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.

Sunsetting

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been collecting more examples of the tricks used by a biased media outlet to taint what should be the “straight news” into partisan messaging. I have a prime example, right in my backyard: the daily newspaper, The Baltimore Sun. Last year, The Sun was purchased by the owner of the conservative media group Sinclair Broadcasting, and ever since, it has been coloring news stories with an anti-Democratic slant.

Granted, they have plenty of opportunities, given that the city and state are run by Democrats, so any and all “bad news” is immediately linked to a Democrat in power, especially Governor Wes Moore.

Rather than publicize a report stating that the Governor had kept many of his campaign promises, The Sun ran a front-page story arguing that he hadn’t kept them properly, claiming they were too vague or that fixes were already in process.

Gee, a candidate makes insufficiently specific promises… welcome to politics. Funny how they never run stories about Republican politicians taking credit for major projects at ribbon-cutting ceremonies, after having voted against Biden’s infrastructure bill that authorized the project. But then, it’s OK if you’re Republican.

But the point here is that they never cover a story that contains good news for Democrats without adding a big BUT. In fact, the “BUT” is usually the story. Like here:

And here:

They have to include reasons why it’s not really such good news, usually from hand-picked analysts, conservative think tanks, or one of the few Republican politicians in the state.

Take this article about a Fourth of July speech the governor made:

What did he say in the speech? No idea; they just question his motives and go on about what was wrong with it, as per their reliably negative “analysts.” They’re trying to torpedo, ahead of time, any chance a handsome, charismatic, young, Black, Democratic governor has to run for president in 2028. If you look at the first page of The Sun regularly, you’d conclude that their reason for existing is to provide a never-ending litany of smears of the Governor.

I understand and support that the media is supposed to maintain an adversarial relationship with the government, but we’ve never seen any such malicious coverage of the last two Republican governors, and that was before Republicans ran the paper. Digging up a black lining for every silver cloud is not balanced journalism; it’s putting your thumb on the scale. And even still, there’s a place for that, which is called the Op-Ed page, not the front page.

You can always count on The Sun to follow the traditional Republican talking points, like with this story:

Yep, whenever their own words are released and make Republicans look bad, they don’t apologize or look inward on what they can do better; they look to expose the leaker and prosecute. So rather than excoriate the Administration for using the “War Room” to devise plans to bury the Epstein Files information, The Sun/Sinclair National Desk attacks the efforts to expose such an atrocity. And if they can identify and punish this “transgressor,” all the better to dissuade future leaks. Yay! Democracy in action!

Note that this “columnist calling for a criminal probe” is one who works for the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch, or in other words, Fox “News.” As per the modern conservative media playbook, they have one of their own people start talking about something, then have their other outlets report that “people are talking about something.”

Here’s another beauty from The Bubble:

What they completely omit from this story is the most obvious explanation: Republican talking points are far, FAR, more likely to be false or at least less true. So any objective reading of a situation will come down to a fair reading of the facts, which usually support the Democratic talking points rather than the Republican. We know it, and they know it… a great many Republican assertions are straight out of Fantasyland. It doesn’t even take AI to see that, just a rational look at the facts and data. So this article isn’t so much a stark, raving falsehood; by ignoring a major factor, it’s more like an aggressive misdirection. It nonetheless leaves the reader with the impression they want from the start, that the media has a liberal bias, all the better to claim victimhood, ignoring the fact that media ownership today is overwhelmingly Republican. And it’s getting worse:

Trump’s FCC just cleared the way for large media conglomerates, who own dozens of TV stations, to get even larger, to further provide a single perspective (a conservative one) for the nation’s viewers. With the Paramount/Warner’s merger about to go into effect, even more media outlets are about to be compacted into even fewer hands, and those hands will be overwhelmingly Republican.

Ultimately, that’s the most efficient way to garner good headlines… make sure your own people are the ones providing them.

Here’s one more story, this one from today’s paper:

It’s another traditional “Democrats in disarray” story, this time, about how the moderates are supposedly worried about the Progressives gaining favor. Why is The Sun writing about it? Because the last thing they want to do is run against progressives. They’ve been beating the Moderates for years. They just label them as extreme and go from there. Progressives promise the same things Republicans do: to make their constituents’ lives better. But Progressives actually plan for and try to do it. And when it works, like it’s doing in New York City, it scares the Republicans shitless, because they have absolutely nothing tangible to offer their voters, other than the millionaires among them, who make out like bandits.

So they call the Progressives “Communists,” which is funny because it’s the Republicans who are actually forcing private companies to go into business with the government.

Personally, whether it’s Socialism, Communism, or Capitalism, I tend to ignore the labels. The Democrats should be one message on blast: that they seek to spend money to make people’s lives better, not to provide more tax breaks and loopholes for those with the most. Costs down, wages up, tax the rich to pay for it.

Make food safe, address climate change, and install an immigration system that actually allows immigration. When in doubt, look to make things better for people as opposed to corporations.

If it wasn’t for the insatiable greed of the 1%, it would already be that way.

Just Say Thanks, Then STFU

House Republicans needed a distraction last week, probably from the fact that they haven’t done diddly-squat to better the lives of American citizens, so they decided to re-litigate the COVID pandemic by demanding testimony from Dr. Fauci.

As far as I’m concerned, Dr. Fauci is a national hero. He, alone, among the first Trump administration, spoke to what was in the national interest, as opposed to repeating whatever nonsense his boss was spouting. Congress should have been thanking the good doctor for pulling the country out of the COVID mess, despite constantly having to swim upstream against the torrent of snake oil and misinformation emanating from the administration.

I still hold great antipathy toward these anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-science idiots. I still blame them for the fact that my father’s last days were spent scared and alone in an ER hallway where he couldn’t have visitors, because all the rooms were filled up with COVID patients, in a Florida county where only about 35-40% of the people were vaccinated.

The Republicans’ aim was to compare Fauci’s public words and actions to passages taken from a personal diary, and to somehow get him to say something under oath that contradicts materials stated therein, to conjure up a perjury charge.

The first thing that came to mind upon learning all this was to wonder where they get off publishing a man’s private diary. I mean, WT actual F?

As someone who has journaled on and off throughout my life, I can attest that things found in my old journals should not be taken as raw facts. A journal was a place where I vented, or worked out my shit, on paper. I may have said, from time to time, that I’d like to see a particularly manipulative girlfriend’s head in a camera bag (quoting a Sam Kinison bit from the era), but that would hardly constitute a threat or even a committed position. I didn’t want actual harm to come to anyone; it was just me letting off steam, so I’d be able to function normally during periods of intense heartbreak.

Also, using a journal against its writer seems like nullifying his Fifth Amendment rights by disallowing his right to avoid self-incrimination via his own words and thoughts. It should be unconstitutional.

Note: I’m talking about figurative things like opinions and feelings, not a step-by-step written log of how the writer killed someone and where he buried the body. Or, details on running a massive child-trafficking and sexual abuse operation for rich guys.

So under the circumstances, I think Fauci was wise to plead the Fifth to every question.

There are no grounds too shaky for the current Republican justice system to create charges. Someone would definitely find an answer that didn’t exactly match something from the past, no matter how carefully he answered. As we know, these guys come up with charges first, before bothering with evidence. So as we learned from the movie “War Games,” back in the 80s, sometimes the only way to win is not to play the game.

Fortunately, he did get to read an opening statement, to get some shots in against ringmaster and head clown, Rand Paul. It was the most savage opening salvo since Roman Maroni in “Johnny Dangerously.”

It’s a pity that we live in a time when scientists are criticized by those who don’t understand even the basics of science. Rep. Paul pretends to have high-level medical credentials, but he really doesn’t.

But even he surely knows that at the onset of a novel virus, no one knows what it will do, how long it will last, or how to fight it. By definition, you need data that amasses over time. It’s not lying to say something that has to be corrected later in such a situation; it’s just someone being wrong. Being wrong is the basis of science. You learn as much from being wrong as from being right; you learn what not to do or what doesn’t work, and you adjust from there.

So it makes perfect sense to cast a wide net with basic precautions like masks, spacing, and avoiding large quantities of people in public places. What got Fauci into trouble is that some of that cost some big donors some money, a cardinal sin amongst Republican politicos.

See, that’s a defining difference between the parties. Democrats were trying to save people. Republicans were trying to save profits, and short-term profits at that. They were too amped up over the next quarter’s bottom line to realize that temporary pain would lead to solid recovery later, once the virus could be treated.

So, now that Republicans need a distraction from this month’s policy atrocities, Dr. Fauci made a good target at whom to point their fingers.

Always remember, Congressional Republicans need something to run on this fall, and they’ve literally done nothing to help their constituents. Well, other than for the racist ones who cheer the harassment and seizure of brown people to pen up and torture for a while before sending them out of the country, to someplace where they may or may not be from. But that’s all they’ve got. All the bridge openings and ribbon cuttings originated under the Biden Administration. Sure, they’ll show up to take credit for actions they voted against, but it’s hollow. There will always be someone around to point out who actually got the shit done.

I can only hope that the next national health crisis holds off until we can elect a new administration, one who works to restore faith by basing health initiatives on science rather than who can benefit from providing a “cure.” Because if some pathogen starts running wild in the next three years, we will be totally and completely screwed. There is no one left to do anything that will help. They were hawking malaria pills to cure COVID last time, because key people could make money from it. Maybe next time we’ll see them pushing Viagra to cure the next bird flu.

At least then the “side effects” can occupy people until they eventually drop dead.

A Country Divided

I recently started watching one of those extreme weather shows on the Discovery Channel; the ones that show tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, mostly cell phone video shot by people in the middle of the event. It’s epic, fascinating stuff. (Well, to me, anyway.)

Yesterday I watched the episode about 2024’s Hurricane Helene, which was absolutely devastating to western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. What I remembered from the news at the time was how Republicans were asserting that Biden’s FEMA was only helping Democrats, adding to the victims’ sense of helplessness and abandonment. The fact that these statements were patently untrue didn’t seem to matter much, and in the face of constant repetition on Fox “News” and the like, it came to be understood as common knowledge.

I submit that this was one more example of Republican accusations actually being confessions, because we can see from the years hence that this is exactly what the current administration is doing with their own barely-existing FEMA. California was devastated by wildfires but was refused federal help at every request. Even in Red areas, they were still seen as part of the Blue state.

And just last week, it was discovered that an Administration member said in a sworn court affidavit that approved grants for energy projects had been rescinded in states that didn’t vote Republican in the last election.

The current pitting of the two sides of the country against each other to this extent would have been unimaginable just 10 years ago. No one would have believed the depths to which the government, as run by an Adderall-addled fuckwit, would sink. But look at us now.

“We need help.”

“Who did you vote for?”

“Them.”

“Denied. Piss off, vermin.”

***

To add to my general discontent, I’ve just started reading that new book by NY Times writers Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, called “Regime Change.” I’m only about 120 pages in, and already, I’ve learned several appalling things. 

·         Stephen Miller is basically the Anti-Christ. He moves about the White House with impunity and tacit support from the president on everything he proposes. He’s so racist that even TFG noticed it. A quote from the book: “In a 2024 campaign meeting, Trump remarked that if it were left to Miller, there would be only 100 million people in the United States and they would all look like Stephen Miller.” A gruesome thought, to be sure.

·         Miller was enraged when the message emerged from the White House that ICE was only going after violent criminals, murderers, and gang-bangers during their deportation operations. He knew that they were going after everybody, and having that qualifier out there would make them look bad. (They weren’t picking up people at Home Depots and outside schools because they were going rogue; that was their mission in the first place.)

·         There has been very little thought put into who is getting tariffed and for how much. The president was basically determining tariffs the way you’d determine a tip for the gardener. “Let’s give’em 10%. No, make it 20%.” Apparently, no one in the president’s circle, nor any business leaders, thinks tariffs are a good idea, just TFG, who is always 100% sure of his own genius. All evidence to the contrary be damned.

·         They had invited 15 CEOs from the big fossil fuel companies to meet with them. The president asked for a list of ten projects the White House could help fast-track. The CEOs were amazed. Usually any request they made would get reviewed for political analysis, environmental impact, etc., before even being brought to the president. Said one of the CEOs: “He has a better sense of his executive authority than anybody else we’ve ever dealt with. [snip] I would never want a Democrat to have that same sense of executive authority. But this guy fucking does.”

Granted, we’ve known all along that Stephen Miller has been running the White House with racist intent, and the administration is totally in the pocket of big business and the fossil fuel companies, but it’s still jarring to see the details.