Voting

Why Paper Is Better…

by MyBaconPress

I’ve been writing, recently, about how mail-in ballots are the safest way to vote. I haven’t gone into the why, so this morning, I thought I’d offer a view of one aspect. For the purposes of this piece, let’s say I’m a politician facing a backlash for my policies and positions. People hate me because I’m clearly incompetent and clearly robbing the nation blind. The masses want me gone. If I don’t retain control of the Senate, I’ll likely be impeached, then face a criminal probe.

So the upcoming election is very important to me. I need to win. I don’t just want to win – everybody wants to win. I NEED to win. So much so, I’m perfectly willing to cheat. I’ll start immediately by inoculating the charges of cheating by constantly accusing my opponent of cheating. For this example, we’re looking at holding the Senate. There’s a Senate race taking place and I need MY guy to win. I’ll be using California. Simple enough premise, right?

One of the things I think people don’t think about it this: election officials don’t just prepare one ballot and send it out to everyone. They have to capture races and issues that may affect one area but not another. Here in Sonoma County, we don’t get to vote on local issues in other counties. Remember, this is an extremely simplified example.

We know we have the Senate race. That race will be on every ballot in the state. But Sonoma County might have an issue that only affects Sonoma County. That issue will be on ballots for Sonoma County voters but not other counties. Makes sense, right? Now, there are two congressional districts that touch Santa Rosa, the fourth and the second. Let’s say the fourth has an issue that affects only the fourth. That issue won’t show up on everybody’s ballot – only the ballots of affected voters. That’s three different ballots that need to be sorted, printed, and delivered to the affected voter in Sonoma County alone, but we’re not done, yet.

Santa Rosa might have it’s own issue that needs deciding as well. That means yet another, separate ballot for Santa Rosans. Santa Rosa, itself, is broken into council districts. We could easily have an issue that affects the seventh district but not the others. Yet another ballot. We’re up to five different ballots for the same election. In reality, there are far more. Each town in Sonoma County could have their own issue requiring their own ballots, but for our purposes, I’m stopping at five.

Five ballots for Sonoma County. California has 58 counties. That means, in our simplified scenario, California has to print 290 different ballots and I say again, that number is low. So that’s our situation. Now it’s time for me to cheat. If I can get everybody to vote on machines, my work is comparatively simple.

You see, I’m only interested in the Senate race. I don’t care about any other issues on any other ballots. EVERY ballot has the Senate race. I need only create a few dongles that flip votes in the Senate race and get them to the areas I need to affect. (Dongles are the plug-in devices pollsters use to summarize the votes, perhaps alter the results, and transmit the data.)

But if there are no machines? If we all use mail-in ballots? How do I cheat? My first task is to re-create the ballot for a specific area. It’s got to be perfect and I have to do that for many areas, getting them all exactly right. Even if I mark the Senate race for my guy and leave the rest blank, the rest of the ballot has to be there. Now I’ve got to get my forged ballots into the counting arena. Do I just bring them in and drop them off? Registrars know how many ballots they sent out and to where. What happens when they send out 1,000 ballots and get back 1,500? I’m pretty sure that’s going to trigger an audit.

So now I have to add my 500 forged ballots and remove 500 legitimate ballots, so the total is correct. You can have fewer ballots, but you can’t have more. You can already see how much harder it is to manipulate a mail-in ballot voting system. You can’t just invisibly flip one race with corrupt dongles. There’s a reason I keep railing against mail-in voting – while voting by mail myself.

This, by the way, is WHY Biden won in 2020 AND why Donny is so absolutely certain HE won. HE allegedly paid the money and had the machines rigged and ready to go, but Covid-19 forced everyone to use mail-in ballots and it’s just too complex to cheat with those things. If we, the people, are to get rid of one type of voting or the other, I’d say let’s dump the cheating machines and stick with mail-in ballots. But then, I support fair elections. Not everybody does…

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I don’t want to get too far out ahead of my skis, here, but it looks more and more like 47’s influence is waning. Not gone, not by a long-shot. But more and more people seem to be seeking ways to distance themselves from the deeper MAGA movement. To that end, a guy named Rich Logis founded a support group called ‘Leaving MAGA.’ Logis was once MAGA himself. He understands how hard it can be to break the bonds of MAGA. It’s not just the political ideology. There’s a sense of community, of belonging, that one loses, as well. That can be scary.

About ‘Leaving MAGA,’ the Guardian wrote, “Launched in 2024, the movement turned non-profit is built on the premise that abandoning the MAGA identity – and the community surrounding it – functions less like changing one’s mind and more like leaving a high-control religious group, fighting a disease or breaking an addiction. It requires not just rejecting a set of beliefs but rebuilding an entire structure of belonging and identity.”

According to the article, many people leaving MAGA feel badly, afterwards, about the harm they helped to inflict while they were deeply in the movement. Often, the scales fall from eyes as some of that harm comes back to bite them. In Logis’ case, he was shocked out of the movement after the Uvalde shooting, when the MAGA response was exactly what he expected. Whatever the motive, breaking the spell of the movement isn’t easy. Leaving MAGA makes the point that support is important for those around the person trying to break said addiction.

It’s like belonging to certain churches. Step even slightly outside the accepted thinking, and this same group that once provided such warmth and loving, “unconditional” support, such community, will turn on you like a pack of rabid hyenas, ready to tear you to shreds. That sudden, unexpected venom actually helps the person realize they’ve been on the wrong path, but it’s still scary to find oneself suddenly cut loose from community and friendship and support.

Leaving MAGA steps in to help. Not only does it help the person trying to leave the movement, it helps those of us around them to understand what the MAGA person might be going through. It preaches support, not surrender. People who avoided being sucked in should, properly, provide a safe space for rank-and-file members to flee to.

If you know a MAGA who seems to be wavering, tell them about ‘Leaving MAGA.’ Don’t expect miracles. Don’t expect overnight change. Just offer your MAGA a place to turn so they don’t feel so cut off, so alone. It might be just the lifeline they need…

4 in 10,000,000….

by MyBaconPress

I saw this in the Guardian, “A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that mail voting fraud occurred in only about four cases out of every 10 million mail ballots cast.” 4 in 10,000,000. And it’s often high-profile conservatives doing the fraud, in an attempt to “prove” their delusions. Donny is trying to convince the rubes that mail voting fraud is rampant. It’s everywhere. Anybody can do it. It’s SO unsafe. Except when he does it. Then it works just fine – because he’s a liar and a hypocrite.

As expected, another legal hold has been placed on his Executive Order (EO) in which he desperately tries to eliminate the one weakness in his plans for a coup. When the EO was first signed, 23 states filed a lawsuit to stop it, based on the fact that the constitution gives control of the electoral process to the states. A federal judge agreed. Then, corrupt John Roberts overturned that finding, saying it was premature.

47 wants to create a federal list of “eligible” voters. I’ve spent time trying to figure out how that might be a beneficial thing for the nation. I can’t think of a single reason that makes sense. I CAN think of a reason that benefits HIM, personally. And, really, what does he care about except himself? See, if he has a list of all of the voters, he can pick and choose. A Republican voter is “eligible.” A Democratic voter is not. Independents would have to be decided by region. Likely (based on, say, address) red independents might be okay. Likely blue independents are certainly not.

But after the ruling, clever Team Evil submitted a slightly different plan, this one focused on efforts to disrupt by the USPS, another federal agency with no authority over the process. THIS time, the USPS tried to create such a mailing nightmare, there just wouldn’t be time for states to comply. “Oh, too bad,” says Team Evil, “I guess you’ll just have to use voting machines, eh?” Nope. That triggered the basis for the new lawsuit as dictated by Roberts.

The federal judge overseeing this whole, trump-induced mess is Indira Talwani and she placed a hold on the proposed changes for this election and wrote, “Plaintiff states have neither time nor funds to design new mail ballots, seek approval of the new designs, order production of mail ballots, update their own election management systems, train election officials to use the USPS portal and upload citizen data to the portal, all before the midterms.”

In short, she turned the effort on it’s head. Team Evil meant to leave insufficient time to comply, thereby short-circuiting mail-in voting as an unfortunate consequence, but the good judge said because there wasn’t enough time to comply, Team Evil can’t impose the changes at this late date. The legal battle continues.

Obviously, Donny will try for a quick appeal to his corrupt kangaroos. The Constitution is VERY clear about voting and who controls the process. Will they vote in accordance with the law, or in keeping with the desires of their Precious? Inquiring minds want to know. The clock is running out on him, though. What Talwani wrote is correct. There’s just no time to comply with the new rules for this election. That doesn’t even speak to the fact that the goal is illegal. It’s a state’s rights issue, like it or not.

To me, this whole charade feels desperate. 47 seems to be flailing. He knows his fate if he can’t rig the elections. He knows he CAN rig the machines. He’s done that before. He also knows he can’t rig mail-in voting. He knows he must get rid of that option somehow. He just doesn’t know how. I believe this USPS effort will fail. After that, all he has left is trying to declare some national emergency that somehow means no voting at all, or fraudulent declarations of how “unfair” the election was…

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Two Americas: a billionaire gets caught dead-to-rights trying to harm the minds of children around the world for fun and profit. His punishment? A fine of less than 10% of the amount he took in while inflicting the damage and a pinky-swear to do better.

A teletype operator uses his insider information with Team Evil to place bets on a “prediction market” and makes $104,000. HIS fine? $172,000. Everything he won, plus a fine on top of that. See? Courts DO know how to hand down effective punishments. They just won’t do it to billionaires…

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There’s a sub-Reddit on the Reddit website called ‘Leopards Ate My Face.’ It refers to conservatives who have supported 47 and Team Evil, only to see the policies they love for other people suddenly applied to themselves. They always seem surprised. Immigration is a biggie. Someone gets hooked up for overstaying their visa or just sneaking in but, in each case, otherwise obeying the law. “Hey,” they cry, “he said he was only going after violent criminals.”

He DID say that, too. I sometimes wonder if MAGA has anything, even one item they can point to, of an actual promise made, promise kept. Immigration is the closest I can think of, but even that isn’t being handled the way he said. Team Evil likely grabbed up some real bad guys. But they’ve also grabbed up regular Joes (or, maybe Joses) who contribute to our society even though their paperwork isn’t quite up to snuff.

THEN, Team Evil started grabbing people who ARE in the country legally. Hell, they started interfering with the immigration process to create the crime, then they want to deport their victim. It’s a crappy attitude and I can only give 47 half credit on immigration because the implementation is so much worse than the promise.

Do you remember, or have you ever heard the name, Milo Yiannopoulos? He’s a standard, far-right provocateur. He had a moment in the spotlight a few years back because his whole shtick was about being far-right outrageous. He was editor at Breitbart “News,” a far-right misinformation site. His star faded when he condoned sex with boys as young as 13 years old. (They deny it, but conservatives clearly condone sex with children. Actions speak louder than words, folks.)

Anyway, Yiannopoulos has been a vocal supporter of Team Evil’s immigration policies. He even suggested they might not be harsh enough. Then, one of his same-team detractors with whom he was feuding, Laura Loomer, claims to have turned him in to ICE for overstaying his visa. He was deported Friday! Ha-ha!

Many of us used to know and use a phrase that said, “What goes around, comes around.” I’m not happy about any of the things Team Evil is doing, but I DO enjoy when Team Evil does their evil things to their own supporters. It’s their surprise that gets me. “Wait, what? Me? No, not me!” Watching MAGA wake up to the idea that horrors they supported for others are going to hit them, too, is like watching a toddler discover the wonders of a twig. The toddler thinks it’s an amazing discovery. Everyone else knows it’s an expected, and rather mundane, thing…

A Republic, If You Can Keep It…

by MyBaconPress

You should know, because corporate media isn’t really interested in stories about people pushing back against the abuses of this regime, that articles of impeachment have been filed against John Roberts, the corrupt toady who so besmirches the once-honorable Supreme Court. The charges were filed by Steve Cohen of Tennessee and allege violations of the Constitution, neglect of his duties, and breaches of his oaths of office, including allowing the Supreme Court to become a partisan entity. The articles claim he has favored the powerful over the people and undermined democratic principles.

You should also know, the articles of impeachment won’t go anywhere unless and until Democrats control Congress. Roberts knows. SO, now he’s all onboard with destroying election integrity. He has upheld part of an Executive Order from 47 that wants to create a list of eligible voters and order the US Postal service to deliver ballots only to those people. It was a 6-3 ruling. The bought-and-paid-for cons vs the professionals.

New York attorney general Letitia James and California Governor Gavin Newsom both say the fight isn’t over. They’re going to file new lawsuits that address the matter from a different angle. Newsom posted of California, “Every eligible voter gets a ballot here – and we’ll fight to keep it that way.” 47 is desperate to get rid of mail-in balloting because mail-in balloting is the most secure way to vote – and Donny needs to cheat to retain power.

The corrupt, toady court ruled the stupid and illegal way they did on a very narrow basis, a technicality. They say US District Judge, Indira Talwani acted prematurely in preventing the provisions from being implemented in the 23 affected states before federal agencies had even drawn up plans for how to implement the Executive Order. Because obviously, just knowing that the regime intends to violate the Constitution isn’t enough for the kangaroos. HOW one intends to violate the Constitution must be considered, as well. It’s relevant for…reasons.

You see, it would be so much easier for 47 if he could just define an “eligible voter” as one who will vote for him. But according to the Constitution, STATES have control over the process. There IS no provision for federal government involvement. Roberts and the bootlickers had to make it up. They did, of course. The checks are still clearing. Hey, corruption is corruption. The quid needs it’s pro quo, even if they have to invent it from whole cloth.

The thing is, it IS a narrow ruling. California, New York, and the other originally filing states have only to wait until a procedure is announced. There IS no legal way to implement an illegal activity, so once the procedure is announced, the lawsuits can be refiled and reconsidered. Hopefully, by the time the clowns on Team Evil announce a process, we’ll be too close to the election to implement it for this run. If not, lawsuits can interfere enough to allow a normal process to occur in November. But North Carolina is scheduled to start sending out ballots on September 4th.

For years – decades, even – people have been calling various elections the most important in the history of our country. For years, that has been some really scary hyperbole. THIS “little” mid-term election actually is. If the Republicans succeed in their efforts to cheat, the Constitution is lost. We’re stuck with the trump crime family and nationwide corruption. The wars get worse. The economy gets worse. Life in the United States gets decidedly worse for the vast majority of us.

The sad part is, even if Democrats and other intelligent people succeed in thwarting Team Evil’s efforts, we may or may not be able to recover the nation. The damage inflicted already by Project 25 and conservatives is massive and widespread. Fixing it will take years and all of it will be upstream against rivers of protest from the criminals who profit from the status quo.

But winning is the only way to even get the chance to try and save the rest. The election is 69 days away, as of today. “A republic, if you can keep it.” Those were Benjamin Franklin’s words. We find out if we can keep it in 69 days. I, honestly, can not believe the darkness that has overtaken this once-great nation…

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Speaking of darkness, now we’ve lost Dolly Parton at age 80, to cancer and the world is a little darker because of it. She was something of a national treasure. It seems like everybody loved Dolly Parton. She transcended politics – a rare feat these days. She wrote songs that stick with you. Her legacy will live on – she DID write 25 number one country hits and thousands of other songs. She will be missed…

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Well, the trade war the Dumbass started with Canada seems to be going just about as well as everything he touches. That is, badly. Because he doesn’t understand things, he doesn’t know what to do. That idiot got it into his pea brain that the US can and should bully everybody into doing whatever it is we want them to do or suffer the consequences. I don’t know who he thinks he is, but it’s pretty clear who he is.

This current escalation came about because of several sticking points, all ridiculous positions of Team Evil. In this last round of trade talks for example, Donny wanted the right to be able to review all trade deals of a foreign, sovereign nation, Canada. Who the hell would agree to that? President Pedo has no voice in the workings of Canada and based on the vast damage he’s done to United States in only a couple of years, I’d keep him as far away as possible. Then, maybe, help us find a way to get rid of him, here at home…

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MAGA loves to play the victim, don’t they? Team Evil works that belief as aggressively as possible. Someone is always out to get them and do them wrong. Nothing is ever their fault, most especially when it is. That’s all Donny ever does with them anyway: tell them they’re being attacked and blame somebody else for their problems. Biden! Uh-huh.

Now there’s an official report from DHS that claims FEMA workers chose not to approach eleven houses with pro-trump signage after hurricane Milton in October, 2024. Maybe. The charge is aimed at a single crew leader who is said to have instructed his crew to skip homes with pro-trump signage. A person might be too involved in politics and lose their objectivity. Take, for example, a “President” who won’t help states that didn’t vote for him, something like that.

I imagine this report is being delivered at this time so conservative airwaves can highlight how unfair people are to poor, put-upon MAGA. But the report, itself, gives the reasons for those eleven missed contacts. Eight indicated “Not able to access property.” Two indicated “Private Property.” One indicated “No answer/left flyer.” Not a “Screw Trump” among ’em.

So the report is, like everything this regime does, likely false. But let’s pretend for a minute it isn’t. Aren’t trump fans all opposed to government handouts like FEMA, especially after their own houses get pummeled by a hurricane? I thought they were all pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstrap types who didn’t need any stinkin’ socialist help from any stinkin’ socialist government. Maybe the FEMA worker was just trying to respect their insisted beliefs…

A SAVE That Doesn’t Need Saving…

by MyBaconPress

So, the main reason I oppose the so-called SAVE Act is that it’s a “solution” in search of a problem. With the likely exception of 47’s recent “election,” vote fraud isn’t a problem in this once-great nation, and where there ARE problems, they’re in the voting machines. Right about now I have to add that I don’t believe the machines are manufactured to cheat – so put your billion dollar lawsuits back in your pocket. What I can say, for sure, is that we, the people, started suffering electoral “anomalies” right about the time we adopted voting machines.

A drawing of people voting.

The problem may not be the machines, themselves, but there are always people – dark and dirty evil people – willing and able to subvert the machines. They can and they do. Just think of all the hacking going on around all of us all the time. I honestly believe that’s why 47 is so obnoxiously certain he won in 2020. He paid all the right money to all the right people for all the right votes. He KNEW he won. But it only works on those damned machines.

He was thwarted by Covid-19 and everyone shifting to mail-in ballots. You see, mail-in ballots are the safest form of voting, not the least safe. And you can KNOW this because Donny says otherwise. To my ear, every single time he insists he won in 2020, he’s admitting that he paid enough loyalist, unscrupulous people to rig the machines that it’s not possible he lost.

So President Pedo, Jeffrey Epstein’s one-time best friend and co-conspirator, NEEDS to eliminate mail-in ballots. You’ll never see a better argument for voting on paper than the obvious fact that Donny wants to get rid of paper ballots. Well, that and the fact that the GOP has to lie about the details of the useless SAVE Act so let me make one bit clear.

We’ve heard a lot about voter ID. “Just show an ID,” we’re told. “It’s the same as buying beer.” Uh-huh. Except it isn’t. I can’t speak to every state but you can know. Look at your Driver’s License. That’s what you show when you buy beer, right? Look at it. Where on there does it identify you as an American citizen? It doesn’t, right? And that’s the trick of the SAVE Act.

You see, the SAVE Act requires a government-issued photo ID that clearly identifies you as an American citizen. That lets your Drivers License out. So what other government-issued, photo ID that clearly identifies you as an American citizen do you have? Because THAT is the one you’re going to need. And all of this fuss to address a problem that doesn’t even exist…

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It was just Thursday when I wrote that Donny thinks of mail-in voting as a privilege HE gets that you should not. A reporter named Liz Landers asked him about it. He cut her off, “You mean, I used a mail-in ballot, you probably said? Yeah, I did. You know why? Because I’m President of the United States. And because of the fact that I’m President of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida — because I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine.”

But Landers wasn’t willing to let him lie that easily. See, 47 was in Florida playing golf on a day the polls were open. “But you were in Palm Beach, sir, the last few weekends,” Landers replied. That’s Trump, caught in yet another lie before it even finishes leaving his mouth.

“That’s right,” Trump replied, acknowledging he was there and could have practiced as he preached. “I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn’t be there because I had a lot of different things.” Uh-huh. Golf. He could have gone to a polling place. He didn’t want to, so he didn’t. It served him, the least among us, but he doesn’t think anybody else deserves the same consideration. All for him, nothing for you…

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Issac Asimov solved the problem a long time ago. He came up with the rules for robots that make it safe to have robots (operating on AI) around humans. He called them ‘The Three Laws of Robotics’ and they were first introduced in his short story, ‘Runaround’ in 1947. They’re straightforward enough:

1) A robot may not injure a human being or allow a human to come to harm through inaction.
2) A robot must obey orders given by humans unless it conflicts with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as it does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Here’s the thing: the AI being trained right now in the US and around the world is NOT using Asimov’s laws. Why? Well, because they WANT to build robots, running on AI, that CAN kill human beings. Sleep well…

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“We’re very disappointed with NATO because NATO has done absolutely nothing… We’ll come to their rescue but they’ll never come to ours. I want you to remember we said this. They didn’t come to our rescue?” That’s President Pedo, again, demanding NATO come to the rescue of the US in a war the US started and has declared won, over and over. But we need rescue? Explain…

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He said he thought oil prices would go up much higher. He said he thought the stock market would crash much worse. THEN he said, “But it didn’t matter to me.” Does it matter to you? I’m so glad Pam Bondi helpfully pointed out that the Dow was – was – “over $50,000 dollars!” The last day the Dow was over 50,000 – points, not dollars – was February 12. As of Friday, March 27, the Dow closed at 45,166.64. That bad boy is falling like a rock.

Just for fun, I decided to test MAGA propaganda. They like to blame Joe Biden for, well, everything, really. But the day Joe took over, January 20, 2021, the Dow closed at 31,186.20. On the day Donny came back, January 20, 2025, the Dow closed at 44,424.25. That means that under Biden the Dow ticked up 13,238.05. And that was while Joe was trying to undo all of the considerable damage 47 did when he was 45.

Sure, as Bondi pointed out, the Dow once hit 50,000+. The close as of Friday, March 27, 2026, was 45,166.64. After fourteen months of the “business genius,” the Dow has climbed, um, 742.39 points. The Dow lost 793.47 points – Friday. If the Orange Loserman keeps going at this rate, by the end of business Monday, he’ll have the Dow lower than when he took office.

Biden was a better President by a large margin and by pretty much every metric…

No Tribute…

by MyBaconPress

There’s a LOT of commentary about how badly the US soldiers marched during Felon 47’s tin-pot dictator parade. Anybody can watch the video and see that it’s true. These guys weren’t marching. They were walking. Casually. Just out for a stroll.

If you haven’t served, you’ll just have to take my word for this: once you learn to march as a unit, you kind of CAN’T not march as a unit. While they’re teaching you to march together, they ALSO teach you how to self-correct if you’re out of step and after drilling for hours and hours and hours (and, just for good measure, a few more hours) you get good at it. When someone tells you to march, you march. I’m not sure the leadership stressed the marching part.

Some are calling it a silent protest – a Foxtrot Delta Tango* – and I think that’s true, but it ALSO has the effect of preventing future numbskulls from using footage of the event. Our army, the one I certainly wouldn’t want to face, looked like a bunch of rag-tag wanna-bes out there. Nobody is going to use the footage of them casually strolling down the street as a projection of power and I suspect that was the military’s real goal. Nice work, DOD…

*Foxtrot Delta Tango is the phonetic alphabet language used in the military. The first letter is the important part, FDT. In this case, it translates to ‘F*ck Donald Trump…’

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I have to say, it looks like the evidence that the 2024 election was stolen is piling up. I know, the GOP “inoculated” the country against such accusations by insisting the 2020 election was stolen, even though everyone – MAGA included – knew it was not. The thing was, they never offered any reliable evidence. The truth is, I want honest elections. If the GOP had shown anything, anything at all, that enjoyed a basis in reality, I would have looked at it. But they didn’t. They didn’t have anything to point to.

WE do, though. Sure, the bomb threats in Democratic districts and the fires in mail-in ballot collection boxes in Democratic districts were suspicious but, could be, if you look at it in just the right way from just this angle, coincidences. The late purges of Democrats from voter rolls are more concrete evidence. Felon 47’s comments about how well Elon “knows those machines” qualifies as consciousness of guilt but not proof of action.

Now, investigators have uncovered a vast scheme to distort vote tabulations. A company called ‘Pro V&V,’ one of only two federally accredited testing labs, approved sweeping last-minute updates to ES&S voting machines in the months leading up to the 2024 election. But they permitted the changes without any independent testing, public disclosure, or a proper, full certification review.

Worse, they labeled the changes “de minimis”—a term meant for trivial adjustments. But they weren’t trivial. They affected ballot scanners, altered reporting software, and modified audit files – and they were all rubber-stamped, apparently with zero oversight.

I used to be a tech-oriented guy. Originally, I thought computerized voting machines would be a great idea. These days? Put me down as vehemently anti-voting machine – and I mean ALL of them, right along with tabulating machines. I believe EVERY election should take place on paper ballots and be hand-counted, one at a time, by human beings.

I know, the “complaint” that results from such an idea is that we don’t get the results fast enough for networks to predict who might win on election night. So what? If I have to choose between fast and accurate, I want accurate. And the ONE thing that seems to be true ever since the introduction of voting machines is that elections keep coming out skewed. Wrong. The outcomes don’t match the exit polls, for example, so we were told exit polls shouldn’t be trusted.

But exit polls were once understood as the gold standard of polling. Exit polls are how experts test elections in countries where elections need monitors, like Bizarro MAGAmerica. If the outcome doesn’t match the exit polls, the outcome has been altered. Period. It really IS that simple.

We saw distorted outcomes in 2016 and we saw distorted outcomes again in 2024. The only reason we didn’t see distorted outcomes in 2020 is because Felon 47 had allowed the Covid-19 pandemic to rage out of control for so long people were forced to use paper ballots – and the forces of MAGA evil had not yet attacked tabulating machines. Elon is said to have addressed THAT shortcoming – and it was DONNY who said it.

So right now, there’s no doubt in my mind that the 2024 “election” was stolen. Kamala won, as we all suspected she would, but the outcome was altered. I doubt it will change anything but, at the very least, it DOES increase my faith in the American people – that we did NOT voluntarily return this moron to the Oval Office…

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After that conservative Christian nutball shot those Minnesota state legislators, many people on the right began a taunting campaign against Democrats. They tried, they tried oh so hard, to convince people it was some disgruntled lefty responsible for the shooting.

Utah Senator Mike Lee wrote on Brand X: “This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way.”
Elon Musk, still trying to worm his way back into Felon 47’s good graces, shared a post from a pro-authoritarian, anti-American that read: “The left has become a full blown domestic terrorist organization.” Elon responded to that with this: “The far left is murderously violent,” which Mike Lee shared adding, “Fact check: TRUE.”
Loony Laura Loomer suggested the shooter had ties to the ‘No Kings Day’ protests.

Of course, as is nearly always the case, the shooter was a far RIGHT conservative pseudo-Christian who had a long list of names of Democrats and other left-leaning individuals he intended to attack. This dude is SO right wing, I expect 47 to pardon him – even if he doesn’t have the normal million dollar “tribute…”

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Happy Juneteenth! I guess we’re supposed to say “happy” anyway. It’s always been kind of a sad day, to me. I mean, it’s good slavery finally ended, don’t get me wrong. But Juneteenth recognizes the day when slaves in Texas were finally told they had been freed – two years earlier!

Two years! The south certainly did NOT easily give up their “freedom” to take away other people’s freedom, did they? I guess I’ll focus on the fact that the slaves were, eventually, freed so, Happy Juneteenth!

Good Luck…

by MyBaconPress

Well, here we go, eh? I mean, I know voting started a while ago. I, myself, described the start of Trump’s coup attempt as being a few days ago. But today? Oh, today is the day the battle is joined. Everything has been theoretical until today. Now it’s real. Very, very real. Today is the day we begin to determine if MAGA gets the authoritarian dictatorship of their dreams, or if Americans can save what’s left of our democracy-on-the-brink.

There HAS been some attempted rigging but, so far, it has all come from Republicans. They’ve been flooding the information sphere with fraudulent polls to make it seem as though Trump is doing better than he is. Virginia started purging Democratic voters from their rolls as close to the election as possible (supposedly against the law but the SCKCOTUS said it was okay just this one time) so there was no time for the disenfranchised voter to correct the challenge.

Georgia even tried to make a rule that if the certification board didn’t like the results, they could just declare that vote invalid and substitute their preferred outcome. (Fortunately, that one didn’t make it.) But the most basic part of the rigging? Shouting about all the “election irregularities,” which MAGA has been doing since, well, 2020, right? Can you believe it? It’s about to get LOUDER!

As of now, the polling places are open on the east coast but not yet anywhere else. Has Trump declared victory yet? We know he’s going to. It’s part of the plan. Also as of right now, because of early voting, Kamala has a lead. She’s leading in all of the swing states and she even appears to have a lead in Nevada and Iowa. (Wow.) But, again, that’s the early, blue wave. We all know about THAT, too, and it has happened.

Now, today, comes the red wave that’s supposed to gain ground for Trump. The very moment he perceives he has pulled ahead in some state, he’ll declare victory. He’ll be lying and, because we all know the plan (I’m writing about it right now) we all expect it – and we’ll KNOW he’s lying. EVERYBODY will know it – because we all know the plan this time.

Bear in mind, this is not like the last time. The last time, MAGA was able to pretend (and convince themselves) that what happened was just a series of natural, spontaneous events that, unfortunately, spun out of control by January 6th. This time? Everybody knows the plan and cons who repeat the big lie will be active, knowing, co-conspirators. It was one thing to go along with the coup attempt when there was some possibility to convince oneself events just got out of control.

THIS TIME, everybody will know it’s just a part of the plan. MAGA will know – and be unable to deny – MAGA is actively attempting to overthrow a legal election because they didn’t get their way. I wonder if knowing they’re actively attacking the Constitution will dissuade any of them. These are NOT naturally occurring events – it’s a plan. MAGA is being used as the puppets to carry out the coup – and THIS time, they absolutely know it…

Frankly, I’ve been concerned about this election from the point of view of how the result will affect me. Yeah, a little selfish, I guess, but we’re supposed to vote our own interest and I expect a Trump win won’t be good for me, personally. But then I realized, if Trump “wins,” the result will be seriously bad for the vast majority of Americans. Even MAGA. We ALL suffer.

But then I thought about how that outcome affects Ukrainians. We all know Trump will tell his good buddy Putin to just have at it. That will be very bad for Ukraine. The US will cut off all aid in an effort to help Putin and it will be up to Europe from there. But…oh, yeah. Europe.

Trump, himself, said he had no idea what NATO was before becoming President. Now he wants us to leave NATO because, like most things, he doesn’t understand it. NATO has been the main stabilizing organization between nations in Europe. Trump thinks we should leave. And he plans to.

THEN, I thought about the Palestinians. I expect Trump to just tell his good buddy Netanyahu to have at it, too. Do what he wants. Go ahead, wipe out every Palestinian from the river to the sea. A Trump victory will be very, very bad for the Palestinians. But, oh, Jeez, I almost forgot.

The world. The whole, effing world. Trump wants to eliminate regulations, in general, but environmental regulations in particular. We, the species are already on incredibly shaky ground when it comes to climate change. With NO guardrails, Trump will put climate change on steroids. We’ll hit each tipping point in no time at all – until finally, most of humanity just…tips over.

So…good luck. Yes, to me. I don’t WANT to end up in a gulag for expressing my opinion.
Good luck to you. I presume you like the country as much as I do.
Good luck to every American (this obviously excludes anti-American MAGA) because most of us would suffer under Trump. (Hey, just like his wives and girlfriends!)
Good luck to Ukraine. You don’t deserve what Trump will allow Putin to do to you. In fairness, Trump, likely, won’t have any choice. He DOES as Putin tells him to do.
Good luck to all of Europe. You deserve better than an intellectually incurious imbecile like Trump, who only recently discovered there’s a thing called NATO.
Good luck to Palestinians. Your situation seems to be spiraling out of control and Trump simply doesn’t understand. Maybe, he just doesn’t care.
Good luck to the world. Please understand, we the people, the true American people, are doing what we can to stop this from happening. But there has been MUCH corruption inflicted on our once-great nation by MAGA and I really can not say if we can hold. I can only promise, we’ll try.

Good luck…

Fears, Frauds, and Frustrations…

by MyBaconPress

It’s not that I think the machines are rigged so I hope none of the makers decide to sue ME for $1.2 Billion dollars. BUT…one thing we’ve learned from Donny and his henchmen – and henchwomen (you don’t really hear much about henchwomen, these days, but henchmen need love, too) – is that the people overseeing the machines might well take actions that benefit their preferred candidate instead of just doing their jobs.

I KNOW this because Cathy Latham, a former GOP chairperson of Coffee County, GA, did exactly that. She let people in and let them root around in her machines for awhile. They even brought in sandwiches and she took a proud selfie with one of the intruders, now charged with burglary! She’s just one. But think of the number of election workers out there who might just love, love, love Donny and might do anything to help him win – even cheat (and then go to jail, of course.)

DO NOT vote on machines. They CAN be distorted to a person’s preference, assuming a little help from despicable people who move into positions of trust, and such a deal could change the outcome of the election. Might a worker allow Russians to hack the machines and change the results? Of course. Might they allow someone in to bring their own dongle and change results? Why not? It’s not the machines that are a problem. It’s some of the people overseeing the machines I don’t trust.

We KNOW evil Vlad wants Donny back. It will help him take Ukraine. It will help him destroy NATO. Donny wants the help and Vlad wants to give it to him. His sycophants will do the rest. Vote by mail-in ballot. It’s more secure. It’s harder to distort. It’s safer for America…

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Well, how disappointing. Donny isn’t going to testify today. First, he was going to bring in over 100 witnesses in an attempt to slow things down but the judge said he doesn’t want or need people repeating testimony that has already been entered into the record. After all, how many people can swear to their unsupportable belief that Donny isn’t a dumbass, despite all available evidence to the contrary? So, they pared it down. Eric would testify on Wednesday but Donny, himself, would take the stand and prove his innocence by Monday.

Obviously, Donny’s expected brilliance rendered Eric’s fawning testimony moot so he was canceled, leaving Donny to come in and clean up the mess. I suspect he was planning to prove his innocence by laying on the floor, kicking and screaming, while threatening to hold his breath until he turned blue and calling it the “nuculer option.” (Even THAT would have come out “nuclaler.”

Alina Habba, Donny’s “lawyer,” who might want to start preparing for her own defense, was trotted out to offer an excuse. She says she discouraged his testimony while there was a gag order in place because a gag order would have squelched his testimony. Couple-a things. One, Donny doesn’t listen to attorneys. His attorneys listen to him and do as their told. (That’s why they keep going to jail.) More importantly, the gag order only keeps him from attacking people associated with the trial, not offering testimony relevant to his defense. The sudden turnaround lends credence to my theory that he planned to use the ‘laying on the floor, kicking and screaming, while threatening to hold his breath until he turned blue’ defense.

As a sidebar: Donny has taken to saying that shutting down his criminal enterprise will discourage any other businesses from coming to New York. My guess? One, he’s wrong again. Two, if you want to bring a criminal enterprise to New York City, I’m thinking New York won’t mind, much, if you don’t. Otherwise, I’d guess New York is going to be just fine, thank you, very much…

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Sports Stuff
Well, the Kansas City Chiefs are having a bad moment. They ran a play at the end of their game that gave them the game winning score. It was brilliant and a beautiful thing to see and I’m glad I got to see it. Sadly, it didn’t count because a player on their team lined up illegally at the start of the play. It’s very clear he was offside but the team was in the middle of enjoying the high that came with pulling out a last minute win when the flag was thrown – then it all went away and the Chiefs lost, instead. Talk about emotional whiplash!

Their Head Coach, Andy Reid, and their Quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, were furious. It’s rare to see either of them behave that way. They had tantrums on the sidelines. They complained at the after-game presser. KC fans are all worked up. It’s outrage. But they’re going to watch the film of it. They’ll see their guy in the wrong place. HE was the problem, not the officials. (I have no love of officials. They mess up as often as not but this time they got it right.) They’ll settle down. I respect both men so I’m going to let them have a bad moment…

More importantly, though, everything fell into place for the “local” and beloved Santa Clara Forty-Niners. The teams that needed to lose, lost, and the teams that needed to win (including the Niners) won, moving the Niners into first place in the Conference. For now, anyway. It means home field advantage throughout the playoffs but their position is a bit precarious. They have to win all the rest of their games to keep it. Otherwise, they need a little help.

I thought they were going to lock up their Division with that win and the Rams loss, but they haven’t quite done it, yet. There’s a not-very-likely but mathematically possible scenario where they end up losing the Division to the Rams, so it’s going to take one more week. (I guess I’m being a bit impatient.)

I’ll tell you this: I’ll be watching…