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.”

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.

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.

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!

That BK Ad

Rarely has a newspaper cartoon captured my exact thoughts as perfectly as this one did last week:

Thank you “Pearls Before Swine” for being a beacon of clarity.

This series of Burger King commercials, (you know the ones, unless you’ve been watching nothing but Netflix lately) has been driving me buggy since their onset a few years ago.

I’m going to dip into the long-neglected training from my Radio/TV/Film major college days and discuss this commercial in detail, from what they’re trying to do to why it irritates me and so many others.

One of the main things I learned was that every single thing you see in a commercial is put there to serve a purpose. Nothing is there by accident, especially in big national spots like these.

Every actor, setting, prop, costume, and graphic is there for a reason, usually as an unspoken message or reinforcement aimed at the demographic they’re trying to reach.

(Stupid local ads for car dealerships, lawyers, home improvement, and the like are a category unto themselves, where often the ad creators are just doing what the egocentric business owner tells them to. "Seriously, my customers love it when I yell car prices at them!")

If you ARE a Netflix devotee and have been fortunate enough to miss them, there’s a series of BK commercials wherein they do “updates” of their old 70s jingle, using someone who can’t sing.

If you’re anywhere close to my age, you remember the original jingle:

“Hold the pickle hold the lettuce,

Special orders don’t upset us.

All we ask is that you let us

Serve it your way.

Have it YOUR way,

Have it your Way, at Burger KING.”

At first, I was happy about the new ad series because it meant the end of their creepy “King-face mask” character that looks like a picture of Charlemagne from an old history textbook.

But now, their more recent ads are a travesty to anyone who takes Weird Al’s work seriously. There’s an art to creating an effective parody, or in this case, jingle refurbishment. You have to make it as close to the original as possible, optimally, using the same rhyming sounds and number of syllables per line as found in the original.

The new jingles sound like they are written by AI. They’re basically reciting menu items with descriptions from internal marketing memos, forced into the rhythm of the original jingle. The rhymes are elementary and they frequently jam far too many syllables into a line not designed to handle them. Or not enough.

One of them that’s running now is for the BK Melt. They stretch the word “melt” over five different notes, where five different words should be if you’re doing it right.

Instead of “Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce…” the lyric is “BK me-eh-eh-eh-elt…”

Deadpool would call it “lazy writing” and I agree. Maybe Mariah Carey can pull that off but not this guy. Which brings me to the next point.

For the voice, they use that of a non-threatening Black guy. Think “Jake from State Farm,” who’s basically Ned Flanders without the verbal flourishes. “Jake” started as a schlubby white guy before State Farm decided to make him a central character and they needed him to look cool bouncing around with Patrick Mahomes.

I presume they’re aiming for a lower to middle-class audience, with the identifiably Black voice, but not so Black as to scare off the white folks… looking for a sort of “everyman.” I mean, BK isn't going after Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse patrons, are they? And whoever this guy is, he can’t carry a tune. He kind of talk-sings like young children often do when they think they’re singing but really aren’t. Most of us can’t sing, so maybe they’re trying to seem relatable.

The original jingle used correct pronunciation. This one always elides the “your way” into “have it yer way.” This is another “everyman” touch, reaching out to people who don’t have time for fancy cooking or diction, and just want to be face-deep in a Whopper before they even pull out of the drive-thru.

And the last of the verbal tricks is that final “YOU RULE,” when the jingle is done, which is nothing but a transparent attempt to flatter the audience. “Yes, I rule. I am the King of the Value Menu! Bow before your Liege!”

The music tries to update the original tune with more electronica, but mostly drums. The drum sounds bounce around all over the place, making 30 seconds worth of impotent racket, like a drum fill that lasts for the entire jingle. And I say “impotent” because the drums sound like someone playing on shoe boxes, or just tapping an open mic. “Bup bup bup bup bup… mic check…” Maybe it’s a generational thing but to me, drums are supposed to thunder, not sound like Morse Code.

They also add some common tricks you’ll find elsewhere like stretching out the BEE sound in BK. It’s the “cheese” effect of picture-taking. When someone is holding a long E sound, it subconsciously evokes a smile. Applebee’s does this in their ads too.

And the same goes for extending the “ssssss” on the line where they rhyme "Shroom and Swiss" with “hunger blisssss.” The extended S also evokes a smile, like the long E. They must really want us to think their place is one happy kingdom.

If they’re that tired of coming up with new lyrics and rhymes, maybe they should just put this one to bed and try something else, maybe something original. Sure, they already owned the rights to the “Hold the Pickle" melody, so it was the cheap option. Maybe they can sponsor a nationwide search for a new jingle. They can make it for amateurs only so then when they find a good one, it’ll be that much easier to screw the artist on the copyright revenue.

“You want your jingle on national TV? Sign the papers.”

Then they can go back to milking that “everyman” vibe for all it’s worth. And maybe we can watch BK ads again without wanting to jam pencils into our ears.

“Pass the Turkey, Son.” “Pardon Me?”

Do you think that’s how it went?

I was going to write about something different today but then this blasted all over the news yesterday, starting with NBC breaking into football coverage with their “OMG It’s A Special Report! Batten Down the Hatches, Kiss Your Loved Ones Goodbye and Gather ‘Round the TV” news alert.

I was like, “Aw crap, what’s he done now?” assuming it would be about a new atrocity from TFG.

Then it turned out to be “Biden pardons his son,” and I thought, “Meh, whatever. It’s about time.”

Yes, despite prior declarations to the contrary, the President pardoned his long-suffering son from the phony-baloney gun and tax charges, and anything else the next Administration can pretend was a crime.

I thought Biden’s statement made perfect sense. He told it like it is, that his son didn’t deserve to get locked up for “crimes” that no one else who wasn’t named Biden would ever be. And with the next last administration openly declaring legal war on “enemies,” who knows what they’d twist into the next biggest criminal conspiracy?

I’d prefer that President Biden hadn’t spent the year saying he wasn’t going to pardon his son, just because it leaves another door open for Republicans to use for cover, like somehow it carried the same weight as the tens of thousands of Trumpian lies told since his political emergence.

But a man can change his mind, can’t he, like TFG does about abortion every time he speaks to a different group. Maybe it was only recently that he realized in his gut that the next four years are going to be perilous for himself and his family. (I predict that right now, Steve Bannon is looking for a way to tie the president’s wife, Dr. Jill, to Dr. Fauci and burn them both at the stake.)

What annoys me is the number of Democrats wringing their hands over this. Instead of clutching their pearls, they should be going, “It’s about damned time.” I’m sick of the Democrats having to follow rules that Republicans ignore. TFG was looking to pardon his own damned self! You know he’d pardon his kids too. (Well, Ivanka, anyway.)

I already see conservative friends on Facebook going, “Oh, what about ‘No one’s above the law?’”

It’s as if the power of the pardon only applies to one side. If they weren’t complaining about TFG pardoning son-in-law Jared’s old man for fraud and sex trafficking charges, and then nominating him for Ambassador to France, then STFU about pardons now.

Pardon power comes with the turf and every president uses it. TFG has already stated he intends to pardon all the January 6^th insurrectionists. What’s worse, ransacking the Capitol to prevent the legal transition of power, or messing up your taxes (and then fixing them) and fudging a gun ownership permit? One of these things is not like the other.

Republicans haven’t played nice in the past and we know they’re going to be worse in the future. It doesn’t matter what Democrats do, Republicans will oppose it out of reflex. When Biden pardoned the Thanksgiving turkey, I bet corners of the dark web accused him of being soft on poultry.

I’m done with the Dems being expected to do the “honorable” thing while the other side just laughs and does whatever it wants, usually to enrich themselves or provoke their opposition. It they’re going to pursue a policy that the president gets to do whatever he wants without fear of prosecution, then the same goes for the sitting president. Not that he’s even doing anything illegal; he’s doing exactly what every previous president has done, other than the part about the pardonee being family. But that’s really the inevitable result of pursuing purely political prosecutions. Hunter Biden has zero effect on anything in this country. The only reason they even looked at him was because they couldn’t find anything on his old man. Meanwhile, the crimes TFG was engaging in had huge monetary and national security repercussions, as well as physical harm done to others. No matter how people twist words, it’s just not the same.

President Biden ought to leave one more pardon for the end of his term, covering his wife, his other kids and grandchildren, his maids, landscapers, chefs, doctors, trainers, valets, mail carriers, Uber drivers, pet groomers, pizza guys, soda fountain guys, milkmen, and the lot. Call it the Pardon Me but Go Eff Yourself Act. Tell’em to stick that up their transition.

Identifying a Hit Piece

Mainstream media is letting the country down in a big way, by abandoning their traditional roles of truth-tellers in favor of exhibiting favoritism. And I don’t mean leaning one way or another in editorials; I mean writing most stories (outside the sports page) with bias, either cheerleading or condemning as their side would have it.

The most obvious symptom is the sanewashing of TFG, whose daily ravings get reformatted by news editors into something that might make sense. Offensive or off-putting material is ignored or translated, leaving readers and viewers with a vastly different view from what was actually said.

Just over the weekend, TFG decided to make the late Arnie Palmer’s dick into headline news. Sure, we’ve all heard about it not, but not until after the New York Times posted about the appearance and cleaned up the reference, before indirectly mentioning the reference, before the leaked word of mouth eventually caused them to report on what was said. In other words, they had to be dragged into doing their jobs.

This is going on with multiple media outlets day after day. If any one of these word salad ramblings had come from the President or Vice President, it would have been the top story for several news cycles. But because A) they want a horserace and B) the ownership and publishers want their thumb on the scale for the Republicans (which benefits their massive corporate operations) they reshape the news to deprive independent and undecided people of information that may influence them to vote Democratic.

I have another example from the front page of Saturday’s Baltimore Sun. While it’s not focusing on the presidential race, it’s taking shots at the sitting Democratic governor, Wes Moore and it uses many of the same biased techniques we find in the presidential coverage.

You know it’s going to be a hit piece when Fox 45 appears in the byline. They’re a local Fox affiliate that specializes in ambush TV journalism, popping up out of nowhere to pepper local pols with questions while on their way to their cars and then running the most flustered responses.

The point of the article is that Governor Moore is out campaigning while juvenile crime happens.

This is a classic construction, “How can they do ‘this’ while ‘this other thing’ is happening? The details don’t matter, you can fill in the blanks. It’s like, “How can we send money to Ukraine while there are homeless veterans? or How can you talk about mass transit when housing prices are so high?” The answer is usually, “We can do two things at once,” but that seems to be beyond the reach of these “content providers.”

No public official actively works on a single problem 24/7/365. And solving “youth crime” is like solving homelessness or poverty. It ain’t happening by anyone any time soon. And it’s not like there wasn’t youth crime during the previous (Republican) administration. Youth crime doesn’t get solved until there are enough other ways to make enough money to compete with gang or drug life. These guys aren’t going to start working at Arby’s or picking crabs down on the shore, so any solution would need to be massive and grassroots, just like the kind of proposal Republicans always shoot down as too expensive. But that former governor is running for Senator so they want to dirty up his Democratic successor.

So it goes on to say that the Governor’s Administration “broke its silence” on the issue. Watch out for that phrase wherever you see it. That is almost always a false construction. Breaking one’s silence assumes there is an actual, willful silence to begin with, which is different than merely not having said anything yet. I’m just “breaking my silence” on youth crime today. Did I have a silence before? Nope, I just haven’t talked about it yet. If anyone would have asked earlier, I’d have been happy to discuss it. It’s hardly a groundbreaking event.

So, where is the Administration’s statement? We don’t know yet. Next, they go to some critic who wants to add his own two cents. This guy, they breathlessly point out, is a Democrat who wants to speak negatively on the subject. All the complaining and snide inferences are on the front page column. The Governor’s actual statement is buried on the last page of the front section, after the furniture ads.

This is what the media has come to. As a former J-school student, I’m pained by what passes for news coverage today. Unfortunately, I don’t see it improving in the near or distant future. Like almost every other commodity in the 2000s, the news is monetized to the max. There is no point if it doesn’t make money or accumulate power. And with the continued contraction of every industry into no more than several major players, all the news will be bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated to convince you that what’s best for the biggest corporations just happens to be the same as what’s best for you.

It’s just that they’ll be raking in the money and we won’t.

The Price of Admission

What amazes me about the MAGA movement is how they got 40% of the population to believe in verifiable nonsense. I mean, if you don’t tow the Company Line on whatever their leadership spouts off on a given day, you’re out of the club. Look what they make you believe:

Donald Trump won the 2020 election and the January 6^th gathering was a peaceful meeting of civic-minded citizens who merely wanted to support the president. Yes, despite 60 failed court cases, reams of evidence produced before Congress, and our own eyes that saw the violence and damage done live on TV, they still think that somehow evil Democrats skewed the election results across a dozen states including those run by Republicans, left no evidence, and didn’t bother to include Democratic Congressional or Gubernatorial races. No sane person can believe that, putting this article of faith on par with turning water into Jack Daniels.

Democrats can and do control the weather so that hurricanes are sent to red states. I never thought this would get picked up by the MAGAs and Q-tards (because it wasn’t TFG who said it) but there it was last week on my Facebook feed; a bunch of conspiracy drivel forwarded from a MAGA acquaintance, crowing about how this was just proven correct (and naturally all their other batshit theories were correct too). MT Greene needs to take a refresher high school science class before she is allowed back into the Capitol. Or to stand in front of a microphone.

Republicans only push for voter ID to safeguard elections. Yes, for themselves. This would only be plausible if they weren’t using what the North Carolina State Supreme Court described as “surgical precision” to limit acceptable forms of ID that their opponents were deemed least likely to have. But they were, as their internal emails to each other described in detail.

Republicans are better for the economy than Democrats. This is false now and has been since the 60s. Every spike in our economic numbers has come after a Democratic administration stepped in to fix a Recession left by Republicans. Right now, inflation is down, Wall Street is hitting record numbers every other week, joblessness is down, and wages are up. Unfortunately, price gouging is still up, given the recent record corporate profits. When the Dems proposed limits on price gouging, Republicans went nuts fighting against it. Why do you think that is? It’s because their benefactors are the ones doing the gouging. Letting them back in charge of the economy only guarantees that the gouging continues.

JD Vance had a chance recently to address the insane cost of child care by offering a Republican plan:

Republicans have no plan to reduce the cost of child care, housing, groceries, or anything else.

Immigrants are criminals. It doesn’t really matter to Republicans if immigrants are legal or not; they don’t want the brown ones around. So whenever an immigrant commits some terrible crime, it’s trumpeted all over the right-wing media echo chamber, while dozens of similar crimes committed by dumbass white men aren’t addressed at all. They’re all about demonizing immigrants even though statistics show that they are far less likely to commit crimes here than the natives. It’s like they’re fighting for our rights to only be killed by white American men.

They had a chance to address immigration in a real way but torpedoed that in favor of bitching about the status quo as a campaign issue. This daily comic from last week’s paper nailed it completely:

So does this one:

Democrats are controlled by billionaire George Soros, who they say bankrolls every group and social justice program they don’t like. Republicans have dozens, if not hundreds of Soroses bankrolling everything they do, from creating disinformation campaigns to buying Supreme Court judgeships. Those who fund the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society are far more threatening to the union than a single do-gooder whose money is spent on issues that may end up costing him money from his fortune. The difference is that he does it for the benefit of society and these other rich fucks do it to increase and safeguard their own fortunes. I saw this in the paper last week and included it here for one reason; the best F.U. I’ve seen in print in years.

This is another Baltimore Sun article provided by Fox 45/Sinclair Broadcasting. They’re trying to do a hit piece on Soros and whatever group he’s bankrolling here. I don’t really care about that, but look what the group’s spokesman told the reporter: “Sinclair is not a serious media organization…I am only choosing to engage you because I wanted you to know directly how little regard I have for you all professionally.”

Game, set, match.

The “liberal media” is still a thing. After all the mergers and takeovers left the nation’s media in the hands of only a few giant corporate entities, the notion that the media skews liberal is laughable. Just look at how TFG is covered. No one is even touching on the dangerous drivel that comes out of his pursed mouth. They call it sanewashing now, as in leaving out the more bizarre and threatening language and printing what they think he means. There are no doubt still some liberal reporters and writers, but the direction of newspapers and newsrooms is determined far above the reporter position, in the boardroom. They order the direction and it’s up to everyone else to make it so.

Democrats want to raise your taxes. No, Democrats want to raise taxes on the rich, which is something left out of every Republican anti-tax ad. Dems propose raising taxes on those making more than $400k. And the notion of taxing unrealized capital gains applies to an even smaller percentage:

Republicans don’t want to highlight that distinction, they’d rather make you think the liberals are coming for YOU, which is all the better for THEM.

Donald Trump cares about the working man. I would love to see an example of TFG doing something for the average citizen that doesn’t somehow benefit himself. To him, we’re all just commodities to be programmed to vote for him and feed his ego. Last week, Taylor Swift donated five million bucks for hurricane victim assistance. Dolly Parton donated two million.  Have you heard of any equitable donations from big Republican figures? Of course not… there’s nothing in it for them. They might not even get votes out of it if they can’t get their infrastructure together by Election Day. They’d much rather campaign on blaming Democrats for whatever modern problems arise. That’s all they’ve got.

That, and a full-speed sprint towards Fascism.

The Big Government Bluz

I saw this meme posted by a conservative friend on the old Facebook a while back, which I thought was a pretty good example of the kind of dishonest fear-mongering for which Republicans are known.

More people work for the government…ooooh, scary. It paints dark pictures of overreaching politicians and endless, faceless bureaucracy.

The first thing I question is whether this is true or not. I mean, in a capitalist society, everything is for sale. It takes a lot of people to ship things, sell things, and account for things. (I’m omitting “building things” because as often as not, that doesn’t happen here.) So I have doubts. I think the only way the statement becomes true is if includes ALL government work. Federal, State, local, etc. And think what that includes:

·         Firefighting and police.

·         Military and National Guard.

·         Schools and libraries.

·         Sanitation, road construction, and maintenance.

·         Road salting and plowing.

·         Postal Service.

·         FEMA, NOAA, and weather forecasting.

·         Courts, district attorneys, and legal aides.

·         The IRS (Yeah, boo, hiss, but someone has to handle collecting taxes if we want any of the services above.)

Are any of these jobs particularly evocative of the evil intentions of government? Of course not, they’re just jobs that are necessary in our society. These are absolutely “government jobs.” And the fact that they are ensures cost control.

I’ll tell you what it really comes down to: Republicans don’t like all this government work because unless there is a private entity involved, the rich can’t skim the till and take a slice of taxpayer money for themselves.

They want all of these jobs privatized for the simple reason that it’s an opportunity to make more money. They want these services to become more things we have to pay for out of pocket, but at a higher price because they need to make a profit. But first, they have to get us to go along with it, hence the scary “Runaway Big Government” memes.

It’s just like with Social Security. Republicans have been trying to privatize that for years, not because it’s inefficient, but with money going from the government directly to the people, fat-cat Wall Street firms don’t get to take a cut. It is money left on the table and they can’t stand that they can’t get their mitts on any of it.

That’s why they lie about Social Security being a factor in the federal deficit. They want us to think benefits need to be reduced when in fact, a few small changes would guarantee viability for decades to come. It’s just that Republicans don’t like those changes because the filthy rich would have to pay more than they do now. All they need to do is raise or remove the cap at which Social Security taxes end ($165K.) That’s a non-starter with them, and it shows to whom they are beholden. (It’s not us.)

Or, they could always pay back the money Congress “borrowed” from the Social Security fund decades ago, but never seem to find a way to return.

***

In other news (from a couple weeks ago) I saw this in the local paper.

As usual, the GOP is demanding the blood-thirsty option of sentencing the 9/11 mastermind to death. I think they’re being short-sighted. While I agree that his maniac is deserving of death, I think life in prison would be far more punishing. Is this guy really even afraid of death? Isn’t he one of those men who expects 72 virgins at his beck and call once he snuffs it? Far better for him to rot in jail for one long, miserable year, after another. Or, give him his 72 virgins right now, and by “virgins,” I mean anti-social, basement-dwelling, woman-hating incels. Party on, Sheikh.

***

Hey, how about that convention, huh? It actually left me feeling a bit more optimistic. I loved the speeches, especially those from Doug Emhoff, Secretary Pete, Michelle Obama, Tim Walz, and the nominee herself.

You can tell it scared the Republicans because they’re killing themselves trying to find an angle of attack to discredit the proceeding. Their only hope is that it works on their fan base who never saw any of it for themselves. We know joy and happiness when we see it and we recognize messaging that resonates.

It’s funny that one of the recurring themes from the Fox "News" crowd is how “no one voted for her in the primaries.”

To that, I use Governor Walz’s new punchline in that they should “Mind their own damn business.” This is our dance, not theirs. They get no more say in our primaries than we had in theirs. If we’re happy with our nominee, that’s all that matters. It just goes to show that they’ll latch onto anything to keep from admitting their guy is a joke.

Show Me the Money

I’m enjoying the Democrats' new line of attack, calling Republicans “weird” at every turn. Certainly it’s juvenile, but it gets under their skin. At least it bugs them enough for them to start calling the Democrats weird, using the timeless “I Know You Are But What Am I?” defense. Unfortunately for them, the Democrats already invoked the “No Take-Backs” clause.

I say, let the experts weigh in:

I saw a lot of Republican commercials over the weekend smearing Harris, most of which used the sure-fire conservative hot-button terms… “Most progressive Senator ever,” “San Francisco politics,” “Nancy Pelosi,” “Illegal immigrants and gang members” killing people while she was somewhere in the state, etc.

They really love to throw “San Francisco” around. To them it just reeks of hippies, drugs, and free love. They’re all like, “She’s so San Francisco, Rice-a-Roni is suing her for copyright infringement. She’s so San Francisco, it should say Kamala’s Wharf on the sign. Instead of cable cars, she’s pulling tourists up the hills herself.”

And I “can’t even” with the DEI stuff. I mean, wasn’t she elected by her constituents several times for various offices? To the MAGAs, they figure we need to wait for another 42 White guys to become president before they can cope with another person of color. I know I’m not the first person to point this out but the fact that DEI can easily stand for Don Jr, Eric, and Ivanka, all of whom had jobs because of who they were on paper rather than actual skills.

***

I’m more than ready for someone to finally come back at Republicans who are claiming that the current state of high prices can be laid at Biden’s (and by proxy, Harris’s) feet. Rational people know that the prices of anything are influenced by many factors, not least of which is the amount of profit their manufacturers choose to take.

So, what do you think would happen if Biden or Harris said, “You want us to provide price relief? How about this? How about I order a cap on corporate profits? If you get caught gouging in excess of allowable profit, we fine the shit out of you. And let’s prevent corporations from buying up all the housing to turn the units into rentals, so we can keep a lid on housing prices.”

Watch how fast Republicans scream bloody murder about Socialism, Communism, and every other “ism” that they think will scare you. They don’t want prices to go down. Their donors love these high prices because they’re making one record-breaking quarter of profit after another. And then they get to laugh as they blame it all on the Democrats.

Try asking TFG what his plan is to reduce the cost of living. I’ll tell you his answer: “I have a beautiful plan in the works, the best plan ever, many people said so. It will be released in two weeks.” And we know what that means. There is no plan. Someone who takes pride in skipping out on what he owes people will never care how much things cost.

Just like with the border, Republicans don’t want to take action to fix problems, they want to run on them and blame the Democrats.

Anyway, it’s not like any such economic pronouncement from Biden would pass muster with the new Overtly Corrupt Supreme Court. They’re prepared to thwart any economic plan that isn’t directed at the 1%. That’s why they’re there.

***

I’m glad that Biden is at least proposing SCOTUS reforms. Drastic action is necessary at this point. The fact that several justices have been bought cannot be hidden. No one provides the kind of financial favors that Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh received, without expecting something in return.

Sadly, nothing will ever come of it without the Presidency, the House, and 60 Senators onboard. The only way to get Republicans on board will be when the Supreme Court has a Democrat-appointed majority. (And even then, the rich will just buy off more Democrats.) You can already see the Republican panic in this Wall Street Journal headline:

Republicans didn’t do all that work to pack the court with their own flunkies just to give it up due to the public’s (correct) perception. The Journal goes on to say that the number of possible accusations and complaints will provide the appearance that the court is corrupt. How that differs from what we have right now is beyond me. We already KNOW the court is corrupt.

But the biggest no-go is the idea of an amendment eliminating presidential immunity. And it’s not because of the issue itself, it’s just that any new amendment requires ratification by 38 state governments.

My friend, we can’t get 38 state governments to agree that the grass is green. They could be trying to pass a declaration in which if an asteroid were to be discovered streaking towards a planet-killing collision with Earth, the states would unite in trying to divert it. We would still have red and blue states fighting about something. Maybe the Dems want to hire the most qualified contractors and the Republicans want to hire established Defense Department contractors so they can skim the funds. Whatever the case, we can’t even get 38 states to agree to something as basic as men and women being treated as equals. (And I’d bet some of the states that DID sign on would like to change their minds now.) No, unless there’s a complete overhaul in this country’s collective mindset, we’re never going to see another amendment to the Constitution pass again.

BUT, I don’t see the harm in talking about the issue and getting Republicans on the defensive. It’s good to make them show their true colors. Which, in fact, are always “green.”