Homeless Thoughts - The Outraged Edition

 It looks like they’ve finally wrapped up the Canadian “Truckers” blockade that was sealing off our border bridge. It’s about time. From all accounts, they were not gracious visitors.

But you wouldn’t know it judging from conservative memes. They were downright giddy about this action, which had Canadian truck drivers protesting Canada’s “draconian” COVID protocols. You know, like get your shots, wear your masks, and try not to spread the infection to everyone you meet as you drive across the country. I saw lots of things like this:

It’s funny how the people I saw posting this stuff were the same people who were having aneurysms over BLM protests. Those people (who were protesting getting killed in police custody for minor offenses) were just a bunch of lawless criminals, with no right to block traffic.

Gee, I wonder what the difference is between the two groups of protesters. I just wonder…

More Outrage

The same person that posted the first pic above also posted this:

I’d hate to break it to him but as usual, there’s a simple answer to his issue. There is more Rogan outrage because Ghislaine Maxwell has been tried, convicted, and is in jail for the foreseeable future. And the principal offender in this case? He’s stone-dead. So there’s not much left to be outraged about, is there? Everything’s handled.

I’m perfectly happy for the government to investigate all passengers on the Epstein Shuttle and let it go wherever it goes. But I’m pretty sure the MAGAs are going to want to stop the presses when the investigation rolls into Mar-a-Lago, to follow up on at least a dozen pictures of TFG with Jeffrey and Ghislaine.

The Rogan thing is still unfolding and looking increasingly serious after a video compilation surfaced of old Joe’s looseness with a certain word that starts with “N.” And then just as suddenly, a whole slew of his podcasts have just “disappeared.”

Have you noticed how no one is putting forth that the video was doctored and he didn’t really say all those things? It’s funny how the “smoking gun” videos proffered by Republicans always turn out to be selectively edited, stripped of context, or otherwise doctored into something other than the truth. I haven’t seen anything analogous from the Dems. They seem to keep coming up with the real deal. That’s what happens when one side deals in reality and the other has to create an environment of its own liking, just to keep their Ponzi Scheme ideology intact.

Even More Outrage

Thank you, Republican National Committee, for creating the phrase “Legitimate Political Discourse,” to describe the events of 1/6/21. I love that this is coming from the Republican “establishment,” and not the usual wingnuts who can be written off as the lunatic fringe. This came from the mainstream GOP.

Now it becomes the Democrats’ job to make them wear this around their necks until November. Every candidate should have a commercial asking if storming the Capitol, ransacking the offices, and assaulting and killing police officers in an attempt to overturn a valid-by-every-legal-standard election, counts as “legitimate political discourse.” They should run pictures like this constantly:

Republicans need to be shown as the party of political extremists trying to seize power by any means necessary, which is most certainly NOT the “American Way.” We do not stage coups in America and that’s exactly what the riot on 1/6 was.

Local Outrage

Back in 2019, when Chicago elected Lori Lightfoot as their first Black female mayor, I wrote a post with words of caution that merely checking statistical boxes for race, gender, and sexual orientation did not guarantee clean, effective leadership. I pointed out that Baltimore’s last three mayors had been Black women and all three left office under a cloud or an indictment. Now there’s another local scandal, this time involving our State’s Attorney, Marilyn Mosby.

If you’ve heard of her, it’s probably because she took center stage in prosecuting the cops in the Freddie Gray case, the one that caused days of riots here in Baltimore.

Well, it seems she filed a request to withdraw money from her 401k without penalty, as allowed as small business relief to compensate for losses due to COVID. The problem was that she had no business and her career income hadn’t suffered in the least. In fact, she was awarded a $10,000 raise on her annual salary.

She did have two businesses set up but it was on paper only. There were no actual businesses there to lose money. No building, no payroll, no service, no staff, no nothing. So there were no losses there to be a basis of compensation. That’s illegal. There are also issues with fraudulent statements on her loan application.

When all this came to light, she went right to the typical excuses of the day, that this was a political witch hunt from her enemies, and that she was innocent of all charges.

But the thing is, the Feds don’t bring charges like this unless they have you dead to rights. No doubt they’ve seen her paperwork claiming financial hardship. They know she withdrew the money and what she spent it on. (Property in Florida.)

So it’s true that her prosecution might very well be executed by political enemies, of which she made a lot. Prosecuting the Freddie Gray cops was a big part of it. And she also made public that there was a list of Baltimore cops that her staff could not use to testify in court because they were considered unreliable witnesses, due to investigations into their professional misbehavior.

She’s also decreed that her department would not be prosecuting cases of marijuana possession and wanted police to direct their effort to harder drugs and violent crime.

Now, I’m all for all of those things, but the police department is NOT on her side.

She’s also married to a guy who became City Council President, meaning she wields outsized influence over city government.

But the mere fact that her enemies are after her doesn’t mean she’s not guilty. If she’s so worried about people gunning for her, then why on earth hand them something so easily provable, right there on a silver platter? If people are trying to take you down, keep your nose clean! Is that really so difficult?

I swear, I’m amazed by the degree to which politicians think they can hide things. This stuff always comes out, eventually.

More Local Outrage

I enjoyed watching the Super Bowl last night and was looking forward to the analysis in this morning’s paper. But alas, there was none. The game ended too late to make the morning paper.

When they say newspapers are dying, it seems to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. The game was over by 10:00 PM (Eastern), so it’s not like it went into the wee hours. They should have held space for what they knew would be a big story with high interest and provided at least cursory coverage. Sure, they refer readers to their website, but if I wanted to go there, I wouldn’t have a paper delivered in the first place. It’s like they’re just begging me to cancel my subscription.

Note from the Next Day: Tuesday morning's paper featured one local opinion piece on the Rams' coach and an AP piece on how they built their team this year. Not a word about the actual game.

While I didn’t have a dog in this Super Bowl fight, I was rooting for the Rams. There were a couple of reasons:

·        Cooper Kupp was very good to me in fantasy football this year. So was Matthew Stafford, to a lesser degree.

·        I’m a Steelers fan and I'll never root for division rivals.

·        And even more pointedly, I will never root for any team whose fans have threatened, harassed, or attacked me when I’ve been in their stadium. (Basically just for being there, wearing the visiting team’s jersey.) I never want to see their fans be happy. I want them to question their self-worth constantly.

Natural Segue into a Dad Story

I totally get it from my Dad. Back when I was a kid, sometimes the Browns and Bengals would be playing each other and neither team winning would provide an advantage to the Steelers. I’d ask Dad who he’s rooting for and he’d say, “I’m rooting for a 0-0 tie with lots of career-ending injuries.”

I’m pretty sure he was kidding but it taught me to take division play seriously.