States finally try to block broadcasting merger

It's only taken 30 years for them to figure this out.

When the far-right Telecommunications Act of 1996 lifted ownership caps for TV and radio stations - which stifled dissent and killed jobs - it should have been swatted down right away by the FCC and antitrust regulators. Now Nexstar Media Group and Tegna, Inc. are proposing a $6 billion merger that would become the biggest owner of TV stations in the country. Both Tegna and Nexstar already own multiple stations in some cities - which wasn't allowed before 1996.

Now a group of 8 states - but only 8 - is suing to block the merger under antitrust laws. The states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, and Virginia. Many states that have Nexstar or Tegna stations are glaringly absent from that list.

The merger as proposed would even violate the lax ownership caps that exist now. It would give the new company stations covering 80% of the American population.

Antitrust enforcement. Let's bring it back!

Fox News uses old footage for racist story

Fox News has just been caught with its Underoos down around its ankles - again.

The channel posted a blurb on Twitter complaining about youths supposedly stampeding into a Washington, D.C., neighborhood and scaring all the gentrified yuppies there (who got tax breaks from the city to displace previous residents).

It turns out the clip they provided wasn't new footage at all. It was from an older incident, and they reused the footage to dramatize the story.

The FCC gives broadcasting licenses to outlets that distort news like this, and cable companies refuse to carry channels that offer a counterbalance. Fox News is the most infamous offender, but all the major so-called news channels on cable and all the major commercial networks practice similar distortion.

A person bubbled at Kroger (imagine that!)

Today at Kroger, some man bubbled.

Let's cut the crap about sewage backups

The national media is finally catching on to something I learned about the hard way almost 30 years ago.

After a sewer pipe dumped raw sewage into the Potomac River in January, other reports have emerged of raw sewage backing up into people's homes through bathroom drains and the like. This happened to me in 1997 because there were no limits on development, which strained local sewer systems and forced sewage up through the shower drain. It happened in other local neighborhoods later, especially along 19th Street in Covington, because there were no limits on luxury developments in nearby communities.

In all cases, the poorest residents bore the brunt of luxury development.

Now folks all over the country say the same is happening to them. People in Cahokia Heights, Illinois, said raw sewage backed up through their toilets and bathtubs. A settlement was reached with the city about it, but then the federal government tried to cancel the settlement, saying it was an unlawful DEI program. Residents of Lowndes County, Mississippi, suffered from hookworms because of sewage backups. And people in Baltimore have repeatedly found piles of feces backing up through their drains. It gets worse every time it rains or someone in the city flushes their toilet.

One Baltimore resident found strands of used toilet paper in his yard because of a sewage backup. He also had to replace his whole bathroom floor. For 20 years, the city has had a consent decree with government regulators to fix the problems, but the city now wants to extend the deadline another 20 years.

Perhaps the developers should be required to live in a dwelling where sewage backs up like this. The same goes for federal officials who try to cancel settlements stemming from these backups.

VA tries using AI to steal from wounded vets

Nothing good is coming from the artificial intelligence boom (other than a few funny pictures of Ronald Reagan or fictional stories about Harry Styles farting). People are paying higher utility bills, losing their jobs, and having their family farms confiscated just so AI can be used against them.

Now the Department of Veterans Affairs wants to use AI to scan millions of disability claims by wounded military veterans for "signs" of "fraud", and use these AI-generated suspicions to make them take a new medical exam and relitigate their claim. Some of these claims date back over 15 years. Any veteran who is currently receiving benefits and is flagged by AI will have to take a whole new exam and resubmit their claim from scratch.

Whoever is behind this plan isn't very patriotic. If they don't appreciate the sacrifices made by our fighting men and women, they should leave the country and move somewhere like China. Only fools who live in the past would relitigate 15-year-old disability claims like this.

The Social Security disability system has been gutted almost as badly. Recently, the Social Security Administration boasted that the agency significantly reduced the backlog in disability claims. But it turns out that this was probably accounted for almost entirely by rejecting claims, as the already-low rate of approval dropped by several percentage points during that timeframe. Plus, according to a leading disability attorney, the goal of the SSA is to start using AI to review every active disability case every single year.

Meanwhile, the VA is openly opposing a bill that would require the agency to notify veterans if they're targeted by the new AI effort and stop their benefits from being cut off unless a court convicts them of fraud.

Why are wounded vets being targeted now? Much of it appears to be because the Washington Post ran a piece accusing disabled vets of "swamping" the VA with fraudulent claims. There was no basis whatsoever for the accusation, and the article was full of debunked anecdotes. The piece also made light of veterans suffering from hemorrhoids and likened a very painful skin condition to mere acne. The Economist ran a similar screed attacking American war vets and assailed veterans' benefits for growing the national debt. How about not having so many wars? Wars grow the national debt more than anything else does. At the same time, the media is staunchly pro-war: The Washington Post recently said that opposition to the illegal war in Iran is anti-Semitic. The press is pro-war but anti-vet.

America languishes under a hostile punditocracy and bureaucracy that lives in the past and acts with malign intent.

Bip! Bop! Poop! Cincinnati! 21 new photos!

On Friday, I launched a Roads Scholaring on the east side of Cincinnati, and it excreted 21 new photos!

There's some stuff from Newtown, Plainville, and other outposts of biperoony, and it'll make your face spin.

So point your pooper here...

http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/cin260306.html

Send in the celebrity look-alikes...There ought to be celebrity look-alikes...

Today, I went Roads Scholaring around Newtown and Lunken Airport. On the way home, I saw a Judy Collins look-alike on the Purple People Bridge.

I had another funny dream

Last night, I had a funny dream where I found the men's restroom of a local restaurant completely trashed. I think it was New China Buffet, but it might have been Cancun or Golden Corral. I noticed that someone pooped on the floor, and some kid extracted an unidentified item out of a urinal and said he was taking it for "research purposes."

Have no fear, the March ish is here!

March into March with the latest issue of The Last Word!

This ish talks about my failed attempt to see my FBI file, Spectrum's hang-up phone calls, the amazing feces-detecting drone, how the Nazis inspired Social Security cuts, and more!

So point your pooper here...

https://www.scribd.com/document/1004561897/The-Last-Word-3-2026

If that doesn't work, scoot on over here...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw2603.pdf

Supreme Court rules you can't sue Postal Service

The U.S. Supreme Court just keeps getting weirder and weirder! Their strange reasoning of recent years even applies to issues we don't even think about that much - such as suing the Postal Service.

Yesterday, the court ruled that you can't sue the Postal Service even when it intentionally refuses to deliver mail. This ruling stemmed from a Texas case in which a woman alleged that her local post office was practicing racial discrimination by refusing to deliver her mail. Tenants in a property she owned missed important mail as a result, and some even moved out because they weren't getting their mail.

A federal law already inexplicably shielded the Postal Service from lawsuits when they accidentally lose or ruin mail - which happens a lot, as anyone who reads online message forums for collectors knows. Now - even more inexplicably - the court has unilaterally expanded this protection to "the intentional nondelivery of mail."

If the Postal Service can deliberately withhold mail, then where's the accountability? How are people supposed to get their missing mail? Now the Postal Service can just stick out their tongue, put their fingers in their ears, and say, "Reindeer motion, reindeer motion, nyeh!" There's no longer any remedy for losing mail on purpose.

March for Billionaires draws fives of people

On Saturday, there was a pro-billionaire march in San Francisco that drew a few five people.

Seriously, the March for Billionaires - yes, it actually was called that - had more reporters than participants. Even the San Francisco Chronicle counted only about 3 dozen marchers, and other sources say there were no more than 12.

Why was there an event like this in the first place? The entire point of it was to protest against a proposed referendum in California that would impose a onetime tax on billionaires. Marchers weren't deterred by the laughably low turnout and spouted typical right-wing bullshit when asked about their stance by reporters.

Organizers on Bluesky whined about how rough life is for billionaires. The event's page boo-hooed, "Billionaires get a bad rap. But most of them make our lives much better." The march featured a huge banner that said, "Billionaires build prosperity. Keep them in California!" Another sign said, "Billionaires build the future."

About the only person listening to these clowns is Gavin Newsom. Newsom says that if voters approve the referendum to enact a tax on billionaires, he will ignore the result and veto it.

Have no fear, the February ish is here!

Have no fear and drink some beer! The February issue of The Last Word is here!

This ish talks about the backlash against Flock's spy cameras, toy cars getting ruined, soiled floors at Goodwill, ridiculous old books about the metric system, more right-wing paid trolls, lap desks, priceless videotapes being taped over, the decline of air travel, and more!

So point your pooper here...

https://www.scribd.com/document/989561972/The-Last-Word-2-2026

If that doesn't work, bip on over here...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw2602.pdf

Another weird bill in Kentucky

A lot of bad bills are being introduced in Kentucky right now - as they always are - but this is among the strangest.

It's hard to follow, but it certainly doesn't look good. In Kentucky, you can already be involuntarily committed just for looking at someone funny, and it appears as if this bill would make it even worse.

Under this bill, if a person is "found by a qualified mental health professional to not meet the criteria for involuntary hospitalization", guess what? They "shall be admitted" to a psychiatric facility anyway. They would continue to be held if a court "reasonably believes" that "probable cause would be found" to hold them.

"Would be found"? So they want to detain people based solely on speculation?

It would also allow you to be institutionalized for up to 360 days.

And, if a facility discharges someone early, a court may review that action.

This bill would also create a new section of law that says that if a court decides that a person isn't eligible to be involuntarily committed, they can still be committed if they don't comply with their "treatment" plan.

One of the aims of the bill is to bring about "a lessening of irrational thoughts." I swear I am not making this up.

Of course, this bill is unconstitutional - and it's not even close. Which of course makes it more likely to pass.

New Jersey requires license and insurance for bikes

The outright war on bicyclists is expanding - under Plastic Surgery Phil.

New Jersey just became the first state in the union to require a license, registration, and insurance just to operate an electric bicycle. This bill was signed into law by the disastrous Gov. Phil Murphy on his last day in office. It applies to every class of electric bike, not just those with higher speeds and power. It imposes an age limit too.

The new law even bans all online electric bike sales for the next year. And it bans selling kits to modify low-speed electric bikes for higher speeds.

One reason why bikes should not be regulated as cars is that they're not cars. It's a simple concept really. Many states have long had stricter rules for more powerful electric bikes, but those are close to moped or motorcycle level. The standard electric bikes being restricted in New Jersey are not. They only differ from regular bikes in that the pedals may be assisted by an electric motor.

National and statewide bicycling and pedestrian organizations opposed the bill. Some noted that it would harm low-income residents the most. But of course, that was the point. It always is. The new law also runs afoul of meeting goals to fight climate change.

In fact, the requirements for even low-speed electric bikes in New Jersey are now far stricter than they were for cars in most of the country 50 years ago.

It's also been noted that New Jersey's new law violates a federal law that defines low-speed electric bikes as consumer products, not motor vehicles. And it violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Others have pointed out that the new law is unconstitutional (as if that stops new laws these days). The law is also backed by the auto industry.

In an era in which states and cities seem to be competing in earnest to see which can be the most bike-unfriendly, I think we finally have an undisputed "winner", and it's New Jersey.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a neighborly day for a neighbor, as I now have 220 photos from September's Pennsylvania trip processed!

All sorts of neet poo goes on up there! There's a state park with the ruins of a railroad bridge, a Mister Rogers statue, and a whole lotta roads!

So point your pooper here...

http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/pa25.html