You may know that back in May, I went on a family trip to St. Augustine!
That event yielded 168 photos for my Roads Scholaring collection, and you're gonna read 'em and peep...
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/sa24a.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/sa24b.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/sa24c.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/sa24d.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/sa24e.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/sa24f.html
http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/sa24g.html
There are 2 issues that are so important that I've begun to base my vote almost entirely on them. One issue is Social Security. The other is accountability for the atrocities during COVID lockdowns. At this point, I care far less about a candidate's stances on other issues. One issue that comes close is gentrification, but that comes up at the local level a lot more than in national politics.
These issues come up in conversation, but a few naysayers keep asking why I still want accountability for events from 3 or 4 years ago. For one thing, COVID mandates haven't completely ended. For another, saying I should let it slide would be like if your Social Security is cut and you don't try to get it back.
But there's a more important question I've never once gotten an answer for. Why should we have had such severe mandates at any time since 2020, considering we got along fine without them before?
Gotcha on that!
Why aren't we using the same standards to define child abuse now as we did before 2020? The standards began backsliding in 2020, making the world more dangerous for children.
Do you really think there'd be as much support for COVID mandates as there was if the media hadn't egged it on? Be honest. Gotcha on that too!
How many stay-at-home orders were ever enacted to fight disease outbreaks before 2020? Other than among medical workers performing surgery or dentistry, how many mask mandates were there before 2020? How many amusement parks and schools demanded people wear masks before 2020? How many medical offices demanded masks on patients? Wouldn't a daycare be charged with child abuse if they put a mask on a 2-year-old before 2020? If I was a prosecutor, and if this happened in my county, I would prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.
You don't put masks on 2-year-olds. Ever!
When were schools ever shut down for a whole year or two over a disease outbreak before 2020? I can understand closing schools for a few days, and once in a great while - a long, long, long while - that used to happen. But 2 years?
Why should we have permanent mandates now, when we never had them before 2020? Gotcha on that too! Imagine that!
Getting coherent answers would rule.
This is very rare, but we have to correct something we posted yesterday.
It appears as if the U.S. Senate election in Maryland actually has more than 2 candidates. Ballotpedia says that in addition to the living disasters in the Republican and Democratic parties, there's also a Green, a Libertarian, and an independent. We were unaware of this, because of a post in another forum.
Thank heavens Marylanders may have a choice, but don't expect the media to let any of these other 3 candidates win.
In March, we told you about Susan Zhuang, a right-wing Democrat on New York City Council. She abused city e-mail accounts to raise funds for a nonprofit tied to the Chinese Communist Party, and she also organized a far-right rally against a proposed homeless shelter.
Zhuang was at another such protest today. And she was arrested for biting a police patrol chief. She faces numerous charges including felony assault, resisting arrest, and obstruction of governmental administration. Zhuang was among 9 people arrested for their conduct at the event.
Another day in the life of a right-wing uniparty acolyte.
I used to think the Republicans would never be outdone in their horridness, but the Democrats lately have degenerated into a strange, unrecognizable glop.
Let's take a look at the disaster unfolding in Maryland. The U.S. Senate race there has only 2 major candidates: Republican former Gov. Larry Hogan and Democratic Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. Hogan is no genius, but Alsobrooks is just an absolute idiot.
When Alsobrooks won her primary, the media held her up as some great progressive champion. That's far from the truth. This is a "progressive" who, in her 2018 campaign for county executive, accepted hefty donations from real estate developers to influence her stances. Her current Senate race is funded largely by wealthy developers in the Washington, D.C., area.
A Maryland law said politicians could not accept contributions from developers with projects pending in their county. Seems pretty fair, doesn't it? But Alsobrooks claimed this law was racist.
How?????
This is how the Democrats try to win votes these days. Instead of real progressive policy proposals, they adopt right-wing stances and attack real progressive legislation as racist. They've become a right-wing party that operates in a universe that's perfectly congruent to the existing right-wing party, yet nominally outside of it.
I firmly believe the Republican voter suppression bills so common a few years ago were racist. Much of what the GOP said and did at the time was. But campaign finance laws are not racist.
Maryland Democrats are so corrupt that they passed new laws not long ago that gutted these campaign laws.
During the 2020 election, Alsobrooks demanded that the county's 229 polling places be collapsed into only 15. Hogan clearly had the better stance regarding this, as he pointed out that this would violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Alsobrooks responded to this criticism by accusing Hogan of not locking down hard enough to fight COVID-19.
Thus it's no surprise that Prince George's County under Alsobrooks had one of the worst COVID records of any county in America. You can probably count on one hand the number of counties that were worse. As late as November 2020, she issued new capacity limits and other restrictions that were much stricter than state rules. She announced she would send "compliance teams" to break up private and public gatherings and close down businesses that tolerated such events.
If you support such extreme measures, you're not a progressive, but a right-wing authoritarian. Period.
The long and short of it is that the Democratic "leadership" has become a right-wing body that falsely accuses people of racism for daring to criticize them. Modern examples go back at least as far as 2016, when Hillary Clinton claimed Bernie Sanders's plan to break up big banks was racist, but this series of statements really didn't guide the party until 2020. It's actually a big change in a very short time.
It's a shame politics doesn't work like sports. When the Cincinnati Bengals were at their nadir, there was serious talk of suing the team on behalf of taxpayers who were forced to fund their stadium. This was on the grounds that the Bengals were failing to field a competitive team. It would be nice to be able to sue the Democrats in the same manner, as they've refused to field a competitive party. It's not just Maryland. The Democrats refused to even run a candidate in our local congressional district - telling Democratic voters to vote in the Republican primary instead, which is impossible because Kentucky is a closed primary state. Some Democratic insiders have told reporters off the record that the party has even conceded the presidential race to Donald Trump.
We don't have a two-party system - even in contests that are supposedly competitive. The major parties have mostly the same policy stances and differ very little other than in the way they use racism.
My latest Substack entry describes a brand new COVID mask mandate that just cropped up:
https://open.substack.com/pub/bandit73/p/another-new-mask-mandate-imagine
My latest Substack entry is about the stupidity of masks in schools continuing in the 2021-22 school year, and the lawbreaking of schools imposing mandates in states where it was not allowed:
https://open.substack.com/pub/bandit73/p/another-broken-promise-another-year
The July ish of The Last Word is pub-a-roo!
This installment talks about yet more ruined vacations, a coordinated censorship effort on Twitter, scary TV shows and commercials, a scam by overseas third party sellers on Amazon, a teacher getting angry when students didn't do an assignment on the election, and more!
You can't find it on Scribd, because they're blocking it again. But you can slink on over here to read the latest Last Word...
America is essentially a third world country now.
Pacific Gas & Electric Company is the greedy firm that has a monopoly on electricity and gas service in much of California. PG&E's negligence has led to many devastating and deadly wildfires. In 2010, PG&E even caused a pipeline explosion in a residential San Bruno neighborhood that killed 8. Now PG&E plans to shut off power in several counties this week as temperatures are forecast to reach 100° F.
So PG&E refuses to provide the service it has a monopoly on.
But when the power isn't off, PG&E charges its customers exorbitant rates. Online comments say the company charges as much as $300 per month.
Some parts of the country and the world have been hotter than 100° lately, and the utility companies there haven't shut off the power - yet. So this is on PG&E - and the California Public Utilities Commission, which has a cozy relationship with PG&E. It was this relationship that enabled PG&E to neglect its pipeline, causing the 2010 blast.
That's in a state whose "leaders" are always making nasty online posts about the Rust Belt and Appalachia, but at least most of those states haven't banned as many books or jailed as many surfers as California has over the past few years.
The U.S. Supreme Court ought to start publishing their rulings on toilet paper.
When they get things right, it's only by accident. Last week, we discussed the court's recent ruling that rightly requires investors in foreign corporations to pay taxes like everyone else, but that was one of very few constitutionally sound decisions they've made lately. Even then, I think they only got it right because they happened to stumble into it. Regarding almost everything else these days, they just completely ignore elementary law that we learned in 7th grade civics class.
Their ruling this week in Murthy v. Missouri is one of the most outrageously bad decisions in the court's history. This case was prompted by the Biden administration colluding with social media sites to censor content such as COVID "misinformation." Much of the "misinformation" that was censored was actually true. The Twitter Files prove this.
It is folly to characterize those who fought the White House on this as "right-wing." If you support government censorship like this, you're not a progressive. Period. This is what right-wing dictatorships do. You expect to see something like this under totalitarian butchers like Emmanuel Macron. You don't expect to see it in a democracy. Yet the whiny nerds at Vox produced a lengthy article attacking judges who opposed this censorship as "right-wing."
That was even after right-wing Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the Supreme Court opinion in Murthy v. Missouri that allows this censorship. Vox is siding with some of the most right-wing Justices in history, yet is accusing everyone else of being "right-wing." Vox also laughably claimed that those who opposed the censorship were actually suppressing the White House's free speech rights - not the other way around. Vox also said the First Amendment does not bar the government from asking social media sites to remove content. Yes it does, you idiots.
This ruling came even after every lower court - without exception - ruled against this suppression of free speech.
What's the Supreme Court's "reasoning"? They said it was because those who fought against this censorship lacked standing, but as hard as we try, we cannot follow this contorted line of thinking. In fact, those who were censored were no longer the plaintiffs by the time the case reached the Supremes. The case started out as Missouri v. Biden but was later retitled as Murthy v. Missouri. So the actual plaintiff was Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who the victims were fighting against. If the case was thrown out, it should have been because Murthy lacked standing to sue those who were censored.
The Supreme Court is a rogue court. There are some issues where the Constitution leaves absolutely no wiggle room. This is one of them. The rights listed in the Bill of Rights were not created by people. They are natural rights. That's what "inalienable rights" means. Every current member of the Supreme Court has at some point recently placed either political alliances or weird legal theories ahead of real law.
But in this constitutional republic, real law takes precedence over the bizarre opinions of a few unelected dictators in black robes. Some things in the Constitution have to be interpreted, but there is no ambiguity that such government collusion with social networking sites violates free speech. Absolutely zero. The Supremes' ruling in Murthy v. Missouri is George W. Bush-level stuff.
A market system is full of vagaries and inequalities, but it's the economic model that we've been force-fed for almost everything we do. If you're in a position that you qualify for some program like medical benefits, you'll find that works better than leaving everything up to the market. But market economics are likely the reason you ended up poor enough to qualify.
Along with our commitment to civil liberties, our interest in economic justice is one of the reasons we dissent from COVID tyranny, but that's another topic altogether.
When I started college, I planned to major in broadcasting. Everyone tried to discourage me, saying there wasn't enough of a "market" for broadcasters. My response was always the same: Who cares? A few people even said I shouldn't qualify for any sort of financial aid unless I majored in something "marketable", but that argument is ridiculous on its stupid face.
Market hawks hounded me about my choice for a major. So I should be allowed to hound Kentucky colleges about the all-important "market."
There's a crazy little thing called supply and demand. In this decade, academia has destroyed their own credibility. As a result, colleges and universities all over America - maybe the world - faced a steep drop in enrollment in the early 2020s. They wanted to turn schools into prisons, and lots of our young people just weren't having it. For the most part, the enrollment decline wasn't the students' fault. There were a few students who demanded more fascism, but they came from trust fund backgrounds, and their peers didn't give a shit what they thought. When I was in college, nobody would have put up with it, period.
Demand among students for a college education has dropped. So tuition should become cheaper, right?
Well, welcome to Kentucky. In Kentucky schools, market economics is like the fourth 'R'. But not when schools actually have to follow it themselves. Accordingly, the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education has just increased tuition at most state colleges and universities - despite less demand.
This is one of a series of episodes in recent days that shows that Democratic corruption has gone past the point of no return. We can safely say they're even more corrupt than the Republicans now, even though the GOP is also far from innocent. Unlike 20 years ago when the state was mired in Republican corruption, the Democrats run Kentucky now. This is on you, Dems.
Dear Democrats: Get your corruption out of my state. The North Carolina State Board of Elections would be happy to have you if you want to be corrupt.
Higher education has become a money pit rather than a serious academic institution. It's one of the biggest scams in the country. I'm also sick of their smug attitude and disproportionate amount of power.
My newest Substack entry reports that new lockdowns are already in the works for bird flu:
https://open.substack.com/pub/bandit73/p/lockdowns-are-for-the-birds
There's a consensus that the rich haven't been paying their fair share in taxes. One of few good things in the otherwise miserable Trump tax law of 2017 is a onetime tax on dividends made by shareholders in foreign companies. Before that tax was enacted, companies could dodge American taxes by parking their profits outside the country.
A couple in Washington state launched a bizarre court challenge against that tax after they had to pay taxes on their investments in India. They said the tax was unconstitutional under the Sixteenth Amendment. This is ridiculous because the Sixteenth Amendment specifically authorizes an income tax.
After losing in lower courts, they took it all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supremes have now ruled 7-2 against them. Right-wing Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas were the only dissenters.
The lawsuit was actually frivolous. I remember when the far right accused everyone of filing frivolous suits, but this is about as frivolous as it gets - with the exception of well-funded suits filed against state governments and schools by those claiming COVID restrictions weren't draconian enough.
My latest Substack entry is a brief account of idiotic attempts to enforce mask mandates at school sporting events:
https://open.substack.com/pub/bandit73/p/sports-of-all-sorts
I've been building up to this entry for months, and it's a long one. My latest Substack entry finally deals at length with the unparalleled evil of mask mandates in schools:
https://open.substack.com/pub/bandit73/p/schools-and-masks-a-bad-mix
I have a new Substack entry that's a brief look at politicians issuing COVID mandates in violation of state laws that explicitly banned them:
https://open.substack.com/pub/bandit73/p/its-against-the-law-revisited
Forty years after the Reagan regime, we're still being forced to recap all the ways Rappin' Ronnie failed America and stole from workers.
He supported right-wing dictatorships abroad. He cut Social Security by raising the retirement age - a change that is now taking effect (which our "leaders" refuse to fix). And he added special new taxes on service workers who weren't making much money to begin with.
Most Americans who aren't in service jobs and don't have to rely on tips had thought that tips were not taxed. But it turns out they are. Donald Trump is making an issue of it, though I doubt he'll do anything about it if he wins - especially after his tax increase on the working class in 2017. But who started taxing tips in the first place?
I'll give you 3 guesses: Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan, and Ronald Reagan.
Reagan began taxing tips even as he began giving handouts to the rich.
Why does every city and town have some road or public landmark named for Reagan? He was the worst President in history not named Bush, yet historical negationists treat him as a god.
My latest Substack entry is about how allegedly "progressive" lockdown advocates use extreme rhetoric that makes them sound like what they claim to oppose:
https://open.substack.com/pub/bandit73/p/yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-mum
The worst big city mayor in America strikes again!
Back in 2020, the city of Philadelphia reached an agreement with advocates for the homeless that said a "village" of tiny homes would be constructed on a city-owned parcel. But - after taking office at the start of this year - Mayor Cherelle Parker decided to unilaterally scrap this agreement.
There is now a plan to build a drug treatment center there, but even the optics of this plan aren't as bad as the act of taking away the tiny homes that were promised. No plan has been put forth to build the homes elsewhere after Parker's right-wing dictatorship scrapped the original plan.
It's time for you to bury your beezer in the June ish of The Last Word!
This ish talks about my trip to St. Augustine, a waiter ruining some pancakes, a luxury development taking over a city-owned parking lot, more ruined board games, taking thorns to school to defend yourself, and more!
So point your pooper here...
https://www.scribd.com/document/737745512/The-Last-Word-6-2024
If that doesn't work, stink on over here...
Today, I went to the parade, and an Allowed Cloud got hilariously violated.
As the parade was starting, a woman with 2 kids sat down in front of me on the curb. At first, I thought the woman was someone who went to my high school for precisely one day, but I don't think it was her. Before long, the woman whipped out a can of ice cold brew and proceeded to imbibe - in violation of alcohol ordinances.
She was cool!
But, surprisingly, nobody bubbled at the parade.
Which fascism will the corporate empire support today? Democratic fascism or Republican fascism?
A good rule of thumb is that they'll favor whichever party gets the fewest votes per newspaper endorsement. This means they supported Republicans through most of modern history, but began favoring Democrats when the underpants laptoppers took over that party. Whatever the weather, Democrats and Republicans exhibit largely the same fascism these days. Gavin Newsom and Nikki Haley would be the media's dream ticket.
Now there are plans for an expansion of the Republican Party of Kentucky's headquarters in Frankfort. The biggest donor was pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which gave $1 million to the GOP for this project, which includes a new 6,800-square-foot building that will contain an auditorium. The project got funds from defense contractors too. Other big donors include AT&T, Verizon, Metropolitan Life Insurance, Microsoft, Comcast, and Delta Air Lines. It reads like a who's who of corporate tyranny. It also reams a bazooka hole through the idea that big corporations are progressive bastions. Of course, with the Democrats being what they are these days, donating to the Democrats would have indicated the same thing.
These donations are made possible by a 2017 state law allowing corporations to donate unlimited money to political parties' building funds. Whose dumb idea was that? What gnawing need was there for this law in 2017?
This is one of many stories showing why we need to prohibit corporations from giving to political parties. Corporations are a corrupting influence on politics.
My newest Substack entry is about ongoing COVID totalitarianism that continues even today and is slated to continue in coming months...
For most of the week, I was on vacation in St. Augustine. I plan to write about much of it in The Last Word, but there were 3 celebrity look-alikes: Anne Bloom, Gordon Ramsay, and Steve Perry.
Today at the Krogie-Wogie in Bellevue, an elderly woman cracked an LAP bunker blast in the orange juice aisle.
Oscar the Grouch was my favorite character on the ol' Ses!
As summer travel season looms, you may have an experience like the 'Sesame Street' kick-ass crew did in a 1990 episode. In this installment, Gordon misses the bus to a basketball game and asks the ol' Osk and his girlfriend Grundgetta to drive him there...
But did Oscar say a bad word?
There was an episode of 'The Brady Bunch' in which Mike famously declares, "It's 6:00 in the morning," but there was clearly a word edited out just before "morning." It's pretty obvious he said a bad word. Something similar happens in this 'Sesame Street' episode. At 1:05, Oscar says to Gordon, "Just tell us how to get to the game and we'll be on our way." But there's a strange pause right before "game" - as if a word had to be edited out.
This kicks off a suspenseful narrative in which Oscar and Grundgetta take Gordon on a futile drive down Pothole Parkway - which makes the roads around here look like an Autobahn in comparison. It's really not even a road. It looks like it's just an alley between brick walls and buildings. It also requires a toll paid in old candy wrappers.
Spoiler alert! The delays cause Gordon to miss the whole game. He tries listening to it on Oscar's car radio, but the radio breaks just before the game's exciting conclusion. Sportscaster Marv Albert then appears out of nowhere and drives Gordon home.
Oscar the Grouch. A king among men!
The dumbest governor in America (outside New Mexico) strikes again!
We already knew that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul isn't exactly a force for good in the world, and now the tragic Hochul saga gets even worse!
Yesterday, Hochul was speaking at a forum in California and began talking about "young Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don't even know what the word 'computer' is."
Elected officials from the Bronx rightly blasted Hochul for her racism.
This is Evan Mecham-level stuff. Forty years ago, an idiot like Hochul would have stood out for her stupidity. These days, hardly anyone notices. One reason is that the rest of America's political, corporate, and academic leadership provides real competition to see who can be the dumbest or most evil. Like Hochul, many manage to be both stupid and evil. Many are simply horrible people. Another reason people don't notice is that the media won't do their job like it used to, so stories like this aren't reported much.
Just resign already, Kathy.
May wouldn't be so biptacular if it didn't have the May ish of The Last Word!
Our latest edition talks about the shocking milk spills at Kroger, my failure to read books on required reading lists, my worst neighbors, Pepsi cans leaking onto magazines, a lost Bert and Ernie segment, and more!
So point your pooper here...
https://www.scribd.com/document/727402990/The-Last-Word-5-2024
If that doesn't work, waft on over here...
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