Ruling Out a Democratic Win

This is one of the stories I clicked on last week, from my news feed:

There’s a lot that set me off right from the get-go. Let’s start with the journalistic trope about when they ask you to “rule something out.” I hate that because it only serves journalists who want a big scoop, whether they create it out of thin air or otherwise. The press always wants people to rule things out so they can frame a story as “Hey, this is possible,” or “Hey, he said he’ll never do this,” the latter of which they keep for a future story when he eventually does the thing in question.

If I were a politician (or athletic team coach, business exec, or anyone else the press would care to interview), my inclination would be to never rule anything out ever. Why eliminate an option you might need, even if you don’t currently see it as necessary? It just ties your own hands.

“Sorry, it’s my policy to never rule anything out because you never know what the circumstances will be when it’s time to make a decision.” Those would be my exact words every time I’m asked for a rule-out.

So I can see how AG Blanche might want to dance this dance.

However…

There ARE certain things I could easily rule out because they’re immoral or blatantly illegal. Like, I could say that if the Steelers won the next Super Bowl, I could rule out my running down the street clad only in a pair of Steelers Crocs and a Terrible Towel. (This is Baltimore, after all. A guy could get seriously killed for that here.) And if I were the nation’s top attorney, I would certainly know that taking steps to alter election results is not within the federal government’s powers, “Doomsday” or not, so I would rule out doing so. The AG did not do that, leaving the door open for future interference. And by omitting a definition of “Doomsday,” it leaves it wide open to interpretation.

I’m confident, however, that “Doomsday” equals “The Republicans lose control of Congress.” It’s the usual mindset: “Heads, I win; tails, you lose.” There’s no fraud unless the Democrats win. Such a nice world they’ve created for themselves, huh?

So yes, such actions would definitely be illegal. But why would that ever stop them from happening? Who is the authority here, to whom people could appeal? The Justice Department itself is the perp. They’re not going to sue on behalf of The People, or do anything at all. The courts are hit and miss, until you get to the Supreme one, which stands 6-3 with the perps. I presume they’d do rock-paper-scissors to see which one of the three “reasonable ones” gets to dissent, while keeping the 5-4 win. The whole process is guaranteed to take lots of time. And what happens during this Constitutional crisis? The White House claims emergency powers and has its toadie Speaker of the House refrain from seating the new Congresspeople.

What? That’s not a legal maneuver for the White House? They’ll just put it on the same legal carousel with the original interference and start bleeding the clock.

You can’t rely on game rules when the refs have thrown out the rulebook.

The thing I’ve heard that I most believe is that the Administration is setting up California for the next big emergency. You can see they’ve started by demanding the state withhold ballots from 20k people they say are illegally registered. They’re getting it all teed up so that after the Dems sweep through results, they can use that to create an emergency, from confiscating ballots and voting machines to sending troops/ICE, suing the state, and ultimately refusing to seat any of California’s Representatives. Because California has so many, that alone may be enough to keep the Republican majority.

As for the line I circled in the screenshot above, the administration is also trying to torpedo Democrats from taking the Senate. You’ve heard about the two Republicans who have the same name, running for the seat? Despite this having already been adjudicated within the state court system, and the two candidates have been easily differentiated on the ballot (one having the word “incumbent” by his name), the president is still crying foul and claiming it’s a Democratic conspiracy. It’s all a big conspiracy unless the Republican they want wins, or the Democrat wins by less than the amount of votes the “other” Republican draws, in what’s expected to be a very tight race. So once again, it’s “rigged unless we win.” So much victimhood, so little character.

Do you know what I don’t hear? Republicans making an effort to draw attention to their nominee of choice by emphasizing his middle initial, or stressing that he’s the incumbent. You know, running some effective advertising.

OR, just as a wild, last-gasp ploy, trying to put forth an agenda that makes life better for Alaskans, as opposed to continually smearing the opposition and anything they can tie to the opposition.

But then, you just can’t draw water from an empty well.

Homeless Thoughts - The War Crimes Edition

I’ve got a little to say about a lot of topics, so we’re going with the Homeless Thoughts theme this week.

Nobody’s Safe

The Ilhan Omar “investigation” and raid should be scaring people more than it is. The Government (meaning the president) decided that someone shouldn’t be a citizen, despite the complete lack of improper immigration procedure or commission of a crime. She’s foreign-born and a critic, so he wants her gone. So they raid her house and confiscate her phone and who knows what else, and can now claim they found any number of things and leak them to Fox “News”.

It’s not like a lack of actual proof has ever stopped modern Republicans from leveling public charges at their enemies. (OR, verifiable evidence in hand ever stopped these guys from claiming innocence. Epstein.)

And with complete control of ICE and the entire immigration apparatus, he can just say she’s not here legally and ship her off. Sure there may be lawsuits and appeals, but in the meantime, she’s gone, and probably not dropped off back where her parents came from. Why wouldn’t he send one of his harshest critics to one of those crooked prisons-for-hire, to be tortured and abused until she dies or the country comes to its senses again? The Supreme Court already approved deportations to countries the subject has never been to. This administration wanted that power for a reason.

Starlink Hijinks

Reuters confirmed that the order to kill/slow down Starlink in Ukraine came from inside the White House. The president, of course, said he didn't know anything about it, but I read another account (of which I cannot verify the veracity) that the document pertaining to the issue was clearly visible in an Oval Office photograph, on his desk in plain sight.

All that did was allow Russia to target Ukrainian cities while curtailing their defense systems, resulting in the deaths of many civilian men, women, and children.

Between this, the Russian diesel purchase, waiving the congressionally ordered Russian war sanctions, and his general lapdog stoogery when it comes to Putin, is there any other conclusion but that the president is a Russian asset? I can’t think of a single foreign policy decision he’s made that doesn’t benefit Russia.

Closer to home, if he can have his frenemy Elon turn off the internet in another country to serve his financial and political ends, he can have it done here too, to hinder opponents from gathering in protest, or transmitting pictures and video of his storm troopers shocking, shooting, or shitting on people exercising their First Amendment rights. Just look how Zuck killed the No Kings account on Meta during last weekend's No Kings events.

In the meantime, he’s assisting an invading country to kill innocent people, those for whom he is supposed to be an ally. They can’t get this guy to The Hague soon enough.

Foyled Again

I’m not too concerned about our being without an Ambassador to Greece for the short term. I’m sure that just as they roll out one connected dumbass using a patronage job to enrich herself, they’ll roll in another. It amuses me that the Inner Circle are nervous about what she’s going to say about them. Given her time with Don Jr., I’m sure she’s got some damaging inside scoop. But don’t expect to actually hear any of it… I’m betting all her threats are merely a way to grab one last payday before fading from the headlines and into the Society Page. They’ll give her a big check*; she’ll eff off and go away.

* I don’t mean that literally. But wouldn’t it be funny if they actually gave her a giant check, like she won Publisher’s Clearinghouse? It probably won’t be an actual, traceable check. Probably cash, or some nice gold bars. Or maybe stock in Truth Social.

Leaf Them Alone!

This administration certainly has it out for trees. They whacked all the weeping willows outside the Kennedy Center, and now they cut down a buttload of old-growth trees to make way for a bigger golf course, the latter happening in conflict with a judge’s direct order. Weren’t there also some cherry trees destroyed earlier, which had been given to us by Japan?

Republicans have zero respect for nature other than what they can harvest from it in the form of natural resources. I’m sure they didn’t give the destruction of these trees a second thought. They literally do not care. If they did, they wouldn’t be selling off giant parcels of National Park lands to industries seeking to tear up the land. Eventually they’d sell it all off, if a bunch of them didn’t still need a place to shoot guns and kill stuff.

The Old College Try

Since the football season started, I’ve been seeing a lot of political commercials during the games, all Republican-sponsored. To describe these ads without use of the term “bullshit” is challenging. It’s all the same fictional stuff, attacking Democrats either in particular or in general. You know, Communist, hates America, wants to have open borders and take your guns.

It’s sad because that’s all they have. If they could point to a single accomplishment that helped the TV viewers, they would. But they have nothing other than a big tax cut that WE didn’t get. The best they can do is to steal credit for the construction projects authorized under Biden’s infrastructure bill, which they unanimously voted against. But there they are at the Grand Opening.

I watch a lot of Ohio State football, so I noticed that even on these national telecasts, there are always a bunch of ads regarding the Ohio Senate and Governor’s races. They’re targeting the locals, but I’m sure they hope that, in their minds, the sentiment of the ads will transfer to the viewers’ local races.

Why aren’t the Democrats running ads during football games? Liberals watch sports too! It would be nice to see the other side represented, to break up the constant drumbeat of “Democrats are the Enemy.” There’s a whole laundry list of pertinent topics Dems could mine. Tying the president and his policies around all Republican necks should be job one. Republicans could have stopped most of this if they only had the balls to stand up to Trump. They are as culpable as he is.

Or, they could do more positive ads that refute the falsehoods from the rival ads.

If I could do an ad, one would be along the lines of, “If you want to know what a Liberal really thinks, ask one; don’t just take Fox’s word for it.” You could do a whole series, debunking the lies that Conservative media spread about what Liberals think. (See the last line of the first paragraph on this topic)

Poll Taxing

There’s a big reason why the Administration keeps claiming that all the polls showing Republicans heading for disaster in the midterms are wrong. They have to because if they want to claim the election results are rigged, they can’t have the polls predicting the eventual outcome all along. I mean, they will, but it’s one more thing that can be used to refute their claims in court.

Facebook Follies

I follow a group on the topic of 70s, 80s, and 90s music. Last night they ran a group picture of about a half-dozen women with the Republican Look. You know, big makeup, raccoon eyeliner, dyed blonde, lips like life rafts… The post said, “Name this music group.”

I don’t usually respond to stuff like this, but I thought of something I couldn’t keep to myself. I submitted: The Mar-a-Lago-gos.

Fuckers removed my post! They said it was against their rules to post political material. I was like, “How is the original post not political?” All the replies I had seen before I left mine were similarly themed, all riffing on how they looked like Trump/Mar-a-Lago women. (When I went to screenshot the picture today, the whole post had been taken down.)

I don’t get it. Luckily, I didn’t lose any sleep over it. It was too good a joke to waste, but I knew I had another outlet. You’re welcome.

Today in Biased News Coverage

Let’s see how the old Baltimore Sun has been skewing its news coverage lately, shall we?

Director's DVD Commentary: The full article is only there to show my work. You needn't read the whole thing, although you can if you wish. 

The Sun used to be a relatively liberal newspaper until they were bought by the owner of the conservative media empire, Sinclair Broadcasting. Since then, they never miss an opportunity to skew their main news coverage (not just the op/ed page) to support Republican positions.

What they’re spending the most time on lately is the proposed amendment to alter the state constitution to allow a partisan gerrymander, one that the electorate has already approved in prior elections (but was invalidated for various technical reasons).

This is from several weeks ago:

The headline screams “41%...Opposed.” Wouldn’t another perfectly logical way to say that is “59% don’t oppose?” Shouldn’t the majority view carry the headline? Not anymore. What the paper wants you to think is what matters to them. Maybe they’re just reeeally into supporting the unheard minority.

Then cut to last week, when they found a new poll whose numbers they like better:

So it’s not that they want to highlight the minority; they want to highlight the Republican viewpoint.

They pulled the same trick with this NYC poll:

“Almost half of New Yorkers don’t support…” Wouldn’t the traditional headline read “Most New Yorkers support…” Of course it would, but the Sun ownership has a huge stake in keeping things status quo as far as the business environment goes. The last thing they want is to give up tax cuts to pay for social programs that make lives better. So here, people who just scan the headlines come away with the impression that (what they call) Socialism is unpopular.

Also note the tone of this headline:

The Dems are surging, so the outlook now “darkens.” Ooh, scary. They could have just as accurately said, “races toward Dems as… their chances look rosy.” But no. Dems bring darkness and gloom. They don’t actually say that, but the wording implies it. There’s intention behind how news media uses language. On the surface, words are words, but they can always be shaded. Like in one line from the article, “To seize control of the Senate, Democrats must…”

“Seize control.” They could have said “Assume control,” which is neutral, but they didn’t. Seizing sounds violent and chaotic… kinda like January 6^th, when MAGA idiots tried to “seize control” of Congress to prevent the legal transfer of power. They knew what they were doing.

This next article isn’t about the headline, but the way they employ euphemisms to describe things they really don’t want to examine. (This is an AP article, so it’s more representative of play-it-safe mainstream media than local political bias.)

This story appalls me, so it’s not just the language that’s drawn my concern. Putting weapons like these into the hands of sadistic, amped up, blockheads is one more step toward permanent martial law. Have you ever seen those videos of ICEholes shooting pepper spray into the faces of protesters? People are sitting down and holding signs, and these thugs reach around the signs and blast them in the face from a foot away. 

Do you trust THESE guys with portable torture devices that don’t leave marks? The likelihood of abuse is overwhelming. These gloves will be a primary method of crowd control and dispersal. These guys will be tagging people just for fun and then bragging and laughing about it back at HQ.

So, in the article, we find language like this: “The shocks had a profound impact…”

Translation: “They hurt like living hell.”

Victims were left with… “Fatigue, soreness and excessive apprehensiveness to being shocked again.”

To continue: “After experiencing the effects of the GLOVE… participants stated just seeing the GLOVE was enough to make them want to comply.”

Translation: The shocks were so painful they made the recipients spin around three times and then shit themselves. When prompted to respond with “Thank you, sir, may I have another, they emphatically declined.”

When discussing my childhood, I often say, “I received 2 spankings in my life. The reason I got two, because I did not want three.”

That’s what they want with these shock gloves: instant compliance. And that might be fine during hand-to-hand combat during a war, or breaking up a prison riot. But they plan on using these things on lawful American people, exercising their right to assemble. We are not supposed to be a country where the police torture civilians without verifiable cause. Holding signs and yelling does not qualify, nor does driving away from a confrontation.

When the film surfaces of ICE using these things capriciously, I’m going to come back to this post. It will happen. They won’t keep their new toys in the box for long; they’re itching to take them out and play.

Hearing Impairment

I trust everyone’s heard about last week’s Jack Smith magic show, wherein the former DOJ prosecutor made a Senator’s ass disappear during a phony-baloney Senate hearing? We really are fortunate that these Republican morons are so inept. If their evil ever got mixed with competency, we’d be in a heap of trouble. 

In a nutshell, the Senator from Missouri produced “proof” that Jack Smith had been at an Atlanta Hawks home game and therefore must have met with Georgia DA Fani Willis to collude on persecuting (then) former President Trump. As it turned out, this “proof” went “poof” when it was pointed out that the “Hawks” game was actually a “Hawkeyes” (as in Iowa) game being played in Maryland. The Senator’s team made a rash leap of wishful thinking in conflating the two teams (and leagues).

But there’s something else that really alarms me about that grand “gotcha” scheme that I haven’t seen anyone discuss.

Even if Smith WAS in Atlanta for this basketball game, that’s all they really had. The rest was 100% conjecture; an unverified, unproven assumption.

And as Samuel L. Jackson says, “When you make an assumption, you make an ass out of you, and umption.” (The Long Kiss Goodnight, 1997)

This is what they were going to run with… he was in town; therefore, he must have been having secret meetings to blah blah blah…

By that logic, when I was in Pittsburgh for a family reunion last August, I must have been meeting with the Steelers general manager about securing a spot on their roster for me as their new punter.

My assertion has exactly as much validity as theirs, which is to say, none.

But none of that matters in the Republican bubble. All they need is an assertion to bat around, and it will take on a life of its own, to be swallowed whole by all Bubble inhabitants. And this time, they couldn’t even get a lame accusation off the ground due to ignorance, overzealousness, and ineptitude. As a result, that exchange became the only thing for which this hearing will be remembered.

The Baltimore Sun tried, though. While they barely mentioned this hearing, they did include a single paragraph on the front page in the Trump Watch section, where they put all the day’s Trump news. The only detail they included was a piece of Smith’s statement that he had concrete evidence that the president committed criminal offenses. You’d think that would be the line to hide, but they probably assumed their new readers would disregard it, just as they’ve disregarded concrete evidence of every other offense for which he’s been accused, charged, and convicted. The complete lack of damage that they could get to stick to Smith was conspicuously missing.

Senate Republicans tried to “Fauci” him by creating scenarios where they expected him to lie and perjure himself. But rather than taking the Fifth across the board, like Dr. Fauci, Smith calmly rebutted every charge with accuracy and precision, without even raising his pulse. He made them look ridiculous. Granted, by the time the conservative media edits the footage, it will look like he admitted to treason, heresy, and stepping on cracks to break his mother’s back. The next Administration, if we ever get one, needs to make this guy Attorney General.

In another story from last week, that got zero play from the local paper, Whiskey Pete announced cuts to 20% of his admirals and generals, as well as new recruitment efforts to pull exclusively from conservative religious colleges.

This should be highly alarming to anyone interested in keeping our democracy. The SecWar has been busy over the last year and a half, ridding the military of anyone who might balk at violating the Constitution. The only people he wants in place are conservative, religious white men who will be predisposed to following orders without question or hesitation. Why, you may ask?

When it comes to this Administration, the answer is always, “self-preservation.” There may not be time to roll out the big plans for the midterms, but they’ve got two years to lay plans to prevent our traditional peaceful transfer of power. They’re building the infrastructure (arch/weapons depot/sniper base, sub-ballroom bunker/arsenal), and now they’re working on who is going to staff it up. It is unconstitutional to use the US military against American citizens on American soil. Now they’re bringing in people who won’t care. As they frame anyone who might resist as Anti-American, Commie, Transsexual, Hippie, Freeloading, Gang-bangers, it makes it easier for them to see us as sub-humans, appropriate for extermination.

He is NOT leaving peacefully, no matter what any election says. We’ll see their beta testing in November.

Bluz Newz Update

Noting last week’s post about my new retirement-life focus of preventing the dog from shitting in the house, I regret to say that is no longer the case.

Our boy took a steep decline last week, to the point that he could no longer stand up or stay up, even to eat. In addition to that, he had very limited vision, couldn’t hear well, had been panting and breathing hard almost all the time, and had open sores popping up. He’d been on a raft of drugs, including pain pills, liver and thyroid pills, anti-seizure meds, supplements of all kinds, and so forth.

Friday night, Sweetpea made a little bed for herself beside him in the kitchen, where he had been lying all day. She spent the night with him and, in the morning, came to the painful conclusion that we had to let him go.

We had a flyer from a service called CodaPet that will come to your house and handle everything from drug administration to removal to cremation, so she made an appointment for noon that day.

Throughout the morning, our boy heard from all his best human friends. Some called, and Sweetpea would put the phone to his ear. Others came over to say goodbye and received licks and wags. One of our neighbors, who is the dog’s favorite person in the world, came over and stayed.

We ushered our boy across the Rainbow Bridge peacefully and lovingly. He just drifted away in the arms of his family, surrounded by love and kind words.

He was a good boy.

The rest of the weekend was exceedingly tough, especially on Sweetpea. I’ll probably post about the

aftermath at another time. It’s going to be bumpy for a while as we get used to another “new normal.”

 

Note: I highly recommend CodaPet if they service your area. The vet they sent was wonderful… thoughtful, professional, compassionate, patient, and caring. I don’t know how anyone could do that job for a living, always being around people during their worst days, surrounded by grief. But this lady was an angel. If you ever are unfortunate enough to require such services, these people do a tremendous job. Perhaps the state of Alabama could learn a thing or two from them.