Press Poodles Clutching Pearls

The US Constitution works on the honor system.

Trump is exactly the guy Madison and Hamilton worried out - the unscrupulous jerk who would use the founding documents as a guide to subvert them, and to warp government structure to serve his own ends - to make his own law.

A slug like Trump lives in SmarmSpace© (where loopholes are found, or manufactured).

He simply doesn't care about honor, or the rule of law, or right-n-wrong.

Unfortunately, there are about 275 people in Congress who are willing to go along with all this shit - because they're either cowardly phonies, or active participants in the project to tear down our traditions of democratic self-governance in order to replace it with a corporate-style plutocracy.

It's not a bad thing for media to keep these things in public view, but instead of the usual 10 minutes of exasperation, we need an acknowledgement of the fact that these assholes are actively working to kill democracy, and we need to know how we go about beating them - including civil disobedience.

A Little History

Not a lot. Just a bit. It's a start.

And we have to start, and we have to keep going - cuz there's bunches of people who need bunches of people not to know any of this.

Oy

Cheese, baby girl. It's for the cheese.

White

American

Cheese

On your cheeseburger

It seems more and more obvious that we're not gonna make it.

Marginal Utility

• If you're making $60K, and you get shorted $1000, you notice that, and it hurts - it matters.
• If you're making $600K, and you get shorted $1000, it's no big deal at all - it really isn't.
• If you're making $60M, and you get shorted $1000, you don't even know it's missing.

They're Coming For It

Call your Congress Critter

202-224-3121

Today's Amy

We're in the eye of the storm, and it's about to get really bad - no matter what Trump decides to do.

I get the feeling that in a few weeks, Trump will be ordering government departments that don't exist to mount a massive effort to implement policies he vaguely remembers seeing in a cartoon movie 65 years ago.

Won't nobody be surprised if he calls a press conference and just keeps repeating something like, "Brawndo's got what the economy craves! Brawndo's got electrolytes!"

Today's Rich

Hard truth. 

And it goes for "strategic lefties" too. Youse guys who decided 2024 was another good opportunity to express your dumbass purist opinion about NeoLibs or whatever the fuck you thought were your own ideas, when at least some of it was really just more divisive Bot Bullshit.

Voting against Kamala because you don't like the Israel vs Gaza thing is like rejecting your favorite sausage, black olive, and mushroom pizza because there's one small bit of pepperoni on the outside crust of one piece of a 30-piece pizza.

And now that Trump has told Bibi to "finish it", and Bibi is moving in to wipe out the Palestinians altogether - how's that workin' out for ya?

Ya got suckered - same as the MAGA rubes got suckered.

All y'all gotta get your heads outa your asses.

Today's Belle

This just in: Trump is lying about Tren de Aragua. (I know - comes as quite a shock)

We've Done It Before

So let's do it again. 

And let's keep doing it until we don't have to do it anymore.

10 Things

1. Know stuff
2. Tell people about the stuff you know
3. Run for something
4. Volunteer to help somebody who's running for something
5. Join or actively support pro-democracy groups
6. Become a poll Watcher or a Poll Worker
7. Call / write / visit elected officials
8. Show up and vote every chance you get
9. Stay at it
10. Support independent media

Today's Dr Richardson

It's the corruption, stupid.

Also:

• DOGE hasn't saved us any money - in fact, it's cost us more
• Crypto is
• a scam perpetrated on regular people
• a money laundering scheme
• a way to bribe Trump

Gimme Re-Write

Overheard

Color me unsurprised.

When will it be enough?

The Trump State Department

tried to sneak $400M to Tesla.

They got caught.

Then, according to

Congressman Greg Casar,

they lied about it.

Reform, my dyin' ass -

that's straight up

bald-faced corruption.

D.A.R.V.O.

Brace For Impact

There's this thing they teach in Econ 101 (and any given Marketing Seminar) called elasticity.

Trump's tariffs are in effect, and the last un-tariffed cargo ship we're expecting from China sailed a week or two ago.

It takes 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 weeks for the goods to sail o'er the bounding main, and then another week or more to get the stuff from the ports to the local Walmart.

So we can expect interruptions and delays and shortages and higher prices beginning in a month or so.

But one other thing about elasticity: even if Trump manages to get his head out of his ass long enough to think up some bullshit story about how he won The Great Patriotic Trade War, shit doesn't just suddenly get put right, and we're back to normal overnight.

First, other countries in the world - some we call "friend" - have been itchin' for a chance to fuck us over for a very long time. New trade deals that exclude the US are being worked out right now, and there's more than a fair probability that the rest of the world takes this opportunity to hedge their bets and not "get back to normal" - not when the US can so easily become unreliable.

Second, Capitalism leans pretty heavily on the notion of "scarcity" to keep their prices high in order to maximize shareholder value. There's a whole big bunch of companies creaming their jeans over the prospect of milking this problem for every nickel they can squeeze out of it, and plenty of them will never go "back to normal" because they're learning that lots of us will just sit here and take it. So don't expect prices to go back down once this shit is over - because they're going to find a way to keep us hangin' for as long as they can.

Today's IG

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Building The Permission Structure

• 70% of us prefer diversity in religion and ethnicity
• 80% of us say the "melting pot" is a good thing (including 73% of Republicans)

MAGA is not the majority.

And It Might Be Legal

Trump is the King of SmarmSpace.

Today's Rich

Both sides don't yell the n-word at an autistic black kid in a public park.

Both sides don't then donate $700K to the dipshit woman who yelled that word at that kid.

Both sides don't cozy up with racist Nazi assholes.

Watchful

We have to be more than allies. We have to be willing to put ourselves between marginalized people and the dangers they're being subjected to because of this fucked up regime.