Controlled with a Cluck…

Predictable and easily manipulated Trump was waffling about whether he was going to debate Harris on ABC, following the rules established earlier with Biden. He didn’t really want to. He felt good debating Joe but worries about Kamala. It’s hard to blame him, there. So he started dropping hints that maybe he wouldn’t do it or maybe they should change the rules.

The Harris campaign put out an ad showing Trump complaining about debating Harris – with chicken clucking sounds in the background throughout. That was all it took, calling him a chicken. Now he’s all in. He’s still attacking ABC, mind you. When the hell is he ever happy with anything? But he’s on for the debate. Easily manipulated. Predictable.

Just think of what an adversarial foreign leader could do to a spineless mini-mind like his…

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Despite the rhetoric (okay, lies) from the Trump campaign, it looks like business is worried about Trump taking over in January. I know MAGA pretends everything was hunky-dory when Trump was in charge. They just ignore the…you know, last two years of his maladministration. They’ll ask you, to your face, are you better off today than you were four years ago? Hell yes, I’m better off.

Reuters is reporting that US Miners and battery recyclers are “rushing to close government loans worth billions of dollars before January out of concern that former President Donald Trump would, if reelected, block funding needed to boost American output of critical minerals for the energy transition.”

The miners and recyclers need the loans to keep expanding operations to get the minerals and bits needed to help move America (and the world) off of fossil fuels and into the 21st century while keeping America at the economic forefront of the future. Those industries, anyway, are concerned that Trump will block the funding, since he doesn’t like the future or progress or human life on Earth, I guess.

Trump has promised to “end the electric vehicle mandate” and the vile Project 2025 document recommends shuttering the department that makes those loans, the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO). NOBODY believes Trump when he claims he has nothing to do with Project 2025. Nobody.

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Well, he’s sure working to get the women’s vote, isn’t he? His team got into a scuffle with a worker at Arlington National Cemetery, where he went to disrespect the law and some of our fallen soldiers. The worker happens to be a woman. So, they just pushed her out of the way. Literally. She filed a police report but she’s not going to press charges, as of this writing. Do you know why? MAGA attacked! She began receiving threats, so she’s standing down. MAGA can’t defend his actions. They can only bring a mob to stop you from mentioning them. J6, remember?

Oh, AND he “attacked” Kamala by attacking ALL women. I’m sure that helped. He posted a picture of Kamala and Hillary together with a caption that suggested Kamala had risen to power through sexual favors. How is that NOT an attack on all women? How does that NOT suggest that if any woman is successful, she could ONLY have achieved her success through sexual favors?

You don’t hear that one about men any too often, do you? Oh, he slept his way to the top. No, it’s not relevant to a man’s success. If he is successful, it’s because he was smart and worked hard. (In truth, it’s usually because he is exploitative and watched other people work hard.) Whatever sex he may or may not have had never enters into it. It shouldn’t with women, either. But if this guy will dismiss women’s success so easily when he’s trying to impress them, think of what he’ll do to them when he gets back into power permanently…

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Well, the cons tried to hit Kamala over her interview. They really, really wanted to. But she didn’t give them anything to work with. The most Donald could say about it was “Boring.” Why, no, she didn’t turn everything into hyperbolic over-statements of absolute destruction or absolute perfection or absolute failure or absolute success. No broad, over-the-top claims that only SHE can solve problems. No terrifying tales of impending doom should someone else end up in charge (except to the Constitution, of course). She just made rational comments on topics of concern.

A Swing And A Miss…

Okay, now they’re getting it together. The cons have finally found some footing to start an attack. They’ve found a few misstatements and perhaps embellishments in Walz’ CV. They’re trying to brand him a liar. I mean, you can’t make that up, right? What do we know about the cons, above all? They don’t care about lying. It’s what they DO. The object of their misplaced affection is the most prolific liar in the history of lying. In fact, Trump lies so often, I’d say it’s notable when he utters a truth of any kind.

Hey, at least it’s something. It’s a very tiny, nothing-burger something but it’s something. The things they’re jumping on seem somewhat…nit-picky. Photos of two different dogs, both called ‘Scout?’ Oh, the humanity! Oh, and…no. One is Scout, the other is not. Walz was an assistant coach and not a head coach? Hey, man, people still call assistants “Coach.”

Did he overstate the rank he held on the day he retired? Maybe. He was promoted to the rank. There was apparently some coursework to do he didn’t finish, because he retired. I’d need to see what his DD-214 says. (A DD-214 is the form you get when you process out. It summarizes your service.) But take note, the guy attacking Walz’ military record, Chris LaCivita, one of Trump’s top aides, a veteran Republican operative, and just an all-around puke of a human being, spearheaded the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry. In short, LaCivita is already an established liar.

Their position seems to be Walz is a liar and that’s totally unacceptable because only WE get to lie. Yeah, that will hold up…

One more thing. A group sprang up – of course it did – called ‘Never Walz.’ They failed to secure the website. So now, if you go to NeverWalz.com, you see a post that says ‘Trump is a convicted felon. Let’s vote for adults.’ Then you get automatically re-directed to Harris’ site…

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Hey, speaking of lying, Trump keeps trying to distance himself from this vicious ‘Project 2025’ junk. But one of the lead authors, Stephen Moore, made quite clear in an interview last March that he was in close contact with Trump while they were writing the thing. Then he said something that gave me a chill.

Moore says he asked Trump how long it would take him to “revive the economy.” Trump said, “Give me six months and we’ll be back to where we were.” So is Trump promising that six months after he’s installed, we’ll all be out of work again in a flat-lined economy, locked in our houses, with millions of Americans dying all around us? My that IS a tempting campaign promise…

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Superseding indictment? Jack Smith is very good at what he does, isn’t he? I mean, I’m not sure he can win, in view of the corruption in our court system but he really is giving himself every chance.

The Donald J Trump Roberts Supremely Kangaroo Court made a ruling that the President enjoys near-perfect immunity for any and all core and official duties. The idea was to protect one “President,” Trump, from facing the consequences of his actions. All of his criminal trials were put on hold while the prosecutors looked over the indictments to root out any “official conduct” that might be protected under the corrupt court’s corrupt decision.

But Jack Smith? He didn’t just look the old indictment over and cross out the lines that don’t work anymore. He secretly empaneled an entire second Grand Jury, presented a new case, free of the things the court is trying to protect Trump over, and got a second indictment to take the place of the first. It’s essentially, an entirely new case with the focus being on personal actions Trump took as a candidate and stressing the idea that the President of the United States has no official role in the certification process.

In short? They can still prosecute this guy for the crimes he committed on January 6th. The indictment isn’t as far-reaching but it still stands as a threat to Trump. (Actually meaning Trump is MORE desperate and dangerous regarding the MAGA plot for a coup, sadly. Donny has to win – or he goes to jail.) You will not be surprised to hear, he reacted badly to the superseding indictment.

He babbled out some bunk on his web site. It must be challenging, getting all of those assertions, claims, insults, and lies into single, VERY long sentences. He babbled and rambled and rambled and babbled, calling the indictment “election interference,” yet another of those situations where MAGA thinks THEY can interfere with elections, that’s just fine. But if somebody else tried it? Well, that would be bad.

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Trump recently decided to denigrate the military by saying the Presidential Medal of Freedom is “better” than the Congressional Medal of Honor because so many of the people who receive the Medal of honor are shot to pieces or dead. He really said that. Many military members, active and otherwise, didn’t like that. So, he needed a photo op to try to pretend he doesn’t think people who serve are suckers. Of course, he has said that, too, because he does think they’re suckers. “Why,” he wonders, “didn’t they pay a doctor to pretend they had bone spurs, too?”

So, Trump decided to turn Arlington National Cemetery into a campaign prop. He was “invited” by thirteen families of service members killed at a suicide bombing at Kabul Airport in Afghanistan. The deceased are buried in an area of Arlington called ‘Section 60.’ Trump shows up with an entourage and wants to film himself laying a wreath for the fallen.

When it became clear that Trump intended a photo op in violation of Federal law, a person at the cemetery tried to stop the team. The report is, Trump’s team “verbally abused and then pushed aside” the Arlington official. Trump’s team got their pictures. To hell with the fallen, right? That seems to be his attitude all the time. Now we’re supposed to know Trump respects the military because he disrespected a cemetery and a Marine trying to protect the cemetery from politics.

Cemetery officials released a statement on the subject. It said, “Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” and “Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants. We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.”

Trump’s effort to “fix” things with the military turned into a campaign problem and includes a report filed with police. And, I’d bet he STILL thinks military members are suckers. I cannot understand how a person who served or is currently serving could EVER vote for this “man.” What is it, Stockholm Syndrome?

Shifting Realities…

Hey, if you’re one of those “people” who thought it would be a good idea to attack Guy Walz for being proud of his father? May you reap as you sow. Most writers include the information that Guy is, apparently, autistic. Does that matter? Can’t a son be proud of his father? Oh, AND, we’re supposed to have an agreement: no kids. Gus is seventeen. Off-limits.

I’m SURE I heard that kids are off-limits when people wanted to make fun of Barron for being weird. If I remember correctly, kids were off-limits when the Bushes were in the White House and George’s daughters were…um…misbehaving. I don’t think they were even under 18 then. They were just “off-limits.”

The same rule never seems to apply to the right, though. THEY think they can attack anybody at any time, so they do. But they shouldn’t. Kids should be off-limits, but under ANY conditions, trying to put someone down for being proud of their father seems like a rather stupid attack. Nice work, MAGA. I’m guessing if you had something stronger, you’d use it…

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I think he’s scared. Maybe scarred. Trump went down to the border. (He was looking for a soul to steal.) He stood next to border wall steel and bitched and whined about the world being mean to him. Then, a reporter asked him a question and he only wanted to get the hell out of there. He didn’t even answer the question. He just said they weren’t safe and he had to go. He DID tell her to go, too.

Some dude had threatened to kill Trump and was still on the loose. I don’t blame Trump for being concerned. People really do hate the guy and someone has already tried to kill him, once. Someone else trying to kill him is totally believable. In this case, though, they’ve captured the nutball so Trump will be fine. He claimed to be unaware of the threat but he was very focused on getting out of there as quickly as possible.

Maybe he’s finally coming to understand the risks to the kind of fire he’s stoking and finally starting to understand that anybody might be a target when nutballs start shooting. It’s a good thing that Federal “judge” in Kansas has ruled that banning machine guns was probably unconstitutional. THAT will make Trump – and everybody else – much safer…

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Well, the two astronauts who went to the space station for a few days (about 8) finally get to come home – in a few months (about 8)! Boeing got them there, though just barely. Boeing can’t get them home. They have to hitch a ride with someone else and the next available slot is in February!

They went up just to test Boeing’s Starliner. How would you mark it down, success or failure? The crew got there, they just can’t get home. At least none of the doors fell off en route. The astronauts will come home on Boeing’s competition, a SpaceX craft. The Starliner will come home “uncrewed.” They can’t risk putting people aboard. Boeing’s reputation (and production) just ain’t what it used to be. It’s almost as if corporations can’t be trusted to properly self-regulate…

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Trump’s tune on choice seems to be changing a bit. He claimed the Dobbs “decision” was behind us and nobody was focused on abortion, anymore, but he seems to know better as he tries tacking to the left on the topic. “Sure, I put three aggressively anti-abortion judges on the Supremely Kangaroo Court but I never thought they’d try to end abortion. That should be up to the states.”

He says he doesn’t support a national ban but a huge number of his fans do. If a national abortion ban bill shows up on his desk, would he sign it? That’s a bit of a different question, right? He may not push it, but would he support it?

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Trump said during his chat with Musk that if he didn’t win, he and Musk should retreat to Caracas, Venezuela because it would be “safer” to be in Venezuela than the US. (This at a time when Venezuela is burning over an attempted stolen election.)

How could the US send Trump anywhere? He has already made it clear: even HE thinks it’s a bad thing for one country to export it’s criminals and rapers to other countries. I’m pretty sure, by definition, he has to stay here…

It’s Official, Now. He’s Losing…

Well, that’s a wrap on the convention. Kamala gave a good speech. The energy on the left is infectious. It feels all…possible. It’s a very positive message. The Dems aren’t pretending everything is great, but they’re not in a ‘sky-is-falling-so-panic-right-NOW’ mode, either. It’s much easier to align oneself to a message of hope, don’t you think?

Hers was bigger. She didn’t have to do anything special. It just naturally grew bigger. Her crowd, I mean. At the convention. The live crowd on hand was bigger and the ratings showed millions more people tuned in to Harris’ speech than Trump’s. In fact, each day of the Democratic convention brought more viewers than the same day in the Republican convention.

Trump is OBSESSED with crowd size. He has been since his tiny Inaugural Address crowd back in 2017. I had heard that Trump was certain, absolutely certain, that he would have higher ratings than she had. Yet ANOTHER thing Trump was wrong about. Gees, he’s wrong about everything, isn’t he?

Harris was taking the lead even before the convention. I’m sure she’s going to see a huge bump now. Sure, there’s commonly a bump after the convention but she was already trending the right direction and the convention only sealed the deal. The Dems did a pretty good job, staying positive and advancing their message. It looks, to me, like this is Harris’ race to lose at this point.

Obviously, Donald is upset. The better she does, the more he spins out. He’s kind of flailing. His speeches are getting a bit rambling, even for him. Even MAGA has to notice, right? I mean, they may not care but they must notice the guy is increasingly unhinged. He’s being beaten. He hates that. By a woman. He hates that more. A woman of color. He hates that most of all.

Of course, to hear him talk, he hates everything so, maybe he’s just being his normal, bad-natured, weird little self…

He’s trying every trick he knows. Lying, name-calling, disrespect, NOTHING has worked. Hell, he even tried to deliver an actual message in a speech, although he found himself incapable of focusing long enough to get it done. But the fact that he even tried to focus on a single thing, shows how upset he is by the recent developments.

No matter what he says, Donald knows he’s losing, too. How do I know? He’s challenging her to debates. But he has already made clear that he doesn’t participate in debates when he thinks he’s winning. That was his attitude during the primaries, “Why would I? I’m the front-runner.” Now? He’s tossing out dates and trying to goad her into participating. It’s really bugging him that most people don’t love him the way he needs to be loved.

I’m a little surprised at Donald’s brooding. For a while, I took it as a good sign. I’m very worried about the GOP plan to steal the election in January. I keep wondering, they’ve drafted the plan and put the necessary pieces in place. Why wouldn’t they follow through? But if Trump knows the GOP plans to simply install him, why would he CARE what happens in the election, right? In that situation, he can’t lose.

But then I realized, no. Trump just can’t stand the thought that he might lose this election even if he knows they’re going to install him anyway. He’s being confronted by an unavoidable fact: people don’t like Donald Trump. We think he’s weird. We think he’s mean. We think he’s stupid. We think he’s unprincipled, unscrupulous, and undeveloped. In fairness, the poll numbers don’t show all of that. They only show that he’s losing but most Americans know WHY he’s losing…

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RFK, Jr sure has embarrassed the Kennedy name, hasn’t he? He tried running on his family’s political cachet as a serious guy. He told us his brain was eaten by a worm and that he once posed a dead bear in Central Park as a joke. Way to draw the crowds, there, Bobby.

He started his campaign running as a Democrat. He said he was just offering people a choice. He MEANT he was trying to siphon votes from Biden, in an effort to help Trump. When nobody in the Democratic Party was interested in his very conservative brand of “left,” he left the Democratic Party and became an independent. He thought that might help him attract voters. Then Biden stepped down and Harris became the candidate and the left is ecstatic and having a great time and ready to come out and vote for her and the presences of RFK doesn’t stand a chance of siphoning votes from the left.

In fact, he was adversely affecting his buddy, Donald. So, he’s out. He worked it out with Donald that he would step down and endorse Trump in exchange for a Cabinet position. Trump probably promised, but he’s Trump. RFK had to do HIS part first and he did. That does NOT mean Trump will feel any obligation whatsoever to uphold HIS end of the deal. He’s a weasel that way…

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The cons are STILL trying to convince someone, somewhere, that if Trump sticks to policy, he wins. Um, in what world? We’ve seen his policy proposal, in ‘Project 2025.’ There’s not ONE thing in that horrible plan that average American embrace. Project 2025 isn’t a blueprint of what he wants to do FOR anyone (except the richest rich). It’s a blueprint of what he plans to do TO everyone who isn’t rich. Tim Walz said it best, “When someone takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re going to use it.”

The “issues” Trump focuses on aren’t real. He can say they are all day, every day, but he’s tilting at windmills. The inflation rate is 2.9%. Their hoped-for economic crash they thought they were getting that day the DOW dropped never happened. The border is a non-starter since HE killed the best bill on the topic in a long time, just for political reasons.

I STILL can’t find any place that he has picked up votes. I can see places where he has certainly lost votes but I can’t see anyplace where he gains them. Conventions commonly bring a bounce to the candidate (unless you’re JD Vance, apparently). Trump enjoyed that. Getting shot at give him a temporary boost, too, but even THAT he overplayed. Slapping that feminine napkin on his ear to cover his teeny, tiny, little owie just made him look stupid. MAGA swooned, but MAGA has no self-respect.

At this point, all that’s left is to get out and vote. It’s not enough to have enthusiasm for your candidate. You MUST cast a ballot. We need all we can get. I’m STILL more concerned about what the unethical Republicans are planning to do in January, and having the largest margin of victory in the popular vote will help prove they’re stealing. Nobody (but MAGA) wants Trump. NO patriotic American would tolerate Trump. Let’s prove it with the numbers, shall we?

Turn On Your Gaslight…

There’s a movie, released in 1944 and starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, called ‘Gaslight.’ Basically, it’s the story of a man who tried to drive his wife insane so he could steal her estate. He makes things happen, then denies they happened. So, for example, she says she hears sounds from the attic when nobody else is home. He tells her there are no sounds. She’s just imaging them. When the gaslight that lights the house dims momentarily, he tells her it’s in her mind, the gas did NOT dim.

He plays some other nasty little tricks on her, insisting a letter she saw didn’t exist and hiding a brooch she KNEW she had, that kind of thing. After a while, she starts to doubt reality. The name of the movie refers to only one of his tricks, but it became the basis of a term we’ve all come to know: gaslighting.

In modern terms, gaslighting is insisting something didn’t happen that did (or vice-versa). Like the movie, it’s intended to cause one to question their memories or even reality. Like the movie, it’s usually done by bad people intending bad things. Oh, AND it’s stock-in-trade for MAGA. The MAGA mythology couldn’t exist without gaslighting. It’s very important to their ethos.

You see it from them ALL the time. Remember when a group of armed, radicalized cons attacked the Capitol building and threatened to murder the Vice president in an attempt to disrupt the certification process? That’s what happened. But ask MAGA, they’ll tell you it was just a friendly and certainly peaceful but unauthorized tour through the building. (Make America Gaslight Again?)

Trump, himself, recently said in an interview, “Nobody died.” Ashli Babbitt and Brian Sicknick died as a direct result of the events of that day and a handful of others followed. But MAGA will tell you, insist, that “nobody died.” MAGA will insist there was no violence, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary. MAGA is gaslighting you. They know what happened. They just need YOU to doubt yourself.

Remember after 2020, when MAGA started screaming about all of that horrible disarray and mismanagement of the election that never happened? All of their pretended Democratic attempts to steal the election, all of the “abnormalities” that could never be proven? Gaslighting. MAGA KNOWS the election was fair and honest. They just need YOU to doubt yourself.

We’ve all seen Project 2025 by now. We know what’s in it. We know who wrote it, the American Heritage Foundation and a bunch of Trump cronies. We KNOW what the cons are planning to do to this country if they can manage to get it back. But they’ll tell you differently. “What? What is this ‘Project 2025’ you speak of? Never heard of it. Oh, AND it has some terrible things in it, that document I’ve never heard of.” MAGA is gaslighting you. They know what the plan is. They just need YOU to doubt yourself.

You don’t even have to doubt yourself for long. Just long enough for them to accomplish whatever evil goal they have in mind at the moment. Of course, it’s better if you buy into their game and come to question what you saw for real. Pick an issue, any issue. MAGA will try to gaslight you. It’s quite common from them. They do it all the time. And they’re doing it for the same reason the bad guy in the movie did it to his wife: there’s something they want to steal. In this case? It’s the entire effing country!

The bad guy in the movie didn’t expect to drive his wife mad in one fell swoop. It took time. He had to keep coming up with new examples of her “erroneous” thinking to create a deep mistrust in her of her own stability. But he was willing to put in the time because his goal was so important to him. He was patient.

So, too, has MAGA been patient. They started all this whining about unfair elections in 2020 and have kept at it because they have to put in the time. They want and need Americans to question the validity of our elections so that when they start complaining about how unfair the 2024 election was, people might doubt the outcome just long enough for them to steal the thing in Congress.

Don’t let them. The sounds from the attic are real. The gaslight IS dimming. MAGA DID attack the Capitol. People DID die. Our election process is essentially sound. (Generally, when someone IS caught trying to cheat, they’re cons and they’re cheating FOR the GOP.) Project 2025 is a real and present danger to the United States of America. Trust what you know. NEVER take a con’s word for anything. Highlight their gaslight attempts. Oh, and vote for the Democrat. This might be our last chance if we’re not careful…

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Speaking of which, did you hear that the Trump campaign is pretending Taylor Swift has endorsed Trump? Donald released a bunch of AI-generated photos that make it look like Swift and her fans are all-in for Trump. They’re less of a “gaslight” and more of an “outright lie.” She hasn’t endorsed anyone for this election – yet. But in 2020, she endorsed Biden/Harris. With the introduction of these fraudulent photos, Trump might well be unintentionally pressing Swift to make an endorsement, after all. My guess is, that won’t go well for Trump…

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Can we please, once and for all, focus on claiming the entire Congress for sane Americans and not these MAGA “nattering nabobs of negativism,” as Spiro Agnew might describe them? I’d really like a Congress that can get something done and not be constantly obstructed by what Agnew described as “…their own 4-H club—the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.” Agnew described MAGA perfectly and he’d never even met one. I wouldn’t gaslight you…

He’s Gonna Need A Coup…

If she gets in, you’re all going to DIE!
If she gets in, the economy will crash worse than any economy has ever crashed.
If she gets in, every one of you will have to marry a goat!
If she gets in, the planet will explode!
If she gets in, everyone will get health care. (He actually said that one, like it was a bad thing.)

Yeah, yeah, we get it Donald. If she gets in, terrible things will happen. Well, to you, anyway. He wants everyone to think all of those terrible things will happen to everybody, everywhere, all the time. But the entire truth is, if she gets in, the only person who will face “terrible things” is Donald, himself. If she gets in, he goes to prison because of the crimes he committed.

Everyone else will be just fine, thank you very much…

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So, it can be hard to remember, but if you can think back ALL the way to…um…yesterday, you’ll remember I wrote that his team still thinks they can pull out this election if they can just get Trump to settle down, stay focused, and focus on the issues, especially on the issues he is perceived as being the better option. (Sidebar: can you believe somebody thinks Trump might be a better option for ANY issue outside of theft, grift, and adultery?)

All they had to do was give him a carefully written script, put it on the teleprompter (that he never uses), and have him stick to the script. His team set all of that up and put him in front of a rather sizable audience. 8,000 people, reportedly. I mean, it’s no Harris/Walz crowd size, but it’s not nothing. Word is, he started well enough. Apparently, he CAN read. Who knew?

It didn’t matter, though, because he didn’t read. Not for very long, anyway. I suspect he finds talking about actual issues as boring as he found working on actual issues. He can’t DO either one. Oh, but he CAN attack his opponent with lies and promise the worst of all possible outcomes for all people everywhere if he doesn’t win. Chicken Little come to life.

Now seems a good time to point out that he made all the same predictions in 2020 when he ran. If Joe got in the economy would crash. Didn’t happen. If Joe got in, everyone would die. Didn’t happen. If Joe got in the world would take advantage of us. Didn’t happen. If Joe got in the sky would fall. Nope. The sky is still up there. It’s almost like Donny is just making up scary things to frighten his audience. Of course, it’s more likely he’s deranged, making ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ a real thing. Oh, but I digress…

So, he started strong but couldn’t stay on topic for long before leaving the script to chase a butterfly. He called Kamala both Communist AND Fascist, proving he doesn’t know the definition of either word. He attacked her laugh again. He can do that because she does laugh. She seems a MUCH happier person than he is. Come to think of it, I’ve NEVER seen nor heard him laugh. I presume that’s because he’s a bitter old man, terrified of all the specters he creates in his own head.

I think my favorite part was when he started rambling about how he doesn’t ramble. You do, Donald. You ramble a LOT. It’s always the same re-hash about grievances that don’t exist, too. BOR-ING! And it’s not boring only to me. MAGA started leaving the venue early – while he was talking. (In fairness, those who left early might have been the people they pay to attend his rallies.) As soon as they realized he was just doing the same routine, they started to go. They’ve heard all of this before and they have better things to do. But he can’t help himself.

He just wants to re-litigate everything. He asked why, if Harris could become the nominee “without an election,” were Republicans having an election? Couldn’t they just name HIM the nominee, too? “I said, so why are we having an election? They didn’t have an election. Why are we having an election?” Hey, Donny, I don’t want to wake you from your fever dream, but you ARE the Republican nominee.

So, at least at last they know. They WILL NOT get their boy to focus on, well, anything for too long. His ADD, or OCD, or whatever it is with his malfunctioning brain kicks in and he’s off chasing squirrels again. If they’re going to get their boy into the Oval, they’d better get the January 3rd coup ready…

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There’s a place in the city I live in called ‘Caritas Center.’ It provides comprehensive services to homeless individuals and families. They can wash their clothes and get cleaned up but they can get health care and recovery help and pretty much any other service you can think of that people struggling with homelessness might need. It’s an amazing place, doing amazing work.

I had a chance to attend a walk-through for people who participated in getting the program off the ground. (Full disclosure, I was not one of them. I was WITH someone who was one of them.) It’s a truly beautiful facility. I’m told it cost $39 million dollars to build. (It’s a whole city block and includes a dormitory.)

The people and the place provide an absolutely necessary service to the victims of our brutal little society. Interestingly, I learned the same day (from a different source) that only a third of the people suffering homelessness have mental health or drug issues. As it happens, we SEE them the most, so we THINK they’re the primary demographic, but they’re not. MOST are people who have been priced out of the markets by Wall Street greed. The largest growing, single segment? Seniors. God bless America, where we throw old people out into the streets for profit. I’ll tell you this: Capitalists make Capitalism look very, very bad.

I want to make sure this is clear, Caritas is a vital service staffed by people doing very good work for a very vulnerable segment of our society and I’m glad they’re there. Nothing I’m about to write should be construed as in any way denigrating to their good work and what they’re trying to accomplish. But as I was driving home from the event, all impressed by the facility and people, a thought crossed my mind. (Hey, it happens…)

The Caritas Center cost $39 million dollars to build. It employs lots of people. It will be providing tax revenues to the city. This is a model facility and I’m sure they will be springing up all over the place, soon, because I’m sure the need won’t be corrected any time soon. And that’s the source of my concern. Caritas treats the symptom. It can’t cure the disease.

Congressman Mike Thompson was there and he spoke of all the good things people are doing to address the homeless problem, treating the symptom. He did NOT mention the ‘Stop Wall Street From Buying Single Family Homes Act,’ curing the problem.

I’m probably late to the party but it seems to me, there’s an industry developing around caring for homeless people. Why is that a problem? Because in this once-great nation, once an industry develops, maintaining the industry becomes part of the challenge. If one solves homelessness, jobs will be lost, tax revenues lost, and a large, $39 million dollar facility will stand empty with nothing to do. People profiting from the homeless industry will be loath to let that happen. Sadly, it’s the American way.

Think of when conservatives decided that private prisons were just as good as state-run prisons. (They’re not. In practice, they cost MORE and provide worse conditions. Profits, you know.) Private prison contracts require a certain minimum number of inmates at all times. If crime starts going down, the state may not be able to send enough inmates to fulfill it’s contractual obligations. It incentivizes states to criminalize behaviors just to maintain an agreement. How dumb is that?

Now we’re doing something similar with the homeless population. Will the burgeoning homeless industry reduce incentives to solve the problem outright? I know, the question seems stupid, but “stupid” seems to rule the roost, these days, here in America…

Maybe/Maybe Not…

Well, I certainly hope I’m wrong about this but it looks more and more like we might find ourselves in yet another conflict over in the Middle East. I don’t mean just supplying weapons. I mean boots on the ground. What can I say? America is a blood thirsty nation. We can’t stay out of conflict for very long.

In October 2023, Hamas attacked Israel over what they perceived as years of abuse and encroachment of their land. 1,200 Israeli’s, mostly civilians, died in the cowardly attack. (Attack the leaders who caused the actions, not innocents just living their lives.) Israel retaliated – is STILL retaliating – and, so far, have killed 40,000 Palestinians, men, women, and children. According to Israel, Hamas, all! Left to their own devices, Israel and the Palestinians would fight until there were no more Israelis or Palestinians to do any fighting – just like their Gods want them to.

But more than once, Israel has attacked people in places other than Gaza, drawing in a larger pool of combatants, widening the war. One time was when Israel attacked the West Bank, challenging Hezbollah, who seem happy to oblige in the fight. Israel attacked the Iranian consulate in Syria. Iran’s response to that was…”measured.” THEN, Israel attacked Tehran, Iran. Now the world is waiting to see how Iran is going to react.

How do you think the US would react if some foreign, hostile power took a military action on our shores? Remember 9/11? One attack, two wars that lasted years. As it happens, other countries feel the same way about military operations in their countries and will respond. The US remains committed to Israel, apparently, no matter what. How long until Israel makes the war so much worse, so much bigger, the US has to field troops to “help?”

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I feel like Kamala is winning this race at the moment. I see her opposition trying to land a punch that slows her momentum, but I haven’t seen anything effective. By all accounts (on the left) Trump is flailing, angry, and depressed. I think he’s going to lose an honest and fair election. I think HE thinks he’s going to lose an honest and fair election, too. SO…one doubles down, gets to work, hits the battleground states over and over and over again trying to drum up support, right? One says the things people want to hear. One settles into professional mode and presents their image of the future and how they intend to make it better, right?

But not Donald. He has some other strategy. First, he took a week off. Just…sat down in Mar-a-Lardo, scratching his fat ass. (Okay, he DID do a press conference and made his situation worse.) Then, he followed up with a rally in (checks notes)…wait, is this right? Montana? Has Kamala made inroads into Montana? If he has Montana in the bag, and he does, why expend resources in Montana?

At first, I found his odd response comforting. I thought he was dazed and confused and flailing for an answer. I thought he was spending time in “safe zones” in an effort to rebuild his oh-so-fragile confidence, trying to get his groove back. But then, I got a cold chill.

I’ve heard (and related) about a plan to simply install Trump in January, should he lose in November. Taking a week off and visiting places where your support is strong are not quality actions for a candidate trying to win an election. But they’re just fine for a candidate confident he’s going to be installed, anyway, so why bother?

I know people who tell me I’m a bit over-the-top on this. Smart people, who could totally be right so take my concerns, here, with a grain of salt – but only a tiny grain of salt. The GOP has already outlined the scheme. They already have the pieces in place. Hell, they’ve already initiated the process. (Every time they claim the election was/is/will be rigged, they’re setting the stage. That’s the lie they need to get the ball rolling – and it’s already rolling…)

I can’t, for the life of me, think of a reason a person would define the game, set the pieces in place, start playing, and then just…stop. One step away from reaching their goal and they just decide not to? In what world? In that sense, Trump campaigning in safe states and speaking to already-gonna-vote-for-him loyalists, concerns me “bigly.”

No One Is Safe…

I’ve long suspected cons are so loyal to Trump because they think AS cons, they’re safe from his attacks. But are they? As he melts down trying to find a decent and not hackneyed attack on Kamala, he has taken to lobbing insults at other Republicans, too. Their sins? Speaking truth about Trump. He hates that. He WILL work to tear you down, Republican or no, if you don’t kiss his ring.

But it’s not just that. He tore into Tennessee Governor Billy, no, Bill Lee, the chair of the Republican Governors Association, for being a “RINO.” (That’s a ‘Republican In Name Only.’ One can be a DINO, too…) What did Lee do? Well, months ago, Lee endorsed a candidate. More recently, Trump endorsed that candidate’s opponent. That puts Lee on the outs.

Meanwhile, the racist, criminal, and very OLD weirdo Donald Trump is trying to distance himself from his Public Display of Racism at the NABJ by calling Kamala “Kamabla.” Yeah, that should work, name calling. How VERY second grade. Except, nobody knows what Kamabla is or means.

I’ve digressed a bit. The point here is, even cons aren’t safe from his attacks – and one doesn’t even have to actually DO anything to him. If he even THINKS you’ve done something he doesn’t like, he works hard to bring you down, Republican or no, and right now, he’s just flailing at anybody and everybody as he falls further and further behind in the race…

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Recently, there was an economic blip, a huge sell-off in the rich people’s casino. The GOP immediately dreamed of an economic crash and started trying to pin the hoped-for economic slowdown on Kamala, calling it the ‘Kamala crash.’ Had it been an actual crash, I STILL think it would be more closely associated with the specter of Trump seizing power in January, after losing the election in November.

The cons CAN steal the election. They want to, they have a plan to, and they can. They’ve put the pieces in place. But would the country just sit idly by and let it happen? Or, would the largest economy on Earth, the one so many other countries depend upon, be destabilized? Are the world markets spooked by the prospect of a Trump return, either in November OR in January?

MAGA lives in a dream world of delusion but the rest of the world remembers Trump’s first term. The rest of the world knows that the American economy was already suffering under Trump’s mismanagement even before Covid-19. His stated plans for his return promise to do even greater damage than he did the last time. Maybe, the closer we get to the possibility of his actual return, the more rich people feel like they need to protect their own positions…

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So, this mystery buffoon (I’ll let you see if you can guess whom) goes on Fox Not News and takes questions from bikers at the Sturgis rally in South Dakota. One person explained that rents are too high and asked what our mystery buffoon (it could be any MAGA) plans to do about it.

His answer? Drill, baby, drill because bacon is expensive! Yeah, you think I’m kidding. You think I’m poking fun at a mentally challenged person. You think I’m treating him like he treats disabled reporters. None of the above. Drill, baby, drill because bacon is expensive.

Okay, so that isn’t an exact, word-for-word quote. But it was absolutely his message. He said energy costs were causing high housing prices. (He’s wrong.) This is one of the falsehoods MAGA holds on to. The US is currently – that means right now, today – producing more oil and gas than we ever have before in the entire history of the once-great nation. But nobody told MAGA and they think we’re not drilling at all. (They’re wrong.) Besides, the US is mostly incapable of refining the oil we take out of the ground under our feet. In short, we HAVE to sell it. Drilling more just improves oil company profits. It doesn’t lower prices at the pump one cent.

The food gouge HAS increased the price of bacon – just like they’ve increased the price of everything else. Greed kills. Greedy grocery chains aren’t the reason that guy’s kids can’t find a decent place to live at an affordable price. That’s Wall Street greed. Totally different.

Drill, baby, drill because bacon is expensive. Dear MAGA, I know you love him. I know you’re going to vote for him, but you’re voting for a moron…

Walz Vs Vance…

When Harris announced Walz as her running mate, most people I know said, “Who?” The more we find out about Walz, though, the happier I think most lefties are. He was a good pick. He was an unknown pick the day he was announced but his approval numbers just keep climbing. Walz is bringing people into the fold, increasing the number of people excited to vote for the ticket.

When Trump announced Vance as his running mate, MAGA said, “What?!?” The more we find out about Vance, though, the LESS people like him. Not just MAGA, everyone. He was an unpopular pick the day he was announced and his approval numbers have only fallen since. Vance is alienating entire voting blocs at an alarming rate, driving voters away. He’s lost women, independents, and Black voters. His approval among college-educated voters has declined 28 percent! By their own words, they prefer the “poorly educated” anyway.

One of my favorite things about Walz is that he’s funny. He’s going to be fun to listen to in speeches. Oh, I also found out he’s not rich. Like, he has no investments and doesn’t even own a home. That sounds like a school teacher to me. LOTS of school teachers can’t afford to buy their own homes these days. Walz really IS just a regular guy.

For reasons I can’t imagine, Trump took almost all of last week off. He just sat at Mar-a-Lardo, perhaps trying to come up with some clever name to call someone, and sent Vance out to do the campaigning. Was that supposed to be a charm offensive? It didn’t work. People don’t like Vance. He’s weird.

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What the hell is it with that weird old guy? Trump held a news conference. He was trying to hit Harris on the fact that she’s been out campaigning and not doing pressers, but first, he had to have a presser himself in order to blunt criticism. But holding a press conference and spewing lies? I’m not sure that’s going to get you anywhere.

I’d sure like to know why he’s so obsessed with crowd size. It goes all the way back to his inauguration in 2017. He didn’t draw nearly the crowd most newly elected Presidents draw and it really frosted him. He has spent years trying to convince somebody, somewhere that he draws large crowds. It’s fairly easy for him, because when he doesn’t, he just pretends he did. Hey, I don’t care. Pretend what you want but I’m not going to pretend with you. During his presser, he claimed he drew more people than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did at his “I Have A Dream” speech. He didn’t. He never has. He never will…

He said no one was killed on January 6th. That’s in keeping with the MAGA lie that the whole thing was a peaceful, “unauthorized tour.” It’s also incorrect. Ask Ashli Babbitt. Oh, you can’t. She’s too dead, having been shot in the head trying to storm the Senate chamber. Maybe you could ask Brian Sicknick? No. He’s the cop that died after battling the crowds at the Capitol – as a direct result from having had to battle the crowds. Let’s set aside the five other cops who committed suicide later. Just one of those names was enough to prove the weird old man a liar.

Cons keep trying to pretend Kamala taking the nomination after Joe stepped aside is some kind of coup. They really need a coup attempt on their side to try and balance the scales from their own efforts, so they call everything a coup. For clarity, there was and is nothing criminal or even problematic about a political party picking it’s preferred candidate. Just because Trump wishes he was running against Joe and with a decent VP pick, doesn’t mean the Dems have to choose Joe or a lower, Vance-level VP pick…

He claimed the economy would be perfect in every way had he been elected in 2020. Easy to say, old man. I’m not sure anybody who knows what they’re talking about would agree with you and since you were NOT elected in 2020, it’s all hypothetical. Since we’re just making things up, I can just as easily say that if you had been elected in 2020, everybody in the country would be homeless and jobless, disease riddled, starving and suffering in every possible way. Go ahead. Prove me wrong in a fantasy scenario. It turns out? ANYBODY can just make crap up…

He said 20 million people came across the border during the Biden administration, maybe more. First, there’s no support for that number. He just made it up. Second, even though the cons keep trying to smear the Dems over the border, it was the Republicans who killed the best bill we’ve had on the topic in years – and they did it on Donny’s orders. Dear MAGA, you can TRY blocking meaningful action on a topic and then blaming your opponents for no meaningful action. But nobody is going to believe you. We all know what happened, regardless of how many times you repeat the lie…

He’s still whining about being caught in his criminal activity, too. He keeps claiming state cases are influenced by the Justice Department. They’re not. In fact, as nearly as I can tell, ALL of his cases were, essentially, initiated by HIM. If he hadn’t sexually assaulted that woman, he wouldn’t have to pay the price. If he hadn’t stolen from his charity, he wouldn’t have to pay the price. If he hadn’t cooked his books to pay off his illicit lover, he wouldn’t have to pay the price. If he hadn’t stolen all of those documents, he wouldn’t have to pay the price. See the pattern? I sure do…

He claimed he “went down” in a helicopter with Willie Brown. He said they had an emergency landing. He claimed, “This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie was, he was a little concerned.” Willie Brown says it never happened. Did Trump confuse his Browns, Willie for Jerry? Nope. Trump DID tour fire damage with Jerry Brown and Governor-elect Gavin Newsom. Jerry says no such thing ever happened with him, either. Newsom confirms Jerry’s account. Does Trump really think it happened? Is he THAT disconnected from reality? Maybe he was just scared up in that helicopter and it FELT like danger to him…

He even claimed to have protected Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign! “I was very protective of her,” Trump said at his press conference. “Nobody would understand that, but I was. I think my people understand it. They used to say, ‘Lock her up, lock her up,’ but I’d say just, ‘Relax, please.’” That’s his actual quote. He claims he tried to CALM the crowd chanting ‘Lock her up!” We were all there, Donald. We KNOW you’re lying, but, hey… Do you?

According to John Bolton, you can’t tell the difference between the truth and a lie. Bolton says you can’t tell the difference because you simply don’t care. You just say whatever you need to say in the moment and trust that no one will challenge you. It works when you’re surrounded by sycophants. Not so much when confronted by normal people who see you only for what and who you really are. I suspect that’s why you get to talk for two hours at one of your rallies but get whisked off the stage after thirty minutes when talking to actual journalists.

So I think the Trump presser has not worked well for Trump. It only exposed him more. He’s flailing. Mr. ‘I can solve everything easily’ can’t even come up with a decent campaign response to Harris/Walz? It’s been two weeks. So far, he’s come up with ‘Kamabla.’ That one is right up there with ‘covfefe,’ Donald. You’d better stay home longer and keep trying…

I’ll tell you this: The strangest election in modern American history continues to deliver. It’s been frightening, exhilarating, scary, comforting, predictable, confusing, exciting, AND boring – and there are STILL just under ninety days remaining…

Another Piece In Place…

According to Rolling Stone magazine, the cons have positioned as many as 70 pro-Trump election deniers in roles as election officials in battleground states. They work on local certifying boards. At least 22 of them have already tried to disrupt previous elections by claiming they don’t believe the results. No, they never – and I mean EVER – have or even offer any evidence. It’s just something they feel, something they choose to believe.

We all know the standard by now. If Trump wins, the election was “fair.” If he loses, it was not. Sure, it’s a stupid standard but that’s the one they insist on using. Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania are all suffering election conspiracy theorists who will simply refuse to certify the results, even though that’s their job. It’s not optional. It’s their duty – and they intend to NOT do it.

I should add, the author of the article made clear that there was no evidence of some national movement to foist these loyalists on certifying boards. These are, apparently, just your average, true-believing, Trump loyalist MAGAS who moved themselves into those positions because they believe the lies being spewed from MAGA media. But the Deceived are always more dangerous than the Deceivers. The Deceived truly believe they’re there to “stop the steal,” never realizing THEY are the ones doing the stealing.

The reason this is important is that this is the first step in their coming January coup. Now, listen, I know people think that’s some kind of crazy conspiracy theory and maybe it is. But I know they have a plan to steal and the plan revolves around denying the results of any election Trump doesn’t win outright. Discovering the cons have already installed 70 people willing to do exactly that to subvert elections in favor of their beliefs adds support to the idea.

The only real way to stop it is lawsuits, though a handful of states can impose criminal penalties on certifiers who refuse to do their duty. Lawsuits, ultimately, end up in front of the Kangaroos of Roberts Corrupt Court, who rule for Trump. That will NOT be good for America. This is the reason I’d like to see Biden add four seats. Yes, it would start a tit-for-tat but it would save America in the meantime.

At this point, I believe Kamala is going to win the election. I believe the cons will try to install Trump anyway. They have the plan. They have the pieces in place to execute the plan. They’re ONE LIE – “The election was rigged” – away from initiating the plan. I can’t see a single, peaceful way to stop them. They went to all the trouble to put the pieces in place. They are so close to success, I can’t see any reason they would just…stop.

So the question is, how do you think this country will react? Will we just sit back and let a felonious, rapist, lying, little man steal our country? Will we hit the streets for some France level protest? How do YOU think America will react to such a chain of events?

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Apparently, Trump thinks that showing a photo of Kamala wearing a Sari proves she has always and only embraced her Indian heritage. He needed to do something after he told the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) that she had only recently “turned black.” He did that. He doubled down. “See? She wore a Sari once. That’s not black.”

Sorry, man, that’s not the way it works. One can embrace many aspects of one’s heritage. There’s no rule that says I can’t honor my mother’s (and, therefore, my) Indian history AND my father’s (and, therefore, my) Jamaican history.

You’re just wrong on this one, Donny. She didn’t just turn black. She’s been half black all of her life. You’re just wrong…and really weird.

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I also liked that Trump got called out for one of his racist scare statements at the NABJ. We all know, by now, scare statements are part of the MAGA mind control. Trump keeps them scared or angry, always. It’s BEST if he can keep them both scared AND angry. People responding to strong emotions are not people thinking at their best. One of his more common stories is that undocumented immigrants are taking “black jobs.”

It’s a line that works well when talking to racists and scared, angry minds. Fearmongering. Someone “different” is taking something from someone. The jobs most of these undocumented immigrants end up with are menial labor. To suggest they’re taking “black jobs” pretends that black people only work in menial jobs. MAGA eats that crap up. Not surprisingly, black people seem a little offended.

The thing is, he wasn’t talking to MAGA. The NABJ is made up of educated, thinking people who understand the inferences of that comment. So, one of them asked, “What IS a “black job?” Trump had an answer. “Anybody that has a job.” There. Not racist at all, right? The audience groaned out loud.

I believe gold medal winning gymnast Simone Biles put him in his place the best. After winning another gold medal, she tweeted, “I love my black job.” Oh, no! You don’t suppose someone is going to cross the Rio Grande and just push Biles off the US Gymnastics team and take her job, do you? Trump thinks so. Yeah, that sounds like a guy who should lead a nation.

I’m glad the Dems started with their “weird” campaign because, you know what? They ARE weird. I’m glad I finally have the right word for it: weird.