When Up is Down and Down is Up

The MAGAs are still out there pretending that the economy is Biden’s Achilles’ Heel. I harvested this meme from the weekend:

I saw a similar one, which I unfortunately neglected to capture, that wanted everyone to go grocery shopping and fill up the tank before they go to vote.

That one had to be old… I agree with it 100%. I think by November, unless Republicans do something to tank the economy in the name of maintaining another avenue for campaign attack ads, the economy will be just fine. Gas prices are always a question mark because so many things can send them shooting up. Production issues, transport issues, war, terrorism, and just plain greed can spike gas prices. And as it’s often said, gas prices go up like a rocket and come back down like a feather.

I think Democrats need to do a better job at highlighting how the prior inflation rise was primarily due to corporate price gouging rather than the after-effects of the federal COVID stimulus. We need some charts circulating that show how when the inflation was at its peak, so were corporate profits. If the cost of supplies was really the culprit in high prices, profits wouldn’t have been smashing records.

Granted, such presentations are likely to put those who most need to hear them to sleep.

It continues to rankle how Republicans keep trying to compare current gas prices to when COVID had cratered them. All it took for gas to fall under $2.00 was a mishandled pandemic that made people stay home, dried up demand for gas, and caused the deaths of over a million Americans. Although I’m sure they’d take the deal in a second if the dead were solely made up of brown people, gays, and non-Christians.

All the metrics are looking good right now. Wages are up, joblessness is down, and inflation is as low as it was before the pandemic. Polls say people feel they are personally doing well, but still think the overall economy is a disaster. This is 100% the media’s doing, especially the Right Wing Echo Chamber, which pushes the bad news regardless of actual statistics to the contrary. When a Democrat is in power, it’s all bad news, all the time. And mainstream media doesn’t broadcast economic successes nearly as forcefully as they do the preceding failures.

***

In other news, Republicans could not look worse on The Border than they do right now, what with the Senate taking orders from TFG to tank a bipartisan bill to address the southern border so that he (and the rest of the party) can run on the immigration chaos for this year’s elections. They refuse to take any action that might look like a “win” for President Biden.

Last I’ve seen, they’re pretending that this bill is so terrible, even though their teammates were in on its creation. But in actuality, it’s like I’ve been saying about abortion, election security, and other issues: Republicans don’t really want to address the problem if they can campaign on it. They prevent solutions so they can stoke fear over Democrats’ inaction. That’s page one in the GOP playbook. Democrats need to highlight this practice at every opportunity.

***

Lastly, congratulations to E. Jean Carroll, for becoming filthy rich at the expense of TFG. Although I wouldn’t make any big plans, just yet, for how to spend all that dough. It will be a long time before she sees a dime if TFG can do anything about it. I’m sure he’ll pull every delaying tactic available to get avoid paying out, from endless appeals to limited bankruptcy. And when it eventually does come time to pay, I have no doubt he’ll try to draw the money from other people via “loans” he never pays back, or fundraising from his sheep.

E. Jean should also avoid going up in any tall buildings, lest she become another victim of faulty Russian staircase design, wherein that first step is a real killer.

The Setting Sun

I don’t know how big of a national splash this made last week but they announced that David Smith, the owner of the Sinclair broadcasting group, bought my local paper, the Baltimore Sun, as a personal investment.

Sinclair is an ownership group that buys up all the local stations it can muster and turns them into right-wing MAGAphones, including the mandate that they all run pre-recorded editorial content from the “home office.”

Maryland is a blue state and the Sun has traditionally reflected that, although not so much so that they didn’t endorse a Republican governor or two, over the years. But this has effectively come to an end.

The new owner says he wants The Sun to function like our local “Fox 45,” which is also owned by Sinclair. In other words, one more piece in the right-wing echo chamber. Sinclair owns Fox 45 in Baltimore, as well as the local CW channel.

Both networks specialize in attacking the local government and school systems. They love to ambush public officials on their way to their car at night, to lob loaded questions while the camera rolls. Every night, when I’m usually watching syndicated shows, I see the promos for their news broadcasts, and it’s always the same.

They proclaim how they’re “keeping local officials honest,” but that’s just a cover. It’s an unrelenting drumbeat of bad news, day in and day out.

It’s one thing to cover news that makes officials look bad. But it becomes disingenuous when positive stories are omitted or skewed to make them look bad. I’ve had this argument with people before when they say, “But what if this news is true? What if this really is a bad thing?”

I counter that there’s never a “good thing” aired, even when good things abound. Lies of omission are still lies. When a broadcaster’s only objective is to smear the ruling party, that’s not journalism, it’s just PR and propaganda.

A couple years back, I decided to take some notes on the subjects of the local Fox and CW nightly news promos, which I did for about a week or so before I lost interest. (I was hoping to make a post out of it, but you know… squirrel!) I still have the notes though, so, Score!

These were the stories they were hyping at the time:

·         CW: High price of gas.

·         Fox: Violence in Baltimore City, State’s Attorney ethics charges.

·         Fox: Save Our Schools: Lawsuits filed against the school district.

·         CW: Crisis at the Border, Baby Formula crisis haunts the Biden Administration.

·         Fox: Electric vehicle fires

·         CW: The danger of letting the WHO determine what is a pandemic.

·         CW: While government fights record inflation, migrants are flooding in.

As you can see, it’s just a compendium of Republican talking points, blaming Democrats for inflation, bad schools, the pandemic, corruption, and electric cars. It’s All Crisis, All the Time while propping up the fossil fuel industry, private schooling, and catering to the MAGAs at every turn.

This is what will become of our deep-rooted bastion of journalism, a paper version of Fox “News.” I’m sure we’ll never see another big half-page story on a decrease in border crossings, like the one I ran in my last post. Such good news will never be set in ink again if it benefits a Democrat.

What I’m going to do next, I don’t know yet. I’ve been a Baltimore Sun subscriber ever since I came to town in 1998. I’ve always been a newspaper guy, a habit I got from my dad, who always had the paper delivered, wherever we lived. Sometimes we even got two, like when we lived in Columbus Ohio, and got the morning Citizen Journal and the evening Columbus Dispatch.

In practical terms, I get most of my news online, via the blogs on my blogroll and my Yahoo home page. The Sun staff is a mere shell of what it used to be. Most of their content comes from news syndicates and affiliates. Aside from TV listings, my primary use for the Sun is the comics page and puzzles.

Doing crossword puzzles (and the Jumble and Sudoku) are baked into my weekday lunchtime routine. On the weekends, Sweetpea and I both work on the morning puzzles.

I know I can get crosswords online, but I don’t like doing them via computer, nor do I want to have to print the puzzles every damned day. But I feel sick at the prospect of giving those vultures any of my hard-earned dough.

For the time being, I intend to stay put and watch what happens. After all, this could be a good feeder system for Right Wing material to pick apart, or maybe even to rebut via letters to the editor. It’s not a bad idea to see what kind of BS the other side is pushing. It’ll let me know whether they have serious points, or if they’re pushing myths and illusions. Then when they eventually cross the line, I can, with haughty indignity, write in, refute their stories, and end it with “Cancel my subscription, you odorous band of kowtowing mullet-heads!”

Fun at the Grocery Store

Sometimes, when checking out a new grocery store, the aisles are arranged in such a way that I can create a little mirth, for those that know how to find it.

Bloody Vikings...

 

It Was a Call to Action

People were horrified last week when TFG publicly stated that he hoped the economy would crash in the next 12 months, meaning he could then blame President Biden throughout the campaign. For every other politician, such a cravenly selfish statement would bring them down in flames, but as you know, this guy is fire-repellant (as well as the usual kind of repellant.) A statement like his is completely on-brand for him. His fans expect nothing less.

But don’t look at this as just another self-serving proclamation. If you have paid attention to his previous speeches, it reads more like a call to arms. He’s not “hoping,” he’s asking/telling. Just like his statements about hoping “the Russians are listening,” “stand back and stand by,” “will be wild,” and “second amendment solutions,” this was a dog whistle to the select people who have the access and means to crash the economy.

He’s asking for business leaders to create more supply chain problems, for retailers to price-gouge a little more, for layoffs to roll out, and for his oil friends like the Saudis to cut back on production. He’s actively creating the crisis for which he’ll blame his opponent. And if that isn’t “on-brand” for TFG and the Republicans, I don’t know what is.

Just look what they’re doing with the southern border.

From the Baltimore Sun, last Monday.

Not only do they mischaracterize the situation by inferring that it’s much larger than it really is, but they refuse to even sit down to create solutions. It’s much more important to them to use it as a campaign issue than to fix a national problem desperately needing fixing.

The Eco-Destruct message also carries to his governmental partners in crime. He wants nothing more than for the government to be shut down. Obviously, no matter how it takes place, they’ll blame it on the Democrats, for not agreeing to every poison pill they can conjure up and put into play. Fledgling Speaker Johnson apparently didn’t get the message the first time, given his preliminary deal with Senate Leader Schumer, so this was a way to amplify the MAGA message: Never agree with a Democrat! Better to bring down the whole establishment than to cede ground on a single inch.

***

No matter what the Democrats do, it’s imperative that this guy doesn’t assume the reins of the government again. As I’ve said before, this time there will be no adults in the room to rein in his whack-a-doo impulses, only aiders and abettors. Did you see the statement from his former Communications Director about how he actively wanted to have people killed? In particular, regarding an aide who leaked negative information about him?

This guy as President, with complete immunity (as he is currently seeking in court), would be like having King Joffrey running the country.

Picture every wonton whim being carried out by enthusiastic yes-men and sadists, eager to please the Boy King, the gorier the better. Once he stacks the Justice Department with his toadies, “justice” will be for “Just Us,” as in Trump followers only. Anyone who displeases him in any way, like by opposing an idea, protesting unfair treatment, or merely saying something negative about him, will be dealt with and will most likely never be heard from again. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did like his autocratic idols do and charged the family for the bullet. Or in the case of a Putin-like long fall from an open window, charge them for sidewalk cleanup.

The Supreme Court may or may not find a way to claim TFG was/is immune from prosecution. The only sure way to keep the nightmare scenario from coming to pass is to not vote him in!

It's Just Not Funny Anymore

 Just as the national economy is rounding into shape, the Village Idiot, aka TFG, wants to come in and “fix” it. Naturally, his “fix” will undo all the progress made since COVID shut things down, and provide another zillion-dollar care package for the rich.

Worst of all, he can do much of this on his own, without Congress, which is like giving a kid the keys to the candy store. He plans to raise tariffs on all foreign goods by 10%, be even more aggressive in deporting undocumented aliens, and roll out another round of tax cuts. This is so “out there,” even the conservative economists think it’s crazy.”

It all makes sense, through the lens of TFG. He still thinks raising tariffs on imports sounds good, like he’s sticking it to the foreigners, where in fact, he’s sticking it to the Americans who buy the goods, which often aren’t available as domestically produced merchandise. Or maybe he does know better, and he and his inner circle have a great laugh at his MAGA fan club who eats this shit up, only to lose a bigger chunk of their family dollars. They know it will just get blamed on the Democrats anyway.

It also sounds good to his racist band to get tough on illegal immigrants, even though they are a vital force in keeping prices down. Those salad fixins’ aren’t going to pick themselves, nor will the hotel beds be made without the maids. If Republicans really wanted to do something about illegal immigration, they could go after businesses that hire them. When was the last time you heard a proposition like that from Republicans? That’s the last thing they’ll ever do. It’s much more fun for them to round up the brown people and try to best each other over who can be more cruel.

Republicans don’t want to solve the “border crisis,” they just want to use it as a campaign issue they can use to scare Middle America into voting Red. Didn’t they just refuse to vote for a $13 billion border package to add agents on the ground and ramp up processing capability? That alone tells you they’d rather yell about immigration than address it.

Lastly, anyone telling you that cutting taxes on the rich will eventually help everyone else is lying to your face. It never happens. It’s been tried throughout the last several decades and not once has it helped anyone but those who directly received the governmental largesse. I can’t believe they even try to push that bullshit anymore, but here they are again, pretending that the Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts didn’t single-handedly wreck economies of their times. That’s probably another thing they laugh about over drinks in the Inner Sanctum.

If The Former Guy becomes The Current Guy again, he’s not going to tolerate a bunch of career politicians foisted on him who will act like a brake on his deluded agenda, like he did before. This time around, it’s Yes Men all the way. No more sanity checks before the executive orders are signed. And if the judiciary finds them unconstitutional, he’ll just find some new judges. So if we’re stupid enough to elect him again, there will be no stopping the damage he’s prepared to do, all in the name of feeding his ego and owning the libs. He’ll be like Fat Rambo, coming to destroy your town, your state, and your nation.

But that won’t matter to the MAGAs; they’ll be in hog heaven.

Jingle Bells, Donald Smells...

 This week, I’ve been highly amused by the mini-drama that has erupted over the degree to which TFG smells bad.

Former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger posted on X on December 16, "I'm genuinely surprised how people close to Trump haven't talked about the odor. It's truly something to behold. Wear a mask if you can."

He went on to add to the description: “The former president has a distinct smell of armpits, ketchup, a butt, and makeup, that’s been … put into a blender as if it has been bottled as a cologne. I’ve been amazed that everybody is just kind of learning about this now.”

I’ve always assumed that TFG smelled like a mixture of hairspray and powder. I was sure a guy as reportedly fussy as he is about his appearance would also take care to manage his aroma. In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t slapped a name on and branded it.

I don’t know if what Kinzinger is saying is true, but in today’s world, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that people are talking about it. It’s getting mentions in the press and there are memes everywhere.

TFG had to issue rebuttals to it, which I’m sure takes valuable time away from planning the destruction of our system of government. You know it’s already taking up brain capacity in a place where there isn’t much volume to start with.

The Lincoln Project has already released an ad on the topic because they know that this is the kind of thing that gets under his skin. It’s like that with anything that takes a chunk out of his meticulously crafted image. They want to distract him and make him look unhinged; maybe provoke him into making a bigger fool of himself than usual.

I’m enjoying this because it serves him right. After all the personal attacks he’s lobbed at opponents, here’s a big one coming back on him.

And it becomes important because smell is something that gets a visceral reaction. It bypasses reason and goes straight to the central nervous system. So labeling him as one who smells bad and including some features that sound believable is a skilled PR move. Whether it changes any votes remains to be seen. If the Republicans stick to their usual form, they’ll be coming up with countercharges about how President Biden smells, maybe a combination of hair tonic, Werthers, and arthritis cream.

So, truth or not, it doesn’t matter. If TFG has proven anything, it’s that a lie becomes the truth to many people if you repeat it often enough.

***

I don’t care if this is actually the first of the year, I’m treating this as my last post of 2023, and as such, it’s time for a meme dump! This is where I post all the memes I harvested over the last year and then held for an opportunity for use that never came. Or I forgot.

Politics

 

This is probably the most important one of all:

Socialism/Capitalism

Religion

 

Just for Fun

 

 

And on that note, thank you for spending time with me this year. I hope you continue to visit in 2024 Happy New Year from the House of Bluz.

Christmas Spirits

 Happy Christmas everybody. Yes, a heathen like me still celebrates the holiday, but more out of a fondness for the tradition than any spiritual reason.

With that spirit in mind, I’d like to present my favorite original Christmas carol of all time, along with my favorite rendition of an old classic.

I’ll be back with more political speen-venting and various nonsense in the new year.

Until then, lets finish 2023 with gusto! Everyone sing along!

 

Social Insecurity and Other Hangups

Candidate Nikki Haley is publicly pushing changes to our Social Security program, out loud. That’s risky and I think it’s necessary. But what she’s proposing and what people who aren’t bought and paid for by rich donors propose are two different things.

Haley wants to increase the age at which today’s younger workers would become eligible for Social Security, and limit the growth of benefits the wealthy receive.

Raising the so-called retirement age on young people is just kicking the can down the road, all the while screwing them dry. It’s so calculated because she knows that young people are the least reliable voters, so she faces much less blowback than she would if she recommended raising the retirement age of older Americans, who have retirement in their sights.

As tough as it is to make a living, it really puts the squeeze on the young. They can’t afford to buy a house, apartment rent is through the roof, and now they have to worry about setting more aside for retirement? Aside from what? I hope “the young” are paying attention because this is a purely Republican offering.

Her other prong is more aesthetically pleasing but ineffective. It sure looks like she’s putting the squeeze on the rich but it doesn’t really amount to much.

No, these billionaires shouldn’t be drawing their $3500 a month from Social Security. It’s like peeing over Hoover Dam... that little trickle isn’t going to make much difference. But the problem is that there aren’t enough billionaires to make these cuts add up to anything.

According to some snappy research I just did, there are 735 billionaires in the United States this year. Now, this $3500 per month comes to $42,000 per year. Multiply that times the 735 billionaires and you come to $308,700 annually. That is NOT going to bail out Social Security. That’s like dumping a soda can over Hoover Dam.

If you want to make a dent, remove the cap on Social Security taxes for people making over $160,000 per year. That will fix the Social Security shortfall. There is no rational reason to have such a cap in place other than a bunch of rich people telling their Congressmen, “But I don’t wanna pay more for Social Security!” and then writing giant campaign checks that ensure such a solution will never see the light of day.

If the rich people don’t like paying into a system where they never get to reclaim it, tough shit. Be glad we don’t close the other tax loopholes too. Say goodbye to stashing your profits in the Cayman Islands.

Speaking of the economy, remember in the late twenty-teens when Republicans used to defend the Trump Economy by saying, “But how’s your 401k doing?” As if that was the only barometer, but OK. So you’d think they’d have to admit that the Biden Economy is doing equally as well.

But no…

Once again, a prediction that the Very Stable Genius made went down in flames. He famously said the market would dive into a depression if he were not reelected. Contrast that with the news that the Dow just hit an all-time high.

Suddenly, TFG says the stock market “is only for making rich people richer.”

I don’t know why I even hope for fair play. Republicans will never admit they’re wrong and easily abandon a principle they espouse the second it becomes beneficial to do so, and espouse the opposite principle.

It’s comical that he goes on to blame the current high prices on President Biden, knowing that corporate price gouging is the reason for it. Inflation is coming down and corporate profits are way up. That’s only possible when their prices are being set higher than the sum of supply chain costs and their earlier profit margin. They’re raking in the dough due to their own greed and blaming their political enemy for it before laughing all the way to the bank.

The thing is, what is it that this president, or any president, is supposed to do about the way companies set their pricing? It’s not like raising or lowering taxes or tariffs would work because the merchandisers are not pricing for costs, but for how much profit they want. Any solution to price gouging would be guaranteed to elicit howls of protest from the Right: Socialism, Price-ism, and No Fair-ism. 

Have you also seen TFG’s new tactic when confronted with video of him saying or doing something that looks bad? He calls it Fake Video, just like he used to do with “Fake News.” What started out as a term for troll-farm disinformation, TFG turned it into a label for him to slap on any news item that he didn’t like or made him look bad.

Now, with AI becoming all the rage in video falsification, it has provided a new defense mechanism. So when someone counters his charges that President Biden is old and feeble-minded with video clips of TFG muttering, mumbling, mispronouncing basic words, and fidgeting around like a toddler, he calls it a fake video. It’s a given that the MAGAs will believe him. At this point, he could collapse on stage right in front of them amidst a pile of gibbering monosyllables and rubbing poo in his hair, and they’d just claim it was someone from Antifa in a Mission Impossible mask. Or Hunter Biden.

***

I like that Jack Smith has taken TFG’s main delaying tactic straight to the Supreme Court. TFG is charging that a President has broad immunity, so much so that anything he does during his term in office is legal by default. (In other words, the Nixon Defense.) So rather than having that fight court level by court level, where even though he could be confident in winning, the clock would be running out, the prosecutor asked for a judgment from the Supreme Court right now (as opposed to when it would inevitably end up there in the months to come.)

At this point, the issue gets tricky. We know there are 5 or 6 Justices in the bag for TFG. Maybe one, Roberts, might worry about becoming a national joke, should they rule for the defendant.

Compound that with the fact that the sitting president is a Democrat. I think it calls for an appearance from Dark Brandon, to step out and say, “So whatever the President does is legal. Where should I begin?”

It should go without saying that such a finding would be disastrous for the nation. We’ve already seen what can happen when someone with neither morals nor scruples holds the office. With such a ruling, nothing could stop him from looting the treasury and national assets for trillions in assets.

So I don’t think the Supremes will make such a broad finding. I do think they’ll find some kind of technicality that will allow them to cover TFG with a narrow scope, without making it a precedent. They have a whole team of legal beagles over there. All they need is a sliver of Constitutional support, theoretical or not, upon which to build this legal house of cards. It’s not like they won’t ignore other more solid and traditional tenets that would suggest ruling the other way. They’ve done it before and will no doubt do it again. They’ve already shown that they treat “precedent” the way a baby treats its diaper.

An Old Rocker Looks at Taylor Swift

You can blame it on Facebook… It’s all because of that “Reels” feature. I sometimes totally go down the rabbit hole looking at those short 1-2 minute videos, one after another, like they’re potato chips. And the thing is, once you watch a video on a particular subject, they show you more of the same. One day, I watched a short clip about Taylor Swift, for no other reason but because that’s one fine-looking woman. Big blue eyes, perfect lips, hair like spun honey, tall and fit, what’s not to like?

She uses that trick Tina Turner used to do by wearing a skirt slit up to her hip bones so it made her short legs seem long, and Taylor’s long legs seem miles long. Soon, I’m sure the dictionaries will show you her picture when you look up the word “leggy.”

So, the next thing I knew, I was getting an unending stream of perfectly Taylored material, plus snippets from her new boyfriend and his brother’s podcast (which is hilarious, by the way.)

One of the byproducts of getting rabbit-holed like this, especially at night, is that I end up dreaming about the subject matter. (It happens with TV shows I binge-watch, as well.) So last night, I woke up at about 1:30 AM, after having a dream where I was concerned with the state of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s relationship. And in that weird state in between sleep and consciousness, I began considering all I’d learned about Ms. Swift and putting together some blog points in my head.

So now, after sacrificing 90 minutes’ worth of sleep to the subject last night, I feel obligated to purge the old mental files, so maybe I can catch some quality Z’s tonight.

I am an old rock and roller. I like dinosaur rock like AC/DC, the Scorpions, ZZ Top, with a big helping of the blues. I am NOT Taylor Swift’s target audience. I’ve heard some of her songs and they’re just not for me. I do admire her talent in that she plays guitar and piano and writes her own songs, which are all things I wish I could do. But no, I don’t do pop music.

But yet, I find myself becoming a fan of her as an individual. I’m amazed by how she’s conducted her life and career. She’s currently performing in one of the biggest and most profitable world tours ever, a real production number. And then, releasing a movie of the tour? Brilliant! Why not? They already have cameras filming everything for the video screens in the venues. In fact, I think every band touring should do the same, for the folks in markets they didn’t visit or couldn’t take out a second mortgage for the tickets.

And what a trouper... have you seen pictures or footage of her performing her shows in a complete downpour? She just carried on. That's what made a fan out of noted Crusty Old Guy (and New England Patriots' head coach) Bill Belichick. He was at one such show with his daughter and commended her for her professionalism, in not letting a stadium full of people down, in miserable weather.

She’s won just about every music and video award there is, not to mention Time’s “Person of the Year.”

I saw an interview with her on 60 Minutes, ages ago, she must have been in her late teens or early 20s, and I was impressed, even then, with her business literacy and savvy. She clearly knew what she was doing and didn’t let anyone tell her differently.

And now, I’m especially impressed with how she delivered a double-decker Eff-You sandwich to the douche-nozzle who bought up her first record label, including her original masters. By rerecording the songs, releasing them herself, and encouraging her fans to only download and stream the new versions, she essentially turned the guy’s several hundred million dollar investment into a money pit. That was icy. A mob boss should deliver retribution so coldly.

One of the reels I saw was a conversation she had with her parents and manager, wherein she told them about her plans to push her fans into not only registering to vote but to vote against Donald Trump and Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn. She spoke passionately about how Blackburn voted against things she held dear like the Violence Against Women Act, pointedly gesturing to herself as she mentioned the anti-stalking portions. It was clear her dad was against such a move but she said she understood it was a risk and she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t use her notoriety to speak out on something so important. The moment gave me chills. I hope she stands up again for the next election. I don’t think there’s anyone on the planet who can mobilize people better than she could mobilize her Swifties.

There were a lot of Reels that featured her appearances on talk shows or being interviewed at events, and she always came across as funny, humble, and self-deprecating, kind of a goofball. She seems like your adorable babysitter from next door. Yet very sharp. She stands up for herself in the face of nitpicking and criticism, defending her choices and pointing out how male artists are rarely characterized the same way.

She talks about how back in school she always felt like the nerd, the outcast, and how she didn’t really fit in. I think that kind of thing stays with you, in that deep down, if you were the outsider, you always feel like that, no matter where your life takes you. I think that’s what keeps her grounded.

Travis Kelce’s dad commented, after their big “coming out” game, that afterward, she was cleaning up the suite herself before they all left. That tells me right there that she’s not the type to “Big Shot” people. She just wants to be one of the family.

Word is that she gifted every member of her crew, from dancers to truck drivers to stage assistants, a bonus of $100,000. I bet her accountant had a heart attack! Generosity like that shows that she has to be massively wealthy. (If there is any money to be had in music, it comes from songwriting royalties. As the writer of all her songs, she has been set up for life.)

I can’t even fathom what it must be like to live like her. Sure the great houses and private jets are one thing, but this person can’t even step out of the house without drawing a crowd of photographers and fans. How does one cope with a never-ending swarm of people, all of whom want something from you? Smile here, sign autographs there, now please pose for a selfie? Can you say something to my daughter on the phone? It’s impossible to win. You can sign and pose until you collapse but there will always be more. Or you can ignore it all and be called a phony or a snob.

I saw a recent clip of her coming out of a restaurant and heading for her ride, surrounded by hordes of fans photogs and onlookers. But then she saw a little girl on the fringes, so she veered from the car door and headed right over to her to say hi and pose for a picture. That was a beautiful thing to do. And I bet there were others in the crowd cursing her because she didn’t come to them.

I would go batshit crazy from the pressure of it all.

Could you imagine what would happen if she tried to do something as mundane as grocery shopping? The place would be mobbed in the time it takes for a dozen people to send a text to their friends… “Taylor’s in the freezer aisle! Come quick!”

“Taylor, sign this coupon!”

“Everybody, Taylor touched this melon. The bidding starts at $100!”

It’s good that she’s rich because fame like this certainly comes with a massive price. But I also heard her tell an interviewer that whenever she feels overwhelmed by it all, she tells herself that she asked for it. This was the dream she knowingly pursued but I’m not sure she ever really imagined her current realm of success. Who could? Yet, I see a young woman handling immense pressure with grace and class.

Can you imagine what would happen if she ever decided to run for office? Maybe she should put her money where her mouth is and run against Senator Blackburn when this term is up. Hell, if an under-the-radar comedian like Al Franken could do it, it certainly seems within the capabilities of Taylor and her Swiftie army. And she could self-finance, to be truly independent of big moneyed interests.

Worst case scenario, her campaign rallies would be a vast improvement over what we see now.

One Clown Down...

… And only a couple dozen more to go! Yes, Congress has finally rid themselves of the corrupt sideshow that was George Santos. Frankly, I’m surprised it actually happened. In fact, I can’t really figure out why the Republicans did it.

I know there were some who were publicly quoted as saying they wouldn’t consider it purely because he’s a voting number for them. Republicans are nothing if not focused on the bottom line of maintaining any power they gain.

Maybe some of them figure that their margin doesn’t much matter during this and next year’s terms because they can’t pass anything that will get through the Senate and be signed by the President anyway. In the best-case scenario, sane/moderate Republicans join the Democrats in keeping the government’s doors open and passing must-have operational bills as needed.

Maybe this was their opportunity to stop looking like jokes and take a reasonable moral stand. Should it be that hard to say, “You can’t remain a Congressman if you make up your entire life story prior to your election and then embezzle campaign money raised from donors?” It’s a low bar, but at least there’s a limit.

From yesterday's Baltimore Sun.

I mean, Santos has only been a Congressman for about a year; it’s not like they’re tied to the guy. Not like with TFG, to whom they're married lock, stock, and barrel. They can jettison Santos, still keep a majority in the House, (they only need one more than the Dems to run the committees, so they have a few to spare), and demonstrate that their party recognizes real corruption. This is a vast change over their penchant for seeing corruption where it isn’t but desperately wish it was, or not seeing it when it’s plastered all over the wall in front of them because they don’t want to admit their Orange Idol is a crooked, raving, maniac, bent on turning the USA into a theocratic dictatorship.

(Yes, I know TFG doesn’t give a shit about the Christianity part of it, but it keeps the Evangelical nutjobs in line while costing him nothing.)

Hunting Season

And speaking of seeing corruption where it’s not, did you see Hunter Biden hand the Republicans their asses last week?

They subpoenaed him for a hearing, to which he agreed, IF it was public. What a move! That’s the last thing they want because they KNOW it’s a giant nothing-burger and the only hope they have of making their case is by cherry-picking the testimony to make it look worse than it is. They know if people are watching the testimony, there will be too many calling foul when Fox “News” and Breitbart twist the facts.

Jaime Raskin is a Representative from Maryland, but unfortunately, not from my district. I really hoped he would have run for Ben Cardin's Senate seat.

So now they can’t allow his open testimony AND then can’t say he won’t appear. It’s a real poser to try to explain why public testimony is bad (for a case they’ve been hyping for years) and a close-door hearing is good. If an open hearing is good enough to distribute dick pics, it should be good enough for serious testimony.

It just goes to show (again) that this class of Republican is only interested in manufacturing outrage and selling it to the voters. They come in with the verdict first, and then cobble together whatever props it up, even if it’s only for one news cycle. They want tit-for-tat revenge for the Democrats daring to impeach their lord and master and use “facts,” “eye-witnesses,” and “evidence,” to do so. Imagine the nerve!

In Sickness and in Health

And speaking of TFG, I can’t believe he’s going after Obamacare again. This guy has literally not learned a thing. People can get pretty sensitive about their health care. The last thing they want is for it to disappear, with nothing left but an empty promise of something better.

I can’t believe he’s STILL telling people that he’s got his own health care plan, all ready to be rolled out soon. Have we not heard that all before?

Republicans have had 13 years to propose a “solution” to Obamacare, including two years where they had unrestrained power, and they couldn’t even come up with a proposal. All they can do is spout inflammatory platitudes about the ACA, with nothing to back it up. It still saves the country money in the long run and insures people who couldn’t get insurance before. It would work even better if Red States actively participated, rather than doing everything they could to bring it down.

I still maintain that the only thing they don’t like about “Obamacare” is the “Obama” part. After all, it was a Heritage Foundation idea in the first place. They don’t like any idea that a Democrat supports, including their own.

Have Republicans ever proposed, anytime in the last 40 years, a program that serves the general public without kowtowing to big business? Republicans just do not DO public service. I guarantee that any health care idea floated by Republicans will be looking out for business interests first and the public’s interest second, if at all. Big business wants out of being an insurance provider in the first place. I think the only reason they don’t support single-payer is that the big insurance companies would go belly up. Plus it would be something else for which they’d have to come up with a way to dodge the taxes.

I like that Biden is reintroducing the idea of a public option. That’s where you can get government insurance if you want it or continue with private insurance. And if they undercut the insurance company’s prices, you can expect that it will go over very well… except with Republicans, who will manufacture a reason why paying less for insurance is somehow a bad idea. (I presume the word “Socialism” will be in the first sentence.)

The Crazy is in Plain Sight

This story came out several weeks ago and I apologize for not working it in sooner, but I can’t let it pass without at least saying something…

I would believe this if it were a survey of Fortune 500 CEOs, but “most Americans?” Seriously? I’d love to know what it is they think TFG did to make their finances better. Maybe it’s all the hype that Fox “News” puts on the TFG Tax Cuts so they think it applies to the general public. Nothing could be further from the truth. The big Tax Cut Lollapalooza of 2017 went almost exclusively to the richest 1% and was made permanent. The remaining scraps went to the rest of us and were designed to sunset after 7 years.

And while Republicans are losing their mind about the deficit, it was this tax cut package that made it explode. But rather than fix the deficit by repealing the Fat Cat Tax Cuts, they want to cut social services and our “entitlements,” meaning Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. How is it that “most Americans don’t understand these facts?

TFG also rolled out a giant tariff program, because he didn’t understand that the manufacturing country doesn’t pay these extra fees, they roll it down to the consumers, meaning US.

Maybe people are nostalgic for the days when gas was under $2.00 a gallon. They remember that but forget that the reason for the low price was that no one was driving, for fear of catching The Rona, the fight against which was criminally botched by TFG’s administration. No demand equals low prices. Was it really worth over a million American lives just to get cheap gas for a couple months?

At every turn, Republicans demonstrate that they don’t give a flying fig about the average citizen’s finances. If they did, they would do something about it. Democrats would join them, hand in hand. But that’s not what they care about.

And then, the part about how TFG and the Republicans would keep America out of wars? Just because they want to pretend the world ends at our border doesn’t mean they don’t want to keep the Defense Department and all the Defense Contractors flush with money. Just ask Tom Cotton, who wants to start deploying our personnel into Gaza.

No, there will always be a war, or some other “police action,” to keep the Defense money flowing. And I don’t mean to the enlisted personnel. We KNOW TFG doesn’t give a shit about them… He said they were “suckers and losers” for joining the military. He doesn’t care if they’re underpaid. But they sure want the biggest and best bombs money can buy.

It’s a testament to Right Wing messaging that TFG is even a factor in the next presidential race. Fox “News,” and the rest of the Echo Chamber ignore any and all gaffes, mistakes, and complete fuckups, and alibi out any that make it through to their fan club’s ears. Even with the glowing economic numbers being released over the last months, they have people thinking we’re in a recession and blame it on Biden. It doesn’t matter if it’s complete bullshit, people want to believe it because it plays to their biases. Like the bias that TFG is a sane, rational, being, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

(Trump gaffes)

This is right out of the GOP playbook, from Bush to Palin to TFG. Even when you’re wrong, claim to be right. If there’s proof, dismiss it as biased. Claim to be the victim of a media conspiracy. Do anything but admit you messed up. It would be funny if it wasn’t so alarming. Oh, and be sure to seek retribution against anyone who tries to hold you accountable.

And this isn’t a matter of letting all the pressure of this prosecution get the better of a public servant, it’s the re-elected president directing the Justice Department to round up his enemies and put them in psych wards. Hang the charges, hang the trial, then hang the accused. Jail them first, justify it later. (You know, in “two weeks,” when the long-awaited Republican health care program is going to roll out. No matter the date, it’s always two weeks away.)

How is it that Americans aren’t seeing these issues? Yes, I know, everyone is busy. But one should never be too busy to know what’s going on in one’s own country, even if it’s just for selfish reasons. After living through the clown show that was 2017-2020, how can anyone think we need to do that again, only with even less competence and more vengeance?

I don’t care if Biden’s old; he’s not evil. He’s not a crook. He’s not a psychopathic narcissist who will kill democracy to save his own ass.

And speaking of evil, thank goodness we have Mike Johnson to lead the charge against evil*.

*In the narrow way he defines it.

This is a guy whose public statements call for imprisoning doctors who perform abortions, eliminating hate crime laws, criminalizing gay sex, and giving up the right to privacy. (Except for political donors, of course. That’s nobody’s business.) Basically, the guy is a religious nightmare bent on making his own brand of fanaticism the law of the land. And the Republicans just put him second in line to the presidency.

And speaking of wingnuts, MT Greene is still out there fighting for relevance.

Now she wants to investigate the January 6^th investigators. I presume that’s because Fox “News” and the whole Right Wing propaganda apparatus can’t hype Hunter Biden’s Laptop into the crime of the century.

I watched most of the 1/6 hearings; I don’t understand what it is she thinks she can allege. I mean, they have tons of witnesses and reams of evidence. And this is coming from one of the ringleaders of the other GOP “investigations,” that have delivered one nothing-burger after another in.

I presume it’s just more performance theater with an audience of one.

Can’t we get Harlan Crowe, or one of the other Supreme Court “special friends” to ship her off on a cruise somewhere, just to get her out of town and minimize the embarrassment? The chipmunks driving the tiny wheels in her brain have to be due for a break.

In fact, the whole thing makes me want to “run away.”

(Let's hear it for this awesome Photoshop. Great job! Once I saw it, I had to find a way to use it.)