Move In or Move On?

 I saw this story last week, which made me want to call “Shananigans!”

They also say that remote workers rank highest in “job engagement,” but they’d rather focus the headline to align with the corporate desire for butts in seats.

I think this poll was constructed to reach this conclusion. The people I know who work from home, like me, can’t be happier about it.

In fact, I just had a conversation with my boss about it last week. Our company is moving from our current office building into another one, after our lease expires in January. She said they’re looking for a full Return to Work for those assigned to the building. I responded that it’s good that I’m not assigned to the building, because I’d fight that with every fiber of my being.

She seemed surprised, not only that I don’t want to return, but that I’m not assigned to the building. She hasn’t been my boss for a year yet, so there are some things she doesn’t know. For example, in 2020, when COVID flipped the world upside down, my company rolled out a plan to let people work 100% from home if they met certain guidelines, which I did. So I jumped on that with both feet and was granted permanent WFH status. I said I’ve been happier here than during any other part of my professional career. That was only a slight exaggeration. There was a short time, back in the early 2000s, that I was part of a nice, young, fun crowd who would do things together off hours, all the time. But those days, as well as almost all of those people, are long gone.

She wondered if I’d gotten the email about the new building, which apparently went out last week. I said I hadn’t, probably because of what I had said earlier, that I’m not tied to the building. I told her I didn’t even get an invite to the last two Christmas parties we had there.

“So what don’t you like about the office?” she asked.

I gave her the full, unfiltered rundown: I am home alone all day long. That means no conversations or phone calls are going on around me, so I can concentrate much more easily. There are practically zero interruptions. I don’t have to get lunch out of a machine (which is our main choice at the office, if you don’t want to pay $25 for lunch at a nearby restaurant). I don’t have to maintain an office wardrobe. I don’t have a 90-minute round-trip commute, so once I log off, I’m at home with my wife, talking about our days. And with our “open-office” design since 2015, I’ve never been so uncomfortable at work throughout my entire office-dwelling career.

And before she could bring up missing out on the “collaboration” that management loves to promote, I said, since I’m the only one who does what I do, there is no need for me to collaborate with anyone. I have more than enough opportunities to talk with her about anything I may need during our scheduled calls. I ended by saying that the last five years have been a wildly successful proof of concept test because my areas of responsibility have never been in better shape.

So, will that get me out of moving back to the office next year? Maybe. Or maybe they’ll use that as a way to can my ass, to get out of paying me unemployment or a severance package. Because if they try to force me to go in, I’ll have to seriously consider immediate retirement. And do you remember how I’m the only one who does what I do? That would come back to take an expensive bite out of their corporate asses if I were to disappear.

The only thing that keeps me from making my retirement an absolute guarantee is the insurance aspect. I’d either have to pay through the nose for COBRA coverage or join my wife’s medical plan and lose all my doctors.

Sure, they can put the screws to me, but I can screw them right back. I’m hopeful that we can back away from the abyss and they can just let me do my job. In another year or two, I’ll be happy to train my replacement and skip on down the road to begin my Golden Years. (Assuming we critics of the current Administration haven’t been rounded up to a detention camp, of course.)

And to that end, I noticed this story in the local Baltimore (Sinclair) Sun:

Of course, the new Administration is removing any trace of Affirmative Action from military forces. The last thing they’re going to want is when they unleash the army on an urban location where US Citizens are protesting, having soldiers think twice about rounding up or mowing down people who look like them. They’re whitening the military for more reasons than just to provide more jobs for fair-to-middling crackers.

I also have to point out the further deterioration of our local rag. It’s bad enough they’re taking news copy from local Fox News broadcasts, now they’re adopting clickbait tactics. Behold this headline:

“Citations issued for 1 offense are skyrocketing.” Oh boy, what can it be? [click] Expired tags. Ho hum.

Before we know it, they’ll be running headlines promoting “that one weird trick…” that fixes overbites, bad posture, and night blindness. 

The shittification of print media continues…

 

Biden’s "Inflation" Looks Like a Bargain Now

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

Science!

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cold Cuts

We're feeling a bit under the weather here at ol' Chateau Bluz. I came down with a cold on Friday night and I'm still working my way through it. I took a COVID test on Sunday and that came up negative, so at least there's that. This seems to be the kind of nasty chest cold I used to get every year before I started working from home. It'll pass, but I'm not up to putting any coherent thoughts together this afternoon, so here's a funny story from the Bluz Archives (about ten years ago) about a rather alarming dream.

The Dream

Great. Flaming. Jesus. I had the most unbelievable and traumatic dream Sunday night. Check this out…

I was playing soccer and got tangled up with another player, and we both went down in a heap. When I got up, I realized that “Bluz Jr.” had been nearly sliced off and was hanging by a tiny strip of skin. In fact, the top half came right off in my hand.

And I remember thinking (within the dream), “Damn, that’s the good part.” No guy wants to live without the Angry Inch

You know how we guys are about our junk.  We’re highly protective of our little buddies. 

(Disclaimer: Not an actual willy.)

Though clearly unhappy about my schlong being reduced to a schlort, I was remarkably composed about the whole incident, which had been surprisingly painless. (That should have been my first clue that it was a dream.) The next thing I knew, I was sitting in a sort of “common room” that you might find in the main area of a frat house. It appeared to be a house full of medical students. Perhaps I was playing college intermural soccer.

Anyway, with the better half of Bluz Jr still in my hand, and the other half suffering from boneus interruptus, I asked the room if they might be able to find a way to put this thing back on because I was pretty sure I was going to need it. In fact, I had to pee right then. There seemed to be a murmur in the room, as they discussed my plight and I considered what it might be like to live without a wang.

And then… I was never as glad as I was right then, to wake up in my own bed.  An immediate examination determined that Bluz Jr was just fine. And all was well again in the land of Bluz.  Even if he didn’t have anywhere to go just yet, he still has potential.

So now: WTF????  Do any of you amateur Freuds out there want to take a shot at what that meant?

Freud and So-crates… the Dream Team

First of all, me? Playing soccer???  I haven’t played a competitive game of soccer since gym class in junior high, and that was a one-off.  Where in the hell did that come from?  Just because I was a Mia Hamm fan doesn’t mean I wanted my lunch meat sliced.

My first instinct is to tie it to my experience of my boomerang relationship that just bounced out of the apartment. Could that have been my brain processing the loss of autonomy that the relationship represented? But if so, why did I have the dream when it was over, rather than when it was still going on?

Maybe it was trying to make me consider a life without meat.

Or maybe it was a message for me to be less cocky.

Either way, you can bet your ass I’m never playing soccer again.

Dark Times Ahead

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

In 2016 I wrote this following that election:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s what I think happened.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you on the other side.

Outrageous, Egregious, Preposterous!

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

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

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

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

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

They should do a Pulp Fiction remake with these two:

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

Or “Missed me by that much!”

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

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

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

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

***

This was in today’s Baltimore Sun:

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

You Only Need One

I keep reading doom and gloom projections about the Democrats losing in the November elections in general and the Senate in particular. Given the bounty of toxic issues the Republicans have provided, I just can’t see how it’s possible to lose so badly, or at all. Every Democrat should be able to beat every Republican just by hanging the GOP’s current stances around their neck and making them own it. There’s just so much to work with…

Starting at the top, TFG has shown to be completely unfit for office. He’s an agent of chaos and Vladimir Putin. He is a raging narcissist, obsessed with his own standing, and oblivious to the needs of the country. He is a career criminal whose full history of malfeasance is only just coming to light. He has shown that he can’t be trusted with national secrets and will hide or manipulate them for his own benefit, possibly even selling them to outside interests. His blithering, vanity, and obfuscation at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic cost America over one million lives. The man shouldn’t even be in the same zip code as the presidency. And not for nothing, my father died alone because his hospital was filled up with idiots who believed the COVID misinformation.

But the thing is, TFG isn’t even the worst part. He’s the distraction behind what Republicans are truly trying to do, which is remake America into a Corporate Theocracy. They will use religion to elect those who will loot the national treasury of money and assets. And WE, ourselves, are among the assets. (There has to be someone to provide the money the rich want to siphon off.)

These are among the actions they want to take, most of which are specifically described in their “Project 2025.”

National Abortion Ban. They downplay it now, but it’s on the agenda. They started with the right for States to impose bans and restrictions, and now they want to make it nationwide.

Bans and limits on Contraception. The religious whackaloons see many forms of birth control as a means of abortions, and they can’t have that, can they?

Publicly funded Religious Education. What better way to control adult minds than to indoctrinate them while they’re young? Catholic schools have been doing it for years, but only for those who can afford it.

Putting Women Back in the Kitchen. This is the expected result of the prior three points, all designed to move women out of the workforce and back into the service of men.

Repeal Same-Sex Marriage.  Another payment to the Religious Right. And they currently have the Supreme Court who can do it.

Decimate Social Security as a Safety Net. Yes, it needs to be fixed, but the Republicans’ way to do this is to raise the retirement age and cut benefits, as opposed to increase funding. (Which can be done simply by raising the income cap, currently set at $165,000 per year, as proposed by Democrats.)

Decimate Medicare. Basically, the same problem as with Social Security. The rich don’t want to pay for it and Big Pharma does not want to lose their cash cow.

Gut the IRS. Sure, it sounds nice on the surface, but the goal is to hamper efforts to collect from the rich. You and I will still have to file or face the wrath.

Gut Financial and Environmental Regulations. Rules and regs cost companies money. It’s so much easier to spew pollution into the air and waterways rather than filter it out. And it’s far more profitable to fleece investors with fine-printed flimflammery than offer legit financial products.

Drop Out of or Ignore NATO. TFG danced around that for his entire administration but principled cabinet members and aides prevented it. That won’t happen a second time when he surrounds himself with sycophantic yes men. Abandoning NATO will roll out the red carpet for Russia to steamroll Ukraine and every other European territory he desires, without worrying about repercussions from the US. This act alone spits on the memory of those we honor this weekend, who fought and died for a free country and world.

Turn the Justice Dept. into a Personal Police Force. One of the more chilling aspects of Project 2025 is the installation of loyalists throughout the Department of Justice, turning an independent law enforcement agency into a president’s personal Gestapo. Again, this is something our forefathers and even direct relatives fought and died to prevent. TFG is already keen to start arresting those who have opposed him before. That’s not presidential power, that’s dictator power, and we can’t have that regardless of who’s in the Oval Office.

Replace Apolitical Governmental Employees with Partisan Loyalists. Just like with the Justice Dept., they want to remove anyone who might try to keep the president from executing his most damaging actions on the basis of right or wrong, the Constitution, or any other trivial rationale. Just like with any legitimate business, some people have experience with how to get things done. To remove tens of thousands of government employees and replace them with the equivalent of “nepo babies,” will spell the end of government as a tool of The People. The Republicans are already taking applications.

Continue to Appoint SCOTUS Members via the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society has produced the six Justices who have already trashed 50 years of social and financial progress. Regardless of what they testify during confirmation hearings, if they’re blessed by the Fed Society, they’re guaranteed to support religious principles over popular consensus and the business elite over the common citizen. Just look at their most recent ruling, upholding a state’s right to use racial data to gerrymander their Congressional districts. That leaves the state free to round up every minority vote into a single double-asterisk-shaped district, thus reducing any legal standing by X to 1. (X = sum of all other districts.) But only until they figure out how to eliminate the “1” as well.

Look at this list. These are not accusations or projections; they are things Republicans, themselves, have said they want to do. There is no reason to think they’re not serious. In years past, such a moment of transparency would result in massive election losses. But now, they’re so secure in their misinformation campaigns, voter suppression, and management of the media, they don’t even bother to hide their ultimate ambitions.

Each one of these issues is important enough to be the only one necessary to ensure a vote for Democrats. The fact that there are so many speaks to the gravity of the scenario. If you agree with any of what Republicans propose, feel free to vote Republican. I think you’re destroying America, but it’s your vote.

If you have concerns about other Democratic principles, compare them to what you see above. I don’t agree with everything that every Democrat puts forth, but I can tell you my concerns are dwarfed by the heinousness of the alternatives.

When you’re lost, you don’t pass up a ride because it won’t get you all the way to your house, you take the ride because it gets you closer and then go from there.

If the Republicans assume control in November, there will not be another “from there.” We will have turned over power to those who will have the media, money, laws, judges, and police force to keep them in power for the rest of our lives while they turn America into a pseudo-Christian Iran.

We can stop that, but it has to start now and continue into every election afterward until our voice is loud enough to make our expectations for America clear.

Crunch Time for a Blue State

As if we need more bad news on the political front, we have a new local development that will have national implications. Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has decided to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Ben Cardin. Normally a Republican declaring for a Maryland Senate seat would be greeted by yawns, but Hogan was a rare bird that won two terms as a Red governor in a very Blue state.

He was able to do that because he wasn’t a Bible-thumper or religious wingnut, nor did he support TFG. (He also ran against a couple of thoroughly uninspiring opponents.)

He was one of the rare Republican governors who took COVID seriously and actively promoted vaccinations, masks, and social distancing. Consequently, Maryland weathered the “Rona storm pretty well, with more than 95% of its population getting at least one COVID shot.

However, he was still a traditional Republican at heart, which was demonstrated by how fast he shot down a major public transportation project to create an east/west-running light rail. (Baltimore’s only other light rail line runs north/south.) There were tens of millions in federal funding already in hand, secured by the previous administration, but he left that money on the table to build and widen roads instead, mostly in the Washington suburban areas.

He seems to be burying his Republican past, eschewing party funding in lieu of raising his own money. He wants to run an “independent” campaign, which is fine, but we voters have to keep in mind that he will still be caucusing with the rest of the Republicans and will count as one of them when it’s time to see who wins control of the Senate. That’ll be a big deal when it comes time to get things done. Any bill that’s beneficial to the average American will be strangled in its sleep by a Republican-controlled Senate.

Democrats already have to defend a handful of seats in Red states; now they have to worry about what should have been a reliably Blue seat. I wish he’d just leave politics and open up a sandwich shop. He could call it “Hogan’s Heroes.”

I hope his opponents have the smarts and strategy to take him on and make him wear that “R” around his neck, whether he likes it or not. It doesn’t matter if he rides the middle if it swings power to the wingnuts. And speaking of:

This is what I’m talking about. Here’s a sitting Senator explaining how he would have supported the Trump Insurrection if he had the chance, and insisted on accepting fraudulent ballots. Sure, it’s a lot of Monday morning quarterback woulda-coulda-shoulda, meant to bolster his MAGA cred. But it tells you what this guy will do at crunch time if he’s called to support either the Constitution or the Wingnut Brigade. If he has to wipe his feet on his oath of office to placate a bunch of idiots who think it’s a fix whenever they lose at something, from law parts to lawn darts, it shall be done.

Now this was my favorite story from the recent past:

Excuse me, I have to go find some pearl to clutch. Will marbles do? I can’t believe Hannity was even covering this shit, let alone hyping it like it was Hunter Biden’s laptop. Have they ever heard their Dear Leader before? He swears so much, that you can’t even rule out Tourette’s.

And we KNOW Dark Brandon likes to drop the occasional F-bomb at important times. Remember how the ACA was a “big fuckin’ deal?” And it was, so Joe labeled it as such. I loved that when it happened.

The Right-Wing media ought to make up its mind. Is Biden a senile old fool who doesn’t remember who he is, or is he an evil mastermind who takes years to ratfuck his enemies, create byzantine conspiracies, fix NFL games, and offer dating guidance for young pop singers?

President Biden may be losing a step or two, and maybe a younger pol should step in. But that’s not going to happen in this world, so we’re reduced to a choice between two starkly different options. (And any third-party options are nothing but indirect ways to influence the choice between the main two.) I will always take a sometimes forgetful but well-meaning, true family values person who supports the working class over a sadistic, narcissistic, petulant, spoiled, ignorant, fucktard bent on installing himself as king and spreading the wealth to his rich “friends.”

Also, remember that Presidents have staffs that keep things running. Should Biden falter, I trust his staff to keep the train on the tracks so much more than the toadies and yes-men that will populate TFG’s prospective administration.  He appointed adults in the room last time and hated being told “no.” That won’t happen again. Now it will be all kiss-asses, all the time. And speaking of the biggest kiss-ass:

Yes, the border bill that contained everything Republicans wanted, negotiated in good faith by both parties and got shot down so that instead of solving (or even addressing) a problem (that Republicans claim to be cataclysmic), they have something to use in a campaign instead. And now, Margie Three-Toes thinks it’s traitorous NOT to go along.

She, of course, should know from being “traitorous,” given her public participation in the January 6^th Insurrection and Hootenanny, after which she sought a presidential pardon. If she had been incapable of identifying traitorous behavior, she wouldn’t have felt such a need.

Aside from wanting to use the southern border as a fear-mongering campaign issue, what Republicans really want is an end to immigration, period. No asylum, no work programs, no brown people coming over the border for any reason. That’s the real goal here.

Consider this editorial cartoon from the Newly Republicanized Baltimore Sun:

To make this accurate, turn the funnel upside-down. Then put a cork in it. That’s the Republican immigration plan.

The Setting Sun

I don’t know how big of a national splash this made last week but they announced that David Smith, the owner of the Sinclair broadcasting group, bought my local paper, the Baltimore Sun, as a personal investment.

Sinclair is an ownership group that buys up all the local stations it can muster and turns them into right-wing MAGAphones, including the mandate that they all run pre-recorded editorial content from the “home office.”

Maryland is a blue state and the Sun has traditionally reflected that, although not so much so that they didn’t endorse a Republican governor or two, over the years. But this has effectively come to an end.

The new owner says he wants The Sun to function like our local “Fox 45,” which is also owned by Sinclair. In other words, one more piece in the right-wing echo chamber. Sinclair owns Fox 45 in Baltimore, as well as the local CW channel.

Both networks specialize in attacking the local government and school systems. They love to ambush public officials on their way to their car at night, to lob loaded questions while the camera rolls. Every night, when I’m usually watching syndicated shows, I see the promos for their news broadcasts, and it’s always the same.

They proclaim how they’re “keeping local officials honest,” but that’s just a cover. It’s an unrelenting drumbeat of bad news, day in and day out.

It’s one thing to cover news that makes officials look bad. But it becomes disingenuous when positive stories are omitted or skewed to make them look bad. I’ve had this argument with people before when they say, “But what if this news is true? What if this really is a bad thing?”

I counter that there’s never a “good thing” aired, even when good things abound. Lies of omission are still lies. When a broadcaster’s only objective is to smear the ruling party, that’s not journalism, it’s just PR and propaganda.

A couple years back, I decided to take some notes on the subjects of the local Fox and CW nightly news promos, which I did for about a week or so before I lost interest. (I was hoping to make a post out of it, but you know… squirrel!) I still have the notes though, so, Score!

These were the stories they were hyping at the time:

·         CW: High price of gas.

·         Fox: Violence in Baltimore City, State’s Attorney ethics charges.

·         Fox: Save Our Schools: Lawsuits filed against the school district.

·         CW: Crisis at the Border, Baby Formula crisis haunts the Biden Administration.

·         Fox: Electric vehicle fires

·         CW: The danger of letting the WHO determine what is a pandemic.

·         CW: While government fights record inflation, migrants are flooding in.

As you can see, it’s just a compendium of Republican talking points, blaming Democrats for inflation, bad schools, the pandemic, corruption, and electric cars. It’s All Crisis, All the Time while propping up the fossil fuel industry, private schooling, and catering to the MAGAs at every turn.

This is what will become of our deep-rooted bastion of journalism, a paper version of Fox “News.” I’m sure we’ll never see another big half-page story on a decrease in border crossings, like the one I ran in my last post. Such good news will never be set in ink again if it benefits a Democrat.

What I’m going to do next, I don’t know yet. I’ve been a Baltimore Sun subscriber ever since I came to town in 1998. I’ve always been a newspaper guy, a habit I got from my dad, who always had the paper delivered, wherever we lived. Sometimes we even got two, like when we lived in Columbus Ohio, and got the morning Citizen Journal and the evening Columbus Dispatch.

In practical terms, I get most of my news online, via the blogs on my blogroll and my Yahoo home page. The Sun staff is a mere shell of what it used to be. Most of their content comes from news syndicates and affiliates. Aside from TV listings, my primary use for the Sun is the comics page and puzzles.

Doing crossword puzzles (and the Jumble and Sudoku) are baked into my weekday lunchtime routine. On the weekends, Sweetpea and I both work on the morning puzzles.

I know I can get crosswords online, but I don’t like doing them via computer, nor do I want to have to print the puzzles every damned day. But I feel sick at the prospect of giving those vultures any of my hard-earned dough.

For the time being, I intend to stay put and watch what happens. After all, this could be a good feeder system for Right Wing material to pick apart, or maybe even to rebut via letters to the editor. It’s not a bad idea to see what kind of BS the other side is pushing. It’ll let me know whether they have serious points, or if they’re pushing myths and illusions. Then when they eventually cross the line, I can, with haughty indignity, write in, refute their stories, and end it with “Cancel my subscription, you odorous band of kowtowing mullet-heads!”

Fun at the Grocery Store

Sometimes, when checking out a new grocery store, the aisles are arranged in such a way that I can create a little mirth, for those that know how to find it.

Bloody Vikings...

 

The Crazy is in Plain Sight

This story came out several weeks ago and I apologize for not working it in sooner, but I can’t let it pass without at least saying something…

I would believe this if it were a survey of Fortune 500 CEOs, but “most Americans?” Seriously? I’d love to know what it is they think TFG did to make their finances better. Maybe it’s all the hype that Fox “News” puts on the TFG Tax Cuts so they think it applies to the general public. Nothing could be further from the truth. The big Tax Cut Lollapalooza of 2017 went almost exclusively to the richest 1% and was made permanent. The remaining scraps went to the rest of us and were designed to sunset after 7 years.

And while Republicans are losing their mind about the deficit, it was this tax cut package that made it explode. But rather than fix the deficit by repealing the Fat Cat Tax Cuts, they want to cut social services and our “entitlements,” meaning Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. How is it that “most Americans don’t understand these facts?

TFG also rolled out a giant tariff program, because he didn’t understand that the manufacturing country doesn’t pay these extra fees, they roll it down to the consumers, meaning US.

Maybe people are nostalgic for the days when gas was under $2.00 a gallon. They remember that but forget that the reason for the low price was that no one was driving, for fear of catching The Rona, the fight against which was criminally botched by TFG’s administration. No demand equals low prices. Was it really worth over a million American lives just to get cheap gas for a couple months?

At every turn, Republicans demonstrate that they don’t give a flying fig about the average citizen’s finances. If they did, they would do something about it. Democrats would join them, hand in hand. But that’s not what they care about.

And then, the part about how TFG and the Republicans would keep America out of wars? Just because they want to pretend the world ends at our border doesn’t mean they don’t want to keep the Defense Department and all the Defense Contractors flush with money. Just ask Tom Cotton, who wants to start deploying our personnel into Gaza.

No, there will always be a war, or some other “police action,” to keep the Defense money flowing. And I don’t mean to the enlisted personnel. We KNOW TFG doesn’t give a shit about them… He said they were “suckers and losers” for joining the military. He doesn’t care if they’re underpaid. But they sure want the biggest and best bombs money can buy.

It’s a testament to Right Wing messaging that TFG is even a factor in the next presidential race. Fox “News,” and the rest of the Echo Chamber ignore any and all gaffes, mistakes, and complete fuckups, and alibi out any that make it through to their fan club’s ears. Even with the glowing economic numbers being released over the last months, they have people thinking we’re in a recession and blame it on Biden. It doesn’t matter if it’s complete bullshit, people want to believe it because it plays to their biases. Like the bias that TFG is a sane, rational, being, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

(Trump gaffes)

This is right out of the GOP playbook, from Bush to Palin to TFG. Even when you’re wrong, claim to be right. If there’s proof, dismiss it as biased. Claim to be the victim of a media conspiracy. Do anything but admit you messed up. It would be funny if it wasn’t so alarming. Oh, and be sure to seek retribution against anyone who tries to hold you accountable.

And this isn’t a matter of letting all the pressure of this prosecution get the better of a public servant, it’s the re-elected president directing the Justice Department to round up his enemies and put them in psych wards. Hang the charges, hang the trial, then hang the accused. Jail them first, justify it later. (You know, in “two weeks,” when the long-awaited Republican health care program is going to roll out. No matter the date, it’s always two weeks away.)

How is it that Americans aren’t seeing these issues? Yes, I know, everyone is busy. But one should never be too busy to know what’s going on in one’s own country, even if it’s just for selfish reasons. After living through the clown show that was 2017-2020, how can anyone think we need to do that again, only with even less competence and more vengeance?

I don’t care if Biden’s old; he’s not evil. He’s not a crook. He’s not a psychopathic narcissist who will kill democracy to save his own ass.

And speaking of evil, thank goodness we have Mike Johnson to lead the charge against evil*.

*In the narrow way he defines it.

This is a guy whose public statements call for imprisoning doctors who perform abortions, eliminating hate crime laws, criminalizing gay sex, and giving up the right to privacy. (Except for political donors, of course. That’s nobody’s business.) Basically, the guy is a religious nightmare bent on making his own brand of fanaticism the law of the land. And the Republicans just put him second in line to the presidency.

And speaking of wingnuts, MT Greene is still out there fighting for relevance.

Now she wants to investigate the January 6^th investigators. I presume that’s because Fox “News” and the whole Right Wing propaganda apparatus can’t hype Hunter Biden’s Laptop into the crime of the century.

I watched most of the 1/6 hearings; I don’t understand what it is she thinks she can allege. I mean, they have tons of witnesses and reams of evidence. And this is coming from one of the ringleaders of the other GOP “investigations,” that have delivered one nothing-burger after another in.

I presume it’s just more performance theater with an audience of one.

Can’t we get Harlan Crowe, or one of the other Supreme Court “special friends” to ship her off on a cruise somewhere, just to get her out of town and minimize the embarrassment? The chipmunks driving the tiny wheels in her brain have to be due for a break.

In fact, the whole thing makes me want to “run away.”

(Let's hear it for this awesome Photoshop. Great job! Once I saw it, I had to find a way to use it.)

The Message Matters

One of the things Democrats will have to improve on, to win the 2024 elections, is their messaging. Even though many statistics are favorable, there remains a general impression of economic and social disaster everywhere we turn. A lot of that is because Conservative messaging is so pervasive, overwhelming, and ultimately effective. As we’ve learned over the last decade, the more a lie is repeated, the more it’s taken as fact.

Here’s an example of the kind of under-the-radar messaging that we see and seem to accept, even though if you scratch the surface at all, it falls apart.

My beef with this cartoon is that the big red arrows are a mirage, all of which would certainly be worse if Republicans were fully in charge. Let’s look:

US Debt: The deficit has come steadily down under President Biden. And it could come down a lot more if there was even a smattering of Republican support for repealing TFG’s tax cut for the rich, which not coincidentally, was the biggest contributor to the deficit in the first place.

Republicans love to rail about the deficit when they’re not in charge, using the opportunity to cut programs that don’t benefit them or their wealthy benefactors, but only make up a minute portion of the debt. Then as soon as they’re back in control it’s like, “What deficit? Let’s cut taxes!” Each time, they claim the tax cuts will pay for themselves via economic boom, but it never, ever, happens. The big companies don’t use the money to hire more or pay more, they just pocket it or use it for stock buybacks, which greatly benefit the stockholders (which usually includes their own board members with the most stock in hand.) Republicans do not care about US debt other than as a way to chisel out more Federal money for themselves.

Inflation: The US has the lowest post-COVID inflation rates among similarly developed countries. It came in hard with COVID but has been lowering ever since. The reason people are not feeling it at the store is because of corporate price gouging, not inflation. If inflation was truly the reason for high consumer prices, the big suppliers and retailers wouldn’t be posting record profits. They are keeping prices artificially high and blaming it on inflation or “supply chain” issues, that they know people don’t fully understand.

Putting it plainly, suppliers are setting prices far higher than it would take to account for any hikes in supply prices. They do that because they want to. And if you’re prone to conspiracy thinking, you could say that they’re keeping their prices high because they know that President Biden is taking the heat for it. Big business generally supports Republicans, who they know are eager to keep regulations low and enable all efforts to maximize profits, regardless of any possible harm to US citizens and the environment.

Crime: This is always the big Go-To for law and order Republicans… big city crime! New York! Chicago! All cesspools of rape, robbery, and murder. Except when you look at the real statistics that show much higher crime rates in the Red States. More gun deaths, more homicides, more poverty, all courtesy of Republican leadership and policies.

The siren call about crime is really just racism. They want to appear “Tough on Crime” so they appoint police chiefs who will install policies like “Stop and Frisk,” which means police are urged to question and detain basically anyone they want, to see if there’s something for which they can arrest them. Basically, it’s a blank check to go out and pick up all the black and brown men, bring them to jail, and store them there until the DA eventually lets them back out.

Republicans: always tough on crime, unless it’s white-collar crime. Then, it’s just the cost of doing business. What’s a few hundred thousand between fellow MBAs? But everyone else is guilty until proven innocent.

Homeless: I don’t really know of any recent stats or reporting on homelessness, although we all know that home ownership is becoming increasingly hard to obtain, and rent is skyrocketing. But I’ll ask you this: What have Republicans ever proposed to address homelessness?

I’ll tell you, nothing. Their best idea to combat homelessness is to put more people in jail. (See item above.) Republicans want the homeless not to be seen in places Republicans go. They’ll move them around or shut down encampments, but a real solution? The next one will be the first one.

Border Crisis: I’ll agree that the border is a mess. There needs to be a coherent national policy on immigration. The snag is that the Republican philosophy on immigration is for there not to be any immigration (from the South. Members of the Swedish Bikini Team, as well as Eastern European mail-order brides, are always welcome.) So it’s no wonder they reject anything Democrats put on the table to bring order to the chaos. Plus, it’s a winner of a campaign issue with their MAGA base.

So they make up a bunch of shit about terrorists pouring over the border, which no one can corroborate, or that they’re smuggling Fentanyl into the country, while most of the supply is coming from US citizens making round trips. But like with abortion, they'd rather use it to campaign than solve it, because it’s an effective way to terrorize Middle America into voting for the party that promises to keep the invading brown people from overwhelming their towns, drugging their kids, and raping their women.

So yes, once you realize that these scary red arrows are just big Red Herrings, the Dems should definitely address why Biden’s support is so scarce. Our Constitution literally depends on it.