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, real proof 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, denied 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.

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 in 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 him or 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 some 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, heavy 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.

Sh*t Happens

It’s been a shitty week around here, and I can only wish I were being metaphorical.

I’ve mentioned before that we have a dog, a 14-year-old yellow lab, and at his age, we fully realize we are running on gravy time. The average lab lives 9-12 years, I’m told. He’s generally been fine up until now, slowing down, but essentially the same dog he’s always been. But now, we can see the endgame approaching.

He’s always been extremely reliable in that he never went potty in the house. Ever. He always came to get one of us to let him out. Last Monday changed all of that.

I woke up to find a serious shitstorm. He had left a big pile on the throw rug right beside the back door (his usual route to go outside). He must have done it between the time my wife left for work and when I got up for the day.

Then every time I’d clean it up and leave the room, I’d come back to another pile. I was about to have a meltdown. See, I’m not the one who generally tends to the dog’s maintenance, aside from letting him out. This was Sweetpea’s dog, and his care has remained under her domain. I’m extreeeeemely squeamish about handling poop. In fact, I’ve only changed one diaper in my lifetime and still remain traumatized by the experience. (It made an entertaining post though.) But I couldn’t leave it there on the floor for the next eight hours, so I had to do something.

Sweetpea’s usual MO for poop detail (inside or outside) is to put her hand in a plastic bag, pick up the offending matter, and pull the bag down off her hand, thus encasing the poop. That would not work for me. I’m not touching that stuff no matter how many layers of plastic are involved. She seems to have infinite patience for this stuff; maybe it’s because she’s dealt with small children all day for 30+ years.

Anyway, I took the rug outside and squirted it off with a hose, then hung it up to dry over a railing.

When I came back in, there was more. After I cleaned that, I finally got to sit down and peruse the internet, after which I came back out of my office to find even more. I was pretty much losing it by that point.

It took me a while to realize that it wasn’t always fresh work. I noticed he had stepped in some with his back paw, so what I was finding was where he had tracked it around. So I got him outside and hosed off his foot, butt, and general hind area. That solved the immediate problem.

The dog has gotten very weak lately. So when he goes to squat, he can only hold the pose for so long. Then he tires and sort of slides back down into his creation, thus doubling any cleanup efforts.

I was never so glad to see someone come in the door as I was to see Sweetpea that evening. We needed to pow-wow to come up with some solutions, because from what I could see, the entire focus of my retirement was now trying to keep the dog from shitting in the house.

One of the things we did was line a path through the living room with old towels, so in case of an accident, we could remove the piles quickly. Unfortunately, that wasn’t always easy; the boy is no longer simply dropping logs. He’s had some degree of diarrhea for the last two weeks, which was like one part Velcro, one part toxic waste, and smells like hot death. You probably ought to go buy stock in Febreze, because we’re using that stuff like crazy.

Of course, the towels never stay flat; they get rumpled up via dog and foot traffic, so our living room looks like a giant unmade bed. Add that to the area rugs we have all over the kitchen, because the dog has a hard time getting up (or even walking on) the tile floor. He’s prone to taking tremendous cartoon-like pratfalls where all four legs splay out as he thumps to the floor. He can still get back up, though. Sometimes he struggles, but he can do it when he’s sufficiently motivated (usually by food). But it’s a process.

Maybe we should just put down a tarp and make the whole thing look like an indoor Slip-N-Slide.

One night in the middle of last week, after Sweetpea was in bed, I saw the dog appear at the exit from the kitchen and assume the position in the hallway. I leapt from the sofa, going, “NONONONONO-outsideoutsideoutsideoutside…” and hustled him to the door. This was a big mistake because he left a trail of doots along the towel-brick road. I should have left him be where he was, standing on a plastic runner just inside the front door. That would have been a much easier cleanup. But all I could think of was to reinforce the “outside” part of the process and not tacitly signal that indoor pooping was OK.

Eventually, we realized that we could go buy some more plastic runners and substitute them in for the towels. Sweetpea did that yesterday. That makes cleanup easier, and the room looks much less rumpled.

All of this has led to a new normal.

Every morning, I get up to find a note from Sweetpea, informing me of the dog’s poop status, so I know what I might expect.

We found that, in discussing the subject and given the ever-changing nature of what the dog is producing, I suggested that we create a poop scale so that we needn’t get bogged down with descriptive details. So we created a 1-5 scale, where:

1 = Chocolate milk

3 = Pudding

5 = Lincoln Logs

This week, the scale went into effect.

(The “pork” had nothing to do with our subject today, just a note telling me I don’t need to take tonight’s dinner out of the fridge.)

To help with his stance, she bought a support strap, about 10 inches wide, with handles on both ends and padded with fleece, so when he hunches over outside, one of us can slip one end under him and pull up to keep him from falling back into his mess. He doesn’t like it much, but he tolerates it. So when he goes out, we have to go with him. I don’t know how this will work in the winter. Suffice to say, he won’t be waiting around at the door while we put on our coats and boots.

So now we have a dog who has trouble walking and getting up, gets scabby protrusions through his fur, and he’s half incontinent. (I say half because he never pees inside. I guess he can hold that better.) He can hardly see, and his hearing is diminished too. He sleeps about 22-23 hours a day.

I know what you may be thinking… that maybe it’s time to put him out of his misery.

We’ve considered that too, and it might come to that eventually. We’re keeping an eye out. He doesn’t seem to be suffering. He still has a voracious appetite. For whatever is going wrong, he still wants to eat all the time. And that brings its own problem because his “give me food” behavior is the same as his “let me out” behavior, so we don’t always know what he really wants. We just treat every action as “let me out” and go from there. This is how our typical evening’s activities play out:

·         After his and our dinners (and treats), we sit down for the evening.

·         Dog signals us.

·         We go to let him out. He goes to the Treat Bar.

·         We tell him no; he’s had his dinner and treats.

·         We all sit down again.

·         He gets up and signals again.

·         We told you, NO MORE FOOD. (He knows what this means.)

·         He takes the stance like he’s about to go.

See, NOW he wants to go out; he just wanted food first. Or, he’s hoping for a treat when he comes in (which Sweetpea often provides). We used to go through several rounds of this each night before he’d finally settle in. Now he’s done after the first cycle.

So, he still seems to be “him.” Despite bumbling around, he doesn’t seem to be in pain. He enjoys seeing his best human friends when they come over, and he certainly enjoys every meal. We don’t think it’s time to take any drastic measures yet.

But ask me again later if my quality of life is still so intimately tied to dog shit in another month or two.

Maybe it should be ME getting put out of misery.

He's Not Leaving, Pt 847

In a temporary win for democracy, the Supreme Court ruled last week that the president cannot use the post office to screen mailed ballots, limiting them to voters he likes. The main thrust seemed to be that it is too late to change the rules, as ballots are already beginning to go out.

Local Note: This morning I received an email from my local elections board that my ballot has been mailed. I plan to turn it around ASAP and bring it to a ballot drop-off receptacle. Unlike Texas, Maryland allows more than one per county. We have one right down the street.

This is the second time SCOTUS has decided this matter based on timing. They ruled the initial suit was filed too early. Now it’s too late. It seems like they’re bending over backwards to avoid ruling on the principle of the case.

Unfortunately, I believe we’ll see this matter surface again. It seems Justice Kavanaugh left them some breadcrumbs to follow for 2028. In a concurrence, he wrote, “In my view, based on the briefing the Court has received at this interim stage, there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service's statutory authority," thus clearing the way for Republicans to draw at least one more vote in a third go-round. Alito and Thomas, the two dissenting votes, were just fine with this manner of voter suppression. I wouldn’t put it past Gorsuch and Roberts to do a 180 and find for the Felon when the chips are down, and the dominoes are about to start tipping.

Another part of the order that was killed called for all states to create identical mailing ballots. I’m sure they really wanted that… That would mean the Post Office would only need to devise one sorting profile for the machines nationwide, which would cover all ballots. Again, even the issues that seem benign on the surface have malignant purposes. Sifting out ballots would be a breeze.

I keep saying it: If the president is still alive in 2028, he’s not leaving office willingly. If he can’t win the election, he’ll cancel them. If he can’t cancel them, he’ll disrupt them. If he can’t disrupt them, he’ll create an emergency and claim wartime powers to ignore them.

Yes, I know it’s all illegal, and there’s no precedent, but so are most of the things he’s done in the last year and a half, and no one has stopped him yet. With his blanket immunity, the Justice Dept. refusing to investigate anything that falls between the cracks, and using ICE as his enforcement/defense mechanisms, he is impervious to outside pressure. (Save for maybe the Russians.) The FBI won’t help; they’re now just as partisan and corrupt as Justice:

Don’t believe me about TFG’s intentions? Check out this message from him last weekend. If this doesn’t chill your shit, nothing will:

Who do you think those drones are meant to be fired at? China? Iran? Venezuelan fishermen? These armaments are meant for us, ie., anyone who dares defy his authoritah via direct protest. OR, say, a splintered militia made up of military and police members who are willing to disobey direct orders and dig him out of the White House like a tick.

I can just imagine an automated machine gun stand on the top of this arch, remotely controlled from inside the White House. It could have two settings: Just Hit the Legs, and Kill’em All. Whiskey Pete would love it. I won’t be surprised if he outfits the ballroom with the same weaponry.

So he’s digging a massive bunker/safe house under his ballroom, arming monuments, and revoking freedom of the press. Oh yeah, he did that too when he banned MS NOW, CNN, and Politico from the White House. He said that anyone who publishes news he doesn’t like will get banned. The president now decides what can be published. First Amendment is gone in a whirlwind of Big Mac wrappers and methane. I wonder what other Amendments he’s going to nullify because he doesn’t like someone who uses them.

None of these are the actions of someone who will leave power willingly. He knows that as soon as he loses the protection of the presidency, he, his inner circle, and some of his children are going to jail. He has zero incentive to go peacefully and every reason to use every method imaginable to cling to power. His lack of scruples or ethics practically guarantees it. 

Update 9/23/26:

Welcome to the party, CNN!

It's All Part of the Plan

Our Clown-in-Chief said more stupid things last week, most of which occurred at his Big Texas Circle Jerk. One of the more terrifying tidbits was that he expects The War That Isn’t a War to end after the elections.

There are a couple of angles to this.

First off, you could say he knows he can’t end the war before then. So then, any other time will be, by definition, “after the war.” But that’s just the literal aspect.

The second point, the one that scares me, is that the means by which he intends to end the war will be so distasteful that he needs it to be after the elections, or else it will negatively affect the vote. As if there aren’t a dozen other atrocities that weigh on the scale right now.

The first thing that comes to mind is the use of nukes, which will roil the oil market and send gas prices into the stratosphere for decades, and probably dam up the Strait for good. After that, oil will seem like a quaint idea when we can’t get enough fertilizer to grow nation-sustaining crops.

And, of course, there is the horrific, massive loss of innocent life that happens any time a nuclear bomb is used. Of course, to this Administration, the fact that these will be brown people with weird names mitigates the damage.

Then there is the possibility of in-kind retaliation, either by a foreign state or an independent terrorist with a suitcase nuke. After a national tragedy like 9/11, the nation came together. If such an emergency happens again, I don’t think we’ll see such a unified front. The race to blame political opponents and exact revenge will short-circuit everything else. And it’s exactly the kind of thing TFG would use to declare martial law and assert power indefinitely.

It’s funny that in the best possible outcome, he’s just blowing his usual torrent of lies and exaggerations. But you never really know with this guy.

 

The other big item was his $5,000 bribe to vote Republican in November. The fact that he continually proposes handing out cash, without it ever happening, practically guarantees that zero cash will ever be forthcoming. No one is taking this “offer” seriously, except maybe a few MAGAs who are still waiting for their special NFTs to turn a profit, or their gold shoes to show up.

The national Republican apparatus was quick to cast doubt on the prospect, but they may not be in on the possible endgame.

Consider the fact that Republicans can be relied on to do two things:

·         Spike the deficit when they’re in power by slashing taxes for the rich.

·         Demand a balanced budget when the Democrats are in power.

It seems to be their most effective weapon, even though anyone who’s been paying attention for the last 45 years can see the pattern. We Americans have the national attention span of a flea.

So if this giveaway spikes the deficit even more, it only adds to the case Republicans are sure to bring in the future: that spending needs to be slashed because of the deficit. (Assuming we can ever actually remove the current occupant.)

What’s one of any future Democratic administration’s priorities? It had better be de-Trumpifying the government, via un-naming things he smeared his logo on or built in his own honor, restoring the governmental departments that have been gutted, and rehiring tens of thousands of government workers to staff them. That’s going to take a lot of money, and we won’t have it. And no matter how the Congressional makeup turns out, the fat cats will buy off just enough Democrats to guarantee that no substantial changes are made to the tax code that require that the rich kick in more.

So, spiraling the deficit is the Republicans’ insurance policy to keep the government the way they just made it: built by and for the Rich. Doing it via handout makes it seem like they’re trying to help the little guy.

But tell me, in what way is robbing every citizen of $10,000* and then giving them back $5,000 considered “help?”

*Or whatever the number comes to that we’ve overpaid for tariffed goods, medical services brought on by getting sick via our uninspected food or unvaccinated virus carriers.

They’re counting on us to forget about all that, just like we forget who contributes the most to the annual deficit. I vote that we remember this ploy in this and every November.

 

Blogging Note

If you have a blog using Blogger/Blogspot, have you noticed if your blogroll has stopped updating? As of today, mine has been stuck at what it showed five days ago. I’ve seen at least one other blog with the same problem, so I know it’s not just me. Any ideas as to the cause, or what to do about it?

At Least the USPS is Improving at Something

The day after my last post, about how the current attempts to sabotage the midterm elections are likely to succeed regardless of legality, a new story broke about how the post office is continuing to develop a voter suppression technique despite being forbidden by the courts.

Long story short, (and aside from the fact that it is illegal for the post office to have any role in voting systems, other than just delivering the mail, AND the likely illegality of states having to filter their voter rolls through a federal “approved” list), the plan is for the USPS to take a sample of around 400 outgoing ballots from a batch of 10,000, bump them up against the federal list, and if even a single one is deemed ineligible, the entire group of 10,000 will be returned to the state.

You can see how that would inevitably entail tens of thousands of ballots being sent back and forth, eating up all the available mailing time before the election.

This is how you know it isn’t about preventing ineligible votes. This system is designed to stop the whole process in its tracks; otherwise they’d just pull the ineligible votes and send the rest on.

A whistleblower provided an account of the work continuing on this voter-prevention system, despite the court having already instructed the Post Office to cease all such activities, so you can see how seriously the Administration takes court orders. “Just carry on, and by the time it all shakes out, it will be too late.”

This is also a scenario that defeats the use of drop boxes. You can’t leave your ballot in a drop box if you never receive it in the first place. I think the states should seriously look into either emailing ballots or making them available online. It shouldn’t be hard to limit downloads or emails to those on their list of registered voters. Of course, the Republicans will scream bloody murder about a new avenue of alleged “voter fraud,” but they do that about any practice that circumvents their voter suppression tactics. That’s how mail-in voting became an issue in the first place.

Another story that broke last week was how a Tarrant County election commission in Texas decided to eliminate 92 voting locations. This action immediately followed a “town hall meeting” wherein the overwhelming majority of attendees supported NOT removing voting locations. Tarrant County abuts Dallas and contains Fort Worth, and is one of the “Bluer” areas in Texas, and key to the Democrats picking up a Senate seat. Making it more inconvenient for your opponent to vote is a cornerstone of Republican voter suppression, whether it’s actions like these, or removing voting machines from key precincts, removing or decreasing early in-person voting days, or draconian water prohibitions when in line to vote.

They know that white-collar (upper class) can spend all day in line and their employers will accommodate, while blue-collar (middle/lower class) workers’ employers are much less lenient. Someone has to be there to make the donuts. Not to mention the loss of hourly wages while standing in line.

And regarding another voter suppression angle I covered last week, there was an article in the paper regarding using the military to appear at polling places.

The AP article quotes Gen Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying that there are no plans to send troops to the polls.

That’s fine, except that it has no bearing on whether ICE is sent. ICE is not part of the traditional military and is not under their chain of command. The president, via the Department of Homeland Security, can send ICE anywhere he wants. I guarantee they will be out and about on Election Day, on the prowl for brown voters they can pick up or scare off. I suspect this article is just one more way that mainstream media is trying to keep a lid on things, to keep people happy and complacent.

We can no longer afford to be complacent about anything. Big changes are afoot, and without our active resistance, the move to a fascist authoritarian regime is imminent.

One more quick observation. Do you know how TFG has been filling up Truth Social with fantastical AI depictions of himself in godly/heroic scenarios? There was a telling passage in the new book, "Regime Change" (Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan) that might explain it. They report that he was enthralled by AI technology, particularly about how you can just tell ChatGPT something and it will spit out what you want. He had a lot of questions about it and how it worked. (This is unusual, since he's not normally curious about anything.) So I wouldn't be surprised that rather than merely forwarding the fawning work of others, he was creating these things himself, or at least telling Natalie what he wanted. 

The 2026 Beta Test

Despite the serious intonations of wizened media types, I remain unshaken in my belief that there will be a massive attempt to steal the midterm elections, and it will probably succeed. I agree with Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman:

The plain truth is that all the main players in this administration know that without control of Congress, their options for remaking this country into the Fifth Reich will be limited to Executive Orders, which can be easily reversed by a subsequent administration.

They also know that a Democratic Congress means investigations out the wazoo, and in this round, the prosecutors will have things like “evidence” and “proof.” Democrats may not be able to get the Orange Cretin out of the office, because the Senate will be unlikely to convict (short of a Democratic sweep this November), but they can get some of these fake-patriot clowns to make a public vote in support of the most unpopular president in history.

So, the Felonious Guy might not care about maintaining a Republican Congress in a general sense, but he understands that things will be tougher on him without one. He’ll be motivated to do whatever it takes to claim victory in the fall elections. A Republican Congress will also make things easier for him to create a third term as president. Having guys “on the inside” always does.

Yes, I know that many of the ploys the MAGA types intend to use are illegal; it’s just that it won’t matter. Take, for example, the idea of sending ICE into urban voting centers. They could quite possibly prevent Latin Americans from voting, as well as any other brown person with an accent. No one is going to risk their life and livelihood just to cast a vote in a midterm election.

Is that illegal? Sure it is. But once it’s done, it can’t be undone. Votes will be prevented, courts will say it was illegal, but there won’t be any recourse. Do you seriously think the current court system will allow an additional voting day to remedy the problem? Hell no. The Justice Department won’t even pursue the charges.

That’s their ace in the hole. Republicans own Justice, and the highest court will back them up. The only illegal actions are those that these conservative toadies SAY are illegal, Constitution be damned. There’s always a way to cherry-pick a decision so it only counts in a particular case. And the Court has already shown that they will play either side of a principle, depending on which way favors Republicans. They are not interested in consistency; they’re interested in acquiring and maintaining power, specifically power of rich, white, pseudo-Christian men over women, immigrants, non-Christians, and people of color.

It’s a similar situation if he can gum up voting by mail. If his minions at the Post Office can just delay ballot mailings to (or from) key zip codes, that’s all it will take. Again, the damage will be done with no chance for remedy. They won’t allow more time; hell, they fight the current grace period as it is (to count votes mailed by the deadline but not yet delivered).

Also note that some say curtailing mail-in voting will hurt Republicans too. I disagree because they have an easy workaround, as I side-swiped in the previous paragraph. They don’t have to kill ALL ballots. It’s certainly within their capability to curtail ballots going to and from key zip codes or precincts. Detroit can expect a trickle of ballots, but I bet Kansas will find clear sailing.

This Administration is going to fight against fair elections in every way they can imagine, and dare anyone to challenge them. Again, to whom are you going to complain? They run the power structure.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to combat this, other than calling it all out as often as possible. I suppose state or local government could call out the National Guard or police to run interference at the polls, but I just can’t see that happening. I think it’s more likely that the Guard and the cops will side with ICE, if only for a chance to use their cool new electrocution gloves.

This fall will be a trial run for 2028. If the Republicans can pull off a coup here and avoid seating a Democratic majority, a third Trump term will be a done deal. The 2026 midterms are the beta test. The president will do everything in his power to avoid losing the protections of the office because he knows that he, his family, and his inner circle are likely to go to jail. He has zero incentive to respect the rules of our democracy and every motivation to burrow into the White House like a tick.

I would love to be wrong about all this; I really would. We’ll know for sure in a couple of months.

 

In Other News: RIP

Wow, it’s been a real bumper crop of celebrity deaths in the last weeks.

Frank Beard, drummer for ZZ Top. I’ve been listening to ZZ Top for almost as long as they’ve been around, over 50 years, at least. I always loved his drum fill right as the main riff for La Grange kicks in. Ironically, so many of his obits list his credits on Gimme All Your Lovin’, Sharp Dressed Man, and Legs, because they’re all from the album where they used a drum machine in the studio.

Hayden Panettiere, actress best known (to me) as the indestructible cheerleader on Heroes. It’s such a shame when someone so young passes. I haven’t seen an official cause of death but I’m guessing it’s a delayed reaction from being crushed under the weight of her giant, heavyweight boxing champion ex-husband.

Dolly Parton, singer, saint. Geez, who doesn’t love Dolly? I look at Dolly the way I look at Taylor Swift. She didn’t make my kind of music, but I admired the hell out of the person she was. She did more good work in a morning than most politicians do in their whole careers.

Tim Curry, actor, singer. Are they really sure he’s dead? They thought Pennywise was dead too, but he always comes back.

Jaye P Morgan, singer, game show panelist. I had a big crush on Jaye P during my early teen years, from her appearances on The Gong Show, because she was sexy, witty, and bawdy. Might have been my first “MILF,” had I even known what that was in the late 70s. I imagine her carrying on right now, with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine.

The Fluffer Brief

Last week the nation was introduced to the enigma that is Natalie Harp, the president’s new most trusted aide. She eased into our consciousness a month or two ago, when people wanted to know who the hot blonde was that was tagging along with the president. Some speculated that she was his new wet nurse, there to take his vital signs and change his dirty diapers. It stayed that way until the news blew up regarding her exact duties, which, rather than handling “duty,” she’s been handling the president’s ego. Dubbed the “Human Printer,” she provides her boss with hand-picked selections of good news and positive reviews (from MAGA sites) and any other slice of curated information he may require. In this situation, I don’t even think it’s about sex, just ego-stoking. It’s an old man enjoying the attention of a pretty girl.

The book, “Regime Change,” by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, illuminated just how devoted she is, describing personal letters she wrote and left for the president, stoking his confidence and declaring unwavering devotion. She’s basically a presidential fluffer.

Sen. Jon Ossoff, again, got his name in the news with a jibe that mentioned Natalie, which met with a tidal wave of organized indignation from the Administration’s talking heads and MAGA toadies, in a volume and level of vitriol that far outweighed the original slight. In other words, it struck a nerve in the Oval Office.

The funny thing is how they weren’t mad at the shots taken at his incompetence as a military leader, his chronic sleepiness, his golfing, insider trading, or taking a bribe-plane from Qatar. No, all the faux-outrage was focused on the “riding with Natalie” part. Maybe it really IS about sex after all. He’s mentioned many times how he doesn’t want to be “Cartered” by a military mishap. I’m sure he doesn’t want to be “Clintoned” either.

Now, is there anything wrong with a president having devoted staff? Nope, assuming they’re qualified and security-cleared. This president has been surrounded by nothing but sycophants for his entire career. He never seems to run out of them.

And yes, it’s alarming that someone who appears rational on the outside is so slavish in her attachment to such an utter imbecile, who has neither attractiveness nor cleverness, nor consideration, nor inquisitiveness to warrant such affection. A lot of people flock to power; this seems a bit overboard. Who else in Washington would fling themselves into the rear storage compartment of the president’s SUV rather than leave his side for a moment to take a trailing car? That is some seriously weird shit.

While everyone was discussing this story last week, there was one angle I haven’t seen covered, which may explain her MAGA-ier-than-usual Trumpmania.

What if she’s a Russian plant? Consider these possibilities:

·         It sounds completely within the realm of something an old KGB man like Putin would do. Russians know the long game. They have the patience to wait until their asset becomes sufficiently entrenched to receive the payoff.

·         Even if they didn’t develop her from scratch, they could have approached her when she worked at OAN, home of the Super-MAGA talking heads. Hell, for this opportunity, they may not have even needed to pay her off; just provide the inroad. She may have already lacked the dignity necessary for such an assignment.

·         They know he has a “type,” which she fits to a tee. They also know exactly how the president operates, thriving on praise and adulation; the more cloying, the better. They could have coached her up on what he likes, on what he needs from his inner circle. The more fanatical the attention, the more he eats it up.

·         Even with the president under Vlad’s control, they still could have needed an ear on the inside because this president may not always remember to report everything back to his handlers. That’s the problem with employing a “useful idiot.” No matter how useful he may be, he’s still an idiot. They may have needed a secondary source.

Now, I’m not saying this is all true. I don’t have any inside information, so this is pure speculation. But it’s plausible, no? Sadly, this is what we’ve come to in this country, where a president being on the take with the Russians is easily within the realm of possibility. “The Manchurian Candidate” seemed far-fetched at the time. Now it sounds like another Monday.

I guess I’d better be careful though. This could be a Pelican Brief situation, so maybe I should start looking over my shoulder and start checking under the car before I go out. Good thing our house is only one floor. At worst, any fall from one of our windows would result in grass stains rather than broken bones. Unless, of course, they got broken beforehand…

  

 

Director’s DVD Commentary: In case you never read John Grisham’s The Pelican Brief, or saw the movie, it’s about a young law student who writes a speculative “what if?” brief about land use crossing with ecological concerns, which ended up with a couple of Supreme Court justices murdered and assassins looking for the student. The movie stars Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington.

Lincoln Would be Pissed

It finally broke nationally that the aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is in dire straits, and not just that of Hormuz. Conditions aboard the Lincoln have deteriorated to the point where several sailors have tried to jump overboard. They’ve been deployed for over nine months, without shore leave or apparently any supply shipments.

We’ve known for years that TFG gives less than a flying F about our servicemen (and even less of an F about servicewomen). Back during his first term, he was quoted by one of his generals as saying those serving in our military were “suckers and losers,” apparently for putting their lives on the line in exchange for relatively little monetary reward. He doesn’t understand service, nor honor, nor sacrifice, so volunteering for such duty doesn’t compute to him.

Also, please recall that in 2019, he diverted funds away from our rank-and-file servicemen. I wrote about it thusly:

“Did you see where he wants to pull the money from?  Among other uses, he’s targeting funds earmarked to upgrade soldiers’ housing. Apparently, there are significant numbers of servicemen and their families living in moldy, rat-infested houses. Sure, everybody gets all weepy and patriotic about military men and women, but let’s divert the money meant to keep them from living in squalor.

I’m certainly no military expert, but I don’t understand, even if a longer-than-usual deployment is necessary, how they are not flying in supplies to restock the ship. Why can’t they send some plumbers to get the busted pipes back under control? Maybe start helicoptering some of the crew to shore and back, just to keep them going. Nobody functions well in a never-ending grind of both mental and physical faculties, not even our best and brightest.

At least Sen. Ossoff is bringing the heat.

Today, we’re faced with the fact that our military members are being treated more harshly than those who were on the USS Indianapolis.

 “Ya got city hands, Mr. President. Been countin’ money all yer life.”

At least with the sharks, you know what’s coming. I’m sure there are a lot of sailors on the Lincoln who enlisted after believing all the hype about becoming macho he-man weapons of war, only to be left to sleep in their own filth for three seasons. They must feel completely abandoned by their country and their leaders, who had to be pressured into taking the most meager of actions.

Which brings me to all the military sycophants I’ve seen on social media over the years, adorning themselves in yellow ribbons, flag lapel-pins, and sappy patriotic memes, who are now dead silent on what’s happening under their guys’ watch. I know one of my best friends served on an aircraft carrier in the 80s, who would completely understand what his modern peers are going through. Yet there has not been a word from him or any of the others in their social media feeds.

I guaran-damn-tee you that if this exact situation happened under Biden or any other Democratic administration, they’d be screaming bloody murder and there would be non-stop news coverage of the outrage. Instead, all these “Seal Team Six” war movie fans are now more like “The Silence of the Lambs.” It makes you wonder if there is anything really there under the charade. Is there anything they really stand for? Under all the bumper stickers, ribbons, and dewy-eyed reverence for our soldiers, is there any substance when you dig down deep for our soldiers and country?

No, just like their patriotism, it’s a mile wide and only skin deep.