An Equal and Opposite Reaction

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

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

Ben Sargent, TexasObserver.org

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Retirement clock: 10 days and counting…

Compare & Contrast

Since my days at work are numbered now (and today that number was 15), I’ve been going through all the non-business electronic files I had on my slice of the company's shared drive. While everything got deleted, there was some stuff I emailed home for various reasons, and this was one of the items, which I hadn’t looked at in over 18 years. (This Word doc is so old it still has blue font.)

In April of 2007, I started compiling data for a prospective blog post (2 years before I even started this blog). I wanted to be sure I didn’t forget how big a clown the current president was, nor the evil he was conducting.

Little did I know that one day there would be another president who would make this guy look like Winston Churchill. Still, it’s interesting to see the similarities. The principles are similar, with the differences being a matter of intensity. In other words, they’re doing the same kind of things today, only worse and more obvious.

So with that, I give you this look at a time-capsule item from 2007:

 Reasons to Loathe George W. Bush

(not including the Iraq War) 

• Firing US Attorneys for political gains / politicizing the Justice Dept.  Includes an item allowing “emergency” appointments via the Patriot Act, as to end-run Senate confirmations. (TFG upped this from installing party hacks to hacks loyal to him.) 

• K Street Project- turning the Lobbying Industry into yet another arm of the Republican Party. (In addition to the Oil, Gas, Auto, Coal, Nuclear Power, Banking, Insurance, Pharmaceuticals, and Tobacco industries, et al.) 

• Ignoring the problems at Walter Reed (and problems with Vet Care in general) until it actually got some publicity. (New philosophy: Who needs Vet care? 

• Further politicizing the Justice Dept by running out anyone involved with/ Civil Rights Dept, and filling the spots with/ inexperienced cronies and hacks. (Same here, only more so. They’re running minorities and women out of the government and military.) 

• The obscene sweetheart deals that were made to benefit Halliburton. The Iraq War alone houses enough shocking, greed-encrusted deals to make even a Trump disciple blush. Worst of all, the actual troops can’t get sufficient body armor, armored HumVees, or even the minimum levels of training. (Now the deals all sweeten the president himself. The big corporations will have to make do on their massive tax cuts and leave it at that.) 

• Catchy-named initiatives that actually undermine what the name infers, like: 

• Clear Skies Initiative which was written by the oil and coal lobbies, which weakened controls on toxic emissions.
• No Child Left Behind, that creates mandated standards, but provides no dollars to pay for them.
• Death Tax, which is tearfully held up as an unfair burden to these unfortunate families in their time of need. What no one mentions is that estates are only taxed when they total over 2 million dollars, so that rich fucks can leave their fortunes to their spoiled rich-fuck kids. These are exactly the people who should be picking up the tax bill so that there can be Head Start and After School Care programs. While the “Death Tax” may be technically accurate, the “Rich Fuck” tax would be a name that’s much more in line with the spirit of the thing. 

• The Valerie Plame leak, which just shows that not only did no one in office care that they were outing a covert CIA agent as a form of political payback, but they didn't even care if they got caught. Along with the US Attorney thing, it's just another example of the Changing Story Scenario. (also see “Reasons for the Iraq War”)  The basic premise is “Yeah, we’re lying… so what are you gonna do about it?” (Personal payback for disloyalty. Sounds familiar…)

 

• Scientists being overruled on scientific matters by conservative policy hacks.  See Plan-B birth control, HPV vaccinations, “intelligent design,” and anything on global warming. Also see the appointment as manager of the administration’s federal family planning initiatives, of a guy who opposes birth control in favor of an “abstinence only” approach. On the bright side, said guy apparently resigned last week. (Now we have wholesale elimination of any department that might cost big business a few bucks by doing its job, plus the Dept of Education, without which, future president-criminals will have an even easier time getting away with the grift. And any scientist who doesn’t produce the government-desired result becomes an unemployed receptacle for death threats.) 

• The appearance of gay marriage issues (or other social hot-button issues) that predictably surface during election season as so to scare up support from the far right, only to disappear immediately upon completion of the election. (There’s always a Boogieman they use to scare you, whether it’s gays, groomers, or gang members.) 

• The unprecedented power grab by the executive branch, aided by the Republican Congress enablers. (I don’t remember what this one was about, but we sure have that now, as Congress willingly gives up any spending supervision, taking the much easier stance of “Whatever Trump wants.”) 

• The unprecedented secrecy of this administration has generated more classified documents than any president ever, including existing documents already in the public domain. (The current Administration would love to maintain that kind of secrecy, but they’re just not smart enough to keep their nefarious plans off of WhatsApp.) 

• The merging of religion with government. See Faith-Based Initiatives, or in other words, paying churches to administer to the poor, while spreading the “Good Word.” By the way, only Christian Organizations need apply. (The president doesn’t give a crap about this stuff but his handlers and donors do, plus his enablers in the Supreme Court.) 

• Cloaking voting restrictions targeted at minority, low-income, and elderly people (read “Likely Democratic Voters”) by calling it Protecting Against Voter Fraud.  While at the same time championing paperless voting machines manufactured by Diebold Inc., whose chairman declared in 2004 that he was going to do everything in his power to see that Ohio's electoral votes were delivered to Bush. On the bright side, this schmo also resigned in scandal, although a tad too late to do us any good. The voting irregularities in Ohio alone should have grounds for a national recount of every tight race.  It was Joseph Stalin that said, “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” (Has not changed a bit. They know they don’t have a winning hand, so they’re working furiously to rig the next game with gerrymandering and attacks on the voting process. They will do literally anything to remain in power.) 

• The FBI using Patriot Act powers on pretty much whatever they want. And not just the ones from a couple weeks ago, it’s been going on for some time. (The current ICE Gestapo doesn’t need to rely on any Act, just the say-so from Hair Fuhrer.)

 I guess I ran out of enthusiasm before we even got to Hurricane Katrina.

Making a Bad Thing Worse

The Senate is working feverishly to come to an agreement on the “Big Beautiful Bill,” AKA the BUTTS or “Big Ugly Trump Tax Shift” Act. It’s one of those things where even the people you’re hoping will kill the bill are doing it for the wrong reasons. (Like, it doesn’t cause enough pain, er, I mean, doesn’t reduce government spending enough.)

They’re under pressure from Lord Fuckface to get this thing wrapped up by July 4^th, so it’s crunch time and pieces are rapidly moving around the board.

They’ve made further cuts to renewable energy subsidies, just to show Elon their butts and the kiss those of the fossil fuel industry, who has owned the Republicans for decades. This makes it clear that Republicans want nothing to do with renewable energy until we’ve dried up every source of oil on the planet, which should give Big Oil enough time to figure out how to make a criminal profit from solar and wind.

They’re also looking for 18% cuts to Medicaid and 20% cuts to SNAP. That demonstrates, in the clearest way, what Republicans are all about… Taking money from the poorest and most desperate to make way for cutting taxes to the richest people in America. That’s it. Government for the rich, by the rich. All along, conservative talk about reducing government spending and lowering the deficit is really about not spending money on lowly citizens who aren’t sending 6-figure checks to their favorite PAC bundler.

George Carlin had it right decades ago when he broke down our society this way: “The Rich do none of the work, pay none of the taxes. The Middle Class does all of the work and pays all of the taxes. The Poor are there… just to scare the hell out of the Middle Class.”

Republicans have a 3-vote majority, but there happen to be three Senators balking at signing on. To illustrate the influence of oily politics, they slipped in an amendment exempting Alaska from the Medicaid cuts, which is Lisa Murkowski’s home state. Then the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that such action would nullify the “Reconciliation Process” they’re using to pass the bill. (Which nixes filibusters and allows passage on a simple majority vote.) That would usually sound like a victory, but the Republicans have shown that they don’t take Parliamentarian findings as anything but recommendations. I’ll bet that when the chips are down, they’ll ignore that particular ruling, like they always do when tradition stands in the front of the gravy train.

Unless they somehow get backed into needing Democratic votes, the bill still contains all that icky stuff that paves the way for our unbalanced president to preside until that last well-done filet does him in. It does everything to install an autocracy, but dub him King Midas the Second.

I’m out here hoping for a miracle but expecting the worst. When you have a group of people with unlimited money, no shame, and no more checks on their power, you know they will never stop themselves.

Odd Bits – The Unintended Consequences Edition

I haven’t done one of these in a long time, but I have several subjects circling the drain in hand, but none substantial enough to whip into a dedicated post. So here goes…

TACOS to Go

While I’ve been greatly amused by the memes and comments referring to TFG as a TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), I hope they don't stay too long. Sure, I love that it annoys the hell out of him, but there’s a problem.

We NEED him to “chicken out” on his bonehead plans and ideas. If he doesn’t “chicken out,” then it creates more pain for everyone (who’s not rich). If he’s going to float more economy-bombing tariffs, we need him to put things back to normal. We need him to back out of invading Greenland or Panama. We need him to not abandon NATO or Ukraine.

The thing with this guy is that he’d rather blow everything up than come off looking unmanly. His ego won’t allow his image to be tarnished in such a way, so he’d rather endure the collateral damage than be seen as weak. That’s why the other autocrats can play him like an orange clarinet; they know how to puff up an ego to get what they want.

Even to the extent that his claim that all this is a negotiating strategy… asking for the outrageous and “settling” for what he wanted in the first place, I believe he’d scuttle it all if he thought it made him look soft. After all, this is a guy spending millions in tax dollars for a self-glorifying military parade!

So yeah, we’ve had our fun, but let’s not cut off our collective nose to spite our face. We need him to step away from his most destructive ideas, so maybe we shouldn’t dare him to stand firm.

Besides, there are still other avenues to be used to make a guy uncomfortable.

Family Feud

I’ve also enjoyed the blowup between Elon and TFG. It’s not like watching Mommy and Daddy fight; it’s more like watching those degenerate neighbors down the street out in the yard throwing used auto parts at each other. This is a cockfight between two of the biggest dicks in Washington, so there’s not exactly anyone to root for.

It’s funny how NOW Elon brings up the Epstein list. And no matter how much we’d like to get a look, you know it’s never coming out without heavy scrubbing. If this administration ever releases it, it will contain only Democrats and Republican never-Trumpers.

Is anyone really surprised that TFG is allegedly on the list? Hell, there are only 17,000 pictures floating around of him and Epstein or his Madame hanging out together. You think they were only talking about the real estate market?

Elon should be careful about backing the opposition. That’s one more tool TFG could use to postpone or cancel the mid-terms or the 2028 elections. “They’re trying to buy the election,” he’d scream. “I have no choice but to shut it all down.”

I still think that’s the plan all along. As I’ve said before, they’re all acting like they will never have to be re-elected again. They’re being openly racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and all the other phobics. I say they already know the fix is in.

LA Law

You could consider the escalating unrest in Los Angeles as a test run for the next election season. TFG commandeered the National Guard to have them go in and terrorize protesters. The fact that none of the protests were likely to become violent until the Gestapo showed up won’t gain any traction in the newly compliant news media. They’ll dutifully show the most lurid bits, which TFG will use to claim he needs to declare martial law and shit-can the election.

He’s just getting us all used to this kind of thing; once again, creating the problem and then wanting to take bows for “solving” it.

Good News and Bad News

It’s great that Abrego Garcia is coming back home, but you knew it wasn’t going to be cut and dried. The administration brought him home only to make up some new charges out of whole cloth, so he’s essentially going from one jail to another. All the better to make an example of here at home, I guess.

At least he’ll get a trial now, but who is going to defend him? He’s going to need a good lawyer at a time when the legal profession is under tremendous pressure to not cross the government, lest they face career-killing consequences. I hope there’s at least one sharp legal eagle out there who’s itching to do some high-profile pro bono work. This guy’s going to need it.

The BUTTS Will Crack the Country

Looks like the “One Big Beautiful Bill” is halfway home, now that the House has passed its version. What it should be called is the Big Ugly Trump Tax Shift, or BUTTS Act. The tax cuts for the rich get the most publicity, but the Republicans stuffed a lot more in there to cement in their dream of a top-down economic system, meaning the top gets whatever they want and throw the scraps down to the rest of us.

We should be greatly alarmed at this turn of events. But not so alarmed as to make shit up. I almost lost my mind when I saw this meme floating around this weekend:

The thing that set me off was that first bullet, that the president can delay or cancel any election. That’s the big red button… the tool that sets them up for life, AND, the one I’ve been predicting they’ll use. And they may, but it’s not in the bill. I did a little digging and didn’t find any reference to canceling elections. (And I surfed through the bill itself, looking for the word “election.”) It’s not there, so that’s one bullet dodged, for now.

Also, there isn’t anything in there about identifying protesters, although there is a lot of material about the use of AI. The part I found galling is that there is language to prevent states from regulating the use of AI in advertisements. The Republicans are 100% against that because, obviously, AI makes their go-to tactic of disinformation that much more convincing. They’re literally enshrining their right to lie to us more effectively, for personal gain.

But there is plenty to scare you in this bill. This graphic does a good job of illuminating the heinous infiltration and dissolution of our current government:

Everything in here is designed to benefit those who have the most, and keep it that way. So far, all the GOP resistance has come from those who don’t think the denuding of the government has gone far enough. That’s why we have to bring pressure to bear on those few Republicans left who pretend to be moderate. We need the Lisa Murkowskis, Susan Collinses, and the like to step up and declare that they’re either representing their constituents or shilling for the rich.

Further, we need to make sure there are no Democratic turncoats… no Sinemas or Manchins to sabotage their own people. I’m not foolish enough to think that the Fat Cats haven’t bought themselves some Democrats, just in case.

But again, the thing that worries me is that the Republicans are acting like they don’t need to worry about any more elections. They’re rolling out this giant turd in public and telling easily disprovable lies about what it all means.

We do have some facts that favor the continuation of free elections. After all, the president only has limited power over the election process:

- Election Timing: The Constitution grants Congress the authority to set the timing of federal elections, meaning the President cannot unilaterally postpone or cancel an election.

- Election Oversight: Elections are primarily managed at the state level, with each state responsible for organizing and conducting its own elections.

- Emergency Powers: While the President has emergency powers, they do not extend to altering election dates without congressional approval.

- Influence on Election Laws: The President can advocate for changes to election laws, but actual changes require congressional action.

- Appointment Powers: The President appoints members of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which oversees campaign finance laws.

That would all be fine, but it assumes that things are going to continue in a lawful manner. The way this administration has established itself, it has its own police force, direct control of the Justice Department, doesn’t follow judicial rules it doesn’t like, has the media playing cheerleader and whitewashing the ugly parts, so it is therefore answerable to no one. There’s nothing to stop them from rigging, nullifying, or indefinitely postponing meaningful elections.

Great Moments in Advertising

Now, so I don’t leave you ready to fling yourself out of a high-rise window (aka taking Putin’s Staircase), have a look at this shot I took from the TV yesterday from the Orioles/Cardinals game.

I want to know who green-lit the name of that tire company for use in America. Shouldn’t there have been someone in the room, some dude who knows American idiom, to go, ”Hey guys? I don’t think you realize how this is going to play to a bunch of drunks sitting on their couches.”

Sure, maybe the founder is a Kumho. And he probably comes from a long line of Kumhoes. And maybe this would work if they were selling rubbers and not tires.

If they insist on keeping the name, they should at least lean into it. Make some commercials that say,

“You’ll feel safe and secure on some Kumhoes.”

“Nothing gives you a smooth ride like Kumhoes.”

“Kumhoes will keep you in the driver’s seat all night long!”

I mean, how long until they roll out the advertising for their sister company, Stankyho?

Director's DVD Commentary: I probably shouldn't have cropped that picture so closely on the right because it looks like I clipped off some of the name. Rest assured that I did not. That is one righteous Kumho and not the creation of some fanciful editing.

He Knows, He Just Doesn't Want To

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

Seriously.

From the good folks at Crooks & Liars.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The SAFE Act is Dangerous

Republicans are actively marginalizing women, and they’re not even trying to hide it.

Did you see how their “SAFE Act” passed the House? Otherwise known as the Screwing All Females Effectively Act, the bill contains nefarious provisions meant to look like they’re solving the non-existent voter fraud issue but are actually erecting barriers between probable Democrats and the voting booth. One part is removing the vote from married women who have changed their names. (Or anyone who has changed their names for any other reason, which is one more way they can stick it to the Trans community.)

The requirement is that one must prove their citizenship by providing a birth certificate, which matches enrollment information exactly. Obviously, that jams up anyone who went from Jane Smith to Mrs. Jane Jones. To solve this self-made crisis, the alternative is to provide a valid passport. That leaves literally millions of women without the opportunity to vote, short of a costly and time-consuming effort to acquire duplicate official documents (from a government that is shutting down agencies right and left). This is an obvious attempt to deter women from voting (who may be livid over their eroding reproduction rights or other professional diminishment):

Now, the contents of this bill have been public for months. Republicans and Democrats know what’s in it and what it does. Still, there were no substantial changes made to it before passing the House. That means this is not just some oversight or mistake. One major party wants to slash the number of women voting. There is no other logical (non-head-up-Fox’s-ass) way to interpret this. And I’m apoplectic that there were four Democrats who went along with the bill, who must have been bought off, threatened, or horse-traded into compliance.

And unless the Senate makes a change, they’ll be in on it too. So, like I said, this “side-effect” is no accident. They mean this, and they want it bad.

To overcome a filibuster, they will need seven Democrats to accept this bill. I just hope that’s a bridge too far, but I’ll never discount the lengths the Republicans will go to consolidate their own power.

This should be a front-page story in every newspaper, and so far, it’s barely made a blip, thanks to the new chumminess between mainstream media and the administration. No one seems to care.

This needs to go full Red Alert, with pressure brought to bear on the Senate. Otherwise, this is yet one more way the Republicans are rigging the next election. I’ve been pointing it out for the last couple of posts now. They wouldn’t be engaging in such unpopular actions if they were worried about being voted out in 2-4 years. 

But they’re not, they’re dismantling Social Security, killing weather research and storm reporting by defunding NOAA, spiking prices of goods and services, picking up brown people on sight and sending them to foreign prisons, killing caps on insulin and bank fees, and other malevolent actions that make an average citizen’s life worse and more costly. Usually, the threat of getting voted out prevents the most egregious things, but not this time. They are unconcerned about more elections because they know that if the deck isn’t sufficiently stacked for them, there won’t be any more elections.

I hate being such a naysayer, but you can see the results for yourself. These aren’t normal times, and they call for a heightened response. All those Hands Off protests were a good start, but we need to be more forceful in reminding these pols that they work for US, not the other way around.

At least they used to pretend to, anyway.

The Fix Is In

I’m seeing more things fall into place that tells me that this Administration plans on hanging around a lot longer, without taking any chances on losing power on such a flimsy premise as “The Will of the People.”

TFG signed another executive order to further complicate the voting process, with a key point being that they won’t count any ballot that is not in hand by Election Day, no matter when it was postmarked.

You see the play there, right? With control of the post office operations (whether by presidential appointment or being privatized into the hands of another corporate toadie), they can open or close the stream of mailed ballots depending on whether TFG or his party is ahead or behind. I would also bet that batches of mailed ballots from known Blue strongholds will somehow become “misplaced,” “destroyed,” or taken out into the Potomac and sunk like a mob rat.

Another point is an added requirement to provide proof of citizenship at registration. “But wait, I’m already registered!” you may wonder. Have you seen the Red State efforts to “rid the voter rolls of ineligible or non-voters?” They take as much care in researching that as the DOGE teen squad does when “carefully ridding the government of waste,” which is to say they hack and burn anyone and anything that looks like a Democrat. So then, when someone who’s been registered all their lives suddenly gets bounced and has to reregister, they better hope they have a copy of their birth certificate or social security card. Doubly so for a woman who changed her name when she got married.

This is now, as “voter ID requirements” have always been, a method of removing low-income, young, or immigrant voters to better put a thumb on the scale for Republicans. The more barriers to voting, the better for Republicans.

The Baltimore Sun finally got one of their headlines right:

Unfortunately, I don’t think they meant it the way I see it.

If there’s an election at all, it’ll be rigged so tight we’ll have to be lubed up just to get in the door of the polling place. TFG already thanked his benefactor, Elon, for winning him the last election, and I doubt that was just about money. Money is readily available from the existing Republican donor class; Elon’s wasn’t anything special. But his people’s hacking skills were.

Why am I still calling this out? It’s because I think we need to make a fuss about it and bring it up at every turn, to get the idea out there and degrade it before it’s put into the hands of the judiciary. And buy that, I mean the Supreme Court, aka the only court Republicans currently recognize, because it’s the one stacked in their favor. The new Mainstream Media isn’t going to do it anymore… they’ve been bought and threatened into compliance already, just like the rest of the business world. No one wants to do anything to upset the Orange King, lest they incur his wrath.

And that’s the real key to the whole Executive Order thing. A president has no power over elections; the states do. So, in theory, his EO is meaningless. Of course, SCOTUS may invent a reason why it isn’t. But the real hammer is the threat of withholding funds to states that refuse to comply.

What with FEMA on the way out the door, he won’t have that angle to use, but there are still government funds for numerous other services, like highway funds, research grants, development and construction money, etc. Blue states on a budget might think twice before defying the EO on voting, lest they upend their books even worse than they already are.

The only real power left is that of individuals acting in unison, a true grassroots movement. The longer we wait, the worse it’s going to be. Immigrants are already being “disappeared” out in broad daylight; it’s only a short matter of time before they start coming for native citizens they don’t like.

With modern surveillance techniques, we’re bound to see a time when they pick up what we’re writing before we can even press publish. Hey, who’s that at the door? Who are you? I’m calling 9-1 mmmph!

 

 ***

In other news, happy 70^th birthday to one of my long-time idols, AC/DC guitarist Angus Young, one of the greatest to ever strap on a Gibson SG. Back in The Day, AC/DC was the soundtrack to every party I ever threw. We always saved them for the peak of the night, when everyone was rolling.

I’ve got tickets to see them in Pittsburgh this May, and I can’t wait. I’ve seen them five times, from 1985 to 1996, so wow, it’s been 29 years. (Attending that last show cost me the opportunity to film a home porno movie. True story.)

Angus, the eternal schoolboy, certainly isn’t as young as he once was.

Angus Young

Angus Old

He doesn’t have the kind of energy he used to, but Jesus, who does? That he’s still out there at all, at 70, is a miracle. And it’s not like he’s just standing there. You’ve seen him play. He hops around like a rooster on speed for two hours a night. Forever the Energizer Bunny.

So, happy birthday, A-Bomb. If this is your last tour, you’ve certainly earned some rest. You’ll always be remembered as one of the best.

The Greatest Grift Yet

This Administration may have finally figured out how to accomplish something that generations of their Republican brethren have been trying to do: get rid of Social Security as we know it.

Two weeks ago, an internal memo proposed changes to the claims process that would “debilitate the agency, cause significant processing delays, and prevent many Americans from applying for or receiving benefits.”

The plan is to kill the use of the phone to handle claims and direct everything to the internet. The only alternative for millions of seniors who are not internet savvy will be to make their claims in person at Social Security offices. They estimate this would create 75,000 to 85,000 more visits per week, which would represent a 14% increase over what they have now.

To drop the other shoe, they also plan on terminating 7000 workers and closing dozens of offices, thus creating a demand that will vastly overpower the apparatus available to handle it, sending the whole process into chaos.

They know all this right now and are still moving forward with the plan. Ostensibly, they say they’re trying to reduce fraudulent claims. But it’s a solution in search of a problem. The amount of Social Security fraud is less than 1% of total expenditures, with numerous processes in place that verify identities and claims. The goal here is not fraud prevention but to sabotage the Social Security system, effectively denying Americans their well-earned benefits.

Then what?

Once the system is in complete shambles, Republicans will emerge with a new plan to replace the mess they created, one that relieves the government of responsibility and privatizes the whole operation. That way, Wall Street bankers, traders, and hedge fund bros can sit on the money, invest it in any shady operation they can dream up, like the ones that tanked the economy in 2008, and then charge us fees to receive the payments of our own money. That’s the whole reason Republicans don’t like Social Security as it is… they can’t skim the take. They can’t stomach that there’s a huge pile of money of which they receive no part.

And once it’s privatized, you watch how the amount that employers contribute falls off the table or disappears completely. That’s the other fat cat dream… stop diluting profits by paying into Social Security. It’ll end up like so many pensions in the early 2000s… converted into 401ks where the business doesn’t contribute nearly what they did to the pension funds.

The haste Republicans are making to break the government structure shows that they’re looking to cause chaos sooner rather than later, which will be all the better to declare martial law or some other ruse to use to postpone or eliminate the midterm elections. If they thought they were going to face an enraged electorate in 2026 and risk losing the House, they wouldn’t be acting so recklessly right now.

They’ve even got the military under their thumb, with Trumpie toadies taking over the high command, who will be loyal to him rather than the Constitution. That means they’ll have no qualms about turning military weapons on protesting American citizens. It’s all set up for them now, thanks to the 2025 Project.

They’re packing the lifeboats and jumping in, leaving the rest of us to go down with the ship.

I used to think that this whole notion I’m touting was far-fetched. I never thought it would get this bad. But everything I see going on leads to this conclusion. The Republicans and 1%ers are setting themselves up to rule indefinitely and leaving us to forage about for ourselves. We’re not their concern, we’re just an asset to exploit.

We need to make our assets heard, pronto, or American life as we know it is over.

Update: TFG wants Social Security cuts expedited. (Thanks for the link, C&L.)

For the Rich, By the Rich

As the disassembly of the American government continues, we must keep in mind why it’s happening.

The disassemblers want you to think that it’s solely about lowering spending and the deficit. That’s partially correct… that’s one facet. But it sounds good so that’s the part they trumpet to their MAGA followers.

It’s been a Republican principle ever since I can remember to limit government. Remember good old Grover Norquist, the guy who personally demanded pledges from GOP politicians that they will never raise a tax of any kind? He would finance a primary challenge to anyone who didn’t make the pledge.

His most salient quote is “I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

Republican leadership wants there to be no government because in such a case, those with the most money will rule. That’s them.

So now they’ve conned lower and middle-class people into voting for them and actually cheering as DOGE eliminates one government agency after another, including those that service the basic needs of all Americans. And I expect the cheers to continue right up until the next disaster hits and there’s no one left that knows how to deal with it. No FEMA, no NOAA forecasting, medical research to be done, no regulations that require banks to give you back your money, and so on.

What they are doing is criminal and I mean that literally. There is no support in the law for an appointed figure to make unilateral cuts to government personnel and agencies. And it’s especially galling once you realize that the person managing all this destruction is reaping the direct benefit because the businesses that he owns are being investigated or have business before all the agencies he’s dismantling.

This is just one.

No one on the news or in the local papers (at least MY local paper) is talking about the after-effects of all these cuts. Thousands of workers are being laid off by people who have no idea what they actually do. In some cases, like with those who oversee our nuclear capabilities, they have had to be immediately recalled, because even the rich assholes know enough not to mess around with nuclear science.

Here are some of the biggest targets so far:

·         The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose job it is to keep you from getting screwed by banks. Ask yourself, why would a legitimate politician want that removed? The only answer is so you can be screwed over by banks again.

·         OSHA, which is responsible for workplace safety. Without them, there is no one to ensure that machinery is properly guarded, workers aren’t engaging in dangerous activity, they are not getting poisoned by the atmosphere in the plant, and so forth. This department was created because business practices were so dangerous, with fatalities merely being considered “the cost of doing business.” If a business can cut a safety corner that saves them money and there is no disincentive, do you really think they’ll refrain? History tells us otherwise.

·         NOAA, which provides detailed weather forecasting free of charge to the public. They are being taken down for two reasons. One is that they are a leader in climate change research and that’s exactly what Republicans don’t want to hear about. They are still owned by the fossil fuel industry, to whom there is no such thing as climate change. The other reason is that, like with most other services, they’d rather privatize than provide, so that their people can make money from it. We’re spoiled with free hurricane reporting now. What happens when it becomes a pay service? This isn’t Only Fans, this is public safety. Not everyone can afford to drop $9.99 a month for storm warnings. But even if it doesn’t go that far, it’s still a barrier to necessary information.

·         USDA and the people who inspect our food to ensure it’s safe. Tell me why an honest politician would want to tamper with food safety? There are no legitimate reasons, only to lower standards to reduce the cost of production, without opposition. Who cares, then, when people get sick? How are they going to prove it? And prove it to whom, without a governing agency?

·         The VA. Look at how many Democratic programs get slammed because “We shouldn’t spend money on “this” while we still have homeless veterans.” These guys are cutting services to all veterans, not just the homeless ones, and there’s not a peep from all these MAGA “patriots.”

There are dozens more but it all comes down to the same thing… and this is the main reason for these actions. Small government and lower expenditures make possible the fat tax cuts they want to renew. These are tax cuts for the rich that we will barely even notice in our paychecks. And this time, they’re not even bothering to continue the lie that it will spur the economy so that the rest of us feel the difference. We know, from when these tax cuts were rolled out, that they won’t do anything for anyone other than line the pocket of the rich.

It’s not like they’re averse to spending money though, as long as it’s on themselves. TFG’s golf trips and Mar-a-Lago trips cost the taxpayers millions. But they don’t even pretend to care about these optics. After all, they see it as their right as the Ruling Class.

This is what we’re up against for the next 4 years. And I hope people remember what government service used to be like. It wasn’t always the most efficient, but at least it was there. If there’s ever another election we’re going to need everyone onboard to reset the clock. (And women, be sure you have your docs in order, Republicans have proposed a bill that will likely end the right to vote for married women who have taken their husband’s name unless they obtain a whole new set of documents.) They may fix that loophole in Committee, but they haven’t yet, and that’s telling.

We’re only about a month in. It’s going to be an ugly road ahead.

I Long for Yesterday

I managed to avoid coverage, yesterday, of the beginning of the end of our democracy. From what I’ve heard, I didn’t miss anything but the groundwork being laid for an administration rife with misinformation, lies, greed, and callous disregard for public service. And sitting right up front were the filthy rich, without whose direct involvement, the average American might still have a chance.

Well, Red America, you got what you wanted. How’d you like that immediate raising of Medicare drug prices? At least it’s not eggs, right? (Yet.)

And today’s snowstorms on the Gulf Coast and other southern states? Get used to it. There will be no more attention paid to climate change, the results of which we’ve been getting hammered with for the last decade. Yes, I know your limited information leaves you wondering why global warming makes it cold, but that’s what happens when Arctic ice melts and airflow patterns change, pushing jet streams out of their usual places. But sure, pull out of the Paris climate accords, so we’re one of four countries not included (along with the climate geniuses in Yemen, Iran, and Libya). You and Fox “News” are right and the rest of the civilized and uncivilized world is wrong. You betcha.

And with the new bird flu on the horizon, our nation’s health will be handed over to some schmuck with zero medical experience and a lot of wrong ideas about medicine that has eradicated diseases from the modern world for a century.

We’ll need to bring in a mathematician to keep track of all the needless deaths from disease, medical neglect, and insurance logjams, that is, if there is anyone left who remembers how to math.

The thing I’m most distressed about is that there is no longer a mechanism for sounding the alarm about what the consequences will be when 47’s actions bear fruit. The news industry has given up investigation and reporting in favor of cheerleading because the big businesses that own all the networks and newspaper companies decided to abandon their journalistic obligations in lieu of currying favor with the once and current emperor. Social media CEOs have turned belly up as well, dashing the idea of fact-checking and preventing life-threatening disinformation from taking root on their platforms. The only people who want to get rid of fact-checking are habitual liars, who need their bullshit to spread unimpeded. But that’s who they’re throwing in with, to keep those ad dollars flooding in.

Once upon a time, journalists stood tall and firm, united against autocrats. There are still some out there too, if only their boardroom overlords would allow their voices to be heard. (Hi Jim Acosta! Hope you enjoy your new overnight shift at CNN!)

No, this new administration laid the groundwork with threats and clandestine meetings, to make sure that their own statements would be amplified, with any opposition reduced to lone voices, wailing in the distance. To disobey would mean an onslaught of federal lawsuits, IRS audits, and costly new regulations. Naturally, there wasn’t a strong backbone to be found amid the business world nor the political one, not even the Democrats. They seem to have accepted their servitude and oncoming irrelevance and disappeared into the woodwork. Nice going fellas… and be sure to keep sending those fundraising emails! Be sure to list all your “accomplishments,” too.

It won’t be long before they come for the bloggers too. The Imbecile in Chief will put pressure on the platform bosses and next thing you know, they’ll have moved “content management” from Facebook to Blogger, from Twitter to WordPress. Maybe we’ll have to resort to smoke signals. You know the EPA won’t step in… there will no longer BE an EPA. It’ll disappear right along with the Department of Education. That way, Americans not only get poisoned by the air and water, they won’t even know how to read the warnings. (You know, from bloggers’ smoke signals. It’s not like they’re going to hear about it on the news.)

And the worst part of all this? Even if, by some miracle, there IS a massive case of Buyer’s Remorse, come November 2028, we can’t expect that there will be an honest election. Guess who’s already working on putting more limits and restrictions on voting.

This 100% follows the Republican playbook wherein they create a prevailing atmosphere of suspicion around the voting process and then “fix” it in a way that plays to their advantage. (Like only having the upper crust vote.) By the time they’re done, the only way we get to place a vote will be with a secret code that they only give you upon completion of your MBA.

I think President Biden did the best job he could, under the circumstances. He left the country in good shape so that the blame for any tanking will fall on the new Administration, at least until Fox and friends can jerry-rig a way to call a spade a club and blame the Democrats anyway.

I’m glad he distributed pardons to Dr. Fauci, the 1/6 Committee, and his family. If the Republicans are going to use the Justice system to play offense, the least we can do is play some defense. There’s no doubt in my mind that they would follow through with these threatened prosecutions despite zero evidence of wrongdoing, even if it was just to make their adversaries pay out the nose for massive legal fees. That can set you up for a world of hurt… just ask Rudy. Although this is America, even after working day and night to overthrow a free election, he still gets to keep his World Series rings.

What a great time to be a white, male, Republican.

Not Exactly Sophie's Choice

It almost seems like the Republicans have boxed themselves into a corner here.

On the one hand, they want to renew the massive 2017 tax cut package, which will limit incoming dollars. They also want to launch a costly, unprecedented military action to round up undocumented immigrants to deport them.

But on the other hand, they say they want to reduce the deficit, too. Accomplishing both of these things is basically impossible.

On the campaign trail they make it seem like there is oodles of excess pork just waiting to be cut, to offset their ethnic cleansing wet dreams, but in reality, discretionary spending makes up very little of the overall budget. Once the math is done, it’s clear that their tax cuts for the rich will balloon the deficit even further. So what will they do?

They’ll pass the tax cuts, guaranteed. Because that’s what their rich donors put them in office to do. And they’ll find a way to blame Democrats for it, you watch. They’re already beefing about how much the California firefighting and projected recovery will cost, and like anything that happens in Cali, from fires to earthquakes to Oscar snubs, they blame Democrats.

Republicans only truly care about the deficit when the Democrats are in office. That’s when they rail for austerity and want to cut programs that help the average citizen, like Social Security and Medicare. They use the deficit as a lever to get rid of programs they don’t like. But once they have control of the government, like now, they throw open the vault doors like it’s a Billionaire Toga Party with multi-million dollar swag bags. They’re happy to let the next Democrat Administration come in and try to clean up the mess (and attack them for not doing it fast enough.)

Good luck keeping the Democrats united to stop them. I think the rich donor class has figured out by now that they need to buy themselves a few Democrats they can count on to vote with the Republicans every so often to counter any straying members of their own. Manchin and Sinema are gone, but I’m sure they’ve been replaced.

And now that the GOP is back in control, you can see how they’re already trying to embed themselves there, like a tick. Here’s one example of how they’ll do it:

The Felonious Guy (TFG) wants to dismantle the Post Office. It’s a double win for them… on the one hand, the mail gets privatized and farmed out to UPS, DHL, Amazon, etc. So Big Delivery gets a shot in the profits at the expense of us raggedy consumers.

The other benefit is it will throw a monkey wrench into efforts to expand or even maintain mail-in voting, which currently provides an end-around to their voter suppression tactics like under-assignment of voting machines, reduction of early voting, and sanctions against aiding people in line. (And those tactics are targeted at Democratic strongholds, of course.)

Whether they can do this is up in the air. After all, the Postal Service is provided for in the Constitution, and anything so based is hard to alter. It's not impossible, though, not with the Republican lapdogs in the Supreme Court.

90-Days to the Dark Ages

I still can’t get over how Muslims were moving over to voting Republican. This is even though TFG’s first move last time was to ban all immigration from Muslim countries. Well, except from Saudi Arabia. Even though they provided 19 of 20 9/11 attackers, he thought he could get a tower with his name on it built there. Money always wins out over prejudice with these guys.

Anyway, I was watching some more of those 90-Day shows last night when it all suddenly made sense.

Back in September, I wrote about getting hooked into the 90-Day Fiancé world. I even mentioned one storyline where a 41-year-old American woman was going to Jordan to marry her 22-year-old beau, who immediately began putting restrictions on her dress and behavior. (And somehow, despite the existence of the internet, she never saw coming.)

I’d only seen the first installment of their story when I wrote the post, but it’s continuing as one could foresee. The guy’s demands generate all kinds of conflict, while this woman who is old enough to be his mama is expected to do as he tells her and stop questioning him about it.

I told Sweetpea last night that they need to let me write her a speech to deliver. Something like, “Listen Anand, I was a 19-year-old woman on the day you were delivered screaming in your diapers and knew more about the world outside your insular little bubble than you’ll ever know. You did NOT gain superior wisdom by the mere happenstance of being born with a dick. Now treat me like a grown-ass modern woman or you can take that dick and find someone else for it to disappoint.”

Yes, I know she’s never say that, because she’s got “feelings” and shit about the guy, but I can dream.

There’s another storyline where a woman went to see her Arab boyfriend in South Africa for the first time but was so nervous about flying she brought her ex-boyfriend with her, which was an unbelievably stupid idea, guaranteed to cause a major fight. And it did, leading to the boyfriend storming off, shouting profanities, and wanting nothing further to do with her.

As it usually goes, they coaxed him back to talk with her, and they ironed out that little wrinkle with a heart-to-heart talk. But last night, she got to meet his friends, who immediately called her out for having bare arms and midriff and tattoos. They told her she’d be expected to become Muslim to continue to date the guy, which was not something that had previously been discussed. 

They always wait until they feel the woman is hooked before telling her about their primitive expectations.

So, now looping back to the election...

Last night it all made sense. This is why the Muslim vote is migrating to the Republicans. They’re not just a “socially conservative” society, but one that would gravitate to the kind of medieval society Republican bible-thumpers are pushing. They want women on their backs and failing that, in the kitchen. They want them docile, obedient, pliant, and unquestioning, like a pet retriever. One who lives to serve the man. They certainly weren’t going to vote for one for president.

I’m sure they also like the persecution of gays, heretics, and liberals as well; anything that cements the notion of male superiority. However, they probably underestimate the degree to which they will never fit in with the MAGAs. Even if they agree with all the policy points, they’ll never be anything more to MAGA than another raghead to deport.

“Thanks for the vote, though!”