Make America White Again!!!

You were warned: "One giant step for Whitey, a trap door for the rest."

I guess The Musk Ox's Nazi salute really wasn't an innocent slip.

By The Numbers - part the eighty third

Well... Kim Don-Felon and his Merry Band of Fascists are going full speed to turn the USofA into Hungary, or worse yet, Russia. The Gang of Six are to blame. The latest (hard to tell, of course) is the R.T.O. demand. Turns out, RTO saves money

[A] typical U.S. employer can save an average of $11,000 per half-time telecommuter per year.

Of course it does. Now, the usual paranoid-schiz manager assumes that his worker bees are just as lazy bastards as he is; after all, managers don't actually produce anything.

And the whole RTO fixation ignores the elephant in the room: office work has been off-shored at least as long as parts-assembly. The paranoid-schiz CxO class doesn't worry about all those Indians coding and radiology reviews.

Here's some numbers on how much office off-shoring goes on.

[S]ome economists that actually think this is a new era and that a lot of, maybe even 10% or 20%, of all service jobs could ultimately be moved overseas.

"Hey Hoss, get me some bargain basement darkie accountants. Real soon, now, here!"

RTO, my red sphincter.

I Told You So - 22 January 2025 [more detail]

Well... that didn't take long. Kim Don-Felon and his Merry Band of Fascists didn't establish a new Office of Media Integrity (yet), but

Amid a deluge of executive actions, the Trump administration has asked federal health agencies to pause external communications, such as regular scientific reports, updates to websites and health advisories, according to sources within the agencies.

The Fascists smell blood. We can't have true facts that Kim Don-Felon and his Merry Band of Fascists wish to deny come floating out of agencies, now can we?

[more detail]

"As the new Administration considers its plan for managing the federal policy and public communications processes, it is important that the President's appointees and designees have the opportunity to review and approve any regulations, guidance documents, and other public documents and communications (including social media)," [Acting HHS Secretary] Fink said in the memo.

And, for those who've forgotten

During Trump's first administration, a federal health official said political appointees pushed to change language of weekly science reports released by the CDC during the Covid-19 pandemic so they wouldn't undermine the president's political messaging.

Remember when Birx kept her mouth shut when Kim Don-Felon advised inhaling bleach? One might wonder what's next.

On The Chopping Block

Well... let's see if this effort survives Kim Don-Felon and his Merry Band of Fascists. I mean, it's very existence "proves" climate change is no hoax. And, of course, the Damn Gummint is subsidizing progress in another traitorous Blue state.

I wonder... will the sub-GED crowd understand the thermodynamics involved? I don't think so, either.

Eversource, which has a recent grant from Department of Energy and HEET, is already in talks to add more homes to the loop.

tldr; It's a geothermal network, aka ground sourced heat pump. The yoga studio I used to attend had one, the building was into the side of a hill, so the piping ran horizontally into the hill. The name of the unit is WaterFurnace, and it was running when I first went there three decades ago. The innterTubes say the company's been in business since 1983, so I guess it's not some fly-by-night scam.

Nixon, Jr.

If you're old enough, you know about Nixon's enemies list. Ain't no sore loser like a Evangelical Reactionary Radical Right Wingnut. So, here's a bet (no moolah involved).

Now that Sleepy Joe has handed out preemptive pardons like Halloween candy, what's a Kim Don-Felon and his Merry Band of Fascists to do? Well... the answer is easy. Have The Musk Ox sue each and every one of them to the hilt. The pardon only exempts the person from federal criminal prosecution. The Musk Ox can sue the bejesus out of all of them, and only find his networth diminish by a rounding error. The Musk Ox can afford it, and the suits can bankrupt some number of the Enemies. You read it here first.

This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.

Ya think Kim Don-Felon and his Merry Band of Fascists might have kept a note? Did LBJ, or any other strongman Democrat, do this? Not that history currently remembers.

I Brook No Dissent

Today's NYT (dead trees division) has a pundit fest, topic being Kim Don-Felon and his Merry Band of Fascists version 2. David Brooks is among them, and, once again, reveals himself to be a Waffler.

He rides his recent hobby horse: the sub-GED knuckledraggers are put-upon Good Guys persecuted by the educated folks.

It's a turn away from rule by the educated class to rule by people who think the educated class is self-serving and incompetent.

Like hydroxychloroquine being the cure of Covid-19 came from the mouths of educated elite? And so on. All Kim Don-Felon and his Merry Band of Fascists offers the sub-GED class is Class Warfare.

I'll revert to my core theory of the last decade. Trump is the wrong answer to the right question. He became president because over the last many decades we in the educated class built a system that is rigged. The children of affluent parents have advantages at every step of the way &mash; from preschool through college and the job market. And we passed a series of immigration, trade and education policies that benefit us, and hurt those without our degrees. High-school-educated people die eight years sooner. They have many fewer friends. They marry less and divorce more.

Of course, this applies only to the Ivy League and the near-to. I've not the total count off the top of my bean, but the Pundit Class has pointed out that Kim Don-Felon and his Merry Band of Fascists has been filling his administration from the Ivy League ruling class. Not the sub-GED knuckledraggers. Of course, the sub-GED class are so stupid, they buy his grift that he's on their side. He only uses them as cannon fodder in their War on intelligence. While it is true that private college is expensive, the so-called Land Grant Colleges, aka State U, were created just so that poor families' kids could get better education than their parents. That's been true in Blue states; Red states are more interested in spending hundreds of millions of Bongo Bucks on football and hoop. Show's where their priorities are.

Of course, Brooks never does assert that a country runs better when the ruling class is from the sub-GED knuckledraggers. Of course, not.

The Biden administration was built on the theory that if you redistribute huge amounts of money to people and places left behind, they will return to the Democratic fold. It didn't happen because you can't use money to solve a problem primarily about recognition and respect.

Many things wrong with that excuse. First, if Uncle Sugar sends Bongo Bucks to Red states, with no strings attached, what's the odds that they'll use the money to facilitate better access to material education for the poor? Zero. Second, it's been the Right Wing Economist's mantra going back to Adam Smith, that a worker's wages are only what the employer decides they're worth. So, employers (the true ruling class) always decide that sub-GED knuckledraggers ain't be worth a shit. They always ahve, and always will. There's a reason they ship jobs to slave wage dictatorships, and hire sub-GED knuckledraggers for shit jobs. That's all such jobs are worth.

And, of course, the sub-GED class continues to elect politicians (at all levels of Damn Gummint) who play to the Culture War, but not to offering them better education and healthcare and such. And, why, exactly, should the the sub-GED class deserve "recognition and respect" from the Rest of Us when what they say and do is God Damned Stupid 99.44% of the time? How should this "recognition and respect" be manifest? "Congratulations on passing the biggest stool of the week in this here county"? A gold Participation in Life trophy for all? Anathema to the Right Wingnuts, and they've said so enough times. Yes global climate change is a hoax because The Bible says that God won't send another Flood? Riddle me that Batman. Again, I say, the Right Wingnuts have always been driven by the mantra that you get what you can earn. If you don't know your ass from your elbow, you won't earn much.

Party likes it's 1829!! That notion wins votes from the simple minded (but more voted for someone not named Kim Don-Felon and his Merry Band of Fascists than voted for him; aka no majority), but does little to cure what ails the simple minded.

Mellencamp put it perfectly:

The simple minded and the uninformed can be easily led astray.

We live there now.

Thought For The Day - 16 January 2025

Well... even the proposed Treasury Secretary lies. So far as I've looked so far, not one interrogator has the stones to ask the vital question

Sir, when was, and the value of, the last payment from China (or any foreign government) or any Chinese company (ditto) received by Treasury to pay their tariff bill?

The answers, of course, are never and 0.

He just babbled the usual Evangelical Reactionary Radical Right Wingnuts mantra that all will get better for all if the rich get even richer. I wonder if the fact that Kim Don-Felon and his Merry Band of Fascists are building an administration of Phat Cats is penetrating the heads of the MAGAnauts? Populist? Only an idiot would buy that.