It may seem like we are floating around these 14 markers in a haphazard way. Perhaps that’s even accurate, but there is a rhyme or reason to it all. In this case, it is much more stream of consciousness than anything else. In Florida, Ron DeSantis has decided to take on Disney and it looks like he’s won the first rounds.

Now, why is he taking on Disney? Aren’t right-wing politicians supposed to protect job creators and profitable businesses like Disney? I couldn’t even come up with a Texas equivalent to Disney. The best I can come up with is if we somehow combined Bucees, Whataburger, and HEB into a conglomerate. Even then it wouldn’t match.

However, to understand this you would have to understand the purposes of those corporations. In a traditional capitalist society, corporations are seen as the final evolution of a market economy. They’ve managed to manipulate supply in order to also manipulate demand. Good for them.

In a fascist state, everything is there to glorify the state. Religion glorifies the state. Popular culture glorifies the state. Corporations glorify the state. So, it isn’t so much that fascists support all corporations. They support the right corporations. In this case, Disney has shown themselves to be the wrong corporation.

Why is Disney the wrong corporation? Well, they had the audacity to have a pride week and support the LGTBQ+ community. Do they really support those causes? I suppose they do on some level. At least they aren’t going to turn down their money.

The last time we went to Disney it was very important for our daughter to get a “pride donut.” Smart corporations manage to walk a tight line so that they don’t alienate any customers. So, having a pride week and selling pride donuts are good ideas while they generate revenue. They probably would celebrate conservative causes if it meant earning a little more money.

Every business whether they big or small must make a similar calculation. A small town baker must decide whether baking that cake for the gay wedding will ultimately generate more revenue or create a backlash. This is why most corporations are at least publicly non-political. Why piss off half the population?

In this case, DeSantis is aiming to steer Disney the way he wants them to go. You want your tax breaks? You want all of the power you used to enjoy? It’s time for you to play ball and govern yourselves the way we are governing. We’ll scratch your back if you scratch ours. You keep getting those breaks and we get corporate sponsorship of our right wing ideals. Chick Fa La and Hobby Lobby get it. Come on Disney, how much could a pride donut really matter? It’s time to get back on message.

When you start to look at the characteristics you find the order given is not necessarily the most logical way to think about it. Last time we took a look at nationalism and how it relates to fascism. Many of these characteristics have very close relationships with one another. When one becomes fervently for the team then it stands to reason that those not on the team become our enemies.

A couple of weeks ago the House of Representatives voted to condemn socialism in a resolution. The Senate certainly didn’t touch that, so what exactly was the point? Well, this made it easier for them to highlight representatives that did not vote for the resolution. They must be socialists so therefore they must be the enemy.

This is one of the go to moves for fascists. They identify things and concepts that people can’t define. They can’t tell you what socialism is and when they point to examples they are usually extreme and have nothing to do with the aims of people that might subscribe to. No one really wants Venezuelan socialism, but suddenly that becomes the standard for socialism. Straw men should be so lucky.

Fascists usually don’t create hate where it did not exist. They simply take the hate that is there and make it palatable. It is not good to hate to people of color. It is not good to hate those that are LGTBQ+. It is not good for men to hate women. Yet, if we can attach a sinister motive to them like BLM, CRT, or grooming drag queens then it suddenly becomes okay to hate them. After all, if they just understood their place then we wouldn’t need to hate anybody.

There has been no magic trick quite as pervasive and bewildering as the treatment of Ukraine. This is a pretty simple situation. One country invaded another sovereign nation because they want to take it over. We used to understand these things. After all, there really isn’t anything to understand. There aren’t difficult geopolitical issues here. There is no nuance.

Yet, somehow the fascist elements in our society and politics have somehow turned this around. Fascists give a head nod to other fascists after all. Somehow the Ukrainians are the horrible party. There has been talk of Volodymyr Zelenskyy being a Nazi sympathizer. So, it is okay for Russia to invade. Even if we can just muddy the waters some then it becomes easier to oppose intervention or assistance.

Of course, this isn’t to say that we definitely have to support Ukraine financially. Those that claim we can’t support everyone and should focus on our own problems aren’t necessarily fascists. The key is to listen why they say what they do. If they are worried about the fiscal burden I suppose that can defended. If they are crushing Ukraine as some kind of rogue state then you know they are horrible and are gaslighting you.

Last month, TFG’s document problem went from bad to worse.  Breaking over the weekend, multiple news organizations are reporting that TFG’s attorneys have turned over more documents marked Classified to the FBI.  Along with those documents, they also turned over a laptop and thumb drive that contained classified documents scanned by a TFG aide who worked for the Save America PAC.  There’s only one reason for a non-government employee (especially one who works for a political PAC) to be scanning classified documents onto privately owned digital media – to sell it or use it for political leverage.  Of course, TFG’s lawyers said that the scanning of those documents was “inadvertent” and that the aide wasn’t aware the documents were classified, which doesn’t pass the straight-faced test.  Of course he/she knew they were classified, but in the end, that doesn’t matter…possessing and copying ANY government document not rightfully possessed or public is illegal.

To me this is the smoking gun that shows intent.  TFG stole, hoarded, hid, moved, and lied about the government documents that were recklessly taken and then mismanaged for over a year and a half.  Now that we know that he had an aide copying those documents clearly shows what he intended (or already did) to do with those documents – use them for his own benefit.

C’mon, Merrick, how much more evidence do you need?  Let’s get on with it.

We all know that George Santos (or whatever his real name is) is a lying shitbag who has no business being anywhere near the seat of government, much less occupying a seat in the US House of Representatives.  To be fair, there are a lot of lying shitbags in Congress, but this particular shitbag is singularly accomplished in his volume of lying about everything from his ethnicity to his education to…well, just about everything.

But he’s worse than that – he’s a dog napper and abuser, and that’s where I draw the line.  We already know how he raised money to save a veteran’s dog that had cancer and then absconded with the money while bragging about “saving 3,000 dogs”.  It doesn’t stop there – in the Washington Post this morning there is a story about how Santos stole 5 Labrador Retrievers from an Amish farmer in Pennsylvania.  He promised to “wire $5,000” to him, but vanished.  He finally wrote checks to the farmer that bounced.  According to the farmer, he filed charges against Santos, but the charges were later dismissed after some kind of settlement.  Santo apparently did this to several breeders, writing over $15,000 in hot checks and then putting the dogs up for “adoption” and pocketing the money.

So, Santos screwed over a lot of people before lying his way into Congress; that makes him a shitbag and shame on those people for believing him.  But doing it to dogs?  That’s unforgivable and the last straw.  This guy has to go.

NOW.

So, Majorie Taylor Greene’s furry white balloon coat scared everybody so much that I’ll be damned, something got itself shot down over Alaska yesterday.

We have no idea what it was, leaving the tantalizing possibility that it was her coat.

“We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now,” Kirby said. “We don’t know who owns it – whether it’s state-owned or corporate-owned or privately-owned, we just don’t know.”

Object?  That’s the best you can do?  Thingy, doohickey, whatchamacallit, whatnot, somebody’s coat, unknown Toyota part …?  I mean, object is the damn best that about $20 trillion can buy the military?

Are you telling me that it could be a Boy Scout project gone haywire?

A US official said the military waited to shoot the object down during daylight hours to make it easier for the pilots to spot it. Ryder said the mission was “supported with aerial assets from the Alaska Air National Guard.”

Wait a minute, wait just a damn minute. Are you telling telling me that an F22, which cost like a billion dollars, doesn’t have radar or sonar or what the hell, night vision goggles? We can only fight invasion during the daytime?  Look, for a billion dollars, I expect an F22 to be able to sniff-out the damn thing.  They can bring along a beagle or something?

Let’s make this crazier …

The Alaska National Guard and units under US Northern Command, along with HC-130 Hercules, HH-60 Pave Hawk, and CH-47 Chinook are all participating in the effort to recover the object, Ryder said.

I guess we should be thrilled they didn’t bump into each other.  Hell, throw in some beads and some boobies, and it would have looked like Mardi Gras up there.

Hell, they just told us that this object wasn’t purposely guided. I mean, it’s just a sitting target. I’ve seen my Aunt Thelma hit a rattlesnake from 30 yards away and that damn thing was moving. They need my Aunt Thelma. I know she could even do it in the dark by listening to the rattle. When I told her the object was the size of a small car, she was willing to bet the Air Force that she could take it out from a crop duster. While flying the damn duster.

Ryder said on Friday that recovery teams have “mapped the debris field” and are “in the process of searching for and identifying debris on the ocean floor.”

“While I won’t go into specifics due to classification reasons,” Ryder said, “I can say that we have located a significant amount of debris so far that will prove helpful to our further understanding of this balloon and its surveillance capabilities.”

I am not real sure I want these guys messing around on the ocean floor. They are liable to pull the plug down there or something.

I just hate it when current events force me to talk about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.  And I do not for the  life of me understand why the national media leaves him alone. I don’t.

What’s he done now, you ask, to add to the top of the fact that he’s an indicted felon for securities fraud who’s slicker than snot on a doorknob and has postponed his trial for seven years? Seven damn years. He just waiting for all the witnesses to die.

So, here’s the deal, and I’m shaking so bad with anger that I could thread a sewing machine while it’s running.

Two years ago, Paxton’s four top staff members went public with accusations that Paxton was playing loose with state contracts in cahoots with one of his biggest contributors.

The whistleblowers’ allegations were first made public in late 2020, when eight former top deputies accused Paxton of abusing his office, accepting bribes and tampering with government documents to tip the scales at the attorney general’s office in favor of one of his political donors, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

The whistleblowers told authorities Paxton had tried to intervene in legal matters related to Paul, who donated money to the attorney general’s campaign, helped him remodel his home and gave a job to a woman with whom Paxton allegedly had an extramarital affair. Paxton has denied wrongdoing.

Paxton admitted to the affair, which happened only because Jesus let him down again by giving him a loaded winkie in the presence of a cute female.

Okay, so Paxton fired the four top aides for blatant truth telling and assorted shenanigan watching. They sued him under the whistleblower statutes in Texas.

Just today, there was an announcement that a settlement hovers near the horizon.

Attorney General Ken Paxton agrees to apologize and pay $3.3 million to whistleblowers in settlement.

And do you know who is paying that $3.3 million? Not Ken Paxton. The taxpayers of the state of Texas are paying it. I think he’s also relying on us for the apology. If you’re a Texan I hope you bought some nice stationery and you’re working on yours.

I didn’t do a damn thing wrong in this situation but I gotta pay the punishment?

In case you’re wondering how all this has hurt his office, the AP did an investigation last September. It’s exactly what you’d expect.