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.

Winging It

This week’s Big Distraction from Releasing the Epstein Files is brought to you by the Destruction of the East Wing of the White House. (Sponsored by Meta, Google, and many, many more.)

It appears that the “designated excuse” that was issued to supporters is that “other presidents have also made updates to the White House, especially Obama, (who they breathlessly can’t wait to point out that he installed a basketball court, as if it were a watermelon garden.)

Every argument I’ve seen supporting this demolition has been rife with lies. They equate one renovation with another, like tearing down an entire wing with putting some lines on a basketball court, or spending “millions” to "replace a few pipes," when in reality, an entire rewiring was needed and authorized, for safety reasons.

Yes, other presidents have made alterations. I’ve seen the list. You can knock off about half of them (pre-Roosevelt) because they go all the way back to George Washington. The White House wasn’t exactly a historical landmark yet; it was just the place they had just built for the president to live.

And yes, Roosevelt made major renovations. But he also obtained the necessary approvals.

As have other presidents who followed. A law was passed in 1961 that established the approvals needed. At this point, the White House is a historical landmark/museum, so there is a process in place to go through before altering it. All preceding renovations have followed the established process. There are at least five different reviews required, including environmental impact, preservation of important relics/materials, and Congressional approval.

TFG has done none of that. He lied about his intentions and sent in the bulldozers. At first, the East Wing wasn’t going to be touched. That changed to they might take a little off the end, but do no major harm. And by now, we can see that that was 100% bullshit, because the East Wing is gone. Just, gone.

I also understand that this wing was built when asbestos was the standard in fireproofing. Tearing it down might well unleash a torrent of cancer and serious breathing problems, because there has been no mitigation of airborne particles at all. The whole building should have been netted off before destruction, but TFG doesn’t believe in environmental safety (just as long as it’s someone else who’s suffering for it.)

One angle I haven’t seen yet is the fact that the First Lady’s staff operated out of the East Wing. I know the current First Lady wants nothing to do with the role, but this action affects every subsequent First Lady and their staff. They will literally have no office from which to work. Granted, that may suit future MAGA administrations just fine, as they prefer the little wives to stay busy creating and tending to more babies rather than to worry their pretty little heads about doing any work from an office.

His apologists try to bring up the fact that it’s being paid for by the private sector. That does not relieve my suspicions at all. That just means that the Grift House is open for business. If you’ve seen the list of “donors,” you can see that just about everyone has had or will have business before the administration. “You want your project approved by my government, you have to pay.”

They might as well call it the Olde Quid Pro Quo Room.

Now, when all this started to bubble up, my first thought was, “Why would he care so much about a mere ballroom? The White House has been hosting fancy dinners for foreign dignitaries for decades. Why not just put up a couple of giant portraits of the would-be king, himself, slap some gold shit around the edges, and call it a day?”

No, there had to be more. Since he was having it all rebuilt from scratch, I figured there would have to be some secret “special rooms,” something he’d need to be off the books. Something like a protective bunker, something built with today’s best tech, where he could hide out indefinitely, all the while being able to surveil his domain and keep track of what’s being shown on TV. Maybe even have a studio in there from where he could get himself onto Fox and Friends. He could install a special safe to hold the Epstein files that only he could access. And, of course, his own McDonald's.

Then over the weekend, posts began to appear on social media describing that very thing. What I didn’t know was that the East Wing was already home to the existing emergency bunker, from which he hid out during various riots and uprisings.

Now it all made sense. He knows he’s about to screw with the next elections (if not postpone them indefinitely) and that it would be too unpopular, even with Republicans. He’d need a place to ride out the storm, but in the style with which he is accustomed. (“Bring in some more gold shit! And let’s set up that hotline to McDonald's!”) He’ll also need it to be impenetrable, so that neither angry mobs nor his own disgruntled troops could easily drag him out of it.

I hope the next non-MAGA president, whenever that will come to pass, will make it his mission on Day One to knock that fucking thing down and build something proper. Something fun and useful. Something everyone can get behind. Like… the People’s Taco Bar! Step right up and have a taco. Unlimited toppings, too! Whether a tourist, local resident, or homeless veteran, free tacos for everyone. Maybe some soft-serve for dessert, too.

At least, it will serve a worthy purpose rather than appease a spoiled child’s ego.

An Equal and Opposite Reaction

That big drama playing out now, aside from wondering if TFG gave Alaska back to Russia, is whether Texas will forcibly extract five new Republican districts via gerrymandering even more severely than they already have. The president asked for it, so the Big Bad Tough-guy Texans immediately rolled over and began rigging our government even further in their favor. Texas Democrats went on the lam, which sounds like chickenshit but is, in fact, the most effective thing they can do, given their minority status. Their best chance is to deprive the process of the minimum number of participants to hold a legal session (aka, deny a quorum).

The problem there is that they can’t run forever, and eventually, Texas will either reel them in or change the law to allow further business to take place without the runaway legislators. It’s not like it will be hard to find a sympathetic judge in the area. So if they’re as determined to prop up the Cheeto in Chief as I think they are, this is going to happen. The question is what to do next.

Ben Sargent, TexasObserver.org

This is where Governor Gavin Newsom of California strode into the fray and declared that if Texas pulled such a stunt, his state would too, thereby nullifying the new advantage. I know that there are some in the Hell Yeah camp, and others in the Don’t Stoop to Their Level camp, because we don’t know where it will all end.

For the record, I hate gerrymandering. If it were up to me, every state would be required to appoint a bipartisan panel in charge of creating a district map that’s logical for geographic reasons, with an outcome that’s consistent with the state’s political makeup. In other words, you can’t do what Wisconsin and North Carolina did and produce a map that creates a majority of Republican representatives in a state with a majority of Democratic voters.

My state of Maryland is one of the few states that’s heavily gerrymandered Democratic. We only have one Republican representative, the noxious Andy Harris, whose district is made up of the entire eastern shore. The current map was actually put to a referendum a few years back, and passed easily.

And I voted for it as well, because while I’m against gerrymandering in general, I’m even more against being a sucker and letting Republicans pull every trick in the book to amass and consolidate power that will last for generations, while we righteously take the moral high ground straight to a permanent minority status. I say, if they stop their gerrymandering, we’ll stop ours. And the same goes in California.

I don’t want this to happen, and every effort should be made to stop them in Texas. I just don’t see how that will be done, not with the field tilted so far in their favor to begin with, and the ultimate backstopping of the current SCOTUS, who blessed such gerrymandered atrocities in the first place. So the only alternative is to fight fire with fire. I want Democrats to actually put up a fight and DO something. Use what power they have without shame, just like the GOP does. They never apologize, they don’t care if something is “unpopular,” (in which case they go on Fox “News’ and MAKE it popular) so it if helps get them the power they want, whether it’s putting a hold on an opponent’s Supreme Court seat, or expediting one of their own in the same situation, they just do it. All the critics eventually forget about it and move on to the next week’s outrage.

Meanwhile, they come out of it with a much stronger position. To them, everything is fair game in the pursuit of power. In fact, it’s not only fair game to them, it’s God’s will.

I’d like to see the Democrats borrow a little bit of that chutzpah and play some hardball themselves. I’m tired of being the noble but losing warriors fighting the good fight. If we don’t step up our game, the fight will soon be over, and we’ll be locked out of the ring for the foreseeable future and then some.

Republicans are working to cement themselves into the only positions of power. Once they do, politics will no longer matter because they won’t need to curry our favor. They’ll be running the country forever, and we’ll be the commodity they buy, use up, wring out, and dispose of. Our elections will have the same certainty about them as Russia’s do.

And the counter-gerrymandering may not work anyway… Remember that SCOTUS can no doubt find a way to rule that Texas’s map is legal, but the other blue ones aren’t. It’s not like they have any consistency of standards, other than “Whatever Republicans want.”

I hate the gerrymandering too. But we at least have to slow them down. While the reliably blue state of Maryland may have to sit this one out, because there’s only one seat to be gained, no matter how they draw the maps, it will be up to California, Illinois, and New York to hold the wall against the MAGA horde. I will support their efforts and hope that it can all be reeled back in later, once cooler heads appear on the horizon.

Retirement clock: 10 days and counting…

So Much for Easing Off Into the Sunset

Early last month, I wrote a post about my hopes and dreams for retirement, which is that I can finally take it easy and do things that I want to do. Of course, my time frame was about two years down the road. Looks like that’s not happening.

Remember when I wrote about telling my boss my feelings about a prospective forced return to work? It’s not prospective anymore. They want us back in three days per week, starting right after Labor Day. Months ago, I heard it would happen when my company moves to a new building in January. But last week, my boss said the directive would be early September instead. I hoped there would be some kind of appeal process or other wiggle room to negotiate because I have no intention of complying.

Well, the memo came out yesterday and there was zero wiggle room. It’s happening to everyone, even those who don’t live near our offices. (I have no idea how that’s going to work.) It came from our CEO and contained lots of happy talk about enhanced collaboration and teamwork. They’re offering us two more personal days too, and two weeks in the summer when we can work from anywhere (just like I can right now).

As I mentioned before, I’m the only one who does what I do. If I were to disappear, they would be truly fucked. There are complicated processes and details surrounding my world. I have some self-written procedures, which I may or may not share. Without my guidance, no one would have the slightest idea what to do.

My first instinct was to nuke the whole thing from orbit, but after conferring with my brother, he convinced me I should offer the 90 days the company wants before retiring, on the condition that I do that time at home. He said I’d regret going out in a bad way. And if they don’t go along, I can retire effective the day after Labor Day, the first day we’d have to go in.

So I spoke to my boss this morning, and as I suspected, this is a universal edict. Even knowing the barrel I have them over, they would not let me run out my time training my replacement at home. So, I told her I’d be retiring on September 2^nd. I didn’t yell, didn’t get pissed, and just remained calm and resolute. I could see the panic set in as she realized that I couldn’t possibly train anyone fully in only 18 days, without devoting eight hours a day to it. And if I did that, all my real-time duties would remain undone. It’s not like I’m going to kill myself accommodating them, not after robbing me of two years’ work.

Yes, I know I could just go in, but I don’t see it that way. I feel like they changed the deal. They gave me 100% work-from-home status for the last five years, and my life is fully adapted to that. Going into the office again, with the 90-minute round-trip commute, lack of lunch options, and having to work in the middle of an open-walled circus, is not my idea of fun.

My dad always said he’d work as long as he enjoyed it and his boss didn’t bug him. I’ve been using that as my guide all along. I’m lucky that I have the option to retire. In fact, I told the boss this morning that if this had happened 10 years ago, “yes, I’d go into the office, but I’d be resentful and probably do a half-assed job.” All positive feelings about my work and the place would be gone; just as gone as the likelihood I’d ever take a call or answer an email after hours, like I do now.

She wanted me to talk to an HR guy and gave me his name, so I could “ask questions and learn about the process,” and I emailed him immediately. He never responded, which was not a surprise. I do want to hear what they have to say before I do anything irreversible, which is the only reason I didn’t submit my plans today. I wonder how many people are doing the same. Maybe I’m an outlier, maybe I’m part of an open rebellion. And maybe cooler heads will prevail, and accommodations will be made.

However, until then, my next task is to determine the maximum pressure my printer/scanner can withstand when I sit on the glass, to create my resignation letter.

Headline Newz

As one of the dozen or so people who still get a daily paper, I usually scan through the stories at lunchtime, on my way to the crossword puzzles, with an eye out for blogging opportunities, which I capture with my iPhone camera. There’s always something to latch onto, especially with my paper’s new ownership, namely the guy who owns Republican media mouthpiece Sinclair Broadcasting. They never fail to take the Republican side, not only on the editorial page, but throughout what’s supposed to be the straight news.

Very few of the stories are written by in-house staff. Most are farmed out to Sinclair and Fox News outlets. Like this one, from “The National Desk,” which is what Sinclair calls its national 10:00 PM news.

In a nutshell, this story gives credence to the Attorney General from Mississippi, who is complaining that AI is biased against conservatives. He goes on to blame fact-checking.

I can see where he’s got beef. When it functions properly, AI should deliver conclusions based on facts at hand. When these facts run contrary to Republican talking points, they must be “biased,” right? That’s how it works in the Republican media bubble. If the facts go against their dogma, the facts must be wrong. They’ve been believing their own bullshit for so long, it’s become second nature.

Pointing out what’s true and what’s false is not a matter of bias, but proof. And no proof will knock the scales from the eyes of these MAGA idiots.

Two weeks ago, there was a staff-written article about the Nation’s AG blaming lower courts for holding up too many of the president’s orders.

This could have easily been headlined, “President refuses to issue Constitutional orders.” Still, the paper takes the view that all those findings against the clearly unconstitutional executive orders coming from the White House are all a big conspiracy, rather than judges literally doing the jobs they are required to do.

It’s also rich that Republicans have used this very same machine to derail anything Biden or Obama tried to do, by filing lawsuits with judges known to be down with the Republican cause. See, when they do it, it’s fine. When it works against them, it’s a vast conspiracy.

Oh, and if you “have a tip” that makes Democrats look bad, be sure to hit up this writer, because they apparently can’t find enough news to report on their own, once they turn all the local Fox News stories into transcripts.

A couple of days before that last joke, they ran this one:

And this one is from the AP, so it’s presented fairly straight, as they quote someone labeling this attempt to re-categorize natural gas as green energy, as “green-washing.” This is just more Republican sophistry. The gas coming from the Louisiana swamps is cleaner than the hot air from those hyping this ploy.

Republicans are trying to repeat what they did when they created “clean coal,” something that never existed. They just changed what they called it and pretended they were actually doing something about climate change. Republicans understand that so many people never get into the weeds with details. They just skim the headlines and absorb the impressions contained therein. So it doesn’t matter if it’s really green or not; a lot of people will believe it is, which means Republicans have something other than an empty cupboard when their constituents want to know what they’re doing about the obvious weather volatility we’re experiencing.

“Hey, don’t blame us, we’re all-in on green natural gas. But the Democrats want you to give up your cars and ovens!”

Lastly, we have another AP article about one of the last remaining Republican wet dreams, getting rid of all limits on buying politicians political donations. 

As if Citizens United wasn’t bad enough, and to demonstrate how the rich are never satisfied with the billions they already have, now they want to remove all remaining barriers to literally buying federal policy that caters to them. Given how they’ve already ruined government, I have no doubt the Roberts Court will continue ransacking the government until we inevitably start putting the billionaires' pictures on our money.

He Knows, He Just Doesn't Want To

The story that seems to be resonating the most this week is how TFG says he doesn’t know if he needs to uphold the Constitution.

Seriously.

From the good folks at Crooks & Liars.

I’m pretty sure he should remember having mentioned something like that a couple of times before. It's literally written into the presidential oath of office.

This is rich, coming from the guy who thinks he knows everything about everything, and whatever he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing.

But as soon as he’s cornered, he becomes Sergeant Schultz.*

He knows what the answer is, but also that by being truthful it boxes him in, depriving himself of his self-proclaimed right to violate the Constitution by denying due process to undocumented aliens as well as other declared “Enemies of the Trump.” So he does what he always does in these situations (which come up more frequently than one would think), denying knowledge and shifting blame. “It’s the lawyers, it’s the other people that are telling me things…” The guy never takes credit for anything that isn’t being heralded.

It’s just like the stock market last week, where when it was up, it was his doing, but when it was down, it’s all Biden’s fault.

Republicans like to pretend that the Dems did it too, every time they inherited a shitty economy. But there’s a big difference. The Dems inherited falling markets and then turned them around through direct action. The fact that they were falling at the outset is indeed the fault of the Republican predecessor.

But in this case, a Republican inherited an economy on the rise. It wasn’t perfect yet, but it was far better than anyone else’s, and still improving. When a rising graph line reverses and drops off the table, that’s entirely the fault of the current occupant, ESPECIALLY on the heels of implementing economic policies so damaging that they’re decried by every legitimate economist and the Wall Street Journal. So don’t buy the Both-sider’s Bullshit on this one.

This administration is rapidly setting the country up to be a dictatorship run by big business and racists. This argument alone drives the point home:

If this argument gets upheld by SCOTUS, there is no longer an America, and our Republic is gone. The right to due process is sacrosanct in the US Constitution, and without it, we’re just a banana republic with nukes. In other words, we’ll be Russia with a tinge of Iran.

And if denying due process isn’t enough, he’s going after elections again.

As I’ve been saying for months, they wouldn’t be obvious with their plans if they were worried about the next election. Preparations are well underway to steal the 2026 and 2028 elections, if they’re even held at all. Because in addition to TFG’s suppression tactics, if malfeasance IS discovered, who’s going to prosecute the case? No one from the Justice Department, that’s for sure. He’s got a lackey in charge, and anyone with a sense of duty is long gone.

Any pushback will be left to the states, and the only ones willing to fight back won’t be the ones who need to. It’s the Red States that will need to prosecute, but that will never be allowed to happen. Look at Georgia… they tried and tried, but got exactly nowhere.  

Meanwhile, the grift goes on. The latest one doesn’t even look like a grift yet, but just wait.

He wants to fire up Alcatraz again, because remember, the cruelty is the point. Anyone will tell you the renovation would be way more expensive than it would be worth. So I think it’s just more posturing to appear tough.

Then, as a bonus, he can direct funds (through Congress or not) to be used to study the situation. He can throw millions out there to contractor/building/real estate cronies who will suck up the cash, and no doubt kick some back to his Re-Election Committee or Third Inauguration Fund, then run out the clock doing feasibility studies until someone else cancels the project.

The grift never ends as long as the grifters are in charge. And without due process, they always are.

 *My apologies to anyone under 50 who probably doesn’t get the reference from the old 60s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes.”

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.

Don't Blame the White Guy

I heard about the DC plane/helicopter crash on the radio when I woke up the next morning. While in the shower, I thought, “How long is it going to take before someone tries to blame the Democrats for this?”

I didn’t have to wait much longer. By midday, TFG declared the crash the fault of Dem-induced DEI at the FAA. Then as if by magic, all his minions appeared across the internet to parrot their Fuhrer’s line of bullshit.

And they stuck to their script, even after it came out that there were no “DEI beneficiaries” in the tower at that time. In case you’re keeping score, that means when white guys screw up, it’s because somewhere in their organization, Black, brown, or female people have jobs.

It’s funny how DEI is the problem now rather than at any time during the last four years of such hiring practices. If what they’re claiming is true, there should have been multiple plane crashes on our soil. Instead, there were none.

So, maybe shutting down FAA oversight committees, and directors, and tendering resignation requests among the staff might have had a leeeetle to do with it, but surely not as much as knowing a minority works there somewhere.

This is what we’re reduced to today. It’s a clown show held in a house of mirrors. Bizarro World government.

The day after a crash, nobody should be politicizing it, from either side, for the simple reason that no one knows jack shit yet. And no one will know anything definite until they review and release the data from the helicopter’s black box.

You’ve probably seen the film. You can plainly see the helicopter fly straight into the side of the oncoming airplane. Maybe there’s a case to be made that the helicopter should have been routed elsewhere. But it’s an uncontestable fact that the copter should have seen the plane coming in, all lit up in front of it. Helicopters have a complete range of visual access from far left to far right; with 180 degrees of visual range. All it had to do was move up, down, or left in the five to ten seconds before impact to avoid it.

Given that, I want to hear what was happening in the helicopter that was compelling enough to draw the pilots’ attention away from the jet airliner smack dab in front of them. Was there an injury, a heart attack, or a seizure? Did the steering system break down?

None of us know any of that and I hope we do soon. The faster we have the facts, the faster we’ll learn that DEI had nothing to do with any of this.

But then, who am I kidding? The Right never admits they’re wrong. If the pilot was having a heart attack, they’ll claim a DEI Army doctor missed the signs. If it was a mechanical problem, it would have been a DEI Army mechanic who didn’t see a damaged stick (or whatever.) You can’t win when one side will adapt any situation to match their core beliefs, facts, evidence, and common sense be damned.

Republicans have decided DEI is the cause of everything that ails the country and will stretch the truth to asinine proportions to make their point. I mean, look at this knob:

Aircraft terminology is the culprit that's making planes smash into each other or fall out of the sky? I can’t believe these shmucks can put that out there with a straight face. No shame whatsoever. They will look us right in the face and tell the most mind-bending lie they can and their disciples will believe it without question because they want it to be true.

On Facebook, I saw the father of an old childhood friend and faithful MAGA fall in line with this completely, claiming that because he flies a small aircraft, he can attest that DEI is dangerous because each “DEI hire” robs who he assumes to be a more qualified white man of his rightful job.

It’s funny that some of us thought that after Obama was elected, we’d reached a “Post-racial” environment. Au contraire. What it did was shock the racists so hard that they vowed that they would never let such a thing happen again. And the result of this mental reset is the MAGA we know today.

Lucky us.

Director's DVD Commentary: I just joined BlueSky last week, with the handle bluzdude.bsky.social. Follow me and I'll follow you back!

Less is Still Less

When I was a kid, I heard this “educational” story; I don’t know if it was part of school or just something that went around. But the gist of it was:

A struggling olive company was trying to figure out a way to save money. No one could come up with anything actionable until they asked an old hand from around the factory. He said, “Just put one less olive in each jar. It’s not enough that anyone will miss it, but over time it will add up to a lot of extra jars to see from the same amount of produce.” They did and the idea saved the company.

At the time, this seemed like some good old folksy wisdom. Unfortunately, the modern business culture has put that story on steroids and turned that into a core business principle: Always provide less than what people expect.

Earlier today, I looked at a bag of potato chips Sweetpea brought home from the store. It struck me that the bags used to be so much bigger. This was a standard bag, not the big “family-sized” version. I checked the net weight and it was about 7 ounces. I don’t remember the actual net weight from years gone by but I know it was a lot more than 7 ounces… 12 at least, maybe even a pound. But here we are, paying the same price (or higher) for half as much.

I also remember from my childhood when they first introduced “Fun-Sized” candy bars. I don’t know which evil executive at Nestle thought a tiny, two-bite version of what used to be a quality candy bar would be considered “fun.” As a kid, my idea of “fun-sized” would be a Snickers the size of my head. And they still shrunk the size of the regular candy bars to about half of what they were. I used to be able to get a righteous candy bar for a quarter and even then I thought it was a rip-off. (I preferred the 15-cent boxes of Spree, Lemonheads, or Sweet Tarts. You could really make those stretch for a while.) All the candy bars now are punier versions of their former selves and go for about a buck or more. They’ve taken so much value out of candy that Almond Joy might as well be called Almond Ennui.

It’s like that with everything now. The Powers That Be look at us as walking dollar signs; just one more commodity to be used up for every bit of currency they can wring out. They track our whereabouts and spending habits with internet browsers, phones, apps, credit cards, and reward cards; monetizing our very existence.

I went to KFC the other day and got a 3-piece box. The leg was the size of a wing-drum. Each thigh was about the size of a hockey puck. And the little round container of mashed potatoes that's smaller than the old cup they used to use? The bottom is concave, further reducing the size.

I went to the freezer to get some ice cream. We had a package about the size of the old half-gallon containers. Now, instead of 2 quarts of ice cream, there's only 1.44 quarts. And do you know how they do it? The packages have rounded ends rather than the old cubic rectangles. When they round off the corners, they reduce capacity. When was the last time anyone wanted less ice cream? The shrinkflation is out of hand!

They’ve turned air travel into an ordeal of finding out just how much discomfort and inconvenience we are willing to accept and still go through with it. Leg room and seat width are decreased until we’re jammed into the fuselage, cheek to cheek, without decent food and with minimal drinks. I think the only reason most airlines even offer beverage service is to distract us from how uncomfortable it is. Everything we used to get as a courtesy, food, blankets, pillows, are gone. If you’re lucky, some airlines offer to sell you these things. And then they want to complain that people are rude and cranky.

And we just lap it all up. We’re the proverbial “frog in the slowly heating pot of water,” too unconcerned with the big picture to change the trajectory of our doomed existence. They feed us celebrity bullshit listicles, and news factoids while we slowly become frog soup.

We’ve been dumbed down as a culture to the point where we just elected a president as a response to high prices, yet his only announced policies are guaranteed to make prices soar. And won’t these same people be surprised when 95% of the much-hyped next round of tax cuts goes to the super-rich and once again, the rest of us get the scraps?

It makes me want to go out and have some business cards made that say, “I fucking told you so.” I’ll give them out to anyone who voted for the new regime and then wonders whose fault it is when they can’t afford a cold 4-pack of beer. Or are in shock when the price of gas they see up on the sign is calibrated for quarts. Or someone turns BOGO into BOG0.

Yep, right after I post this I’m gonna order me a new 425-count box of cards. I heard they’re on sale for the holidays.

This has nothing to do with anything. It just makes me laugh and I need one.

Dark Times Ahead

Well, this one was a real kick in the sac. I think I’d rather have had the presidency stolen than accept that a majority of the country voted for a self-proclaimed Day One Dictator.

In 2016 I wrote this following that election:

November 8th, 2016 will go down in history as the day we stood up and declared that we are a small, fearful people, who would rather literally build walls than solve philosophical and economic problems.  It’s the day we rejected calm, well-reasoned decision-making for a carnival sideshow of bluster and bravado.

Why is it always the people who wrap themselves in the flag and venerate the Constitution are the ones who want to completely undo the very freedoms the Constitution provides?  They “love America,” but want to change her basic nature.

This time, it’s going to be worse because he will be surrounded by yes men, with nary a grownup to be seen in the room. There may be no stopping the damage he’s prepared to do to this country in pursuit of his own glorification and vengeance.

I know I had a bad feeling early on while watching the numbers come in. They kept saying to wait for more of the votes to be counted, but even where she was cruising, she always lagged behind Biden’s numbers. The longer it went on, the more dread amassed in my guts.

I kept waiting for that lifeline to appear, while all the peeps on my Twitter feed were saying, “Just wait, this is where we were last time and the late votes save us. But it never happened.

I went to bed around 12:30, right around the time they were saying that TFG’s lead in PA was more than they had votes left to count in Philly.

Director’s DVD Commentary: I guess I’m going to have to adopt a new non-name for “him.” For the moment, I’ll continue to use “TFG” only the F will mean something else.

Everyone’s asking the same thing, “How did this happen?” I know a lot has been written about this already, in the mere two days since Election Day. I intended to write my follow-up post on Wednesday, but I just didn’t have the heart to do it. Additionally, it doesn’t much matter now, does it? It’s done.

But here we are and I feel like I should put something out there, just to put an ending on it.

Here’s what I think happened.

The media delivered this victory to the GOP’s doorstep, by the constant sanitizing (or sane-washing) of TFG’s speeches and messaging. They never called a spade a spade and while propping up this maniac, demanded that his opponent be practically perfect, or at least cleave to the version of perfection they wanted.

Plus, the Right Wing Media outlets like Fox “News” were doing their thing to trumpet every perceived fault, blame everything bad on Democrats, and whitewash the bilge coming from their guy. These were military-grade persuasion techniques used on people who desperately wanted to believe their message. I spoke with people over the weekend, GOP supporters, who insisted that the economy was in the toilet and only TFG could fix it, all evidence to the contrary. Every argument he provided was straight off the Fox list of talking points.

They created the image of her as “Border Czar,” a position that never existed and a responsibility she never had, and spent her entire campaign attacking her for it.

They also worked hard to make people forget what a cluster-fuck his first term was, culminating in the deaths of over one million Americans due to his botched handling of COVID. By the time Fox was done, people actually believed those were the “good old days.”

Misplaced anger over the war in Gaza probably lost Michigan for the Dems, even though the next administration will be even worse for them. TFG doesn’t give a shit about people in Gaza. He’ll give the Israelis all the support they want.

Abortion wasn’t the factor we all hoped it would be and I called that out months ago, when the Red States were passing reproductive freedom guarantees. I said at the time, “There’s a big difference between voting for a single, stand-alone issue versus a name with a D beside it. You can vote for an issue without crossing a party line but not for a lousy Socialist Liberal Commie Democrat.” Modern team politics dictates that, as evidenced by seeing people pass abortion guarantees while electing the very people from whom those rights need protection.

I will never understand the women who just voted to reduce their own standing in society, giving up the right to determine the use of their own bodies.

Latino men moving en masse to TFG is incomprehensible to me. I see all the analysis about how they come from a socially conservative culture but you’d think self-preservation might weigh heavier when the guy they’re supporting wants mass deportations. Do they think voting Republican somehow spares them? They’d better have their documentation stapled to their underwear when the troops start rounding up all the brown guys. I don’t think they’ll be too particular about who they detain. I’m envisioning a “pick’em all up now and sort’em out later” kind of vibe. But this feeds what I think is the primary issue.

Too many people won’t vote for a woman for president, especially a woman of color. You can see it in the results. She kept coming in below Biden’s numbers. She was his GD vice president! They make up the same Administration. Sure there are some minor differences but considering the opponent, how important were they?

The biggest difference was that of gender and there are too many people for whom that’s a deal breaker. I’m sure that was a factor in the Latino shift. In addition to being socially conservative, the ethos is patriarchal, so I’m betting that a lot of these guys feel that voting for a woman would make them less of a man. Less of a caveman, anyway.

Like many others, I’m not sure what I will do with this space. This political intrigue and coverage over the last decade has been a grind. Maybe I’ll do like my pal Hackwhacker and lay low for a while. Or maybe I’ll find something else to write about. Like the rest of us, I will have to figure it out as we go. We’ve got two months of sanity remaining.

See you on the other side.

Outrageous, Egregious, Preposterous!

How bad do you feel for Jordan Chiles right now, huh? Man, what a kick in the teeth. It’s bad enough that she has to compete against the most dominant gymnast in history, now she’s getting railroaded out of her bronze medal.

Apparently, the judges made an error in determining her degree of difficulty, which lowered her score. But her team protested, and the judges made the proper adjustment and the resulting score landed her the bronze medal.

But wait, now it comes out that her team was four seconds late in protesting… they have one minute from the end of the routine… so they’re recalling the metal.

What a sack of shit. I know there are rules about such things, you’d figure there has to be some kind of deadline. But one minute, amidst the swirl of Olympic competition. This is bullshit. At minimum, there should be an appeal process which when used successfully, keeps a medal from being turned in because of actions taken by those other than the athlete. In other words, they want her to return her medal because the judges screwed up.

If I’m her, assuming the decision is final, I’d be like, “I know the official record books will be updated, but you’re not getting this medal back. You want it, come get it.” Then I’d go see my new best friend Snoop and see if he still has some friends from the Hood who will protect my ass. What are they going to do, send a team of Olympic goons? Like a judo team? Or the shot putters? OK, maybe some of those archers and sharpshooters would get my attention. 

They should do a Pulp Fiction remake with these two:

I would probably do things just to piss them off, like post photos on Facebook or Insta of the medal in various famous places. Like, “Can’t catch me…”

Or “Missed me by that much!”

I don’t know what kind of leverage they have over someone in her position. Maybe they can prevent her from competing again, but she can always retire and start doing commercials. Like, for home security systems. Or maybe Spellcheck apps.

“Don’t let stupid mistakes jam YOU up. Use this and get them fixed immediately!”

She should hire the actor who played the Seinfeld show attorney Jackie Chiles to work with her on it, and just let him do his thing.

Anyway, I just think it’s silly to let systematic screw-ups put the screws to athletes who have busted their buns to become world-class talents. There needs to be some kind of review board to ensure that athletes’ dreams don’t become victims of the quest for bureaucratic purity.

***

This was in today’s Baltimore Sun:

My intention in highlighting this story is not about Chuck Schumer’s decision to kill this proposal in its sleep, but to question why Republicans proposed such a thing in the first place. I mean, I know the answer, and it’s twofold:

·         To appease the idiots from their base who think there’s a vast conspiracy regarding COVID, the pandemic, and other viruses in conjunction with the CDC, and other anti-vaxxers.

·         The GOP wants to cut or defund any department or entity that creates barriers to profit by large corporations. Whether it’s air purity, water clarity, or food safety, it’s much more cost-efficient to contaminate all three areas and settle with or (legally stall) complainants, than it is to produce a clean, safe product.

I’ve been beating this drum for years and this is just one more example. And without the Democratic majority we have now, slim as it may be, this was something that could have come to fruition. This is the importance of keeping the Senate. It’s something on which our lives may actually depend.

***

I also saw this on my news page today. Get ready for another Tan Suit Controversy.

 We know this play by now. The GOP goes crazy because a Democratic president takes a few hours (or days) off, even though their own guy set the presidential record for the most time spent playing golf. (And using his own facilities so the government has to pay him for his own protection.) And famously only worked a couple of hours per day, setting aside vast portions of “executive time” for watching Fox “News” and sending incoherent tweets.

And now they want to throw shade on Biden for it? (Sorry, it looks like he already has some.)

I think every president needs some recharge time, some R&R. And that goes for presidents of both parties. I’m sick of this cheap blame game over something so universal.

And it’s not like no one can find him if something comes up. I guarantee he’s got a team nearby keeping tabs on whatever’s hot and can pull him in if need be. Every human, president or not, needs time to disengage and chill.

Republicans are probably just mad because they think he’s wasting the opportunity to direct government business into his own pocket. Maybe if he were charging the Secret Service to be on his own private beach, they would understand. Game recognizes game.

Headline News - Weasels at Large

I saw several headlines on my News home page that made me want to go, "Hmmmm.” Here’s one:

“We cannot allow this to stand.”

He doesn’t say, “Let’s see the evidence,” or “Where’s the proof?” Or even, “How could he be so stupid as to be caught trying to destroy evidence?” No, he goes straight to demanding that due process gets overturned and we go straight to acquittal. Or, not even acquittal, but dismissal of charges, for no other reason but that he and some other people don’t like it.

Why not just admit that “Rules are for the little people (and Democrats), and don’t apply to us.” I mean, how else can you interpret something like this, other pushing than a whole second set of standards?

There’s your real headline: “Republican weasel thinks he and his allies are above the law.”

When Republican politicians say “Law and Order,” it’s “Law” for us and Order… another private jet,” for them.

Moving on…

Obviously, Attorney General Kobach (of Kansas) didn’t watch any of the January 6th committee hearings, wherein they laid out in great detail how TFG was up to his nose in planning a demonstration outside the Capitol and literally banking on them preventing the Congressional votes from being counted. Again, we see them trying to weasel around things like eyewitnesses, phone text records, and video proof.

It wasn’t just “expressing thoughts about the conduct of an election,” it was a president, after having been told by everyone, the media, Congress, his own staff and family, that he lost the election, nevertheless summoning a mob to violently overthrow a lawful government operation, for the sole purpose of keeping himself in power.

Given the power of the office, you can’t judge him in the same manner as when Cooter, down at the bar, rages about overthrowing the Commie Democrats. Cooter doesn’t have the means to facilitate such a thing and a president absolutely does.

If TFG didn’t think he was liable for the 1/6 uprising, why would he be trying to find out if he could pardon himself? Further, why else would his congressional minions like MT Greene, Gym Jordan, Ted Cruz, and the rest be seeking pardons for themselves?

This behavior is fine, to Republicans. But could you imagine what it would be like if President Biden were to pardon Hunter? They’d be apoplectic. And that’s because, again, they see themselves as above the law.

Moving on again…

Once again, we have a Republican operative openly discussing ways to keep popular opinion out of legislation that a small but vocal minority wants to pass. Think of that in terms of what America should be all about. This is supposed to be a democracy. Our government is supposed to enact what a majority of the citizens want. It is NOT their job to keep the will of the majority from affecting a position only favored by a few radical wingnuts. (Yes, if you think the government should have the right to force women to give birth against their will because the “rights” of an un-sentient blob of plasma supersedes those of a pregnant woman, yes I think you’re a radical wingnut.) The people are supposed to speak and the elected officials are supposed to get it done.

This is what Republicans do. They know their positions aren’t widely supported, but do they alter their positions? No, they game the system so that what they want remains in place. They enact Voter ID laws that ask for IDs that are the least available to their opponents. They limit voting precincts in their opponents’ stronghold areas and reduce the number of voting machines in those few precincts, thus doubly ensuring the lines will be huge. They rail against anything that will make voting easier, mailed ballots, early voting, drive-up voting, and even bringing refreshments to those wilting in the long lines expressly created by Republicans. They want to make it hard to vote… a chore… something that takes up your day. Because that’s the only way they win. Suppress their opponents’ votes and disguise their own intentions.

If they ever came out with an accurate “platform,” that truly showed what their goals were, their showing would make George McGovern look like Attila the Hun.

Cut taxes to the wealthy.

Kill Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Complete abortion ban.

No more than rudimentary education for the masses, no critical thinking skills taught.

End all foreign aid and humanitarian operations.

End immigration, especially of non-white people.

End FEMA.

Eliminate the EPA.

Drill the planet for raw materials and fuel until there’s nothing left but a dried-up husk.

End the estate tax. Hell, end taxes and the IRS altogether, which will…

End public services. I could go on…

All these things cost money that could otherwise be funneled back up to the 1%. And the filthy rich donor class who run the Republican Party are eager to find a way to make that happen.

I’m sure there would be some people that could be convinced to go along with such a platform, especially since it would be sure to own the Libs. Oh boy, how they could roll around in those salty liberal tears. But on the whole, Republicans would get beaten so badly they’d never leave their gilded throne rooms again.

So instead they suppress voters and game the system to keep a true populist agenda far from the halls of government.

Just look at what Ohio is doing to keep an abortion referendum from passing… they’re jamming in, at the last minute, a special referendum to require any future referendum to pass with at least 60% of the vote, rather than the current standard of 50%. (And of course, they’re using the 50% threshold for that one.) They’re sneaking this issue into what is projected to be a lightly attended August election, so the highly motivated anti-choice wingnuts have a chance at outnumbering the rest of the rational voters who may be too busy trying to make a living than spending a day standing in line.

All this is being done because they’ve seen how even in the Red States, people will turn out in droves to keep abortion legal. And the LAST thing they want is for it to be made plain how unpopular an abortion ban really is. It’s bad for the brand.

So let the games begin…

The End of America

Last week saw a story published that represents the most serious threat to the way our country governs, and even the Constitution itself, that I’ve seen in my lifetime. The New York Times ran a story, corroborated by the Trump campaign, about how in a second administration, TFG plans to remove the autonomy from the Justice Department and other administrative agencies, substituting loyalty to HIM over loyalty to the Constitution.

This would be bad enough in the hands of a sage and serious person with the purest of motives. But in the hands of a petty, petulant, tyrant? It’s the end of our country as an institution of freedom. Suddenly, we’re Saddam’s Iraq. Or North Korea.

With the power to prosecute and jail his enemies via the Justice Department, destroy their finances through the IRS, or regulate them to extinction through the applicable oversight agencies, this will become the United States of Trump. A whole country in service of a single egomaniac who has the self-control of a colicky toddler.

And I’m sure he’ll find a way to rope in a military/police faction, by adoption, or just starting his own, essentially turning him into a warlord.

Do you think there will ever be a fair election again? Hell, there may not even be ANY election again. They’ve finally figured out how to get around that petty matter of “public will” being articulated through elections. A plan like this only works if there are no further changes to who’s in power.

Is this the country our Founding Fathers imagined? Hell no, in fact, they took tangible steps to ensure that nothing like this would ever happen. This country was formed at the very core as a way to remove control of a country from a single man, “royal” or otherwise.

All the teary-eyed paeans to the US Constitution and veneration of the Bill of Rights coming from these “Constitutional Originalists” are pure lip service. If this comes to pass, you might as well break into the National Archives and tear those documents to pieces.

What I don’t know yet is the mechanism by which such a power shift would be executed. It can’t be that a president can just decide he gets all the power. I would think it would have to go through Congress. That could be the fail-safe that keeps this whole thing on the rails, assuming Democrats have control of at least one House. Although I certainly make room for the possibility that even a self-decreed self-anointment may likely be blessed by the stacked Supreme Court. That’s why at least three of them were appointed, to do their master’s bidding.

So far, I haven’t heard a single Republican criticize this effort, which now becomes a new plank in the GOP platform… perhaps the ONLY plank. They’re all in on it because they mean to grab some for themselves. Hell, Mitch McConnell and his mega-donors will probably have TFG rubbed out once all the steps have been taken and the pieces are in place. He’s not going to let all that power get wasted by some narcissistic ass clown.

With that kind of power in hand, you’ll see the real Republican agenda. IRS? Gone. Minimum wage? Gone. Social Security and Medicare? Gone. Food assistance? Gone. Reproductive freedom? Gone. (OK, they’re halfway home on that one already.) CDC and National Institute of Health? Gone. Any program that serves the average citizen will be replaced with more ways to siphon money upward.

This is such a bombshell, I can’t believe the Republicans ever let a word of it escape. They must be pretty confident in their voter suppression tactics for 2024. And the fact that this story hasn’t become political suicide just shows how fucked up this country really is.

This. Must. Be. Stopped.

Right in its tracks. The fact that it’s even been proposed shows how little the Republican hierarchy cares about the will of the people. It’s All Power, All the Time. And they’ll use every emotional ruse in the book to misdirect their misguided fans until they find out way too late, that they’ve made a tragic mistake.

Democrats need to make this campaign issue number one. Every candidate needs to ask his opponent if he supports such action and get them on the record. And if the answer is not “Hell NO!” then rip them to shreds for even considering such an assault on American Democracy.

There is no “both sides” bullshit on this one. Nothing analogous has ever come from the Democratic side, this is 100% Republicanism. This is a heinous power grab, being executed by a wannabe mushroom dictator. They tried to wrest power from the voters once already on January 6^th, and this is round two. If we allow it, we deserve the dystopian hellscape that’s guaranteed to follow.