Y’all, here’s what happens when your brains get soft.

Former president Donald Trump said he feared protesters would hit him with tomatoes, pineapples and other “very dangerous” fruit at his campaign rallies, declaring in a sworn deposition that “you can be killed if that happens.”

This comes from an event in Iowa where Trump pretended that people came to the rally with tomatoes.  He told the audience that if they saw someone trying to throw tomatoes at him, they should “knock the crap out of them.”

At one point in the questioning, Trump said his “knock the crap” statement was made “sort of in jest.” He then added, “But maybe, you know, a little truth to it.”

That sound you hear is my eyes rolling. Yeah, loudly.

“You’re lovin’ gives me a thrill But you’re lovin’ don’t pay my bills.” — Berry Gordy

Elon Musk has purchased Twitter for 44 billion dollars. Obviously, there is a lot that can go into that transaction and its effect on free speech and debates over the limitations of platforms. Who knows whether certain individuals will be allowed back on Twitter after the company banished them before. Someone else can handle that discussion or we can come to it later.

I’m still trying to get my head around the transaction itself. I have to admit that I have a twitter account. I have one of those Word Press triggers that will tweet out this column as soon as its published. I also peruse it every now and then to get breaking sports news and to see what people are saying about the Astros. I might participate in political discussions once in a blue moon. I’m on enough to have 800 or so followers. That number changes periodically. I just don’t have time to care.

I know companies advertise on Twitter and some sell their junk on Twitter as well. Still, I’m struggling to see how Twitter is worth much more than a billion dollars much less 44 billion. However, that’s still not the biggest road block in my mind. The biggest road block is just how someone is able to acquire enough money to buy anything for that sum.

There are two kinds of billionaires out there. There are the ones that create something. J.K. Rowling is a billionaire. Bill Gates is a billionaire. Steve Jobs was a billionaire before he died. Those kinds of billionaires make sense. If you create something or invent a better mousetrap you deserve your reward.

Then there are the billionaires that ride the coattails of someone else’s sweat, tears, and ingenuity. Elon Musk didn’t start Tesla. He just acquired them. He didn’t design the rockets that he launches into space. In fact, much of his fortune was inherited from his father. Some of you are probably thinking that sounds vaguely familiar. It should. That’s how wealth is often acquired these days.

Many of the billionaires out there are people you’ve never heard of. They make their money investing in other people’s blood, sweat, and tears. They buy companies and sell companies in the blink of an eye. They don’t create anything. They don’t make anything better or even worse. They are like parasites on the body politic, glomming the excess off the top before anyone can see it.

The ultimate question is whether they should exist in the first place. Someone somewhere along the line (likely on Twitter) came up with the best suggestion I’ve heard so far. Once someone gets to 999,999,999.99 they should get a trophy saying they had won capitalism and they get nothing else. The rest goes into the public coffers and distributed somehow equitably. Maybe it could retire down the debt. Maybe we could end homelessness. Maybe we could make sure everyone has a hot meal. Maybe we could make sure that everyone has health care and access to post-secondary education. I suppose that is too much to ask. A simple man can dream simple dreams. The rest can buy platforms with more money than they know what to do with.

Red flares are shooting up all around this one.

The Truth and Courage PAC was created in Austin at the end of last year.

So far, the PAC hasn’t spent a dime supporting or opposing any candidates, but it has over $2 million to spend.

Some of it’s initial funding came from two LLCs.  As always, you can click the little one to see a big one.

Karen Wright and her husband, Thomas Rastin, also gave $100,000 to the Super PAC.

Here’s the deal: Wright and her husband have been taken in by scammers before to the tune of $1.3 million.

The Super PAC also got a quarter million dollars from a mysterious trust.

Who owns Ballantrae Farm?

Retired? My sweet patootie. He’s a senior vice president at Bechtel, a major federal contractor.

And $1 million from hedge fund billionaire, Jess Yass.

Let’s keep an eye on this little sucker. It’ll be interesting how they’ll spend this money.

Oh y’all.  He has a desk.

Under the topic of “Will Always Remain the Cleveland Indians To Me …”

“Anybody who changes the name of the ‘storied’ Cleveland Indians (from 1916), an original baseball franchise, to the Cleveland Guardians, is not fit to serve in the United States Senate.”

Trump’s unadorned candidate in the Ohio Republican primary is Matt Dolan.  His family owns Cleveland’s baseball team.

I have no idea why storied is in quotation marks.

Madison Cawthorn shows up everywhere, armed dammit.

He got caught at an airport toting a gun. Again.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) was cited for having a gun at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport.

This is the second time Cawthorn has been discovered with a gun in an airport. pic.twitter.com/JrVj2ng2Yk

— The Recount (@therecount) April 26, 2022

Kinda makes you miss Louie Gohmert, right?  Face it, Madison is just Louie with a gun.

“The books are to remind us of what asses and fools we are.” — Ray Bradbury

It always starts easily enough. A concerned citizen sent a list of 60 books that she found objectionable. These books should be removed from the public library. At least that is how everything got started in Llano County. It ended up turning into a federal lawsuit.

In the meantime, a librarian was caught in the crossfire as they usually are. She was fired when she refused to remove books from the shelves. A secret cabal of concerned citizens bandied together to come up with the list of books that should be removed. The same librarian caused a stir when she attended the meeting. Obviously, she wasn’t supposed to be there.

Why should she be there? The meeting only concerned the books that would be on the shelf in her library. Again, I would have to repeat that we aren’t talking about school libraries here. We’ve already seen enough stories about districts (Katy, cough) that have tried to censor what their students can read. Now, we are going after the adults.

One of the groups most effected is a group you wouldn’t think would be effected. The group that is the most up in arms in Llano County are the senior residents there. Many of them have taken up electronic books because they are not as mobile as they used to be and can’t necessarily make it to the physical branch. Many of these titles have been wiped off of the electronic catalog.

I still remember battling with my parents over technology. Simple word processing and spreadsheet tasks were a nightmare. I remember when my mother first got one of those Nooks from Barnes and Noble. She was reluctant at first, but now she hardly ever puts it down. She can purchase new titles for pennies online and at Itunes. I could just imagine if her favorite author was removed from the list.

These things are very simple. If you have to meet in secret to do anything then there is something rotten in Denmark. I won’t say that you are definitely on the wrong side, but chances are pretty good that you are. Anything that you want to do in private should be able to be done in public. It really is that simple.