Tariffs

The Election Was Very Close. Republicans Do Not Have A Mandate.

Washington's Dream

 One of the best Saturday Night Live skits in years. An all-time great.

Endarkenment

So the supposedly Jesus-loving, flag-waving crowd feels a convicted felon, convicted rapist, bankrupt, tax cheat, philandering, con man is the best leader for our country and the example they'd like to set for the children. What a disgrace!

Republicans, don't preach another second about law-and-order, God, morality, right-and-wrong, or any of your other meaningless talking points. The Republicans are the party of stupid. They are the party of ignorance. They are the party of immaturity. They are the party of hypocrisy. They are the party of petulance. They are the party of greed. They are the party of misogyny. They are the party of racism. They are the party of homophobia. They are the party of transphobia. They are the party of cognitive dissonance. Republicans are non-thinking, spineless, windbags. 

But now let's talk about the apathetic American voter. In 2020, 66% of eligible voters went to the polls. Pathetic in it's own right. But, in 2024, what was deemed the most consequential election ever, even fewer voters turned out. Twenty million less people (as of this writing) voted for president in 2024 than in 2020. Embarrassing! 

Let's not forget about the media. Normalizing this insanity every step of the way. I'm not just talking about Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN. We all know they are full-of-shit shills. But all media outlets reporting on the Trump candidacy as if it were just any other. If anyone should have been continually sounding the alarm and raising questions about a cheating, traitorous, felon, it was our media. Instead, Trump got a pass. His incoherence and ramblings were largely ignored. The media overlooked the actual economic record of Biden/Harris and failed to correct the narrative that the economy was doing poorly. Everyone was focused on questioning Kamala and having her discuss specific policies. Meanwhile, Trump was allowed to ramble and dance at his rallies.   

I can't end this without mentioning the fact that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris entered office and ushered us out of the pandemic without pulling us down into a recession. In case you forget, Donald Trump had lost jobs, lowered the American standard of living, ignored the pandemic and told people to drink bleach. [Plus this, this, and this.] And, not only did the U.S. not enter a recession under Biden/Harris, our economy is leading the world - the stock market it up, GDP is up, wages are up, jobs are up, and inflation is down. As The Economist noted, The U.S. Economy is the Envy of The World. This is what the geniuses on the right have voted against and the apathetic slouches on the left decided not to vote for. Sad.

For Further Reading:
U.S. economic growth remains impressive. It’s the envy of the world, except at home
The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust
The U.S. Economy Reaches Superstar Status
The robust U.S. economy is leaving ‘other rich countries in the dust’
The envy of the world

Just A Few Reasons Trump Is The Worst

Getting Down To Business

The Writing On The Wall

Republicans have seen the writing on the wall. Decades of indicators have shown the majority of voters align with Democrats' policies. This is why Republicans have gerrymandered, suppressed votes, pushed voter identification, closed polls, and just generally tried to make it harder to vote or exclude people from voting. It's the only way Republicans have been able to win elections. The Republicans don't really have any ideas for public policy. And, they really don't care. Power is their ultimate goal. The power to control the purse strings of the government. Hence, they are continually trying to make it so that only those voting Republican can vote.

Republicans threaten a government shutdown unless Congress makes it harder to vote

  

Cheap Labor and Loose Regulations

Really Frickin' Petty (RFP)

New Land blasts city development office shortly before downtown site award

It’s a shame when things don’t go your way. But for those who are supposed to be the bastions of free market competitiveness, there seems to be a lot of dependency on the public sector. And when contracts aren’t awarded, some of these private entities lash out, point fingers, and cry the blues. 

This criticism is laughable considering development companies are the ones who continually beat the market drum all the while insisting cities and states fork over millions to help fund their projects. And then if they don’t get their way, and a pile of cash, something is wrong with the process. 

The Business Journal article notes:

New Land's criticisms of the city's development department extend beyond the Marcus Center parking structure project: Gokhman says the department has "chronic problems" and "deep dysfunction" that are "stifling development"

This coming from a company that has been awarded similar projects in the past. The company was also involved in foreclosure proceedings in the not-so-distant past. What's that old saying about glass houses? Funny how private developers believe they should be able to dictate what a city’s development department does.  

Regarding another often-used development handout, the article details, “Tax incremental financing is a tool local governments can use to pay for new developments that are expected to grow the tax base by using future property taxes those developments generate to help repay the city's investment in those projects.” What they leave out is that this financing was intended to serve blighted areas, not locations where development is already thriving. 

The Journal article quotes another developer:

"When you do put out an RFP, you have to be ready, willing and able to make the commitment to help make it successful," said Bob Monnat of Milwaukee development firm Mandel Group Inc. "None of these larger RFP sites have anywhere of a chance of creating the kind of outcome that everyone would like to see unless there's some major participation on the part of the city to help get it over the hump."

Talk about entitlement. Developers seem to believe the City should alleviate all risk from the project, while the private developers get to walk away with all the profits. What a partnership!

Aren’t some of these concepts what the free market is supposed to be all about? Isn’t this part of the conservative mythology we’ve heard over the last many decades about the private sector, job creators, the wise surveyors of the market? So why do they even need the inefficient, mismanaged, inconsistent, misleading, and dysfunctional public sector?

A big problem for New Land’s Gokhman seems to be that the City Development Department took longer than expected. I’m sure that developers never take longer than expected. They’re always on time and everything they propose is seen through to completion. [Sigh. Eye roll.]

Seems odd to have such an issue with not being awarded this site, but then to also state:

New Land supports Johnson’s vision of growing Milwaukee and believes the city's current zoning code and DCD's urban planning team are "one of the best in the country," Gokhman said. 

But then Mr. Gokhman continued:

He cites the downtown Fourth and Wisconsin site near the Baird Center and the former Army Reserve site in the city's Bay View neighborhood — which both remain undeveloped after years of discussion — as key examples of failure.

"No one at DCD loses their job if development doesn’t occur," Gokhman said. "There’s no accountability." 

So, unless every city site is maximally developed, by the city, someone has failed? Seems there is a lot of contradictory ideas and sour grapes going on here. Let’s not forget - failure happens. Everything doesn’t work out as planned in life. [As an example, see the above discussion of Mr. Gokhman’s company's foreclosure activities.] 

City development is booming. Newer offices, hotels, apartments, retail, etc. have steadily been built over the last few decades. Milwaukee has seen downtown development unlike anything since WWII. But the City should throw more money at private developers because a few sites have yet to be developed? Or should the City allow itself to be bullied by developers attempting to rake them over the coals in the media? I don't think either of these would be policy or process improvements. 

These developers' public whining is just a big bushel of bitter, sour grapes.

Wait...Who Made A Bad Choice For Their Nominee?

Unhinged Paranoia

Me Thinks Thou Doth Protest Too Much

It's been a great strategy for the Republican party - accuse Democrats of being guilty of all the Republicans' wrongdoings. 

They repeat the lie about rampant voter fraud...and in the majority of the few cases of fraud, the perpetrator is a Republican.

During this latest campaign, and most recently at the Republican National Convention, one prominent Republican talking-point point is that Biden (or the Biden administration) is corrupt.

I thought it might be helpful to remind all of the crimes committed by Trump and his associates. 

The Cases Against Trump: A Guide

Donald Trump's criminal cases, in one place

Trump criminal charges guidebook: Here are all the felony counts against the former president

A guide to Donald Trump's four criminal cases

Keeping Track of the Trump Criminal Cases

Trump Investigations: Tracking The Cases

Here’s a list of Trump’s ex-associates who have faced charges

What Trump allies have faced criminal charges?

Charted: Trump world allies sentenced to prison

Bannon Joins List of Trump’s Allies With Convictions

11 Trump associates have now been charged with crimes.

A Guide to Trump Allies Who've Pleaded Guilty or Been Convicted of Crimes

Trump allies Meadows, Giuliani among 18 indicted in Arizona election scheme

There is a swamp in Washington...brought to America by the Donald Trump administration. The fact that the Republican party has chosen this felon (and his cabal of miscreants) as their leader and candidate for the presidency is hypocritical, irresponsible, and embarrassing. The (supposed) party of law and order, Christian values, right and wrong, etc., supporting a philandering, tax cheating, felon for president is as stupid as it is shameless.

Donald Trump and his sycophants are not fit for office. No responsible, reasonable, clear-thinking American should vote for any of these Republican clowns. They are selfish, spineless, greedy, opportunists only concerned with their own well-being. None of them have any inkling of duty or commitment to public policy and what is best for America. 

Let's keep government functioning in the interest of the citizens, not the monied elite. Let's keep investing in American infrastructure and jobs, Social Security and Medicare, public schools, clean air and water, to name a few. To go back to the ways of Trump and Project 2025 would be to abandon the American dream and relegate America to a dictator and plutocrats. 

Keep America sane. This November, vote Democrat.

For Further Reading:

30 Things Joe Biden Did as President You Might Have Missed

Disorder In The Court

It’s Impossible to Overstate the Damage Done by the Supreme Court in This Term

The Supreme Court Took A Sledgehammer To American Democracy

A Vote For Trump Is A Vote For Project 2025

Project 2025: A wish list for a Trump presidency, explained

Project 2025: The myths and the facts

1) Concentrating power in the presidency: Trump’s allies believe that his first term failed because he couldn’t get enough “loyal” appointees in place and because the “deep state” bureaucracy sabotaged him. So a main recurring theme of Project 2025 is how to bend the executive branch to a conservative president’s will.

2) Longtime conservative priorities: The vast majority of Project 2025’s policy plan is focused on longstanding conservative priorities — with some tweaking and elisions for the Trump era. Though some are indeed quite extreme, they’re not all that new or specifically tied to Trump.

There are far too many to list here, but just as a flavor:

Education: Eliminate the Department of Education, give every parent a voucher-like option they could use to send their child to private school, zero out federal funding to low-income schools over the next decade, greatly cut “wasteful” school meal programs, and end Biden’s student loan forgiveness programs

Energy and environment: Deprioritize fighting climate change, repeal Biden’s clean energy subsidies, further unleash oil and natural gas production, roll back various environmental regulations

Health care: Majorly cut and overhaul Medicaid, roll back the recent law banning surprise medical billing

Immigration: Deny loan access to students at “schools that provide in-state tuition to illegal aliens,” ban non-citizens from living in federally assisted housing (even if they live with a citizen), reinstate and expand the horseback-mounted Border Patrol

On a few issues — trade, antitrust, the Export-Import Bank — the plan states that the conservative movement is divided, and lays out the thinking of two different sides on each issue. On the question of Social Security and Medicare, which Heritage has long supported overhauling but Trump does not, the document is basically silent.

3) A hardline religious-right agenda: There are also parts of Project 2025 that, while not exactly surprising for conservatives, are quite extreme in ways that are politically problematic for Trump. The plan calls for:

Revoking FDA approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, which is used in about half of US abortions (“Abortion pills pose the single greatest threat to unborn children in a post-Roe world,” the document states)

Using an old law known as the Comstock Act to prosecute people who send abortion pills through the mail

Ending the mandate for insurance to cover the “week-after” contraceptive pill Ella (which the document argues is a “potential abortifacient”)

Crack down on “abortion tourism” in liberal states by requiring states to report where women seeking abortions live and cutting federal funds if they refuse

Ending subsidies for stem cell or fetal cell research

In a fiery introduction by Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, Project 2025 also calls for banning porn:

Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

Roberts also adds that pornography is “manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children,” suggesting that he may define “pornography” much more broadly than is typical — that he may view any attempt to explain or teach about trans people as worthy of outlawing and imprisonment.

This is reflective of a broader push from religious and cultural conservatives. (The demand for porn prohibition does not show up in the document again after Roberts’s introduction, making it unclear how it would be implemented.)

What Trump doesn't want you to know about Project 2025

Project 2025

This Is A Trump Problem

Recent comments from Keith Olbermann:

This is the America Trump wanted. This is the America Trump got. He was shot at by a gun-obsessed MAGA kid, with Trump signs in the front yard of his home, in a MAGA world in which stochastic terror threats are Trump's only campaign, only belief, only religion.

Republicans! Stop shooting at Trump!

This wasn't an MSNBC viewer and it wasn't a Democrat and it wasn't the fault of the corporate media and Biden's oratory didn't impact him and this didn't happen because I keep saying Trump is a Hitler. TrumpIS a Hitler. The Republicans trained the weapon on Trump and they fired.

And shame on Biden and the other Democrats and the eternally gullible media for falling for the promises of a Trump pivot. He said we need to unite the way the extraterrestrials put "To Serve Man" on their Twilight Zone cookbook. The moment the Democrats took the bait, he explained what his demands were: as part of "unity" he expects all criminal charges to be dropped against him immediately. He probably secretly hopes the Democrats will also nominate him.

Same fraud. Different con.

ALSO: Anybody see those photos of him as he screamed "Fight!" like a giant rabid rodent? When he let his true soul out? They were chanting that as the GOP convention yesterday. There is no joining of hands here. As always, when the Republicans mean unity, they mean everybody has to agree...to do what they say. Nice timing on delaying the Documents case, "Judge" Cannon, until the morning the GOP Convention opened, and dismissing it.

Bluntly, Biden should take presidential immunity and use it. What would Trump do in the mirror image of the assassination attempt? Less than four months before the election and the guy ahead in the polls gets shot at. And the Secret Service clearly screwed security into the ground. And we don’t know WHY a kid registered with the same party as the candidate would try to kill the candidate. And we don’t know WHY a local police officer confronted the shooter moments before the shots only to back away. And we don’t know why, most insanely of all, the kid had a cameo in a Black Rock commercial for retirement plans. And we DO know it is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism. And you know, you KNOW, a Trump in charge would look at this and say ‘good enough excuse for me! I am declaring a national emergency and invoking the insurrection act.”

Do it, Joe.

AND: please, stop with the "violence has never had a role in America." Our politics is a river of blood. 20 of the 45 presidents have either been shot and killed in office, shot and wounded in office, shot and wounded while seeking to regain office, or the subject of shooting plots averted at the last minute or last hour. If we stopped lying to ourselves about how peaceful we are, maybe we could begin to fix our bloody story.

B-Block (27:52) SPECIAL COMMENT II: The conventional wisdom of the electoral effect of the assassination attempt against Trump is - as always - wrong. The attempted murder of a Republican gun nut by a Republican gun nut using a weapon Democrats tried to ban is no longer even the lead Republican story. It may have no impact on the election at all. Candidate victims in the past have always lost.

C-Block (41:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: So many fascists said so many stupid things before the truth came out about who the shooter was, that the list today is literally EIGHTEEN PEOPLE LONG, climaxing with Chuck Todd, Lester Holt, Mike Johnson, Elon Musk, Mike Lee, Mike Collins, and J.D. Vance - who once compared Trump to Hitler (those Biden ads are gonna be lit)

Republican Hypocrisy

In Court vs. Out of Court; Reality vs. Fantasy - The Confused, Disingenuous, Crazy MAGA Universe

We Are Not In A Recession

 I don't think people know what the definition of a recession is.

Definition of recession: two consecutive quarters of decline in a country's real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) - the value of all goods and services a country produces.

The last decline in GDP occurred from 2019 to 2020 - during Donald Trump's term. 

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP

GDP has been steadily been increasing since.

https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-product

Fraud & The Real Estate Wrecking Crew

Pete Educating Ignorant Republicans Again And Again

How Low Can Republicans Go? Always Lower.

Ah, our annual State of the Union, where Republicans can remind all of America how vile, nasty, petty, childish, and uncivil they are. They are not an adult party. They are not a serious party. Nothing but greedy, imbecilic, attention-whores.

5 Takeaways From the State of the Union

Rep. Derrick Van Orden shouts 'lies!' at Joe Biden during State of the Union

As House Republicans heckle, Biden serves it back

Biden's State of the Union hecklers face internal GOP groans

Fiery Joe Biden Unleashes Forceful Rebuke Of Trump, GOP In State Of The Union Address

Donald Trump: American Dumpster Fire

Elon Musk Is A Douchebag

Elon Musk is lashing out at MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos' ex, for donating billions to charities for women and minorities

Republicans Are Not Fit For Public Office

Forget Hunter. Investigate Ivanka, Jared, and Don Jr.!

Culture-War Cabal

Best Metal Albums 2023

…and Oceans – As in Gardens, So in Tombs
3Teeth – EndEx
Acid King – Beyond Vision
Angra – Cycles of Pain
Anubis Gate – Interference
Ashbringer – We Came Here to Grieve
Asinhell – Impii Hora
Atreyu – The Beautiful Dark of Life
August Burns Red – Death Below
Babymetal – The Other One
Bell Witch – Future's Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate
Blackbraid – Blackbraid II
Blut Aus Nord – Disharmonium – Nahab
Bongzilla – Dab City
Brujeria – Esto Es Brujeria
Cannibal Corpse – Chaos Horrific
Cattle Decapitation – Terrasite
Chelsea Grin – Suffer in Heaven & Suffer In Hell
Cirith Ungol – Dark Parade
Cryptopsy – As Gomorrah Burns
Dethklok – Dethalbum IV & Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar
DevilDriver – Dealing with Demons Vol. II
Dopelord – Songs for Satan
Dying Fetus – Make Them Beg for Death
Dying Wish – Symptoms of Survival
Full of Hell & Nothing – When No Birds Sang
Full of Hell & Primitive Man – Suffocating Hallucination
Godflesh – Purge
Gorod – The Orb
Green Lung – This Heathen Lan
Hellripper – Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags
Horrendous – Ontological Mysterium
Immortal – War Against All
Jesus Piece – …So Unknown
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – PetroDragonic Apocalypse
Metallica – 72 Seasons
Ne Obliviscaris – Exul
Obituary – Dying of Everything
Omega Infinity – The Anticurrent
Ov Sulfur – The Burden ov Faith
Panzerchrist – Last of a Kind
Periphery – Periphery V: Djent Is Not a Genre
Primordial – How It Ends
Profanatica – Crux Simplex
Queens of the Stone Age – In Times New Roman…
Sanguisugabogg – Homicidal Ecstasy
Satan's Fall – Destination Destruction
Signs of the Swarm – Amongst the Low & Empty
Sleep Token – Take Me Back to Eden
Smoulder – Violent Creed of Vengeance
Soen – Memorial
Sortilège – Apocalypso
Spirit Adrift – Ghost at the Gallows
Stoned Jesus – Father Light
Suffocation – Hymns from the Apocrypha
Suicide Silence – Remember… You Must Die
Sunrot – The Unfailing Rope
Svalbard – The Weight of the MaskSylosis – A Sign of Things to Come
Taake – Et Hav Av Avstand
Tesseract – War of Being
The Ocean – Holocene
Thy Art Is Murder – Godlike
Tomb Mold – The Enduring Spirit
Uada – Crepuscule Natura
Unearth – The Wretched; The Ruinous
Veil of Maya – Mother
Vile Ritual – Caverns of Occultic Hatred
VoidCeremony – Threads of Unknowing
Voivod – Morgöth Tales
Vomitory – All Heads Are Gonna Roll
Warmen – Here for None
Wayfarer – American Gothic
Witch Ripper – The Flight After the Fall
Within Temptation – Bleed Out
Wormhole – Almost Human
Wytch Hazel – IV

Constitutional Convenience

Yes. You are better off under Biden than Trump.