Trump

Cat Trouble…

by MyBaconPress

There’s a woman, Erika Lee, who is credited with starting the ‘Haitians-eating-pets’ rumor that remains untrue, no matter how badly MAGA wishes it were otherwise. She says she feels badly about kicking off such a kerfuffle. It seems a neighbor told her about a missing cat. Lee posted the story to Facebook, adding that the neighbor had told Lee she thought the cat had been attacked by Haitians.

The neighbor, Kimberly Newton, says SHE heard about the attack from a third party and Lee’s Facebook post misstated Newton’s story. Newton says the cat belonged to an “acquaintance of a friend” and not her daughter. If one wishes to be gracious, at best, this was a miscommunication, a misunderstanding. It strikes me as more likely Newton intended a smear on the local Haitian population – just not one that ended up going viral.

SO…we know the City Manager of Springfield has insisted no such event occurred, nor is there any problem with Haitians eating people’s pets. No other authority can confirm the pet-eating story, either. We ALSO know exactly who started the rumor and how it got started. The person who made it public, Lee, has now disavowed her claim and removed her post and the person who told her about the incident, Newton, suddenly can’t be reached for comment.

In short, there was never any realistic basis for this story, outside of that one crazy woman who ate one cat, isn’t Haitian, is a US citizen, doesn’t live in Springfield, and has been arrested for the crime. EVERYBODY associated with the story in a position to know has denied any truth to the story whatsoever. So, of course, MAGA is all in.

Now, in fairness, Trump was flummoxed. He had been beaten all over the stage in the debate. Kamala had baited him and he took it. A couple of his scariest scare stories had been fact-checked, real time, and proven false. He was frustrated, confused, and angry. He needed something to try to take back control of the evening and in a moment of confused, angry, frustration blurted out the story he had “seen on TV.” (More likely, he saw it one the internet, from a racist, Neo-Nazi hate-group called ‘Blood Tribe.’)

So now we have a story that’s JUST a story but Trump said it out loud so MAGA has to make it “true” and insists it is and follows up just exactly the way one would expect these deep thinkers to react: bomb threats. Each time a bomb threat occurs, officials have to shut down the building, sweep it with bomb-sniffing dogs, clear it, and then open it up again. It clogs up city business and schools. It costs a LOT of money.

I’ll tell you this: the very least Springfield should do is send the bill for the lost revenue and the cop’s time to Lee. Stupid should hurt the stupid person more than it hurts everyone around them…

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The truth is, I get it. The cons don’t have anything real to run on. If they don’t make stuff up, they might have to expose their true agenda – and even MAGA wouldn’t like that. So, they lie, instead. After Trump sicced his loyalists on Congress and THAT whole thing blew up in his face, there has been a concerted effort on the right to re-write those events. Obviously, the re-writes always somehow exonerate Trump.

It wasn’t his fault he sent all those worshipers to the Capitol that day to interfere with a Congressional function and “Stop the Steal” he KNOWS wasn’t a “steal.” There was no violence despite the violence. Nobody died, despite the deaths. It was a peaceful day, despite the riot. It was Pelosi’s fault, despite the fact she had no responsibility to it at all. Who are you going to believe, Trump’s lying mouth or your lying eyes? The perps are “warriors,” “hostages,” and “political prisoners,” victims all. But it’s all bullshit.

Now, most Republicans would prefer to distance themselves from Trump’s January 6th violence. They’ve installed the re-write into MAGA land and MAGA has ingested the false story completely. There’s not much more they can do so it would be best to just try to let it fade into distant memory. But, of course, Trump can’t keep control over his mouth and he keeps it in the spotlight.

He seems to feel that it’s very unfair, being held responsible for that thing he did and since he can’t convince anybody who doesn’t prefer to be deceived, it keeps nagging at him. He keeps trying. Meanwhile, his campaign keeps trying to eliminate references to J6. There is still a sliver of rationality in the GOP. THAT group knows J6 should go away as much as possible. But Trump is still courting the far-right racist vote – which is stupid because he already has the far-right racist vote. They LOVE that guy. They recognize him as one of their own.

Every day, I grow more concerned that Trump has given up on the election and plans to attain power in his January 3rd coup. At this point, for Trump, the coup is the simplest answer. All of the rest of this is just stage-setting. They need to go through the election so they can claim it was “rigged.” THAT’S the key to the coup…

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Boy, the Miami Dolphins are going through it, aren’t they? Their star receiver, Tyreek Hill, gave a cop some lip, got “handled” over it, and tried to get the cop fired. He has since admitted he behaved badly – but STILL thinks the cop should be fired.

I had an uncle who was a judge. He once told me that more people go to jail for ‘contempt of cop’ than any other “offense.” I suspect Hill doesn’t realize how lucky he is to have BEEN superstar receiver Tyreek Hill and smart-mouthing a cop. Yeah, he got cuffed for not cooperating. But then, they just wrote him a ticket and let him go. I suspect that most other black men smart-mouthing the cop would have received an opportunity to see the jail – from the inside.

Now, of course, we’re going to hear about every disciplinary action taken against that cop, valid or not, in an attempt to “fix” Hill’s reputation, such as it is. Hill shouldn’t have smart mouthed the cop. Even HE knows it. His original story was that he knows to cooperate. He initially claimed he had cooperated. Body camera footage proved otherwise. It took him three days to confess the truth. I think the final score on that one is cops – 1, Hill – 0…

But that’s not the end of Miami’s problems. Their Quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa (I can’t pronounce it, either) took a hit to the head that gave him a concussion. This is his third major concussion since he came into the league. There was at least one other incident that ended up not being officially classified a concussion but the dude was stumbling badly after the hit. MANY of his contemporaries are suggesting he retire to protect his health.

The guy is 26 years old. He spent his entire life trying to get to where he is. Walking away at this point would be very hard. But he should. He has much more life AFTER football and it would be better, for him, to live without the neurological damage he’s taking with every concussion…

Speaking of injuries, the Niners have lost Christian McCaffrey (CMC) for at least four more games. He missed the first one already. He’s a workhorse running back for them. His legs aren’t holding up. He came to the Niners from the Panthers, where he was kind of known for injury. The guy really IS an amazing running back. He just gets hurt a lot. He’s been solid for the last two seasons. I guess it was asking too much.

It doesn’t help that his head coach won’t do anything to protect him, either. Ask anybody who knows the game about how Kyle Shanahan uses his players. It’s almost universal. People wonder why he runs certain players nearly to death when he doesn’t have to. CMC has a VERY good backup in Jordan Mason. Most other coaches use both backs to protect both backs. Shanahan just runs one and sits the other. It’s kind of dumb. Long-term, it costs his team. But Shanahan isn’t a dumb coach so I presume he does it because players have incentives in their contract and he doesn’t want to be seen as trying to prevent them from getting their paydays.

But that’s just me, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt…

Oh, Kay…

by MyBaconPress

Let’s just be sure we have this straight, shall we? Trump insists he won the debate, BUT… MAGA is also offering a number of “explanations” about the debate, as though he lost the debate. Oh, it was 3 on 1? Microphone earrings? Sure, whatever.

For the record, the moderators were NOT “only fact-checking him.” They were fact-checking the whole thing. He was the only one who needed correcting because he’s the only one who regurgitated internet rumors as facts. (“I saw it on TV!”) And, no, she wasn’t receiving input through her earrings. Hell, she didn’t NEED input through her earrings. She just knows her stuff.

When you get down to it, it’s the genius of MAGA manipulation. Their media gives them all of the possible stories, so they can pick and choose the one they like best that meets their MAGA needs. If they think he won, he’s out there insisting he did. That group is happy. If they know he lost, they are now armed with plenty of excuses. MAGA media claims both sides so MAGA lemmings can comfortably follow. It has an evil genius. It’s lying, and it’s destructive to the country, but it’s successful.

Either way, Donald has opted out of another debate, at this point. He says it’s because he won. Everyone else knows it’s because of what happened and how he can’t let that happen again. After a clock-cleaning like that, even MAGA might catch a glimpse of reality.

Donald knows he lost AND he knows he can’t beat her, so he’ll just avoid her from here on out.

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Remember the pet eating lie? MAGA, it seems, is VERY upset people haven’t played along with that story so they’re…checks notes… sending bomb threats to Springfield, Ohio. Two days in a row. Bomb threats! The threats target schools and municipal buildings. Bomb threats are happening because Trump said something so stupid, no reasonably intelligent human being would accept it without checking for themselves, and if they DID check for themselves, they would find out it’s a lie. So, obviously, MAGA is all in.

This is an excellent opportunity to highlight something I’ve mentioned before. The problem with believing everything you see on TV is that, sooner or later, you’re going to want to start governing based on things you see on TV and, apparently, you don’t realize that SOME of the things you see on TV – and I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this but – SOME of the things you see on TV? They aren’t real. They didn’t really happen. It’s often made up, make-believe. Can you imagine the terror he must live in, constantly concerned that a Targaryen might show up on a dragon and burn down Mar-a-Lardo?

But there’s Donny, out there promising to deport all the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio because he believes they’re eating people’s pets. They’re not. But he saw it on TV. No, they’re just not. He’s been told they’re not on national Television. Hey, why didn’t he believe THAT? He can see THAT on television, too. The dude is just weird.

A spokesperson for weird little JD Vance’s campaign has denounced the bomb threats. No, he’s not going to stop spreading the lie causing the threats but at least he pretends to oppose them…

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I’m glad Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala. I sort of wish she had done it a couple of days later, though. Kamala is enjoying a boost in the polls since the debate. I suspect that would have been the case no matter what, after the exceptional way she handled Trump. I would have liked to see the debate bump in her polls, then the Swift bump in her polls. The way it happened, both bumps will happen together and it will be difficult to know which did what, you know? (What a lovely “problem” to have, though; which event most helped Harris surge in the polls?)

When Swift made her endorsement, she encouraged her fans to do their own research. Normal people know that’s the right answer, but only if you do decent research. MAGA asks Sean Hannity if what Laura Ingram just said was true. That’s not “research.” That’s bias confirmation. So until sanity returns to this once-great nation, just take my word for it: vote Harris/Walz – for your own good. (Settle down, MAGA. That’s just for fun…)

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It seems the thing MAGA does better than any other thing is promote the worst of the worst of humanity. Their beloved precious, Donald Trump, is the physical personification of the Seven Deadly Sins. One can not be a less developed, or more odious, human being. So, obviously, he sits at the pinnacle. ALL MAGA below him vie to move closer to him by revealing more and more horrifying character traits. The more you lie, the better you do. The more aggressive your lie, the better you’ll do. The meaner your spirit, the higher you soar in MAGA land.

Not afraid to show off your bigotry? Awesome, move up a notch. Happy to dismantle the Constitution? Here’s your reward. Ready to insist Trump is a demigod? Here, have a seat on Trump’s plane. The lower they go, the higher they soar in MAGA land.

Enter Laura Loomer. (Eww, perhaps I should rephrase that.) She’s a fast-rising star in Trump’s world because she readily displays all the very worst of humanity, which he really admires. She’s SO bad, she even has other MAGA irritated at how quickly she has grown close to Trump.

MTG was once the standard bearer of crazy for MAGA. Now Loomer carries the flag and MTG doesn’t like it. In MAGA land, they suspect that Loomer is the reason Trump told the pet eating story. It’s creating something of a civil war in MAGA land. I’ll be watching for wanna-be darlings MTG and Matt Gaetz to do or say something really outrageous soon in an effort to try to regain their advantage.

I’ll tell you this: the crazier HE gets, the crazier his entourage gets. To those of us who aren’t MAGA, it feels like we’ve reached “rubber room in a straight-jacket” level…

HE Admitted It – Out Loud…

by MyBaconPress

OMG, you trusted the guy. When he said the 2020 election was “stolen,” you took his word for it. Sixty lawsuits were filed. ALL SIXTY were thrown out of court for lack of evidence, because what Rudy, et al, we trying to present doesn’t qualify as evidence. There was no evidence but still, you believed. You believed because he needed you to believe. You took him at his word. Hell, you fought for him. Some of your friends even went to jail for him – because he said the election was stolen. He insisted he had won and the outcome had been rigged.

People tried to tell you. They only wanted to help but they were met with disdain. DO NOT contradict my precious, you said. If he said the election was stolen, the election was stolen, you said. Trump said it, you believe it, that settles it, right? So…how do you feel now?

According to right-leaning ‘USA Today,’ Trump has quietly admitted that he did NOT win in 2020 and he has always known he didn’t win in 2020. He said it out loud. Specifically, during an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman on August 4, he said, “He beat us by a whisker. It was a terrible thing…” Not only that, he said it on August 8 at a Moms For Liberty meeting and August 23 at the southern border. Three times in August, he has confessed that he lost the 2020 election.

Three times is not a misstatement. It’s a confession. Remember, my source on this is the right-leaning ‘USA Today’ so MAGA can just fan the claim that it’s some kind of liberal smear. More, Nick Fuentes, a far right “white nationalist” – a current euphemism for bigot – had some questions and I think they’re questions every MAGA should be asking.

“So, why did we do Stop the Steal?” Fuentes wanted to know. “Why did anyone go to Jan. 6? Why did anyone go to jail? It would have been good to know that before 1,600 people got charged,” Fuentes said on his podcast, referring to the criminal charges for those who invaded and ransacked the Capitol. “It would’ve been good to know that before (I) had all my money frozen, put on a no-fly list, banned from everything, lost all my bank and payment processing.” He went on to call it a “tremendous betrayal” and “callus indifference to the sacrifices that his supporters made on his behalf.”

It very definitely was that, a tremendous betrayal and absolutely callus indifference. It shouldn’t be a surprise. He told you to your faces, he doesn’t care about you, he just needs your vote. You laughed, as though he was joking. He wasn’t joking. He really doesn’t care about anything but himself. He didn’t have the slightest concern about what his lies did to you. He only cared about what his lies might do FOR him.

Now Fuentes is promising sustained opposition to Trump. Funny that. If you let your friends go to jail, and then let them know you lied about WHY they went to jail, they tend to get pissed off at you. So…

Dear MAGA,
Trump, himself, said he lost the 2020 election. He admitted it at least three times in August alone. That’s not a “smear” from the left. It’s not a talking point. Trump said it, out loud, at least three times! The 2020 election was fair. It was NOT stolen. Trump lost it, fair and square. MAGA King Donald J. Trump said so. Right leaning USA Today reported it. Right wing, bigoted nutball Nick Fuentes is furious about it. All of them, right leaning sources.

I have no interest in gloating. I’ve said all along, MAGA is deceived. I would happily welcome you back to the realm of decent humanity. I would like to know the scales have fallen from your eyes but I don’t want, need, or wish to punish you for believing. It’s not your fault you put your faith in a conman who lied to you. That’s what con men do. But now HE has told you you were conned. HE has confessed the deception with his own mouth – at least three times.

I “get” that you won’t believe me. But will you believe one of your own in Nick Fuentes? Will you believe a right-leaning source in ‘USA Today?’ Will you believe Trump himself?

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In a completely unrelated…no, I mean totally related event, a one-time doctor from Massachusetts is on her way to jail – because she believed Trump when he lied about the election. She’s got to server nine months in prison and then nine more in home confinement. She says she’s very sorry she punched that cop during that oh-so-peaceful “unauthorized tour.”

She got sentenced AFTER Trump started confessing he had lied about losing the election. She participated in the assault because of the lie. Now she’s going to prison. How does SHE feel today? I don’t mean to be unkind, but if he is STILL her “Precious,” after she gets sent to prison because he lied to her, she kind of gets what she deserves…

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MAGA DID try to keep his media group at the top. They did. When TMTG (Trump Media & Technology Group) hit the stock market, people who have NO business dallying in the stock market started buying the stock. The price shot through the roof, despite the complete lack of anything to justify the price. It was just a buying spree that ran up the price based on the idea that they loved Trump. But those things don’t last. After a while, investors look at fundamentals and when the numbers aren’t right, the stock price adjusts, or, in Trump’s case, crashes.

At one point, TMTG was trading at $79.38/share. The same stock closed Wednesday slightly below $17/share. Think about being the sucker, um, guy who bought that stock at, say, $78/share, definitely thinking he was making a shrewd investment. He’s down around $68/share and he’ll never get that back.

Trump is DEFINITELY not a shrewd businessman. He’s not even competent. It’s almost as if he lied about his business skills. Oh yeah, did you hear that he lied about losing the 2020 election, too? Turns out, he knew it all along…he said so himself!

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Hey, Boeing managed to bring it’s Starliner “maybe spaceship” back to Earth safely! If only it could have brought back the astronauts it took to the ISS. I feel like Boeing has taken the cost cutting just a little too far…

Controlled with a Cluck…

by MyBaconPress

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…

by MyBaconPress

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…

by MyBaconPress

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…

by MyBaconPress

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…

by MyBaconPress

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…

by MyBaconPress

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…

by MyBaconPress

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.”