Quick Debate Impressions

Director’s DVD Commentary: This is a special bonus post dropping midweek because if I wait until next Monday, it will literally be last week’s news and we’ll be onto the next thing. If this is the first you’re visiting this week, please click on the “Older Post” link at the bottom of the page.

Now, for today’s news:

BAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA

She spanked his ass red and sent him to bed without dinner.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a mismatched debate performance. She was cool, calm, and collected and he was sputtering like an old man raging about movies with sound.

TFG brought his customary lying to a new height, putting forth ridiculous, previously and easily debunked accusations like pet-killing Haitians living in Springfield and eating the citizens’ cats and dogs.

That brought on one of the few times the ABC moderators corrected him. I admit that if they had corrected every lie, there wouldn’t have been enough time to hear from Kamala.

Naturally, Republicans are accusing ABC of some kind of bias and I think they’re correct. Every time TFG begged for extra time, they gave it to him without equal time going to the VP. And the one time she asked for it, they denied it. He ended up with nine more minutes of ranting time than she had. Obviously, ABC was out to get him by allowing him to speak! It proved to be an effective strategy.

You didn’t think Republicans were actually going to do some soul-searching as to why they so slavishly back this incompetent madman, did you? No, they have to blame someone for his catastrophic showing. It can never be him who is at fault. Never apologize, never back down, and always double down. That’s their way. It always has to be someone else’s fault, usually a Democrat. From crappy debate performances to hurricanes, they need to blame a liberal.

Kamala impressed me by going after him in a civil but needling way. I loved that she went after his rally attendance, which is essentially how TFG measures his dick. It totally put him off his game. He just had to rebut every personal remark that highlighted his shortcomings. She let tons of stuff go, oftentimes, to my consternation. I love to see debunkery in action. But she was right in making the larger points, calling for unity and a way forward. All he could do was fall back to his regular routine of invading immigrants, coming to steal our jobs, rape our women, and eat our pets. Or is it to eat on the job, steal our women and rape our pets? Who knows with this guy? He makes less sense with every speech.

Taylor Swift's administration of the coup de grace endorsement was just [chef’s kiss]. A perfect message for the perfect time. I hope it transforms into votes, but knowing the reliability of the Swifties may make a difference in a swing state or two.

So while I feel pretty giddy about her debate performance, let me also remind you that Hillary also kicked his ass in a debate or two. It didn’t mean much when the votes were counted. Granted, there were outside factors involved there too, with the FBI breaking their own rule to publically resurface accusations that were later dismissed. Who knows what kind of skullduggery is about to be unleashed in the coming months? (Skullduggery is the best kind of duggery, don’t ya know?)

I expect the attacks to get more and more personal and the smears increasingly vicious. It’s all they have left. They don’t have any popular ideas to put forth, all they have is criticism and attack and gaming the system. If you remove that, all you have left is a party of stupid red hats sitting atop empty suits.

We just need to see through it and show up in November.

Final note: Speaking of gaming the system, if you live in a Red State, be SURE you’re registered to vote. Republicans are trying everything to thin the voter rolls of likely opponents, from closing and moving polling sites to, requiring new IDs, to stripping people from voter rolls, especially those who haven’t voted recently. 

Mid-Year Meme Dump!

I’m preparing this ahead of time because, by the time you see this, I’ll be sitting on a beach earning 20% on vacation. So what better opportunity than this for a MEME DUMP!

Now I can finally do something with a bunch of pictures, cartoons, and memes that have been collecting digital dust in the Bluz Vault while I figure out how and when to use them. Let’s start with:

Current Events

From the Baltimore Sun, quite some time ago:

Still true.

Republican use of Voter ID is 100% attempted voter suppression. No matter how they dress it up, likely Democratic voters get the shaft.

Another persistent lie. The 1% have been dying for access to Social Security money for generations but will do backflips to avoid paying into it any more than the pittance that they do.

And because it’s Stanley Cup Finals season…

The Cup can be won or lost tonight (as of this typing.)

Hannibal Shyster

“Put the secret documents in the fuckin’ basket!”

Religion

It’s a wonder anyone takes this thing seriously.

It’s like going along with adults who have “deeply held beliefs” in the Easter Bunny. (I was going to say Santa Claus, but we know that at the root of it, there was a St Nicholas who actually existed.)

It’s unanimous.

Goofy Shit

From 1984 to about 2005, (before I knew anything about the effects of sodium on the aging body) I had a package of Ramen noodle soup every morning for breakfast. This could have happened to me.

This one just made me laugh.

From Bluz Sister. In my case, that fridge would be in a beachside cabana somewhere.

Courtesy of Bluz Uncle Joe. My only nit to pick is that on the Classic Rock example, the drum solo only comes with the live show.

I’ll be seeing quite a lot of these over the next week, I expect.

See you all on the flip side!

Not My Circus, Not My Clowns

With the sound of a great whoopee cushion going off and the sight of blood-red smoke pouring from the top of the Capitol building, the Republicans finally brought their circus to a close and elected a Speaker. Unfortunately, continuing the chaos might have been better for the country than the clown they put in charge of the Big Top. This guy is Gym Jordan without the hyper-aggressive, sleeves-up, frat-boy bluster

Mike Johnson, (R-Stone Age LA) was able to claim the mantel of Speaker of the House, which demonstrated to all who are watching, just what their priorities are.

1)      Appear loyal to TFG at all costs.

2)      Persecute Gays by overturning the right to Same Sex Marriage, and other human rights.

3)      Persecute women by passing a national abortion ban, without exceptions for rape, incest, or health of the mother… I mean “incubator.”

4)      Raise the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare, and scaling back benefits.

Is there really anything Republicans are for that isn’t abhorrent to anyone that’s not filthy rich, racist/White supremacist, or a religious zealot?

Republicans had a choice between someone sane who can get important items moved through the house but instead elected someone to take a flamethrower to the Constitution.

Don’t bother looking to Congress to take any action that will solve actual problems, fiscal, physical, or otherwise. I mean, look what this new guy is on record as stating:

Yes, that’s the solution to making Social Security solvent… forcing women to have more babies. I guarantee you if women did have more babies, they’d still find a way to cut or curtail the Social Security program. Republicans just don’t like it and never will… not until they can come up with a way to let their rich donors skim the system first, leaving the rest of us to fight over the scraps.

The easiest fix in the world would be to remove the income cap for Social Security taxes, which is currently $160,200. Once people make that much money in a year, they no longer have to pay into Social Security. Do you realize what a boost it would be if the richest of the rich continued to pay Social Security taxes on their millions and billions? We’d never have to worry about solvency again.

I have to pay Social Security taxes on every dime I make. There is no reason the rich shouldn’t do the same but for this sweetheart gift they had created for themselves.

Of course, we’d also have to legislate some kind of regulations that forbid the loopholes and moving of money around to avoid that would inevitably be used to game the system again. But those details can be ironed out later, once we’ve found enough legislators with the backbone to do what’s right rather than what they’re being paid to do by their donor overlords. Maybe they could demonstrate some faith in the system that their constituents would reward them for sticking up for their interests rather than selling out….

… …

…OK, I know, Fox “News,” Breitbart, the Federalist Society and the rest of the Right Wing Media militia would ensure that never happens. Do you think it’s bad for them when Republicans get called RINOS and traitors after admitting TFG lost the election? Wait until they try to buck the donor class.

There is literally no lie they won’t tell. I mean, look at bullshit from Coach Tuberville:

I don’t even know where to begin debunking this. It is completely untethered from reality. The most generous stretch I can fathom is he’s blaming Democrats for losing in 2016, because without TFG paving the way for Putin, he never steps foot in Ukraine, because he knows President Clinton and the Americans would send everything at their disposal to Ukraine to stop him.

With Gaza, we know TFG gave Israeli defense secrets to Putin. We know Putin in tight with Iran, who funds Hamas. So again, it’s the Democrats’ fault for not beating TFG and keeping him from giving away national secrets.  It makes perfect sense, as long as you’re in the Wingnut-O-Sphere.

And that also explains why it isn’t a big deal when a presidential candidate calls for less voting and more voter prevention:

Yes, he’s not even trying to get out the vote anymore, he’s trying to get his minions to browbeat and intimidate opponents and poll workers into handing him the presidency.

“You gotta be careful, you gotta get out there and watch those voters… You don’t have to vote, don’t worry about voting. The voting—we got plenty of votes,” says the 4-time indicted soon-to-be felon.

Where, exactly, are these votes he “has?” Where did he get them, The International House of Votes?

“I’d like 11,800 votes please. What flavor? Georgia Peach.”

I’m telling you, if these guys get back in, we can say goodbye to free elections, democracy, and our Constitution.

In coming posts, we’ll talk more about the noxious Project 2025 and its implications.

Trial and Error

We had a bit of news last week, wherein a certain former president is being charged with some more felonies and starting to show the strain. And it’s almost as bad as the straining done by people trying to diminish his actions and get him off the hook.

First, we had a call from the Divine:

“Yes, pay no attention to the orange cretin behind the curtain, just keep listening to Fox “News. They’ll tell you everything you need to know. Republican Jesus has a plan. Republican Jesus supports everything the Bible’s Jesus decries and TFG is his prophet. A Proper Profit Prophet. Now keep going to trade school, because who needs to listen to a bunch of eggheads? Plus, these BMWs won’t fix themselves.”

Why are we not surprised TFG is already trying to find a more favorable judge before his trial even starts?

We have to keep in mind, if something isn’t rigged in his favor, he thinks it’s unfair. It’s the Way of the Wealthy. As far as he’s concerned, he should only have to do business in front of judges that he appointed and they are obligated to be loyal and back him at every turn. Is that too much to ask? Believe me, as soon as his pet judge Cannon does something he doesn’t like, he’ll try to get her removed too. And she’s already on thin ice after trying to stall the documents investigation a few months back.

He wasted no time in making his displeasure with the proceedings known to his fans, by threatening the judge and prosecutors.

“If you go after me, I'm coming after you,” he posted on his faux-Twitter social media outlet.

Isn’t that exactly what Al Capone said in “The Untouchables,” when he was threatening Eliot Ness? It figures that TFG would use a mob reference, as he fancies himself a mob boss. And by “I’ll come after you,” he means, of course, his MAGA minions, who began producing death threats immediately.

And it’s all just good old American “free speech,” too.

TFG’s apologists are desperate to make the January 6^th case about free speech. The problem is that the indictment states clearly and directly that he is not being charged for his speech, but for specific actions, namely to create slates of fake electors and strong-arm VP Mike Pence into halting the ceremonial vote count so they could get the election rigging nailed down.

And even if Jack Smith WAS going after him for inciting his mob to attack the Capitol, the First Amendment is about the freedom to speak without government limitations, which he did.. It’s not about freedom from the consequences of one’s speech. If you call for the violent overthrow of the government to have yourself illegally installed as president, there will be consequences.

And as such, calling for attacks against the justice system participants calls for consequences as well. There is zero First Amendment impact here. But it’s what Republicans want you to think. All victimhood, all persecution, all the time.

They never make room for the fact that their guy committed blatant, obvious, crimes, right in front of everyone. And because they’re Republicans, the fight for the right to be above the law never stops.

Now we have a congressman who wants to defund the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security unless they “fix” their problems. Meaning stopping the legal and necessary prosecutions of their false idol (and building walls on the southern border.)

“Roy told host Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday” that Congress should withhold funding from the two agencies over what he characterized as the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the Justice Department and for “leaving the border exposed. And I can tell you right now for all my colleagues, I will not vote for a continuing resolution or any funding for DHS or DOJ if we don’t get changes to both,” Roy said. “I want the border secure. I want DOJ restored to following the rule of law…”

So, it’s partisan “weaponization” when the DOJ goes after a politician who commits obvious crimes, but it’s NOT weaponization to go after a politician’s son, who has zero role in the government and there is zero proof of any grand malfeasance. AND it’s also not weaponization to hold hearing after hearing on a Democratic presidential candidate who used a private email server, also with zero proof of a crime, or even a negative consequence from using said server.

These guys are talking out of their collective asses. They used the DOJ as an attack dog from the Bush presidency to this last one, who made it their primary job to investigate political opponents and their supporters. (Remember the big GW Bush push to find voter fraud? The DOJ spent millions of dollars looking for Democratic voter fraud and couldn’t find jack shit… other than several cases of Republican voter fraud, which disappeared immediately.

I can’t even, with these guys. I just can’t even.

I can see another important battle ahead and that’s to get these trials televised. Obviously, these will be the Trials of the Century. It would be in every American’s best interest to follow them closely, but that’s exactly why Republicans will do everything they can to prevent the broadcast.

The last thing they want is for unvarnished proof of criminality to become publicly viewed. They want their people to get all their pertinent information from Fox “News” and the like, where it can be sanitized, alibied, and whitewashed. Fox will cherry-pick clips to show that follow their chosen storyline and disappear everything else. They do NOT want to see clips of the testimony broadcast that shows the Emperor not wearing any clothes. (Which I agree, NO ONE wants to see, not even Melania.)

Just go back to the earlier point… “Pay no attention to the news. We’ll tell you what to think and what to do. Who are you going to believe, us, or your lying eyes?”

I’ve seen it wondered, in various corners of the internet, why TFG’s followers still follow him, despite the mountain of evidence that he’s a crook, a cheat, a swindler, a con man, and all around bad person.

I don’t think it’s complicated at all. It’s just the combination of Team Politics and the aversion to admitting they’ve been wrong (for eight years.) It’s hard for most people to admit they’re wrong, but especially for Republicans. That’s their trademark… never doubt, never retreat, never admit, always double down. Accuse them of whatever they say you're doing. That’s why they will support this guy right up until he leads them off a cliff.

You’d think he would have lost votes from the families of everyone who followed his lead on COVID and then died from it. But MAGAs still gotta MAGA, and so it shall be.

We will never be able to reason with them, we can only outnumber them. And then prepare the protests for how we “stole” the election. Again. Because that’s the mindset.

“Either we win, or you cheated.”

Deny, misdirect, accuse, project.

We have to be prepared.

How To Destroy Democracy in 6 Easy Steps

The 2023 SCOTUS term sure went out with a bang, huh? Geez, it was like a Federalist Society wish list, foisted upon the country by the Six Justices of the Apocalypse…

These are major hits on women, gays, and education, Republican Enemies 1, 2, and 3. To all the Democrats and Independents who didn’t vote for Hillary, this is what you’ve wrought, a wholly predictable assault on civil rights, human rights, and the right not to be taken to the cleaners by the banking industry.

Democrats need to come out on fire, this election season and hit these decisions hard. These were Republican priorities that almost exclusively benefitted themselves and their benefactors, at the expense of the average citizen. This is what happens when the Right is in power; they rig the system evermore so in their favor.

It’s especially galling that in the Web Designer sued for the right not to have to set up a web page for a same-sex wedding, it turned out that the plaintiff never actually fielded such an inquiry. She just wanted to discriminate on spec. Or her backers did… this had test case written all over it.

While in theory, it sounds bad to force someone to do something against their will, I think societal rules for business should supersede an individual’s cherry-picked mythological notions. If you open a business in America, you should serve anyone who walks through the metaphorical door. If your religion prevents that, then try another profession. It’s really no different than a vegan cashier refusing to ring up a customer’s steak.

And to make clear how egregiously discriminatory this is, just replace “gay” with “Black.” There is zero difference. Both are innate characteristics. If you can’t refuse service to a Black person, you shouldn’t be able to do the same to someone gay. Although I should pipe down about that… Banning service to Blacks is probably the next item on the Racist Right’s agenda.

Anyway, it’s not like Republicans are against forcing people into doing things they don’t want to do, like having a baby. They just prefer to be the ones doing the forcing. As I always say, Republicans don’t really do “principles,” they do “wanna’s.” They will espouse any principle they’ve decried in the past if it supports something they wanna do now.

The pursuit of education really took it on the chin as well. It’s old news that Justice Junket Thomas campaigned to get rid of Affirmative Action, after having used it himself, but it still makes my brain explode. “Benefits for me, but none for thee.” That’s the conservative motto, right there. Or in other words, “I got mine, now go eff yourselves.”

It’s revolting how Republicans frame this as eliminating discrimination. Yes, the poor downtrodden white kids. Such hardships you would never know. Because now, “Victim of Discrimination” = “White kid who didn’t get into his first college of choice.”

And then those who mortgaged the farm to get a college loan at an insane interest rate guaranteeing that it will never be paid off will continue to pour money into the open gullet of the banking industry rather than into the economy at large, where various vendors and employees can feel the benefit. That’s what Republicans are pushing for.

The more young people have to carry debt, the more dough rolls into the banks, and the more people have to accept crappy jobs for crappy pay because they have to keep servicing that debt monkey, the better it is for the top 1%.

That should be the next GOP Slogan: 

"Judge Smales in 2024: The world needs ditch diggers too!”

It’s no accident that tuition has spiked over the last 30 years at the same time college loans became prohibitively expensive. The upper crust doesn’t want educated people, they want pliant workers who will take orders without question, and believe anything they’re told on Fox “News.”

And if it’s anyone who’s going to get those degrees, it’s gonna be nice, White, suburban kids, and legacy students. People who will take their MBAs with a shot of whiskey and replace their dads in the boardrooms one day.

Now, the only question is, will anyone remember this next November?

Happy 4^th of July. Not.

GOP Playbook: Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

 I frequently mention that the first tenet of Republicanism is that whatever a Democrat does is wrong, just by having been done by a Democrat. I saw that on display again last week with this tweet from Nikki Haley (featuring an on-point counter by Rep Swalwell):

I’m not sure where this story even comes from so I’m certainly not taking it at face value. I mean, how do they even know these 66 were terrorists? Do they carry Terrorist ID Cards now? Did they find bombs in their backpacks? (Presumably looking like bowling balls with wicks stuck in them.) Or do they just have Arabic names? To Republicans, that’s all it takes.

So if these people were terrorists and were indeed stopped at the border, what’s the freakin’ problem? The system worked. Is Biden at fault because someone, somewhere dared to try to cross the border?

Well, yes. Just go back to Rule One, “Whatever a Democrat Does is Wrong.” It’s the Fox “News” Way.

They don’t care that the underlying logic is hopelessly damaged. How much sense would this make:

“666 people were stopped for speeding on federal interstates this weekend. Biden has one job: To protect America, and he’s failing. If Biden doesn’t take his job seriously, it’s up to local police to write tickets.”

Can Biden really get in the heads of millions of drivers and make them slow down? Nope, no more than he can make thousands of South and Central Americans somehow stop their plans to cross the border before they get there. All he can do is have a system in place to stop people trying to cross illegally. It would also help if there were a coherent system to guide legal immigration, but as far as I know, it’s still a major CF.

I think Republicans are still nostalgic for those good ole’ Trump days where the object was to make this country so shitty that no one wanted to come because they knew they would be detained by people whose goal it was to make the experience as traumatic as possible.

A Fox Guarding the Hens’ Bank Account

I’ve been munching the popcorn over this story, that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is running out of money.

They raised $173 million, spent $20m on ads, and have $27m left. How the hell does THAT happen, without a massive grift going on?

Rick Scott, on his way to audition for the Blue Man Group.

Anything that gets Republicans fighting Republicans is all right with me. It’s one thing to swindle the taxpayers, but swindling each other? That’s when the shit hits the fan. So let them turn on each other. I’m just waiting for the inevitable moment when they come up with a way to blame the Democrats. But this one’s going to need some serious creativity. I’d guess it’ll be something like “Antifa hackers funded by George Soros paid off BLM supporters to break into Rick Scott’s house and steal the money from under his mattress. The whole plan was explained in Hillary’s emails stored on Hunter Biden’s laptop!”

Gas Pains

This is the faux story that never seems to die, probably because the fossil fuel industry, which owns the Republican Party lock, stock, and barrel, won’t let it. I just lifted a new version from Facebook… they never seem to tire of trying to blame the president for the price of gas.

“IT WAS $2 LOWER BECAUSE THE COUNTRY WAS LOCKED DOWN DUE TO THE MISHANDLING OF COVID! No demand equals low prices, that’s Econ 101. It is willfully dishonest to compare the current prices, which have been affected by a giant shooting and bombing war in Europe and worldwide inflation to a price that cratered due to demand dropping off the table, and then blame the president for it. The prices are what they are because the oil companies want it that way. Do you see any of them taking big losses this year? The MAGAs “fall for it” every time. And I guarantee you that if TFG was still president and we had these same conditions, they’d still find a way to blame the Democrats.

“The pipelines we approved aren’t pumping enough oil because Antifa jammed them up with red tape, electric car batteries, and Hillary’s emails.”

Search Me

Last week was the week for schadenfreude, wasn’t it? I probably ought to buy some stock in Orville Redenbacher, based on all of us watching the fallout from the FBI raid on TFG.

I wonder if Vegas has odds on what excuse Republicans are going to use next, trying to defend the indefensible. It sure seems like the MAGAs are using some kind of roulette wheel with an assortment of excuses:

·         Witch Hunt

·         But her emails

·         They weren’t classified/secret

·         He already gave the classified stuff back

·         He declassified them

·         Oh yes he can!

*     The FBI planted evidence

·         Witch Hunt

·         Biden is weaponizing the Justice Department

·         The FBI is crooked

·         Garland has a vendetta

·         Obama took documents too

·         George Soros

·         Hunter Biden

*     They're coming for you next

·         Witch Hunt (this is like a spin again slot)

They’ve got a lot of nerve talking about how Biden and the Democrats are “weaponizing Justice.” This, came from a guy that held open auditions at the end of his term for an Attorney General who would go along with his election-overturning scheme.

Again, I maintain that Republicans always accuse Dems of doing the things that they already do, themselves. From false flags to selling access, to election tampering and engineering, the GOP is already doing it all so they assume Democrats are doing so as well.

This tracks with their other principle, that if a Republican does it, it’s fine; if a Democrat does it, it’s a crime to be investigated as often as possible. Merit has little to do with it.

Lara Trump says TFG has every authority to take documents from the White House. Is she some kind of legal scholar or policy wonk in her spare time? I figured she’d have her hands full just keeping her husband from running down the street in his underpants, trying to snort up the white line in the middle of the road.

It’s public knowledge that a President can declassify certain kinds of documents. But others are off limits. And there most certainly is a process! To TFG, his process is that he waves a golf club and says, “I hereby declassify these and any other documents I want, as long as I see fit and until I flush them down the can,” and bang, it’s official. The key is the “I hereby” part. That’s his secret ingredient. To him, anything that follows “I hereby” immediately becomes the new reality.

But we can’t forget about the ceremony. I imagine that the level of a document’s importance is reflected in which golf club he waves. For the most basic, he uses the drivers. As importance rises, he moves low to high through the irons, until you get the big stuff. Nuclear secrets get the pitching wedge, then criminal evidence draws the putter.

President Obama famously had some documents moved to his presidential library. But he followed the ordained process rather than just having some flunkies load up a U-Haul. That didn’t keep the Trump camp from using him as an excuse, but you can’t blame them. They know their base believes every word, regardless of validity. Just toss out the names Barak HUSSAIN Obama or Hillary and the MAGAs go wild.

It’s too bad we may never know what he was keeping there. I mean, if it’s that big of a secret, they’re certainly not going to tell US.

But there’s a whole realm of documents that may be better classified as “evidence” that may not be so secret. Why on earth he would think something like that should be kept as opposed to flushed into the Potomac, we may never know. We'll just have to wait and see what Garland does for his next act.

It may not be glamorous but getting a conviction on something cut and dried like stealing confidential national security secrets would get the job done. Think Capone going down for tax fraud, or Mitch McDeer nailing his crooked law office on mail fraud for overbilling (in The “Firm”).

So doesn’t sound like a hard case to prove because there’s not much wiggle room. There’s no doubt he took documents from the White House and stored them at Mar a Lago. There’s no doubt that some were still considered classified. And, there’s no evidence he ever went through a process to declassify them either. (I don’t think the law will recognize the golf club waving ceremony.)

A felony conviction would preclude him from running again, with the delicious kicker that his administration made it a felony. I guess part of the original bill that said “for use on Democrats only” got killed in committee.

Odd Bits - The Dead Pool Edition

Let’s talk about some things that happened:

The Mitch is Back

I saw that Mitch McConnell thinks the labor shortage will end once people run out of stimulus money. He said: “You've got a whole lot of people sitting on the sidelines because, frankly, they're flush for the moment. What we've got to hope is once they run out of money, they'll start concluding it's better to work than not to work."

Right. The $1400 they gave out a year ago is keeping unemployed people from getting jobs. People talk about politicians being removed from the common man but this guy embodies entitled ignorance. How far does this guy think $1400 goes when you’re not working for a year or more? Even considering that some states paid out higher amounts in unemployment, and that stopped ages ago.

No, Mitch, people are tired of scraping for loose change earned by doing shitty jobs. People can’t get child care for less than they’d make doing menial part-time work.

Mitch just pines for the good old days when people would flop all over each other trying to pick up the tidbits tossed out by the rich, like so many carp in an amusement park pond. He couldn’t be further removed from the average Kentuckian if he was assembled from a kit and lived in a crate under his desk.

“Did I Do Thaaat?”

Big surprise… That guy whose plight was carried by all the right-wing “news” outlets because his garage was burned and defaced with spray paint saying “Biden 2020”, and blamed it on Antifa and Black Lives Matters, actually staged the whole thing himself. It was an attempt to scam $300,000 out of his insurance company, $61,000 of which was actually paid out.

See, this is why conservatives’ first reaction to any obvious malfeasance on their own part is to claim it was a false-flag operation. Why? Because that’s what they do, over and over again. The longer I observe, the more obvious it becomes that whenever Republicans make accusations against Democrats, it’s something that they’re already doing.

I presume TFG, down in Mir-a-Lago, asking if he can get this guy on the payroll.

And Speaking of TFG…

Who had Ivana Trump in the death pool? That was kind of a surprise. And the timing of it, right before The Donald and his spawn were due to testify under oath? I’ve seen a small undercurrent of liberals wondering if maybe she was “helped” down the stairs as a way to keep kicking that “under oath” thing down the road. But there’s been nothing from the big players.

Can you imagine if the pump was on the other foot and something similar happened to Hillary before ex-President Clinton was supposed to testify about something? The entirety of the right-wing political and media apparatus would be howling about it being evidence that Clinton is an evil, murderous, mastermind. Hell, Rush Limbaugh would come back from the dead just to get in on that feeding frenzy.

Come to think of it, maybe the authorities should look into this situation more aggressively. It totally IS something Republicans routinely accuse Democrats of doing (mostly the Clintons), and as I just posited above, they’re not blaming if they’re not already doing it themselves. I wonder if they still have a tap on Roger Stone. This seems like his kind of dirty work.

Now Hear This

The January 6^th Committee just keeps stacking the bricks, don’t they? Last week they brought on a 2-pronged offensive. First, Pat Cipollone basically confirmed everything Cassidy Hutchinson said the week before, and I presume much more. They only presented him confirming prior testimony but said they’d feature him more in the next hearing. So we have THAT to look forward to, which is nice.

They really raked Sydney “The Kraken” Powell over the coals, and deservedly so. She seemed nuttier than a shithouse rat, and that was based on recorded testimony. Who knows what kind of crazy is released behind closed doors.

The telling thing to me is that when she was defending herself against the Dominion lawsuit, she said, “No reasonable person would think what (she) said was true.” But there she was, selling that bullshit to the President and his legal team, right there in the Oval Office. So obviously we can conclude that TFG isn’t a reasonable person, although there’s a lot more than just this incident on which one can make that assessment.

He actually wanted to put her in charge of analyzing the fraud charges they were drumming up, despite her having zero applicable experience. The only qualification she needed was being a complete toady, who would draw conclusions first and then make the facts fit later on. Had she been the Georgia Secretary of State, she definitely would have found those 11,000 votes he was looking for.

The other prong was the testimony of two outsiders, one guy who worked with the Oath Keepers, who testified to their essential nature. (White nationalism and racism.)

The other guy was just a random schmo who showed up in DC for the rally and followed the crowd into the Capitol building. He said he really believed the election was stolen because that’s what he heard on Fox “News.” But by doing further investigation, he realized that he’d been lied to. (Imagine that.) All it cost him was his job and his house.

When asked if he learned anything from his experience, he said, "Take the blinders off and see what’s going on.” That will never happen to anyone who continues to rely on Fox for their information.

I hope these guys got into the Witness Protection program when they were done because they’re just regular guys who don’t get a security detail. Both of their lives are going to become a living hell of harassment, intimidation, and death threats. I wish them well.

The Voting Bluz

Tomorrow is Election Day for Maryland’s primaries. Sweetpea and I have already turned in our ballots. We got them in the mail a few weeks ago, and once completed, we submitted them at a drop box about a mile down the street. You can also mail it but I like that finality of putting it in the box ourselves. I wish every American could vote that easily but judging by all the barriers erected by the Red States, that’s the last thing Republicans want.

Sweetpea and I know we're fortunate that we live in a state that works to make it easier to vote, rather than suppressing it. We signed up online to have ballots mailed to us in perpetuity. (There was also an option for just this year but we like this method of voting and plan for it to become our norm.)

Primary Day is the de facto BIG election around this reliably Blue state, except when it comes to the governor’s race. You never know who’s going to pop for Governor. In the recent races the Republicans won, I thought the Democratic candidates were empty suits, devoid of personality. They were aggressively unmemorable. One was a woman, and another was Black. Neither characteristic drove people to the polls.

There was a whole slate of Democrats running for the nomination. Frankly, I’d be happy with several of them. I ended up voting for Peter Franchot, who is our current Comptroller. He’s not the most inspiring but I figured he knows how State government runs and should be able to step in and be effective right away. Tom Perez would also be a fine governor, but former Obama cabinet members don’t seem to have much juice when running on their own. Wes Moore is backed by the teachers' unions, so I’d be OK with him too. Having a solid Education guy would make Sweetpea (the elementary school teacher) happy. I haven’t heard any of them speak or debate and you can’t really go by their commercials, so I have no idea who may be a stiff and who is not.

It’s kind of a cage match on the GOP side, with Trumper Dan Cox vs Gov. Larry Hogan cabinet member Kelly Schultz. I think the Democrats are involving themselves in this one to promote Cox because he’d be much easier to beat. Larry Hogan won two terms because he’s a non-wingnut Republican (who knows he has to deal with a veto-proof legislature). I’m sure things will clarify long before this November.

War, Assault Trucks, Inflation, and Justice

Well, it looks like the Dogs of War are barking up a storm. The morning and afternoon news was all about how we now expect Russia to invade and not only engage with the Ukrainian military but move against civilians, especially those who they deem as likely to resist Russian occupation. They’re expecting abductions, assassinations, detentions, and the like. So how’s your 2022 going?

Here’s one angle I haven’t heard covered yet, regarding the reasons for Vlad’s insistence in pursuing this universally decried aggression. I think it could be more election manipulation.

If they can make the US look bad or ineffectual, he knows the right will put the blame squarely on President Biden. Those who don’t follow the details are likely to agree, given the hue and cry they’ll see coming from the Right. Maybe this is a way to get another Russian-friendly stooge in office, to eliminate the largest and most effective source of resistance. Maybe it’s the former stooge again; maybe it’s another devoted MAGA.

They’ve already spent a great deal of time and resources engineering the 2016 election, why not try another tactic? This way he reclaims old Soviet territory and neuters his opponent at the same time, killing two birds with one tank.

Asked and Answered

Answer: Just as soon as there’s no more regulation on trucks regarding their speed, loading limits, driver qualifications, and requirements. I’m sure the NRA can let them borrow some legal language to pursue to convince the courts that driving a truck anywhere at any time is somehow a Constitutional right. If more people start getting killed by trucks, that’s just the price of freedom.

Misplaced Nostalgia

And I could really go for accurate information once in a while. Can conservatives ever make a catchy meme that isn’t skewed, invalid, or just plain wrong?

·        Gas was $1.87 because there was a pandemic sweeping the nation and people staying home and not driving. It was simple supply and demand. The demand was torpedoed. When that happens, prices fall. Is it really worth hundreds of thousands of deaths so that you can have cheap gas?

·        Inflation comes with the cost of a recovering economy. And it wouldn’t be nearly this bad if corporate America wasn’t vested in keeping things expensive. All the large corporations are posting record profits, all the while raising prices due to “inflation.” Inflation of their bonuses, maybe. (And I think this is also a backdoor way of getting more Republicans elected. If the 1% can keep the “inflation” talk coming, they’ll see some more sympathetic congressmen elected this fall and maybe a president further down the road. They know Democrats have a target on their massive profits to target for taxes, you know, so the lower and middle classes might enjoy a slight respite from carrying the country’s financial load for the last 20 years.

·        I think the panic about empty shelves is overblown. I’ve been out shopping several times in the last months and there have been no bare shelves to be seen. Occasionally a store is out of one thing or another, but that’s no different than any time prior. Maybe Baltimore is just an oasis in the vast food desert but I doubt it. It’s supposed to be a pit of death and destruction, isn’t it? That’s what Tucker keeps saying. Yet our shelves are full. This is another Republican gambit to maintain the image of general mayhem and catastrophe, to use for electioneering.

·        Fuck your alibis for “mean tweets.” This is coming from people who want to change history because it might make little white kids sad. Presidents are supposed to model uplifting behavior, not sling slurs at people they deem “less than,” for whatever reason. The party of “Fuck Your Feelings” is only talking about other people’s feelings, not their own. Those are sacrosanct.

Lock Them Up

The heat is really getting turned up on The Former Family (TFF). Now he’s trying to pull the same shit he used to with the Mueller investigation back then and that Maryland’s State Prosecutor is right now, which is claiming innocence because the prosecutors have an agenda. I’ll say again, if you don’t commit a crime or cheat on loans, land deals, and taxes, there’s nothing to find. But they have reams of evidence on paper. They have all the proof they need right now. I can only suppose they’re not charging yet because there’s still so much more to add to it.

Of course, none of this makes a difference to the MAGA crowd. It’s only a crime when a Democrat does it, especially Hillary.

They’re all for locking their political opponents up or even giving them the death penalty but expect their people to get away with anything and everything. They storm the Capitol, kill and injure cops, destroy the facilities, and they’re all martyrs because they were held accountable.

Modern conservatives literally stand for nothing, except “Me first.”

Bite This

The Olympics has finally come to an end. I, for one, enjoyed watching. I think the winter games seem so exotic. I’d tell you what I think about them but I basically said everything in 2018 that I would say now. But I’ll repeat one part because it still pisses me off.

“One thing that always bugs me: the way photographers badger gold medal winners into posing while biting their medal. Can we please stop this? It's as pointless as it is trite. These aren't 1800s gold prospectors, they're elite athletes. And curlers. If I was a gold medalist, I'd shut that shit down in a hurry. They'd be like, "Hey, bite the medal." And I'd be like, "Hey, bite my ass, you no-talent hack! Why don't you go somewhere and grow an original thought?

More Dad Stories

For some reason, my dad had a thing about wearing glasses. Granted, for most of his life, he didn’t need them. He was proud of his eagle-eyed vision. But age takes no prisoners. Once he hit his 70s, it was obvious to all that he needed glasses. He’d always say his eyesight was fine, he just had a problem in dim light. But he wouldn’t wear glasses then either.

Eventually, I hear, he lowered himself to wearing non-prescription “cheaters,” from the drug store. But never in front of anyone but Mom.

All that was fine and good, but when it’s time to renew one’s driver’s license, it gets real. But Dad found a way to weasel out of that too. When it was his turn to go for the eye test, he just repeated the series of letters he heard the guy in front of him say. Worked like a charm.

How he managed that with his bad hearing is still a mystery.

If it Weren't for Double Standards, They'd Have None at All

People seem surprised that almost all Republican Congressmen voted not to pursue charges against Steve Bannon for not obeying a congressional subpoena to testify on the 1/6 Insurrection. After all, it would be a vote recorded against their own investigative powers. Surely they’ll be able to wield it again someday, like 2022 or 2024? So why would they vote to cut off their own powers?

I know why. Because to the modern Republican politician, there is no consistency of principle, other than “Protect the Rich” and be “against whatever Democrats are for.” (Especially when it might cost the rich.)

Forget about the overlying principles, they’re all about the details of the moment.

“Do I want this now? Yes. Will I be willing to vote against this very thought if I need to, like if the opposition should attempt to use it? Absolutely.”

If the Republicans should find themselves in the majority again and want to run their own investigations, I guarantee you’ll see each one of them speechifying about how sacred is the power of the Congressional subpoena. They won’t even manage a blink of embarrassment.

Look what they do already. They pursue every means at their disposal to prevent women from exercising autonomy over their bodies when it comes to reproductive rights. But life-saving vaccine mandates? They have the audacity to claim that no one can force them to violate the autonomy of their bodies.

See? They have no attachment to the principle of bodily autonomy, they pick and choose when it’s applicable.

We’ve seen it with the Supreme Court nominees. When it serves their purpose, they steamroll their own nominees through a couple weeks before a presidential election. But when it’s the opponent trying to install a justice 10 months out from an election, they clog it up because “The People need to weigh in.” They have no stance on judicial timetables, other than “We do what we want and you can piss off.” If TFG had lost in 2016, Mitch McConnell was prepared to stall SCOTUS nominees for the next four years. They literally have zero shame.

They investigated Hillary every which way but loose. Every time they came up empty, they just started a new investigation, eventually culminating in an 11-hour marathon testimony. But do any of their guys cooperate, with say, impeachment and Insurrection investigations? Nope. See those are “biased” and “just Democrats playing politics.” Eleven Benghazi investigations? Nah, those were about National Security.

And when TFG and his family turned out to use their own private email networks, and used unsecured personal smartphones, just like Hillary was accused of doing? That’s just business as usual. Because it’s only a big deal when a Democrat does something. The principle of using secure communications networks? Irrelevant if it’s a Republican, national security crisis if it’s a Democrat.

I hope the current Insurrection Investigation continues to show its teeth. Although if the Justice Department doesn’t, it’ll all be a big waste of time. There has to be a penalty for purposefully creating an unlawful breeching of government walls for the purpose of forcibly changing the result of a lawful election. If there’s not, then we’re in for a Constitutional crisis and Civil War within the next 10 years.

Debunkery

Mice don’t understand the concept of a lot of things, so I wouldn’t make that the lynchpin of a political argument. What the writer doesn’t understand is that we already have a society rife with socialism, mostly for the benefit of the rich. How does changing the focus of the benefits from rich to everyone else make it become something to be avoided? (Actually, I’m sure the writer DOES understand, but his job is to distract people from catching on to the fact that the rich are being catered to at the expense of everyone else.)

You can see Fox “News” is still flogging gas prices as a measure of poor performance by Biden. This shirt is in the same vein.

Whoever voted for Trump owes an apology to the hundreds of thousands unnecessarily dead from COVID. That was the cost of your cheap gas last year.

As I’ve mentioned before, any comparisons to prices of anything last year are vastly misleading. The price of gas cratered in 2020 because of a lack of demand as people were isolating themselves due to The ‘Rona. That’s supply and demand. When there’s no demand, the price drops. When the demand comes back, the price rises.

Who the fuck do these people think they’re kidding? We all remember last year. We saw how when we dared to venture out, traffic was always light.

Can anyone explain to me what actions Biden took that directly affected gas prices? I mean, for all the talk of transition from fossil fuels, nothing has passed Congress yet, so there’s been no tangible activity.

Are they really going to denigrate Biden because he dared to tackle COVID head-on and reduce the risk of serious or fatal infection? I’m sure TFG would have the price of gas under a dollar by now because so many more would be dead or deathly ill. Would that be better?

Actually, to many Republicans, I’m sure it would. “Better that I get cheap gas than millions of others to get sick and suffer or die.”

More Dad Stories

My father passed away in September so I've been concluding my posts with "Dad Stories."

I wrote this up in 2012:

My dad is a nut.  You know… the good kind.

Remember when I posted about Dad picking his first orange from a tree in his yard?  Well, he’s having a go at figs now. 

It’s an Italian thing… our families often have fig trees.  I’ve never been a big fig eater, but I do acknowledge their importance in the making of Fig Newtons.  But my grandpa used to have a fig tree so Dad was brought up to enjoy figgy treats.

Up north, there’s a whole thing where you have to bury them in the winter to save them from the cold.  Then you dig them up again in the spring.  Fortunately for my dad, that’s not necessary in Florida.  So a while back, he went out and bought a fig tree to add to his burgeoning orange grove.

Over the weekend, he sent the following email, in celebration of his first fig harvest:

“After a long hot harvest season, I hired many pickers, helping the unemployment problem and the economy.  Here it is.”

He sent pictures too, of course.

The last one kills me… setting up the place setting for one freakin’ fig.  It’s totally something I would do, so now you know why.

Obviously, I had to respond to the email, so I wrote back, “Glad your crops came in.  Now go fig yourself.”

That’s just a fig-ure of speech.

Then in Comments, Mom told the rest of the story:

"You would have liked his encounter with the Cardinal, which happened one evening as we sipped drinks on the porch.  

"...blahblahbla...whaaa! OH! The bastard is...eating our FIG!!!!" 

He jumps up, runs around the pool, yelling and swatting. Of course, the poor bird fled and Dad returned, smiling, with one fig with a big beak hole. It was delicious."

Actually, I was relieved that when he told me a cardinal stole his fig because I imagined worse: