One (hundred) Days at a Time

On Wednesday, The Felonious Guy reaches the lauded 100-Day mark of his administration Reign of Terror. Only 100 days.

[sigh]

It feels sooo much longer, doesn’t it? When was the last time you got up in the morning without worrying what the MFer did this time? Every day, it’s a new test to see if you can withstand the latest assault on America. We’ve seen tariffs, sky-high prices, destroying federally funded science, schooling, rolling back safety precautions regarding our food and the environment, general bellicosity involving invasion threats to Greenland and Panama, and I could go on for the rest of the page, but it’s just too depressing. Also, arresting judges, threatening law firms, human trafficking, selective prosecution of anyone who dares criticize him, and gutting services to Americans to trade off cutting taxes for those who have the most already.

Sorry, the rest tumbled out after I meant to stop.

America has become a laughing stock, no longer an anchor at the Cool Kids’ Table. He can’t even make it through a funeral without embarrassing himself. There he was at the funeral of Pope Francis, shining blob in his blue suit amidst a sea of mourning black. And the putz falls asleep, right in front of everyone.

(No, do NOT tell me he was deep in prayer. That guy wouldn’t know how to pray for rain if his ass were on fire.) He’s checked out. If they’re not kissing his butt, he’s not listening.

If you need more proof that Melania is checked out, it’s the fact that she didn’t wake him up. She could have at least offered a nudge or two in the ribs to get him back among the living. Or maybe a stiletto heel to the top of the foot.

I think the people in charge of Vatican funerals put him up front on purpose, just to highlight what a low-forehead clown he is.

But yes, the 100 Days… That means today we’ve got 1362 more to go, assuming he isn’t re-re-elected or self-appointed in 2028. There is so much more time for who knows what damage he’s prepared to do. Three years down the road, we may be looking back at THIS as the Good Ol’ Days.

Today, resistance is most certainly NOT futile. It’s a requirement if we’re going to live in a people’s democracy ever again.

Sundowning

Meanwhile, the Conservative Media continues its psychological influence operations. The Sinclair Media-run Baltimore Sun laid some cards on the table last week, if you know what to look for. In this case, it’s the one bit of local good news. Naturally, they buried it on page 8 of the paper, bottom left corner.

You’ve got all the Ugliness/Incompetence in Baltimore stories front and center, and the part where the city came off the 25 Most Dangerous Places in the US list is placed where it’s most likely to be overlooked. You gotta hand it to them… they keep coming up with new ways to claim even more turf for the richest Americans. Stay tuned; soon you’ll see an OP/ED asking for Jeff Bezos to buy Baltimore outright and use the infrastructure for Amazon warehouses and storage. They can’t wait to hand over the keys to the kingdom to one of their own kings.

And today, we have this adventure in Headline Distortion:

This is a story about how Democrats are working out amongst themselves how to move forward, with David Hogg and the new crowd looking to make big changes, shake things up, and usurp the Old Guard. And the old guys, naturally, won’t go without leaving claw marks on the door frames.

The headline suggests something else, though. “While Dems search for identity…” OK, the usual Dems in Disarray story, “Lawmakers take a different approach.”

See what they’re doing? The Dems are over here, while the Lawmakers are over there, even though the story is literally about Democratic lawmakers. But the headline suggests they’re two different things, and they’re at odds. If you read the article, you find out what the real story is, but so many people only glance through the headlines on their way to the sports and comics. The headline is often the only impression they get from the paper.

It’s kind of like they used to do with magazine ads back in the 70s and 80s, when they’d bury subliminal messages in the periphery or add sexual imagery in the markings on the ice inside a glass of Scotch. (They may still do that, but with the lack of circulation in print media, they probably can’t afford it anymore.) They are designed to leave an imprint in your mind, whether you actually absorb the ad/story or not.

The Hacky Habits of News Aggregators and I Can’t Even

I’ve used Yahoo News pages as my home screen and main news site since I got my first computer in 1999. It’s not so much loyalty as it is inertia, because I haven’t made much of an effort to find a better one.

But some of the things I see there get right on my last nerve, so I thought I’d complain about them a bit and see if you agree.

The I’s Have It

One of the things that drives me the buggiest is the use of “I,” “me,” and “my” in the headlines, thus putting the author in the middle of the story. Like two of these here:

Plus another:

Listen, I don’t care how a story affects some rando content provider. Who are you, and why are you in the story? This happens a lot with Buzzfeed stories, but it’s common elsewhere. While scrolling through today’s news items, I saw this construction more than a half-dozen times. It’s a lazy way to make your article seem relevant to the reader. And to add insult to injury, the article is never as jaw-gaping as they make it seem.

It’s even worse when they use the “and I’m Here for it” trope. Like, “So and So Wore a Nice Dress and I’m Here for it.” Look, no one cares where you are or for what purpose. Leave yourself out of the narrative and just cover the red carpet, OK?

It’s Drafty in Here

Another article I skip 100% of the time is anything about an NFL “Mock Draft.” (An example is in between the I-stories in the first graphic.) The headlines always make it look like big news, a scoop of epic proportions. Now, I’m as interested in the draft as any chronic football fan but I also know that these mock drafts are just the opinion of a couple of sportswriters, sitting in an office somewhere, with varying degrees of expertise. And the chances that they actually know what the draft participants (GMs and owners) are thinking are nil. Team decision-makers keep that shit close to the vest until it’s time to announce their picks. These self-important draft prognosticators don’t know any more than a reasonably informed fan who has a good idea of what his favorite team might need that year, which is to say, he doesn’t know jack-shit. It’s a guess, marketed as inside information. I pass, every time.

Picture This

They do this a lot, too… adding a celebrity headshot to a story that has nothing to do with the pictured celeb. It doesn’t even have to be a celebrity pictured; often, it’s just some attractive model type who is unrelated to the content. More clickbait and switch.

Taylor-Made Stories

In this day and age, anything Taylor Swift does becomes news just because it’s her. And now, with her taking a break from the public eye, now that her record-breaking tour is over, they’re desperate for Taylor content. Hence the above story, which, for all the sizzle, comes down to, “Sports reporter’s husband says thanks to Taylor for hooking them up with VIP tent access to one of her shows.” That’s the story. There’s absolutely nothing of substance there. It’s like any time someone says anything about Ms. Swift, it becomes an article. Hypothetical example:

Headline: Taylor Swift in Health Crisis?

Substance: Taylor told a friend that she had a headache.

Film at eleven.

Here’s another similar one:

The gist of this story: “Taylor has a famous friend and they’re keeping in contact via text.”

Really? Tell me more! Are there emojis involved? What kind of font are they using?

This article demonstrates another device I hate. This is prevalent whenever the subject is a musician, but especially with Taylor Swift. They always use this construction: “The 'Bad Blood' singer says…” They did this three different times in this one article. By including mentions of specific songs, they hope to draw internet search hits (for the song mentioned), thus boosting the article’s profile. And the rub is that anyone landing on this article due to a song search will be disappointed because there is nothing in the article that has to do with their topic of interest. So, essentially, they use cheap tricks to game the system rather than produce quality content that gets circulated organically.

No News is Good News

Then we have the stories that are completely un-newsworthy, like this:

Translation: Somebody somewhere said something stupid. It’s not news, it’s something that happens thousands of times per day. Professor X says something radical. Local shop owner prefers cats to people. Local blogger hates broccoli. This is completely news-free filler that only becomes news because someone wants to use it to make a point. For example, right-leaning news sources will always jump on any story that makes students or educators look bad, to bolster their ongoing opposition to an educated population.

In the story above, the content creator is trying to wealth-shame some woman who obviously has it too good. It’s another attempt at creating clicks out of those seeking the comeuppance of others who are more well off than they are. And it’s not really news.

Clickbait Headline Constructions

I despise the use of the phrase, “Breaks his silence…” Joe Blow Breaks His Silence on Hot Topic. Was there really a “silence” before, or had they just not addressed an issue yet? I mean, there are millions of topics on which I can “break my silence,” because I didn’t care about them, or maybe no one ever asked. It’s not something I’ve been hiding; it just hasn’t come up yet.  It’s a device to make something look like a bigger deal than it is, so you’ll click the link and inevitably become disappointed that you’ve been served another nothing-burger.

It’s the same thing with “Reveals…” “New Orleans Native Joe Bleaux Reveals His Favorite Gumbo Spot.” Is it really a revelation, or did he just mention something? To me, nothing should be “revealed,” unless the subject is quoted as saying, “Tadaaa!”

They also like to use this for random female body parts. Like, “Shake it Off Singer Taylor Swift Reveals her Right Knee.” And you read the story and it’s like, “As she crossed her legs, Ms Swift’s dress shifted a skosh and her knee slipped into view.” It’s just one more way to make something seem more important than it really is.

Unless they can get an exclusive interview with the other knee, to see how it feels about being covered up.

Headline: Taylor Swift’s Knee Involved in Cover-Up and I’m in Shock!

And Finally

RIP to the late Pope Francis, who I will always consider the Least Destructive Pope of my lifetime. The man fought to bring a little empathy and scientific awareness to the Church and was fought every step of the way by the Vatican bureaucracy. After this experiment, I’m sure his successor will be far more conservative and promptly roll the Church right back to the 16^th century.

The SAFE Act is Dangerous

Republicans are actively marginalizing women, and they’re not even trying to hide it.

Did you see how their “SAFE Act” passed the House? Otherwise known as the Screwing All Females Effectively Act, the bill contains nefarious provisions meant to look like they’re solving the non-existent voter fraud issue but are actually erecting barriers between probable Democrats and the voting booth. One part is removing the vote from married women who have changed their names. (Or anyone who has changed their names for any other reason, which is one more way they can stick it to the Trans community.)

The requirement is that one must prove their citizenship by providing a birth certificate, which matches enrollment information exactly. Obviously, that jams up anyone who went from Jane Smith to Mrs. Jane Jones. To solve this self-made crisis, the alternative is to provide a valid passport. That leaves literally millions of women without the opportunity to vote, short of a costly and time-consuming effort to acquire duplicate official documents (from a government that is shutting down agencies right and left). This is an obvious attempt to deter women from voting (who may be livid over their eroding reproduction rights or other professional diminishment):

Now, the contents of this bill have been public for months. Republicans and Democrats know what’s in it and what it does. Still, there were no substantial changes made to it before passing the House. That means this is not just some oversight or mistake. One major party wants to slash the number of women voting. There is no other logical (non-head-up-Fox’s-ass) way to interpret this. And I’m apoplectic that there were four Democrats who went along with the bill, who must have been bought off, threatened, or horse-traded into compliance.

And unless the Senate makes a change, they’ll be in on it too. So, like I said, this “side-effect” is no accident. They mean this, and they want it bad.

To overcome a filibuster, they will need seven Democrats to accept this bill. I just hope that’s a bridge too far, but I’ll never discount the lengths the Republicans will go to consolidate their own power.

This should be a front-page story in every newspaper, and so far, it’s barely made a blip, thanks to the new chumminess between mainstream media and the administration. No one seems to care.

This needs to go full Red Alert, with pressure brought to bear on the Senate. Otherwise, this is yet one more way the Republicans are rigging the next election. I’ve been pointing it out for the last couple of posts now. They wouldn’t be engaging in such unpopular actions if they were worried about being voted out in 2-4 years. 

But they’re not, they’re dismantling Social Security, killing weather research and storm reporting by defunding NOAA, spiking prices of goods and services, picking up brown people on sight and sending them to foreign prisons, killing caps on insulin and bank fees, and other malevolent actions that make an average citizen’s life worse and more costly. Usually, the threat of getting voted out prevents the most egregious things, but not this time. They are unconcerned about more elections because they know that if the deck isn’t sufficiently stacked for them, there won’t be any more elections.

I hate being such a naysayer, but you can see the results for yourself. These aren’t normal times, and they call for a heightened response. All those Hands Off protests were a good start, but we need to be more forceful in reminding these pols that they work for US, not the other way around.

At least they used to pretend to, anyway.

Biden’s "Inflation" Looks Like a Bargain Now

Welcome to Tariffland! Can’t you just feel the impending greatness of it all? So here we go down the rabbit hole… TFG (The Felonious Guy) released his tariff program that included most of the world, including islands with no human inhabitants and another with only a US military base. And nothing for Russia, of course.

It’s comforting to know that this program was so well thought out and agonizingly constructed.

Hah.
We went grocery shopping this past weekend, and the prices haven’t seemed to change drastically. However, they may only be applying the price increase to new shipments as they come in. I bet it’s hard to reprice a whole grocery store.

The car industry is different. Sweetpea and I were out buying a new car the previous weekend. It wasn’t because of the tariffs; it just happened to be the weekend we penciled car shopping into our calendar a month earlier to replace her old beater. Our timing was fortuitous. The car salesperson told us that when the tariffs are officially announced, every car on the lot will increase in price. Most will rise by 25%; the model we wanted would go up by 40%.

I was astounded and perturbed that they would apply the new tariffed price on cars already on the lot, which should have been unaffected by the new pricing. I think the new car business was trying to make a maximum impact to provide the biggest shock, with hopes to get the Idiot in Charge to back down in the face of protest. But that won’t happen. Not only doesn’t he care about what peons like us think, but he’ll never admit he’s wrong, especially about something to which he’s pinned his reputation.

I think that unless the tariffs disappear within the month, we’d better get used to the new pricing in our new reality because it’s not going back.

Look at what happened with the COVID/Supply Chain problems of 2020-2022. Consumer prices skyrocketed, but then, once the supply crunch was over, the prices stayed put. We were conditioned to pay the new rates, and the business owners certainly weren’t eager to mute their new profits. Republicans rode to power on the misconception that President Biden was to blame for high prices. So do you really think that down the road, once this situation returns to something normal, everyone is just going to slash prices? Nah. It will take years and probably some legislation for that, and we know that about half the pols won’t lift a finger because it would be bad for the rich donor class.

Another angle is the purported purpose of the tariffs: to bring back American manufacturing.

This is a pipe dream. Even if companies wanted to pull out of foreign nations and build new factories here, and that’s a HUGE “if,” it would take years to come to fruition.

And what if they did? There’s a reason they exist overseas, and that’s because the labor is cheap. If they build here, who’s going to do these jobs, and for how much? If they pay a livable wage, enough to entice average Americans to do these jobs, the resulting cost of the product would soar. And if they find a way to make it legal to pay skut-wages, they’re also driving out all the immigrants who might have taken the jobs.

Is the objective to make things so dire that people have no choice but to take two or three low-paying jobs just to get by?

No matter how this shakes out, we’re going to be paying this tab for a long time.

The most realistic projection I’ve heard is that TFG is “open for business” regarding negotiations over reducing the tariffs. That totally tracks because it becomes a “What’s in it for me?” situation. And no one embodies “What’s in it for me?” more than the Current Occupant.

Meanwhile, our former trade partners are making deals elsewhere, and we’re about to find out that America may not be as indispensable as we think. Maybe it will be the entire world’s ill will toward us that will keep us warm at night.

***

I loved seeing all the Hands Off protests from around the country. It’s a shame I didn’t see a word about it in the local newspaper Sunday or today. They’re still trying hard to keep the Orange Shyster propped up in the news. Look at this clipping from Sunday:

This is what they think is a front-page story: The President’s poll number had risen four points before his tariffs were announced. So… there!

They don’t mention any polling done afterward, nor do they mention that the polling is from the conservative-leaning Daily Mail. They also claim his status rose 6 points with Democrats, which I absolutely do not believe. It’s another puff piece, plain and simple. (And for shit like this, I pay $5.50 for the Sunday edition.)

But… back to the protests. I saw a lot of wonderful signs, but these two were my favorites and will no doubt reside on my sidebar for months to come:

Science!

Now, this lady’s living her best life right there. You go, Grandma! 

***

Lastly, RIP to Val Kilmer, who passed last week (right after I dropped my last post. I enjoyed reading all the blogged tributes. But out of all the big screen reminiscences, only Lawyers, Guns, and Money even mentioned my favorite of his movies, Top Secret.

Top Secret was a comedy made by the Airplane guys. I believe it came after Airplane but before Naked Gun and Hot Shots. It was a spoof of Elvis and WWII movies, featuring, as you’d expect, 90 minutes of sight gags, wordplay, satire, and 4^th wall breaking.

I remember seeing the trailer for it during the previews before another movie and almost choking from laughter. I couldn’t wait to see it, but alas, it was a very early preview. The movie didn’t come out for like another 6-8 months. But boy, it was worth it.

For some reason, it seems like very few people have seen it. I can’t count how many times I’ve had conversations with people about how much we loved Airplane, but then they’d never heard of Top Secret.

This was Val Kilmer’s first film, and he played an Elvis-like character caught up with the French Resistance in WWII Germany. Don’t feel like you have to know Elvis movies to appreciate this one. I’d never seen a single one and it was fine. Of course, years later, I dated a girl who loved Elvis movies so I saw one or two. She never understood why I was laughing my ass off though, when I finally saw the source material for various scenes.

Anyway, if you like the Airplane/Naked Gun-style comedies, or would like to see a young, vital, rock star-playing Val Kilmer, check out Top Secret. You can find it on YouTube.

The Fix Is In

I’m seeing more things fall into place that tells me that this Administration plans on hanging around a lot longer, without taking any chances on losing power on such a flimsy premise as “The Will of the People.”

TFG signed another executive order to further complicate the voting process, with a key point being that they won’t count any ballot that is not in hand by Election Day, no matter when it was postmarked.

You see the play there, right? With control of the post office operations (whether by presidential appointment or being privatized into the hands of another corporate toadie), they can open or close the stream of mailed ballots depending on whether TFG or his party is ahead or behind. I would also bet that batches of mailed ballots from known Blue strongholds will somehow become “misplaced,” “destroyed,” or taken out into the Potomac and sunk like a mob rat.

Another point is an added requirement to provide proof of citizenship at registration. “But wait, I’m already registered!” you may wonder. Have you seen the Red State efforts to “rid the voter rolls of ineligible or non-voters?” They take as much care in researching that as the DOGE teen squad does when “carefully ridding the government of waste,” which is to say they hack and burn anyone and anything that looks like a Democrat. So then, when someone who’s been registered all their lives suddenly gets bounced and has to reregister, they better hope they have a copy of their birth certificate or social security card. Doubly so for a woman who changed her name when she got married.

This is now, as “voter ID requirements” have always been, a method of removing low-income, young, or immigrant voters to better put a thumb on the scale for Republicans. The more barriers to voting, the better for Republicans.

The Baltimore Sun finally got one of their headlines right:

Unfortunately, I don’t think they meant it the way I see it.

If there’s an election at all, it’ll be rigged so tight we’ll have to be lubed up just to get in the door of the polling place. TFG already thanked his benefactor, Elon, for winning him the last election, and I doubt that was just about money. Money is readily available from the existing Republican donor class; Elon’s wasn’t anything special. But his people’s hacking skills were.

Why am I still calling this out? It’s because I think we need to make a fuss about it and bring it up at every turn, to get the idea out there and degrade it before it’s put into the hands of the judiciary. And buy that, I mean the Supreme Court, aka the only court Republicans currently recognize, because it’s the one stacked in their favor. The new Mainstream Media isn’t going to do it anymore… they’ve been bought and threatened into compliance already, just like the rest of the business world. No one wants to do anything to upset the Orange King, lest they incur his wrath.

And that’s the real key to the whole Executive Order thing. A president has no power over elections; the states do. So, in theory, his EO is meaningless. Of course, SCOTUS may invent a reason why it isn’t. But the real hammer is the threat of withholding funds to states that refuse to comply.

What with FEMA on the way out the door, he won’t have that angle to use, but there are still government funds for numerous other services, like highway funds, research grants, development and construction money, etc. Blue states on a budget might think twice before defying the EO on voting, lest they upend their books even worse than they already are.

The only real power left is that of individuals acting in unison, a true grassroots movement. The longer we wait, the worse it’s going to be. Immigrants are already being “disappeared” out in broad daylight; it’s only a short matter of time before they start coming for native citizens they don’t like.

With modern surveillance techniques, we’re bound to see a time when they pick up what we’re writing before we can even press publish. Hey, who’s that at the door? Who are you? I’m calling 9-1 mmmph!

 

 ***

In other news, happy 70^th birthday to one of my long-time idols, AC/DC guitarist Angus Young, one of the greatest to ever strap on a Gibson SG. Back in The Day, AC/DC was the soundtrack to every party I ever threw. We always saved them for the peak of the night, when everyone was rolling.

I’ve got tickets to see them in Pittsburgh this May, and I can’t wait. I’ve seen them five times, from 1985 to 1996, so wow, it’s been 29 years. (Attending that last show cost me the opportunity to film a home porno movie. True story.)

Angus, the eternal schoolboy, certainly isn’t as young as he once was.

Angus Young

Angus Old

He doesn’t have the kind of energy he used to, but Jesus, who does? That he’s still out there at all, at 70, is a miracle. And it’s not like he’s just standing there. You’ve seen him play. He hops around like a rooster on speed for two hours a night. Forever the Energizer Bunny.

So, happy birthday, A-Bomb. If this is your last tour, you’ve certainly earned some rest. You’ll always be remembered as one of the best.

The Greatest Grift Yet

This Administration may have finally figured out how to accomplish something that generations of their Republican brethren have been trying to do: get rid of Social Security as we know it.

Two weeks ago, an internal memo proposed changes to the claims process that would “debilitate the agency, cause significant processing delays, and prevent many Americans from applying for or receiving benefits.”

The plan is to kill the use of the phone to handle claims and direct everything to the internet. The only alternative for millions of seniors who are not internet savvy will be to make their claims in person at Social Security offices. They estimate this would create 75,000 to 85,000 more visits per week, which would represent a 14% increase over what they have now.

To drop the other shoe, they also plan on terminating 7000 workers and closing dozens of offices, thus creating a demand that will vastly overpower the apparatus available to handle it, sending the whole process into chaos.

They know all this right now and are still moving forward with the plan. Ostensibly, they say they’re trying to reduce fraudulent claims. But it’s a solution in search of a problem. The amount of Social Security fraud is less than 1% of total expenditures, with numerous processes in place that verify identities and claims. The goal here is not fraud prevention but to sabotage the Social Security system, effectively denying Americans their well-earned benefits.

Then what?

Once the system is in complete shambles, Republicans will emerge with a new plan to replace the mess they created, one that relieves the government of responsibility and privatizes the whole operation. That way, Wall Street bankers, traders, and hedge fund bros can sit on the money, invest it in any shady operation they can dream up, like the ones that tanked the economy in 2008, and then charge us fees to receive the payments of our own money. That’s the whole reason Republicans don’t like Social Security as it is… they can’t skim the take. They can’t stomach that there’s a huge pile of money of which they receive no part.

And once it’s privatized, you watch how the amount that employers contribute falls off the table or disappears completely. That’s the other fat cat dream… stop diluting profits by paying into Social Security. It’ll end up like so many pensions in the early 2000s… converted into 401ks where the business doesn’t contribute nearly what they did to the pension funds.

The haste Republicans are making to break the government structure shows that they’re looking to cause chaos sooner rather than later, which will be all the better to declare martial law or some other ruse to use to postpone or eliminate the midterm elections. If they thought they were going to face an enraged electorate in 2026 and risk losing the House, they wouldn’t be acting so recklessly right now.

They’ve even got the military under their thumb, with Trumpie toadies taking over the high command, who will be loyal to him rather than the Constitution. That means they’ll have no qualms about turning military weapons on protesting American citizens. It’s all set up for them now, thanks to the 2025 Project.

They’re packing the lifeboats and jumping in, leaving the rest of us to go down with the ship.

I used to think that this whole notion I’m touting was far-fetched. I never thought it would get this bad. But everything I see going on leads to this conclusion. The Republicans and 1%ers are setting themselves up to rule indefinitely and leaving us to forage about for ourselves. We’re not their concern, we’re just an asset to exploit.

We need to make our assets heard, pronto, or American life as we know it is over.

Update: TFG wants Social Security cuts expedited. (Thanks for the link, C&L.)

When Bias Escapes the OpEd Page

Please consider this article from last week in the Baltimore Sun. On the surface, it looks like bad news for Maryland’s Democratic governor. But when you read the story, you can see it’s not necessarily so.

Note that last year, the Sun was purchased by the owner/operator of Sinclair Broadcasting, a nationwide network of conservatively-slanted TV stations, including Fox-affiliated outlets. The change in editorial slant was more like a U-turn, but unlike before, the “slant” now occupies the news sections.

To summarize the first few paragraphs, a Maryland poll shows lousy ratings for TFG, his pet Elon, (or is it the other way around?), and a majority approval for the Governor. Governor Moore’s approval rating was 55%, versus 36% and 30% for the other two. But the Governor’s numbers fell by five points so that’s what makes the headline. Don’t underestimate the importance of headlines; for many readers, that’s all they ever see of a story, so it makes an impact. Multiply this effect by every relevant story the paper runs and you can see the desired effect take root.

So this article could just as easily have said, Poll shows “Governor’s approval almost twice that of Trump and Musk.” But they want to leave a negative imprint on the reader instead.

They could also have highlighted that “Among Democrats, 83% of the respondents approve of the job Moore is doing.” That’s a big chunk of the base. Only 17% or less opposed? Sounds like he’s doing what he was elected to do.

The poll goes on to inquire about how economic conditions are being felt by residents. They lead with “only 42% say economic conditions for them and their families fall in the “excellent” or “pretty good” range.” To me that sounds pretty good. To think 42% of the state thinks they have it good? Compare that to Arkansas or Mississippi. They also lump the 58% who think they’re doing “only fair” and “poor” together. If “fair” is even half of that subtotal, that means 71% of the state thinks they’re doing “excellent,” “pretty good,” and “fair.” Those are stats I’d campaign on, but the Sun has reported them like a dirty secret scandalously revealed. Again, compare those stats to those of the red “parasite” states.

There’s also a paragraph on the question of whether the state is “moving in the right/wrong direction.” I’m always troubled by this question because there are any number of reasons someone might say an entity is moving in the wrong direction, even when they support the person in charge. Personally, I think that this state and every state is moving in the wrong direction because of what’s happening in DC. And if I responded as such to the poll, you can see how they'd use that stat as an attack on the governor, which was clearly not my intent. You should always disregard this question when it comes to polls.

Performance Art

It looks like the Republicans were campaigning for Oscars of their own lately, given all the performances they put on for the people.

In February, TFG signed a useless executive order outlawing something already outlawed.

Naturally, Fox “News” promoted it because they’ll promote anything that stokes grievances about brown immigrants. Obviously, illegal immigrants are already ineligible for federal benefits of any kind. They can’t get unemployment, Social Security, WIC, or anything else. This bill signing wasn’t anything more than the usual “tough-guy” posturing TFG enjoys so much. And I guarantee he’ll be reciting this later as “proof” of the effectiveness of his Administration, while his lapdogs lap it up.

In another issue that is as hilarious as it is sad, the Unqualified Stand-In for the Secretary of Defense, in his sweeping efforts to pretend there are no gay people in the armed services, authorized the removal of a photograph of the legendary aircraft, the Enola Gay. (Not because of the “Enola” part.)

I feel that one might be quietly walked back just because the idea is so preposterous. Hegseth was so determined to play the role of Military Macho Man, he let his minions, who don’t know history from hysterectomy, trash a famous image of a national treasure just because it has the word “gay” in it.

Just to be sure the “banned” subject matter isn’t forgotten, let me display for you, from deep in the Bluz Archives, this shot of my Great Uncle Ants (giant guy on the right) with the Enola Gay, from when he served with the SeaBees in the South Pacific.

Uncle Ants was the star of this old story I once told, about how he came in from a night out at the bars, stumbled over what he thought was his even more drunk brother, wrestled him up the stairs to bed, scolding him the whole time, only to find out he’d lugged a rolled up carpet up to the second floor.

It was also while Uncle Ants was in the South Pacific that my grandfather figured out a way to get some booze to him and his bunkmates while they were in a dry war zone.

I think Sec. Hegseth should have to go through some of the people that were on the ground in WWII, before screwing around with their history and artifacts.

There was another grand performance at the State of the Union address last week, and I’m not referring to that ranty, rambley, run-on ridiculata spewing from TGF, nor the cane-raising protest from Rep. Al Green. I mean the burly security guards hustling a lone, elderly US Representative off the floor and out the door. I bet their Moms were proud of them. I know the MAGAs were, because there’s nothing better to them than a Black guy getting kicked out of a venue.

The next week, Rep. Green was actually censured by the House. It’s funny how talking back to a president has never been something for which anyone has ever been removed or censured before. I wonder what the difference is now…

Not pictured: The other dipshit who called President Obama a liar during his SOTU address.

Yep, that’s right. Everything’s OK if a Republican does it. (And that’s just taking the polite angle and blaming politics. There’s a good chance the real reason involves something… darker.)

Last Friday, I saw that the Baltimore Catholic Archdiocese has decided to start offering the rite of Confirmation to 9-year-olds.

Seriously.

Like any 9-year-old is savvy enough to make a decision about his spiritual well-being. Hell, I don’t think 14-year-olds (like me at my own confirmation) are qualified either, but that’s still better than this! The kids are only doing whatever their parents have told them to do. But sure, let the Church put on a big song and dance about how these kids have “chosen” to entertain Catholic beliefs. They can pretend all they want.

Luckily, it’s not like these Confirmations are binding. The kids can still come to their senses a little further down the road, like I did. As George Carlin said, “I was a Catholic right up until I reached the age of reason.” Eventually, many will open their eyes and ears, take a good hard listen to what they’re being fed, see that much of it is fantasyland, and the rest is nonsense, with few of the positive platitudes actually playing out in real life. Feeding the poor, healing the sick, welcoming the strangers? That’s just for church. In real life, the people wrapped the tightest in their religion are the first ones to disregard all that pansy empathy stuff, stick out their hand and ask, “Where’s mine?”

Granted, this push may be more because they can count the confirmed as individuals in their congregations. In other words, it’s stat padding.

When people eventually fade away from the Church, they don’t usually go through any kind of notification process wherein they formally tell the Church that they are leaving. They just stop showing up, which allows the Church to keep the person on the books.

It would be nice to think that if there really was a “crisis of confidence” and the Church wanted to make an honest effort to gain and retain followers, they would adjust their policies, procedures, and messaging to connect with more people. But apparently, that’s too hard, so they’re cooking the books instead.

Amen.

Hitting Home

Sorry for the late post this week, I was crammed yesterday. Onward…

Last week, in Nan’s Notebook, she asked a good question about how the current Administration’s actions directly affect us. Not big-picture stuff like the end of the Nation as we know it, but tangible effects felt by real citizens. I was going to answer, but once I thought about it for a second, I realized there was enough for a full post. So, not wishing to carry on so long in someone else’s Comment section, I decided to bring it here.

Yes, there are several important ways TFG is screwing me, right now, aside from his failed (and never actually intended) promise to lower grocery costs.

·      The threat of losing Social Security and Medicare colors everything right now. Republicans have the opportunity to accomplish that for rich benefactors have been yearning for decades, which is killing or curtailing our social safety net. Without these things, personal savings vehicles become paramount.

·      To that end, the new economic uncertainty we see around us cost my 401k over $10,000 in just the last week and a half. I just finished moving the rest of my 401k investments around into safer but lower-yielding options. (And I had them in fairly conservative entities to start.) I had considered such moves before the 2008 Big Bank collapse but never pulled the trigger. Consequently I got my ass handed to me, financially. It took me years to recover from those losses.

·       Tariffs on steel and other construction goods will increase the cost of new cars. My job involves managing a fleet of cars for my company. Driving up the price of a new car will affect the efficiency of the operation. If the cost gets too high, the Powers That Be may end this particular program and fold up the fleet for good, rendering me unemployed.

So, to summarize, I could easily lose my job, Social Security, personal retirement savings, and affordable insurance. How’s that for tangible effects? I used to have a solid retirement plan that would be executed in the next couple of years, but now that plan is on hold—all because the richest men in America want more.

Other more speculative issues include:

·      The end of our democracy, leaving me and everyone else disenfranchised. I think we’ve seen our last clean presidential election, and I’m not even sure about the midterms. I believe that the reason all this chaos has been unleashed, including touching Social Security, the famed “Third Rail of Politics, is because they don’t plan on allowing the rest of us to weigh in again with our measly “voting rights” again. They paid a lot of money to get things the way they’re going now and they won’t let “the people” anywhere near the levers of power again. GOP Congressmen are condemning their own angry supporters at town halls as paid actors or just running away. They don’t seem to have any fear of reprisals. They’d rather rely on their faith that the newly rigged system will keep their place at the trough so that they don’t have to justify their behavior to the unwashed masses out of the need to con them into giving him their votes again.

·       This international belligerence may prod some wingnut, foreign or domestic, to set off a nuke in Washington DC. Living nearby in Baltimore, I’m in the danger zone, depending on the device involved.

·       I have to worry about wearing my new Ohio State/College Football Championship hat because it’s red and might get mistaken for a MAGA hat. That could get me shot while I’m sitting in the car at a red light.

And there’s more, there’s always more because we don’t know what atrocities this asshole is going to unleash next. It certainly won’t be anything that can quantifiably make our lives better. And we don’t even have to wait for the next shoe to drop; he’s got a big speech on TV tonight where I’m sure the next outrage will be revealed.

It’s not like I’ll be tuning in, though. I’d rather watch a monkey pleasure himself than listen to that guy give a speech, despite the conceptual similarities between the two. I’ll get the gist of it in tomorrow’s news and blogs.

DOGE Dividend? Don't Hold Your Breath

Talk about an idea that will never go anywhere…

Last week there was an article in the paper exploring the proposition that the big dividend that the DOGE cuts are supposed to provide be refunded to the taxpayers.

As soon as I saw the headline, I knew this was a non-starter. Republicans are not taking a buzzsaw to government agencies so that they can give the savings back to us…

Aside from eliminating federal regulations that might cost their companies money, they want these cuts to provide a bigger pile of money the one-percenters can divide among themselves. I’m sure they’ll figure out just how high of an increase to the deficit that they can stomach and still siphon the “found money” back to themselves by way of sweetheart contracts, shady deals, and tax cuts. There is a zero percent chance that the average citizen is going to see a dime of this largesse. Those were my thoughts before I even read the article.

Then, I found the “but” right near the end. They quoted a guy from the Heritage Foundation as saying, “I love what DOGE is doing, but this is a bad idea. There’s no need to send dividend checks. The dividend we get from slashing spending is that it brings inflation into check.”

In other words, “Don’t worry your pretty heads about it. I’ll tell you what you need, let’s not get into such unpleasant topics like “money. Just forget about it and we’ll tell you when everything is better.”

So, the original thrust of this article is that fElon was going to check with TFG. A couple days later, I saw this article:

So, fElon said he’d check with the boss and the boss OK’d it. So when are we getting our checks? Not so fast. For the prevailing conservative opinion, Sinclair National Desk (read: in bed with the GOP) quotes Blake “Brick Suit” Marnell, a MAGAt who attends rallies dressed up like the prospective Southern Wall, as saying: “Personally, I’m not in favor of this unless the yearly budget is balanced.” Use all the DOGE-generated savings to lower the yearly budget deficit first. Once the deficit is eliminated, we can talk about dividends.”

In other words: “No screen time until you finish your chores. Also, you will never finish your chores because I’ll keep adding more.” They are never going to “balance the budget.” Republicans will fight to eliminate “waste,” as defined by “services that help the average citizen,” but fight just as hard to avoid the tax hikes it would realistically take to balance the books. Not to mention giving up the tax cuts that will push the deficit higher.

No, this is a smoke-and-mirrors issue that will never come to fruition. They want the notion out there to make low-information voters think they’ll be getting some free dough. And when they don’t, they’ll find a way to blame the Democrats. Business as usual.

In other news, TFG remains busy trying to euthanize all the watchdogs.

Is should go without saying that if you seek control over independent investigators, they cease to be independent. That’s exactly what he wants. Any office that can throw a wrench into his government-destroying plans, he’s neutering by installing his own toadies who will be loyal to him, rather than the country or Constitution.

He’s also firing military Inspectors General (or JAGs), the armed service attorneys who would likely take legal action to prevent the president from unconstitutionally using the military. With them gone, and a new legion of loyalist paper Generals, he can use the Army against American citizens on American soil.

No one removes legal checks on power if they don’t have plans that require such checks.

Watch this going forward. He is not doing this just for shits and giggles.

It’s the same with the post office. He plans to abolish its independence and assume control. I’m sure there are reasons for that, too. The first one I came up with is that he bans them from delivering mailed ballots. Or, even more sinister, he keeps the status quo but covertly dumps mailed ballots from Democratic districts.

There is not a single thing this guy, nor the rest of the Republicans are doing that helps a single citizen (making less than $500k). The sad thing is that they’re not even hiding it anymore and their supporters couldn’t care less.

Remember how they called Obama “The Imperial President,” for all the executive orders he issued? (Less than Bush II, but who’s counting?) Funny how you don’t hear a peep out of them while their guy is destroying the government, our standard of living, and our safety net, one executive order at a time.

 (All articles are from my home delivery of the Baltimore Sun.)