Don't Blame the White Guy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lucky us.

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

That BK Ad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hold the pickle hold the lettuce,

Special orders don’t upset us.

All we ask is that you let us

Serve it your way.

Have it YOUR way,

Have it your Way, at Burger KING.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Crossroads

I apologize for not having a post up on Monday. It was my first day back to work since 12/19 and by the time I was done catching up, I didn’t feel like sitting at the computer desk anymore.

But the main issue is that I am at a loss right now and don’t know what to do.

With TFG about to regain power, I feel like I’ve already done this before. I (and many others) have spent four years fighting and writing against his outrageous behavior and absurd actions, and then four more years defending President Biden from dishonest attacks amid massive amounts of misinformation. But none of it made a lick of difference because here we are, about to do it all over again.

This guy hasn’t even taken office yet and he’s already talking about renaming the Gulf of Mexico,  invading Panama and Greenland, and annexing Canada. I mean, seriously?

I understand that this may merely be his opening bid, something so outrageous it thrills his minions and keeps international leaders on edge, but something from which he will retreat and end up with what he really wants. (Appeasing Putin.)

But if he goes through with purging the military of independent minds, who’s left to stop him from executing the original plan? He doesn’t give a shit about Congress. As long as he has an enforcement arm to do his bidding, we’ll be looking at the Reign of the Boy-King Joffrey. We’d better get Peter Dinklage a Cabinet job, pronto.

One pimp slap, coming up…

A (slim) majority of people voted for this buffoon. He may be an idiot, but he’s their idiot and they’ll find a way to blame every one of his shortcomings on someone else. They don’t care if he lies, they don’t care if he cheats, they don’t care if he makes a mockery of justice, they don’t care if he loots the freakin’ treasury and cuts programs they rely on… He’s their guy, ride or die.

How do you combat that? Facts, logic, evidence, data, none of it matters. The naked emperor has clothes on and they’re better than anyone else’s.

Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll have a massive heart attack and piss off for good, leaving the rest of the Republicans fighting each other for power, with none charismatic enough to lead the MAGA dullards.

So, like I said, I don’t know what to do with myself now.

I may have to find something else to write about for a while. The political beat has been a real load.

I’ll just have to see how I feel next week.

Meanwhile, somebody get the President-Elect a big, fat, well-done prime rib.

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.

The Traveling Christmas Show

Happy Christmas, my friend. Hope you're happy and well as we dive headfirst into the big holiday week. Whatever it is you celebrate, I hope you have a joyous one.

All my life, Christmas was a happy but chaotic time of year.

The Traveling Christmas Show

Christmas was always such a busy time, growing up. When we were little and still living in Pittsburgh, it was such a flurry of activity having our own Christmas and then heading off to both grandparents’ places. I know it was all pretty hard on my parents but as kids, we loved it! Three Christmas extravaganzas of cookies, good food, presents and cookies! Lots of cousins to play with! And did I mention the cookies?

My grandpa on my Dad's side always took movies… the old 8mm silent kind and he always used a movie light; a big, brilliant, blinding, white light. It was so bright we could barely open our eyes wide enough to see what we were opening. Then when it was over, he’d turn it off and the room would seem positively cave-like and we’d spend the next 10 minutes walking into things until our eyes adjusted. Too bad the camera was off by then… this footage would have been much more entertaining.

In later years, my aunt had those movies knocked off onto VHS. It was funny then to see essentially the same movie over and over again but with the characters aging by a year each time.

Hey, there’s a bunch of blinded kids opening presents...

Oh, look at the baby surrounded by wrapping paper...

Look who's coming in the door... Say hi!

Now it’s dinner time… there’s the table. Look at all the food.

Everybody wave… annnnd CUT!

Now it’s the next Christmas… look at the same blinded kids, eww, what are they wearing?

There’s another baby…

It's them again, coming in the door...

And on it goes…

It was agonizing to see myself going through all the horrid fashions of the 1970’s.

Several years of plaid pants… Auuuugh!

The "Saturday Night Fever" year of silk shirt and necklace… Gack!

The "Urban Cowboy" year with a freakin’ cowboy hat with a wrap-around feather the size of a vulture’s ass! Who did I think I was, Charlie Daniels?

Nevertheless, it was cool seeing my cousins growing up right before my eyes. In fact, we only got to see the cousins in yearly increments anyway, once we left The Burgh. (I was 6.) As the first-born of two firstborns, I was the alpha cousin and in later years, it was up to me to maintain order among the kids. That is where my high school class ring came in very handy. I learned from my dad just how powerful a good backhand flick of the ring was. In fact, I think I still have an ornate, backward “D” on the top of my skull from his Duquesne ring.

Once we moved away from Pittsburgh, my siblings and I got to enjoy a new Christmas perk… Christmas a week early! The weekend before Christmas, we’d have our own celebration and do the stockings, presents and the whole sha-bang. Then we’d travel to Pittsburgh for the actual holiday and make the Grandparental rounds.

The trip was always hell, especially when we were coming from Chicago (the furthest from which we had to travel; three bored, punchy little kids, fighting their seat belts and each other, trying to listen to a scratchy AM radio. Mom still smoked back then so we had regular noxious gas intervals. She’d crack the window, thinking the smoke would go out. Unfortunately, it was mostly the freezing air rushing in to spread the carcinogens around.

But it was all worth it when we got to my grandparents’ place for the best meal of the year: The Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes. It’s an Italian thing. There would be fried smelts and shrimp, fish fillets, heaps of pasta, plus chicken, wedding soup, and Lord knows how much other savory stuff. I’d eat until I couldn't move.

Later in the evening, after the dishes were cleared and the olives, celery, and cookies were put out, Grandma would break out the Bingo game. They used to play Bingo in the old days to kill time before midnight mass, but by this time they weren't going to the late mass anymore. Grandma would save up change all year for us to use for Bingo and we’d have the big family Bingo showdown.

I always liked it because it was something that the kids and grownups played together. Although one year that led to some not-very-kid-friendly terminology getting thrown out after a long, tension-filled game:

Cousin: BINGO!!!

My mom: Oh HORSESHIT!!

God Rest Ye Merry Merchantmen
Years later when I was all grown up and managing a record store in Cleveland, the holidays were brutal. From the beginning of November through the middle of January, to quote retail legend Al Bundy, it was like “one long month… Helluary.”

As a store manager, I’d be working 12-16 hour days. The place would be mobbed… just accounting for all the money was practically a full-time job. (I do admit that it's quite a sight to see all that bundled cash sitting on the desk, awaiting deposit.) We would be so busy, I’d go home and collapse in bed and have dreams that I was still at work, tending the register and clearing customers. I’d wake up and be like, “Fuuuuck! I can’t even escape with sleep!)

I didn’t have any family in Cleveland. The closest kin I had were in Pittsburgh. So when we’d finally get permission to close up on Christmas Eve, usually around 5:30 or 6:00, I’d shut it all down, bolt for the car, and bust ass down the turnpike for Pittsburgh.

I’d get to Grandma and Grandpa’s house about 9:00 or so and Grandma would have soup on the stove and sandwich fixin’s ready. Grandpa would appear with a cold Iron City Light. After the meal, Grandma would tell me that when she heard I was coming, she got some Klondikes for me, which at the time, could only be obtained in Pittsburgh. They were always my favorite treat as a kid. 

I hope she knew how much those Christmas Eves meant to me. It was like an oasis of comfort in a sea of aggravation. After a month of retail chaos, it was great to be able to settle into a big easy chair, chat with my grandparents, and just… breathe…

It was home, sweet home.

Who Could Have Possibly Predicted?

It sure didn’t take long for TFG to backpedal on one of his biggest campaign promises.

It boggles my mind that anyone even believed this promise, let alone voted on it. Just those who weren’t paying attention to anything but Fox “News,” I guess. Obviously, there is no button a president can press that lowers prices. And this Administration wouldn’t, even if they could. Some of their biggest donors are the ones reaping the benefits of higher prices. There’s no way they were going to give campaign money to someone they knew was going to derail the gravy train. This was a bald-faced lie from the get-go.

And let me remind you again, about who kicked up a huge protest when VP Harris proposed an actual anti-price-gouging program. The Republicans threw a fit, calling it anti-capitalist, pro-Socialist, and un-American. And people really thought they were going to lower prices? His tariffs are going to make things even worse! Unreal.

There were more headlines last week that demonstrated whose side Republicans are on. (It ain’t ours.)

House Republicans are trying to halt free tax filing with the IRS.

They are doing the bidding of the for-profit tax filing businesses and e-programs like Turbo Tax. It’s ridiculous in concept that we have to pay extra to perform a task we’re required to do. And it’s not like it’s too difficult to set up. It’s nothing complicated, other than it threatens the interest of those who make money off of the basic act of filing tax returns.

It’s like this with lots of things. Maryland is one of three states that prevents grocery stores from selling beer and wine. Last week, our Governor proposed changing that, which I embrace with both arms and both legs. Naturally, the liquor store lobby is up in arms about it and has begun reapplying the pressure that’s kept this development from occurring all along.

I get it, some businesses lose money. But that’s the price of every advancement.  Carbon paper companies went out of business when copy machines were invented. Buggy makers lost out when Ford started their first assembly line. Is anyone still crying about cassette manufacturing plants going belly-up? It’s the natural order of things. When better ideas come along, lesser ones fade away and their purveyors adapt.

That’s progress, as embodied by progressive people. And we all know who opposes progressives at every turn, right? It’s the “populist” Republicans, who shoot down any idea that helps the average population because the rich are making too much to give up on the status quo.

They could shore up Social Security for the next century, merely by raising the maximum income cap. But no, they want to cut benefits to us instead. See how that’s better? They get to keep their yacht money and all we have to do is struggle to pay bills and outlandish medical costs during the “golden years” of retirement. That’s much better for them!

Just wait for the next big tax cut bill. You’ll see, once again, how the filthy rich get a massive tax cut and the rest of us get a few token crumbs. Even after all the bad publicity from the 2017 version, they’re all set to do it again. Our complaints are short-lived until we move on to the next outrage, but the money lingers on.

That’s always how you know who politicians really work for… just follow the money.

A Killer Insurance Policy

It looks like we’ve finally gotten around to having Death Panels in the healthcare industry, but it hasn’t turned out quite like the insurance execs imagined.

Last week the head guy at United Healthcare was gunned down on an NYC street in a targeted hit. Some young guy wearing a hoodie and medical mask came up behind the guy as he left his hotel, and put three bullets into him. Somehow, the assassin slipped off and has been on the run ever since.

You know, some stories just put a smile on a guy’s face. I don’t see the killer’s personal reasons yet, but I’m sure we will in due time. But it’s a good bet that United Healthcare gave someone in his family a run-around, possibly with fatal ramifications.

I’m not exactly tap-dancing over this story, but I’m not terribly bothered either. Let’s just say I’ll treat this story with the same amount of care and compassion that UHC exhibits when declining to pay for life-saving treatments for their customers.

It’s about time some of these blood-sucking CEOs get some skin in the game. They’ve become a little too comfortable screwing over their customers in pursuit of even more obscene corporate profits.

These leeches are used to being the guys at the controls of the peasant catapult. Maybe a ride or two in the bucket will change their ways.

I’d like to think that maybe some of these execs might realize the kind of pain their company policies inflict on the public, but I think it’s more likely that they’ll just raise premiums and get more security for the corner office guys.

The older I get and the more I have to interact with the medical insurance profession, the more convinced I become that the only civilized solution is single-payer/Medicare for all. We’re the only first-world country that has a for-profit medical system, so it’s not like it can’t be done. It just can’t be done HERE because the parties who are making billions of dollars in profit will never allow such a change to happen. So they buy presidents and senators to ensure that no such proposal ever sees the light of day. Maybe executions ARE the only way…

Late Addition: Welp, about 2 minutes after I posted, I saw that they caught the guy. So much for being timely. Please note that everything written above was before I learned the news.

“Missed it by THAT Much…”

There was an article in today’s Sinclair (Baltimore) Sun about how the DOGE brothers, Musk and Ramaswamy, want to bring federal workers back to the office as a cost-saving and debt reduction measure.

Yes, that’s how wrong these guys are about how to reduce expenses. They think a WFH force costs more money.

Out of all this poorly-written “Sinclair National Desk” gobbledygook, there is one semi-coherent statement and the article framers take it in the wrong direction.

Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said “Something I’ve been pushing on is getting the federal workers back into the offices or eliminating the buildings they occupy.”  

The correct answer is staring them right in the face. Sell the damned buildings! A staff that’s working from home is far cheaper than providing real estate and utilities. (They’re also happier and can be more productive.) And then you have the bottom line gravy of the sales proceeds.

And I’d even wager they might know of someone with a real estate background who might overpay for the property so he can put up a tacky hotel on the site.

The thing that bothers me is that they’re pushing a total logical fallacy. These buildings are on the books, period. Whether they're full of people or not is immaterial… they’re still being paid for.

The problem is psychological! They don’t feel they’re getting their money’s worth so they want butts in the seats. Regardless of where the butts are, they’re still paying for the buildings. So if they’re serious about cutting spending, the clear choice is to sell the office buildings and develop better WFH strategies.

There’s one thing to remember about all this fake “waste-cutting” the Republicans are pushing. It’s not to cut the deficit, it’s to pretend these cuts will pay for the massive tax cut for the 1% that they’re about to unleash. Republicans don’t give a shit about the deficit unless there’s a Democratic administration. That’s when they cry for austerity. But as soon as they’re in charge? Bring on the tax cuts for the rich and maybe, if you’re very good, a few bits might trickle down to the rest of us. When it explodes the deficit? They’ll propose cuts to Social Security and Medicare and the rest of the programs that benefit the general public, but they never liked because they can’t easily skim. Then they’ll worry about the rest of it once the next Democrat takes charge.

PS

Last week I posted about the infamous Hunter Biden Pardon, and how he should widen it to include everyone with whom he’s related associated.

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

Now this week, there’s a movement coming to preemptively pardon some of the other players in TFG’s revenge fantasy, like Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, and Dr. Fauci.

I agree with this course of action as well. These people have committed no crime other than daring to disagree with the new emperor. If the Republicans can proclaim that they want revenge trials of their political opponents, the least we can do is defend our own. Not that it’s being seen that way by the Republicans. Hoo-boy no. It’s the end of the justice system, to them. (As if their guy hasn’t done enough damage.)

But that’s what these people do… they loudly go on offense and then cry when their enemies play defense.

PPS

The week before that, I posted about shrinkflation and how everyday we’re getting less for our money. Over the weekend I saw this graphic that seemed apropos:

This is the old “olive jar” story living on. And I also noticed another example… bacon!

One pound used to be the default size for a bacon package. They still have some one-pound packages, but over the years, you more frequently see 12-ounce packages, that look very similar to the pounders. I think they space out the bacon a little more. The only way to tell at a glance is to check the net weight. And how often do we really do that?

“Pass the Turkey, Son.” “Pardon Me?”

Do you think that’s how it went?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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