Act was passed in her name that funded research. It offered up $126 million over the following decade toward pediatric cancer research. It had to be re-authorized in 2024. The 2024 plan was to allocate $190 million for the next 10 years.

Pay attention to the kinds of numbers Congress talks about. Really, $190 million dollars over the course of 10 years is a drop in the bucket. It’s nothing. Here, let’s do a comparison. The average salary of a Congress critter is currently $174,000/yr. That’s base pay. They get perks and benefits and the leadership positions all get premiums, but let’s use that number. There are 535 voting members of Congress between the House and the Senate. Ready?

$174,000 x 535 = $93,090,000 per year.
Multiply their oh-so-generous annual salary by 10, the number of years the cancer research bill would have covered. It comes to $930, 900,000! We’re going to give those useless pieces of, um, politicians $931 million dollars over the next 10 years to do little more than posture and pose, but $190 million dollars to research cancer in children was just too much – a bridge too far – for Musk, so it had to go.

Here’s the real key. It was an easy target, low-hanging fruit. How many voters have kids with cancer? Personally, I think ONE is too many, but the hard truth is, whatever the number, there aren’t enough voting parents of kids with cancer to be a threatening bloc. So, maybe the cons can just quietly dump research into cancer in kids and save a few bucks.

Just like Jesus would have wanted. You know, because of “Christian morals…”

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My favorite thing about the pseudo-Christians (which is most of them, these days) is the unintended consequences of their oh-so-pure attitudes combined with their complete LACK of knowledge as to exactly what is in that book they pretend to revere, the Holy Bible. But in Texas, Canyon Independent School District Superintendent Darryl Flusche has announced that the Holy Bible, as a whole, is not suitable for inclusion in school libraries due to a Texas law intending to protect schools from sexually explicit content, though some individual stories from the Bible remain.

The law he cites, House Bill 900, defines sexually explicit material as “any communication, language, or material” that describes sexual conduct in a way that is “patently offensive” according to the Texas Penal Code. He didn’t specify which sexually explicit material he was referring to. Was it the rapes? The Coitus Interruptus? The incest? Who knows?

Apparently, NONE of those things, all of which are actually in the Bible, are deal-killers. Listening to the pseudo-Christians squeal about it is quite telling. One parent, a woman named Regina Kiehne told school officials, “It seems absurd to me that the Good Book was thrown out with the bad books. It just makes sense to have the Word of God in our school library. After all, it (the Bible) is the book of wisdom.”

In other words, the kids NEED to read the story of Lot’s daughters getting him drunk and sexing him up, right? I guess it helps explain why Uncle Daddy gets to do those things to the young girls. Did Ham sodomize Noah? Texas school kids need to know. Oh, maybe they get their examples of “morals” from Moses!

Oh, c’mon, you remember. It was that time he told his soldiers, “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. Hubba-hubba.” (Numbers 31:17) (I may have added a bit at the end, there.) That’s when the Israelites had been commanded to commit genocide against the Midianites. They had already killed all the men. So now they just needed to kill the rest – even babies, if they were boys! But not the virgin girls.

“Christian morals,” indeed…

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I live by a basic adage. It goes like this: When your out-go is greater than your income, your upkeep will be your downfall. It’s a good rule. It has the advantage of being undeniably true. The GOP has been working as hard as they can for the last 40+ years to convince everybody that the government of the United States is overspending and the ONLY way to address that problem is by cutting spending. Guess what? That’s wrong!

As it happens, there are TWO ways to address that problem, not one. Yes, one IS to cut spending and we should ALL want to be on the lookout for wasteful spending. (Pentagon, anyone?) It IS, after all, OUR money they’re spending. But there’s a better way. They could raise revenues. Think of it as getting a better job. (That’s what working Americans do when they want more money and can’t get it where they’re at.)

That involves tax increases. It’s clear that much of our society can’t face another tax shift from the wealthy. The rich really need to participate at a rate commensurate with the rate they extract from our society. That’s reasonable. It’s possible for the country to increase it’s revenues to address our financial woes. Financial woes, by the way, that have been artificially created by the very self-same greedy people who think they deserve more than others because they steal more than others.

Whenever I write this kind of thing, I get push-back about how the rich pay the most taxes, so how is that fair? Yes, the rich pay most of the taxes, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, but they control the vast majority of the wealth. They SHOULD pay the most taxes. Just looking at the hard-dollar amount they pay is insufficient information. One needs to consider the rate they extract and the percentage of wealth they control.

Here’s a fact: high taxes on high incomes causes the wealthy to actually do that which they pretend low taxes might someday encourage them to do…

President-non-elect Musk And His Puppet…

by MyBaconPress

By Wednesday, MAGA Mike the Johnson had come to an agreement to keep the government open. It was just a continuing resolution (CR). MAGAGOPCORP, Inc can’t pass an actual budget. (That’s hard!) Still, it was a deal. The government would keep functioning. BUT…

President-non-elect Musk ordered his pet, puppet-elect Trump, to shut down the CR – and Trump did as he was ordered. Let me repeat that: Trump told the House to shut down the CR because Musk told him to. Okay, so, first, I’m feeling for MAGA, right now. You’all voted for Trump because you thought he would do a good job. Hell, I’d bet you thought HE was going to DO the job. But you GOT Musk. On the left, we’re disappointed we didn’t get our candidate. MAGA should be disappointed they didn’t get their candidate, either.

Obviously, team Trump is out already, trying to reinforce the idea that Trump isn’t taking orders from Muck, immediately after Trump obeyed an order from Musk. It’s a hard thing to sell right after so publicly doing the thing you claim you’re not doing. Musk orders Trump to kill the bill, Trump kills the bill, then Trump insists he doesn’t take orders from Musk.

Musk tried to maintain the cover as well. “Oh, shucks, I’m just pointing things out,” is a paraphrase of his words. “If Trump does as he’s told, well, that’s his choice.” Uh-huh. And if Trump doesn’t do as he’s told? Stay tuned. Eventually, Trump will forget he’s supposed to bend the knee to Musk and he’ll do something off-script.

Trump says he’s okay if the government shuts down. Trump says if the government is going to shut down, it should happen while Biden is still in office and not him. Trump thinks, get this, that Musk can order Trump to kill the CR – which he does, the Republicans in Congress dutifully obey, and Americans and even MAGA will think it has something to do with Biden? Americans aren’t that stupid. Is MAGA?

This threat is being reported even in MAGA media. Now, to be sure, MAGA media is claiming it’s because Democrats won’t agree to the sudden, newly re-written agreement. Democrats were good with the first agreement. THAT’S the one they’ll sign on to. But this shut down is clearly happening because Musk made a call, Trump followed instructions, and the GOP in Congress obeyed, regardless of the fallout. It doesn’t really matter who is sitting in the Oval Office today. Everybody knows, Musk called for it, Trump endorsed it, the GOP in Congress DID it. Sure, blame Biden…

Of course, shutting down the government won’t have any effect on the billionaires forcing the shutdown. They have plenty of money. They’ll be fine. Millionaires will be fine as well. SO…are you a millionaire or a billionaire? No? Well, your “savior” is turning his back on you right now, because Musk told him to. He’s not even President yet. (And I’m not even sure which one of them I mean.)

Cons and the corporate media are going to work overtime to try to convince the world that the shutdown is the Democrat’s fault. But it isn’t. The Democrats made a deal. They were on board. The government would have stayed open. The Republicans balked and walked away – because Musk ordered it.

Do you remember when the left started saying about the right, “Hey, that looks like fascism!” and the right pretended to get all upset and “offended?” “Oh,” they said, “we HAD to vote for Trump because you said we were acting like fascists.” Uh-huh. It turns out, the House of Representatives taking orders directly from a not-elected, not-appointed billionaire is pretty much the definition of fascism. Oh, and I don’t CARE if you’re “offended.”

A government shutdown just before Christmas? That probably won’t harm the economy at all, right? I mean, how could it hurt? WHO could it hurt? But do you know what? Musk doesn’t care. Trump doesn’t care. Neither one of them will even feel it. MAGA rank and file? The vast majority of actual Americans? They may not be able to say the same.

UPDATE: At the last minute, the GOP went with the first deal. Well, there were a couple of minor changes but it was essentially the first deal, the one the Dems had already agreed to. The government stays open for now, much to the chagrin of incoming ruler Musk and his puppet Trump. I’ll tell you the truth, this is one of the last stopgaps we can hope for in the incoming insanity. It’s easy for Musk and Trump to insist upon harmful damage to everyone so they can benefit themselves, but asking Congress to inflict that damage willy-nilly might well result in some push-back.

Trump had demanded the removal of the debt ceiling. Do you remember when cons were dead set against ever raising the debt ceiling? Now, Trump KNOWS he plans to blow up the national budget and he NEEDS that debt ceiling gone – thus the demand. GOP passed the CR without removing the debt ceiling. I might put that this way: the first confrontation of the incoming Musk/Trump maladministration resulted in a resounding failure for the incoming Musk/Trump maladministration.

My, that’s an awful lot of chaos Musk and Trump caused, especially when one considers the total nothing they got out of it. I’d say this particular stance did more harm than good. It exposed Trump as beholden to Musk. It exposed Trump AND Musk as completely indifferent – perhaps hostile – to the needs of the American people. It introduced instability to economic markets for no reason at all.

Merry Christmas, MAGA. It looks like you’re getting what you voted for…

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Okay, so economic rule number one is this: the Dow Jones Index (there’s no such thing as the Dow Jones Industrial Average anymore) is NOT the economy. I tend to think of it as a CEO happiness index. When CEOs are happy, like they have been under Biden, the Dow goes up, just like it has been under Biden – to record levels, in fact.

When CEO’s are worried about something or outright unhappy? Well, the Dow goes down. Have you noticed, yet, that each day we get closer to Trump taking over, the Dow is going down? TEN straight days, the Dow has ended down. On the 17th of this month, the Dow lost 1,123 points. That was just ONE DAY! Friday, finally, there was a little bargain hunting and the Dow recovered a small amount, preventing a record one-week falloff.

When the Dow is doing well, you see it in a little box in the corner of your television screen on every local news program. You don’t see it right now, though, do you? It magically disappears when the Dow is tumbling. CEO’s don’t seem happy with Trump’s plans and that concern is being reflected in the Dow. But, hey, drones over New Jersey, right?

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As it happens, the decline of America has coincided perfectly with the rise of right wing media. It might be comforting to know that right wing media has not ONLY infected America. It’s on the rise in Europe, too, and suddenly, the far right is having a heyday there, as well.
“Why would that be comforting?”
“Yeah, I guess that was a poor choice of words. How about ‘informative?'”
Whichever. Either way, it turns out propaganda works very well and a huge swath of gullible people are falling for it here AND abroad.

It ALSO turns out that President non-elect Musk is intruding in German politics as well as American politics. Musk is exposing himself – which makes him a hero to cons. No, I mean he’s exposing himself AS a far-right nutball con. Musk IS the meddlesome funding king of the right the cons always pretend George Soros is on the left.

So, Germany is angry at Musk, right now. Musk has tried to include himself in their functions by supporting far right political group, ‘Alternative für Deutschland’ (AfD). In Musk’s opinion, “only the AfD can save Germany.” In some ways, the fact that Germany is fighting off a far-right, fascist movement concerns me more than the same fight we’re fighting here, in America.

Germany has experience with this already. Their experience was NOT good. They effing KNOW better! But the propaganda works very well. As the saying goes, a lie will get halfway around the world before the truth can get it’s shoes on. (It’s commonly attributed to Mark Twain but may not actually be his…) It doesn’t matter who said it first, it’s correct. Stack lie upon lie upon lie, like the far-right media does, and one gets lost in the lies and it’s very hard to get out.

Musk interfering with Germany AND the United States at the same time? Inconceivable! Oh, here’s a probably completely unrelated thing that has nothing to do with anything. Tesla is currently recalling over 700,000 of their god-awful, death-trap ‘Cybertrucks.’ Their motto? ‘The Tesla Cybertruck: for when even the biggest pickup won’t compensate for your tiny, tiny penis.’ Perhaps the Tesla CEO should pay more attention to his company and spend less time chiming in on politics he clearly doesn’t understand. (The very worst thing that can happen to a rich person is when they start believing their own hype. They’re not geniuses. They’re thieves. Nothing more, nothing less…)