Epstein's Revenge

Don’t be alarmed by that giant crrrracking sound! It’s merely the wall around the Epstein documents crumbling down around the ankles of the current Administration. What started with three single incriminating emails leaked from Democrats in Congress continued with 20,000 emails released from the Epstein estate. It’s only a matter of time before the whole cache is turned over. That’s the thing about information, especially info this sick and tawdry; it will always come out. Nothing remains a secret forever. The only question is whether it comes out in time to do something with the contents.

No matter what the official spin is, this is bad news for the president, because he is literally all over the emails.

It’s funny how the official story has bounced around like an old Super Ball in a crawl space. We’ve seen:

·         Trump running on a platform to release all Epstein files

·         Claiming to release the files with much fanfare, except it’s all material that was already public

·         The Attorney General said the files are on her desk for review

·         The AG then said there is no list, and all material shows there is nothing actionable or illegal

·         The president called the whole thing a “Democrat hoax” (just like every other piece of bad news he’s ever heard).

·         The Speaker of the House refused to swear in a legally elected Representative for over 40 days, solely because she would be the last vote needed to pass a resolution requiring the release of the documents.

·         And now, with a hoard of evidence showing that every preceding statement was a load of rubbish, the AG says what’s in there proves the president hasn’t done anything wrong.

I’m not sure what planet she’s from, but a basic reading of just those first three emails shows that TFG was up to his eyeballs in teenage girls. They show he knew about it, he participated in it, and we can all see from his Administration’s actions, they’re actively covering it up. Additional documents show that there’s a case for financial malfeasance that’s just as serious as all the jailbait rapey stuff. Millions of dollars went in one side and emerged, freshly laundered, from another.

Do you notice how the go-to remark from TFG is that he did “nothing wrong?” He rarely says “I’m innocent,” or “I didn’t do that,” he says he did “nothing wrong.” I think he’s leaning on the famed “Costanza Defense,” where on Seinfeld, George utters the immortal line,

I’m sure that for all of these sexual crimes of which he’s been accused, he really believes he didn’t do anything wrong. Why? Because being him, he deserves the adulation and compliance of any woman he chooses. He only took what was coming to him. Hence, it’s not wrong.

Now, I don’t know how that would hold up in court, but he can try to make the case that he didn’t know such actions were wrong. It would be de facto admitting he doesn’t know how to be a human being, but I don’t think he cares much about that. I’m sure he thinks he’s above human decency.

We also have Russia coming into it, as Epstein apparently lent his expertise to the Russians on how to handle his friend Donald.

So now, the next brainstorm from the White House is to order the Justice Department to investigate the Epstein Files for evidence against the Clintons and other Democratic opponents.

I’m sure that by mentioning the banks, he’s counting on them to finance his defense, if not go on the attack themselves.

Obviously, any Administration with a moral compass would say, “Investigate everything and pursue lawbreakers.” But that’s not how these guys work. They look at Justice as their own personal legal team, obligated to defend all of their wrongdoings and prosecute opponents at every opportunity, including ones they made up out of thin air.

And they keep saying, “What if Clinton or Obama is in there?” They can’t fathom that we Democrats are overwhelmingly on the side of: “If they committed the crime, they can do the time.” We don’t tolerate shit-heels on our side. Where Republicans defend to the death every party leader in legal jeopardy, Democrats vote them off the island.

As for the fabled Congressional Resolution to release the files, it looks like the House will vote Aye, and the Senate may as well. There’s definitely the feel of rats fleeing the Titanic, because when this is eventually over, those defending the pedophiles are going to look very bad for making that possibly career-ending choice.

And if, somehow, both houses of Congress pass the bill, it has to be signed by Exhibit A, who will never do that. At least not without somehow scrubbing and destroying material that implicates him. It may or may not be successful, but he’ll try. He’ll never just cooperate. It’s against his DNA to comply with prosecution or accept blame for this or anything. So the big question will be whether there are enough votes in the Senate to overturn the veto. And again, there just may be, especially if there are continued leaks that condemn the president.

The wild card may be the Epstein estate. There’s a good possibility that they haven’t turned over everything. They may have even more damaging stuff, like photos and videos, showing the Orange Turd in action. Sure, TFG will fight about authenticity, but if the material is real, independent verification will confirm it. AI productions leave tracks and metadata. There would be something visceral about actually seeing a grown-ass man rubbing shoulders (and whatever) with 14-15-year-old girls, who, no matter what Megyn Kelly says, are still children. I think that could erode the support of most of the remaining holdouts, who may then join the rest of the conscience-bearing American people and seek to toss this clown out on his ass.

Midweek Update: Now that the Senate has passed the resolution and TFG says he'll sign it, let's see what gets released. My belief is that there will be nothing released that implicates the president or his biggest supporters. Damning material will have been scrubbed, destroyed, or withheld. OR, they'll claim they can't release some of all of it because of the "ongoing investigation" they just created just to give them an "out."

Winging It

This week’s Big Distraction from Releasing the Epstein Files is brought to you by the Destruction of the East Wing of the White House. (Sponsored by Meta, Google, and many, many more.)

It appears that the “designated excuse” that was issued to supporters is that “other presidents have also made updates to the White House, especially Obama, (who they breathlessly can’t wait to point out that he installed a basketball court, as if it were a watermelon garden.)

Every argument I’ve seen supporting this demolition has been rife with lies. They equate one renovation with another, like tearing down an entire wing with putting some lines on a basketball court, or spending “millions” to "replace a few pipes," when in reality, an entire rewiring was needed and authorized, for safety reasons.

Yes, other presidents have made alterations. I’ve seen the list. You can knock off about half of them (pre-Roosevelt) because they go all the way back to George Washington. The White House wasn’t exactly a historical landmark yet; it was just the place they had just built for the president to live.

And yes, Roosevelt made major renovations. But he also obtained the necessary approvals.

As have other presidents who followed. A law was passed in 1961 that established the approvals needed. At this point, the White House is a historical landmark/museum, so there is a process in place to go through before altering it. All preceding renovations have followed the established process. There are at least five different reviews required, including environmental impact, preservation of important relics/materials, and Congressional approval.

TFG has done none of that. He lied about his intentions and sent in the bulldozers. At first, the East Wing wasn’t going to be touched. That changed to they might take a little off the end, but do no major harm. And by now, we can see that that was 100% bullshit, because the East Wing is gone. Just, gone.

I also understand that this wing was built when asbestos was the standard in fireproofing. Tearing it down might well unleash a torrent of cancer and serious breathing problems, because there has been no mitigation of airborne particles at all. The whole building should have been netted off before destruction, but TFG doesn’t believe in environmental safety (just as long as it’s someone else who’s suffering for it.)

One angle I haven’t seen yet is the fact that the First Lady’s staff operated out of the East Wing. I know the current First Lady wants nothing to do with the role, but this action affects every subsequent First Lady and their staff. They will literally have no office from which to work. Granted, that may suit future MAGA administrations just fine, as they prefer the little wives to stay busy creating and tending to more babies rather than to worry their pretty little heads about doing any work from an office.

His apologists try to bring up the fact that it’s being paid for by the private sector. That does not relieve my suspicions at all. That just means that the Grift House is open for business. If you’ve seen the list of “donors,” you can see that just about everyone has had or will have business before the administration. “You want your project approved by my government, you have to pay.”

They might as well call it the Olde Quid Pro Quo Room.

Now, when all this started to bubble up, my first thought was, “Why would he care so much about a mere ballroom? The White House has been hosting fancy dinners for foreign dignitaries for decades. Why not just put up a couple of giant portraits of the would-be king, himself, slap some gold shit around the edges, and call it a day?”

No, there had to be more. Since he was having it all rebuilt from scratch, I figured there would have to be some secret “special rooms,” something he’d need to be off the books. Something like a protective bunker, something built with today’s best tech, where he could hide out indefinitely, all the while being able to surveil his domain and keep track of what’s being shown on TV. Maybe even have a studio in there from where he could get himself onto Fox and Friends. He could install a special safe to hold the Epstein files that only he could access. And, of course, his own McDonald's.

Then over the weekend, posts began to appear on social media describing that very thing. What I didn’t know was that the East Wing was already home to the existing emergency bunker, from which he hid out during various riots and uprisings.

Now it all made sense. He knows he’s about to screw with the next elections (if not postpone them indefinitely) and that it would be too unpopular, even with Republicans. He’d need a place to ride out the storm, but in the style with which he is accustomed. (“Bring in some more gold shit! And let’s set up that hotline to McDonald's!”) He’ll also need it to be impenetrable, so that neither angry mobs nor his own disgruntled troops could easily drag him out of it.

I hope the next non-MAGA president, whenever that will come to pass, will make it his mission on Day One to knock that fucking thing down and build something proper. Something fun and useful. Something everyone can get behind. Like… the People’s Taco Bar! Step right up and have a taco. Unlimited toppings, too! Whether a tourist, local resident, or homeless veteran, free tacos for everyone. Maybe some soft-serve for dessert, too.

At least, it will serve a worthy purpose rather than appease a spoiled child’s ego.

Kirk Out

 I first saw the news on Facebook that Charlie Kirk was shot while I was at my first baseball game of the year. My first thought was, "If this were one of ours, there's going to be hell to pay." And that thought was confirmed within minutes as the threats and promises of retaliation against Democrats, Liberals, and Trans people (aka "them/they") came flooding out. It was almost as if they already had this stuff in the chamber, ready for the first provocation. 

Now, for the obligatory disclaimer, I'm neither celebrating nor calling for anyone to be killed. No Democrats are, really, outside of the delusions of the Right Wing bubble. Although I'll admit that many will not be too broken up if a certain orange charlatan takes one too many bites of well-done steak, a chunk of cholesterol breaks off and lodges in a cardiac artery. But no one is actually condoning violence, except the usual suspects, including the recently deceased. 

South Park really had this guy down in their second episode of the season. One of the subplots involved Cartman fighting with another student, whom he accused of "stealing my schtick" of being aggressively anti-gay, anti-minority, anti-trans, pro-gun, etc. They showed Cartman going to campuses and "debating" college students, where he would basically dismiss everything they said, change the subject to one where he could spout off one of his familiar talking points (one for which the student was neither prepared nor interested), and then claim victory over another stupid college student. I understand the network has since pulled the episode from streaming. I'm sure it was the network. Matt and Trey never would have considered it.

I'm not celebrating, I'm just saying that the world is better off without a guy who says stuff like that. Every single point up there is abhorrent. But for the outrage and vitriol spewed forth online, you'd think someone dropped a log on Rush Limbaugh's grave.

I saw a lot of posts hurling accusations at "Them," like, "They killed Charlie Kirk, wait until we start killing them." Remember that at that time, no one knew who the killer was. All the death threats and impending violence were predicated on an assumption, and you know what happens when you make an assumption... "You make an ass out of you, and umption." (Per Samuel L Jackson in The Long Kiss Goodnight.) In fact, every MAGA post from the time of the shooting to the time they identified the suspect was WRONG. Wrong in facts, wrong in tone, and wrong in morality. It was as if they were all just waiting for the right cover to start taking people out, rolling out the military, and declaring martial law.

The Democrats I know and saw were saying things like, "Let's see what happens, let's wait until we have a suspect, let's not jump to conclusions." But things like "waiting" and "facts" aren't really in the MAGA arsenal.

Let's get this straight. This is a brief record of violence coming from the Right. 

Just try to think of a notorious violent act perpetrated by someone on the Left, for political reasons. And I mean real things, not like the usual Fox "News" allegations that the Clintons had people murdered and unsubstantiated garbage like that. I can't think of a single one. Modern political violence is solely the province of the radical Right and the MAGAs.

So, then we had a couple of days of FBI announcements that proved to be untrue, from having a suspect in custody (they didn't) to claims of anti-trans messaging on the shell casings (it wasn't). Law enforcement went from withholding all available information to eventually pleading for help from the locals. It wasn't until a nearby resident and his minister convinced his son to turn himself in that federal and local law enforcement had any degree of success. 

It turned out that this killer was just like so many of his predecessors: Male, white, straight, Christian, Conservative, gun enthusiasts. How very cliche. 

It turned out that this guy was a follower of Nick Fuentes (whose devotees are known as "groypers"), as evidenced by the groyper catch-phrases etched on some of the bullet casings. Groypers apparently had beef with Kirk followers after Kirk called for the Epstein files to be released. One can only conclude that this whole episode is inter-family MAGA on MAGA violence.

Many people thought this would calm the Right Wing fury raging through the nation, as evidenced by these memes:.. 

But that would be wrong... Because the Right never admits when they're wrong, nor do they accept blame for anything, ever, they began looking for angles to keep the blame on the Left. 

One angle was that by alleging that the killer's trans-female roommate, for some reason, radicalized him. The even funnier angle was blaming his one semester at a Utah state university, several years ago, for brainwashing him into a Radical Left activist. That's right... one semester, at a Utah university. Totally a hotbed of liberalism. It was either that or the trade school he's been attending since then. 

This is what it's come to: relying on their own cloistered echo-chamber to drum up believable lies for their followers to latch onto. This is one of the reasons why they spend so much time denigrating higher education: it makes a great instant scapegoat and requires no nuance or detail. Just blame college.

I think this, too, will eventually die down, and we'll go back to watching in horror as the current occupant destroys another sector of the country, the way his ICE-holes just did down in Georgia, costing them a multi-billion dollar factory. You have to hand it to him: he fucks with his own people just as badly as his opponents. 

He set up an apparatus where it only took one "concerned citizen" to report that there were a bunch of foreigners hanging around this building. No one bothered to research what was going on there, or they might have found that a team of South Koreans (our allies) was there to train Americans on battery production for a fabulous new business. But no, they just sent in the Gestapo to round up the ferners and treat them like war criminals. They were bound, bent over, humiliated, deprived of daylight, let alone liberty, all without due (or any) process. And then the asshole wants to be surprised when they refuse to come back.

Jesus H. Christ, these people are idiots. I'm starting to think that the best thing that can happen is that the government does get shut down at the end of the month. At least that might limit the damage they're doing to the country.

Headline Newz

As one of the dozen or so people who still get a daily paper, I usually scan through the stories at lunchtime, on my way to the crossword puzzles, with an eye out for blogging opportunities, which I capture with my iPhone camera. There’s always something to latch onto, especially with my paper’s new ownership, namely the guy who owns Republican media mouthpiece Sinclair Broadcasting. They never fail to take the Republican side, not only on the editorial page, but throughout what’s supposed to be the straight news.

Very few of the stories are written by in-house staff. Most are farmed out to Sinclair and Fox News outlets. Like this one, from “The National Desk,” which is what Sinclair calls its national 10:00 PM news.

In a nutshell, this story gives credence to the Attorney General from Mississippi, who is complaining that AI is biased against conservatives. He goes on to blame fact-checking.

I can see where he’s got beef. When it functions properly, AI should deliver conclusions based on facts at hand. When these facts run contrary to Republican talking points, they must be “biased,” right? That’s how it works in the Republican media bubble. If the facts go against their dogma, the facts must be wrong. They’ve been believing their own bullshit for so long, it’s become second nature.

Pointing out what’s true and what’s false is not a matter of bias, but proof. And no proof will knock the scales from the eyes of these MAGA idiots.

Two weeks ago, there was a staff-written article about the Nation’s AG blaming lower courts for holding up too many of the president’s orders.

This could have easily been headlined, “President refuses to issue Constitutional orders.” Still, the paper takes the view that all those findings against the clearly unconstitutional executive orders coming from the White House are all a big conspiracy, rather than judges literally doing the jobs they are required to do.

It’s also rich that Republicans have used this very same machine to derail anything Biden or Obama tried to do, by filing lawsuits with judges known to be down with the Republican cause. See, when they do it, it’s fine. When it works against them, it’s a vast conspiracy.

Oh, and if you “have a tip” that makes Democrats look bad, be sure to hit up this writer, because they apparently can’t find enough news to report on their own, once they turn all the local Fox News stories into transcripts.

A couple of days before that last joke, they ran this one:

And this one is from the AP, so it’s presented fairly straight, as they quote someone labeling this attempt to re-categorize natural gas as green energy, as “green-washing.” This is just more Republican sophistry. The gas coming from the Louisiana swamps is cleaner than the hot air from those hyping this ploy.

Republicans are trying to repeat what they did when they created “clean coal,” something that never existed. They just changed what they called it and pretended they were actually doing something about climate change. Republicans understand that so many people never get into the weeds with details. They just skim the headlines and absorb the impressions contained therein. So it doesn’t matter if it’s really green or not; a lot of people will believe it is, which means Republicans have something other than an empty cupboard when their constituents want to know what they’re doing about the obvious weather volatility we’re experiencing.

“Hey, don’t blame us, we’re all-in on green natural gas. But the Democrats want you to give up your cars and ovens!”

Lastly, we have another AP article about one of the last remaining Republican wet dreams, getting rid of all limits on buying politicians political donations. 

As if Citizens United wasn’t bad enough, and to demonstrate how the rich are never satisfied with the billions they already have, now they want to remove all remaining barriers to literally buying federal policy that caters to them. Given how they’ve already ruined government, I have no doubt the Roberts Court will continue ransacking the government until we inevitably start putting the billionaires' pictures on our money.

DOGE Dividend? Don't Hold Your Breath

Talk about an idea that will never go anywhere…

Last week there was an article in the paper exploring the proposition that the big dividend that the DOGE cuts are supposed to provide be refunded to the taxpayers.

As soon as I saw the headline, I knew this was a non-starter. Republicans are not taking a buzzsaw to government agencies so that they can give the savings back to us…

Aside from eliminating federal regulations that might cost their companies money, they want these cuts to provide a bigger pile of money the one-percenters can divide among themselves. I’m sure they’ll figure out just how high of an increase to the deficit that they can stomach and still siphon the “found money” back to themselves by way of sweetheart contracts, shady deals, and tax cuts. There is a zero percent chance that the average citizen is going to see a dime of this largesse. Those were my thoughts before I even read the article.

Then, I found the “but” right near the end. They quoted a guy from the Heritage Foundation as saying, “I love what DOGE is doing, but this is a bad idea. There’s no need to send dividend checks. The dividend we get from slashing spending is that it brings inflation into check.”

In other words, “Don’t worry your pretty heads about it. I’ll tell you what you need, let’s not get into such unpleasant topics like “money. Just forget about it and we’ll tell you when everything is better.”

So, the original thrust of this article is that fElon was going to check with TFG. A couple days later, I saw this article:

So, fElon said he’d check with the boss and the boss OK’d it. So when are we getting our checks? Not so fast. For the prevailing conservative opinion, Sinclair National Desk (read: in bed with the GOP) quotes Blake “Brick Suit” Marnell, a MAGAt who attends rallies dressed up like the prospective Southern Wall, as saying: “Personally, I’m not in favor of this unless the yearly budget is balanced.” Use all the DOGE-generated savings to lower the yearly budget deficit first. Once the deficit is eliminated, we can talk about dividends.”

In other words: “No screen time until you finish your chores. Also, you will never finish your chores because I’ll keep adding more.” They are never going to “balance the budget.” Republicans will fight to eliminate “waste,” as defined by “services that help the average citizen,” but fight just as hard to avoid the tax hikes it would realistically take to balance the books. Not to mention giving up the tax cuts that will push the deficit higher.

No, this is a smoke-and-mirrors issue that will never come to fruition. They want the notion out there to make low-information voters think they’ll be getting some free dough. And when they don’t, they’ll find a way to blame the Democrats. Business as usual.

In other news, TFG remains busy trying to euthanize all the watchdogs.

Is should go without saying that if you seek control over independent investigators, they cease to be independent. That’s exactly what he wants. Any office that can throw a wrench into his government-destroying plans, he’s neutering by installing his own toadies who will be loyal to him, rather than the country or Constitution.

He’s also firing military Inspectors General (or JAGs), the armed service attorneys who would likely take legal action to prevent the president from unconstitutionally using the military. With them gone, and a new legion of loyalist paper Generals, he can use the Army against American citizens on American soil.

No one removes legal checks on power if they don’t have plans that require such checks.

Watch this going forward. He is not doing this just for shits and giggles.

It’s the same with the post office. He plans to abolish its independence and assume control. I’m sure there are reasons for that, too. The first one I came up with is that he bans them from delivering mailed ballots. Or, even more sinister, he keeps the status quo but covertly dumps mailed ballots from Democratic districts.

There is not a single thing this guy, nor the rest of the Republicans are doing that helps a single citizen (making less than $500k). The sad thing is that they’re not even hiding it anymore and their supporters couldn’t care less.

Remember how they called Obama “The Imperial President,” for all the executive orders he issued? (Less than Bush II, but who’s counting?) Funny how you don’t hear a peep out of them while their guy is destroying the government, our standard of living, and our safety net, one executive order at a time.

 (All articles are from my home delivery of the Baltimore Sun.)

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!

Final Arguments

Early voting is going strong, and we’re only eight days from Election Day (as of this writing), so we’re down to the nitty-gritty. Several weeks ago, I voted via drop-off box and have been notified that my vote has been counted. That’s how it works in a state where they want everyone to vote.

If you’re reading this now, you’re probably not in need of persuasion to vote a straight blue ticket, but it will make me feel better if I can provide some hardcore truths about this race. Maybe it will help if you convince someone you know who is undecided and uninformed.

·         TFG is a hypocrite who criticizes his opponents for things he does himself all the time.

·    The Republican candidate lies like it’s his job. They reported that he unleashed over 30,000 lies during his administration and probably 30,000 more in the following years. Some of them cost people their lives, during the COVID crisis and January 6th. Others are just his way of doing business.

·       TFG and his people have unleashed the most terrifying plan for the country since it began, one that will lead to the disenfranchisement of millions, separation of families, consolidation of power and capital under a small cluster of rich white men, and the effective end of the republic, and the plan is called Project 2025.

·       The orange phony is the least intelligent, least qualified, least curious person to ever seek or hold this office. It’s rich that he and his people call his opponent stupid. Listen to each of them speak for a minute or so and it’s clear who is smart and who is an ass-clown with the 4^th-grade vocabulary. Forty out of forty-four of his own former cabinet members plus his Vice President think he’s unqualified for the job and a danger to the country and have said so in public. That is unheard of in modern politics.

·       He intends to empower those who would devalue and enslave women, treating them as breeding property rather than sentient, self-determining beings, under the myth that they are preserving “life.” They preach “small government,” but their idea of government reaches into your bedroom and even your uterus. His people (and judges) are also coming for birth control, same-sex marriage, and possibly women’s suffrage.

·       Dolt 45 has no plan to bring down inflation. His two plans of action, levying wide tariffs and deporting immigrants would cause prices to soar. VP Harris supports a plan to fight price gouging and he and the rest of the Republicans went crazy fighting it, as they do any plan that helps average Americans. Big-moneyed Republican donors want high prices and low wages. That’s the best-case scenario for “them,” and not “us.”

·       TFG and his enablers are already planning on how to steal the election. He will claim victory on Election Night and set loose an army of lawyers and hooligans to intimidate election workers and state government officials. They’re not even trying to hide it anymore. Maryland’s lone GOP US Representative thinks they should award TFG some North Carolina Electoral College votes before the election because a hurricane might have made it hard for his supporters to vote.

·       He is in bed with the worst kind of people, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, racists, sexists, and many other “ists.” These are people interested in keeping governmental (and monetary control with wealthy, white, (pseudo)Christian, males. The racism isn’t even hidden anymore. Did you see his show at MSG? The racism was the marquee event.

·       TFG desperately wants the Religious Right’s votes but doesn’t give a fig about what they stand for. And now, neither do they. Republicans have managed to turn people who worship a man who preached about accepting foreigners, not throwing stones, giving money to the poor, and not judging, into supporting a party that practices the antithesis of every one of those points.

·       I would vote for a brick before this guy because a brick would do less damage to the nation. Luckily we can vote for a highly qualified, smart, tough, empathetic woman instead. She makes lucid points, speaks in complete sentences, has tangible plans for the country which are easy to locate, and that’s a very low bar that the other guy can’t even think of getting under. In any rational culture, she’d be polling at 90%. If you’re rich, racist, sexist, homophobic, evangelical, or nationalist, vote Republican. If not, there’s only one sane alternative.

Director’s DVD commentary: These are only the first points off the top of my head. There are dozens of other reasons why he shouldn’t be president, like sexual harassment and rape charges/convictions, hush money, business fraud, being a Russian operative/stooge, leaking security secrets, blackmailing other countries for personal gain, violating the Emoluments Clause, raking in taxpayer dollars by staying at his own properties and charging the government for his staff and security detail to stay there, and… well, it never ends. But this post has to.

What Liberal Media?

That’s the old conservative fallback, right? Blame everything negative you hear about Republicans on the “liberal media.”

The thing is, the “liberal media” doesn’t exist, if it ever really did in the first place.

Once upon a time, broadcast media tried to be fair. The Fairness Doctrine required that for every news bit that slanted one way, (or featured sources from one side) there had to be an opposing view to balance it out. For the most part, the national news outlets tried to play it down the middle… report on what happened without taking sides.

The Fairness Doctrine applied because these private networks were using public airways, so they not only had to be fair but they had to devote a certain amount of hours to public interest issues (which were usually buried on weekend mornings, (before cartoons came on, even) or the middle of the night.

News shows weren’t broadcast for ratings; they were like loss leaders*. They were required to produce these news shows so they didn’t let ratings drive the show’s direction.

*Loss leader is a retail term meaning an item a store puts on sale and doesn’t worry if they don’t make money on it, or even lose money, the point is to bring people in the door and sell them something else.

Watergate seemed to change that and every time there was bad news about the Republican scandal, Republican operatives blamed the “liberal media.” It became an easy excuse.

The Reagan Administration eventually got rid of the Fairness Doctrine, which gave rise to Fox “News” and started the slow march to the shop-by-brand version of news we have now.

TV news and newspapers dwelled on the juicy Clinton hearings, lingered over every tawdry detail, and hounded him until he was out of office. But when certain outlets questioned the wisdom of the Iraq War, suddenly they were the “liberal media” again. The same applied any time the media didn’t get in bed with the latest GOP illusionary scandal, like the Birther thing or the Tan Suit incident, et al. I clearly remember Republicans denigrating the “liberal media” for ignoring these “vital” stories.

Over time, media ownership has consolidated into a mere several major players, and each one is part of a vast conglomeration. Are they still out there working hard for the common man? Hell no. They have their own goals now, which always boil down to “mo money, mo power” for themselves. What we now have are conservative media outlets masquerading in liberal sheep’s clothing. NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, and all the Big Three networks, are owned or operated by Republican-leaning overseers.

If I had a subscription, I’d cancel it too, or at least register my condemnation.

In 2024 the “liberal media” is an illusion; nothing more than a quick cover conservatives slap on the occasional bad news story that can’t be ignored. (Despite the craters full of legitimate bad news stories that are completely ignored.) News is no longer about “truth,” or “benefitting society.” It’s about circulation and ad sales in print media and eyeballs in broadcast media. The stories are only tools to get you to pay attention.

I’m seeing it all play out in real time, here in Baltimore, after the sale of the once-respected Baltimore Sun to the owner of Sinclair Media. His stated goal is to make it like the local Fox News channel (that he also runs.) While stories still appear addressing both sides of the aisle, there is a pronounced bias toward conservative-driven storylines.  Take a look at this page from yesterday’s Sun:

This is the spot where the national news goes. Notice how all three stories benefit Republicans:

·         Dems call for Biden to step down

·         Negative analysis of Biden’s ABC interview

·         Trump wins another delay in his documents trial.

Do you know what you don’t see? Anything about Project 2025 or the new corollary, Agenda 47.

Some of these may merely be “stated goals” and not necessarily part of the original document.

Nor do you see any analysis of the garbage that spews forth from TFG during any of his campaign appearances.

I don’t mind calling out my guys on their problems, but when you ignore the other side’s foibles, you are no longer a news outlet, but a shill, a cheap shill hiding a no-pants wizard behind a curtain.

There should be daily updates on Project 2025. After all, it’s only the end of our democratic system of government. SCOTUS already took us halfway there with the advent of the imperial president. Maybe they already know the fix is in on this election and they are trying to avoid being in the crosshairs when TFG starts looking for heretics to prosecute.

The November election is our first “last chance” to stave off government by oligarchy, for the rich, by the rich. If we’re ever going to get a fair shake, we have to start shaking now, no matter who is running against TFG. The last 50 years of progress are about to be flushed down the crapper in favor of a White Christian Male ruling class. (And I’m a White Heathen Male and I’m more Christian in practice than any of these bloodless fuckers.)

We need to get our shit together, stop clutching our pearls over Joe Biden, and unite against the common opponent. Several very good outlets have already demonstrated that trying to come up with a replacement in this time frame is a no-win proposition on logistics alone. It would take from now until November just to settle on a name. And if that name isn’t Kamala, start funding the campaign from scratch.

Our literal futures rest on this next election. Social Security, Medicare, the EPA, Dept. of Education, Reproductive Freedom, contraception, and so much more, it’s all on the line. The rich and the religious wingnuts want all that gone.

And we’re quibbling about someone older and slower than he used to be? Old Joe got more done than any president with a split Congress should have been able to. And he’s old right now and things are running fine (more or less.)

We need to focus on what’s truly important and stop watching the sideshow being peddled by the “liberal media.”