Speaking of blowhards, did you know that Alex Jones has agreed to liquidate his assets and pay the $1.4 billion that he owes to the parents of Sandy Hook victims? NPR has it here.

Is this the end of a very short career of lies, hate, grift, and conspiracy? Only time will tell. My one hope is that he doesn’t experience a resurgence in popularity when President Enrico Tarrio presents him with a Medal of Freedom at his 2044 State of the Union Address.

But seriously, here is a compendium of photos to mark the high- and lowlights of the passage of Alex’s time of celebrity on this mortal coil.

Here is Alex Jones at his first gig in Waco at the ruins of the Branch Davidian complex just after he accosted a CBS reporter who Alex thought was an FBI agent.

Here is Alex Jones at his desk during his stint as an Austin Access television commenter and later, a KJFK radio host before he was fired.

Here is Alex Jones as a feature in a 2009 documentary film about conspiracy theorists

Not to be mistaken for the previous WWE group of the same name.

Here is Alex Jones in his ursine display of personal health hawking Anthroplex for $29.99 a bottle. (It’s got zinc!)

Here is Alex Jones spewing outright lies and hatred on a megaphone in Newtown, Connecticut.

Here is Alex Jones awarding attorney Mark Bankston his “Perry Mason Moment” during his testimony in court.

Here is Alex Jones experiencing Chapter 7 in a tearless crying jag on TV last Saturday.

And here is the UK’s version of Alex Jones (Charlotte Alexandra Jones). She’s a nice woman who presents on the BBC.

No relation.

I had another Facebook interaction on Saturday, but this one turned out to be positive. At the same time, the entire experience illustrates the mountain we have to climb to get there. It was heartening and disheartening all at the same time. The beginning was simply one of those memes about student loan forgiveness. Just right there we have a triumph of issue framing. In order to be eligible for “loan forgiveness” one has to pay in regularly for at least ten years.

Instead of focusing on hearsay, let’s take a look at actual facts. According to the link, the average monthly payment is 503 dollars. It takes the average person 20 years to repay the loan. My crack math skills tell me that over ten years that ends up being around 61,000 give or take a dollar here or there. The same site said that typically 42 percent of the amount repaid goes to interest.

So, to call it student loan forgiveness is a bit disingenuous to begin with. This is what I lovingly call issue framing. I haven’t even lied yet and you already have a vision in your head of someone paying nothing for an education. The truth is that they pay back on average 61,000 before they are even eligible for the forgiveness. That exceeds the original value of their loan most of the time and we are just looking at the average payment and minimum amount of time to be eligible.

The good news is that the conversation went well. When I started pointing out facts the conversation shifted and became more cordial. I don’t think I converted anyone. The main counterpart still thinks it is better to incentivize big business and is still anti-student loan forgiveness but at least they acknowledged that the “facts” they were going in with weren’t really facts at all.

It took awhile. I had to lay out the groundwork that the federal government gives all kinds of people tax breaks, bailouts, and incentives for various reasons. Then, I had to go through the rules that were put in place to be eligible for the loan forgiveness. From there, I had to combat the notion that students were majoring in lesbian zombie studies or transgender media bias.

This is where things get into the good or bad news territory depending on your perspective. Doing this daily can be exhausting and it is a job that mainstream media is failing at. It isn’t that they are failing as much as they aren’t trying. It makes no sense for them to try. For all of the talk about media bias and a so-called liberal bias, they are ignoring the most obvious bias of all. Everyone wants to make a buck and conflict sells. So, why correct a bad frame when that bad frame gets eyeballs, clicks, and subscriptions?

The 24 hour news cycle and networks could have tackled these things. They could go into more depth on important issues so that their viewers have a more thorough understanding. It isn’t even so much that people would agree more with the idea of loan forgiveness. It would be that they wouldn’t necessarily demonize people because they would see that they have paid back what they originally borrowed and then some.

Again, this can be exhausting. This is one person and one issue. I don’t have the time or energy to tackle all of the issues and all of the people that are basing their opinions on bad information. Some of this is on all of us. I started with a simple question: what is the average loan payment and I was able to find the information in seconds. Information is available if we bother to ask the questions. Critical thinking is critical and nobody has time to do it for you.

Get in line, Orbis Business Intelligence, LTD. TFG has a few other lawsuits to settle up with before he can pay your court costs.

He owes one New York woman $88.3 million for defaming her…twice. He owes the State of New York $450 million in penalties and interest for his fraudulent business practices. He has yet to be sentenced for his hush money/fraud/contempt criminal case in re his tryst with a pornographic actor.

The man has a lot on his plate, and maybe some ketchup on his wall.

The Orbis claim on The Felon Guy extends from TFG’s lawsuit against Christopher Steele and his “Steele Dossier” that contained salacious details – that are totally believable now that we have testimony from Stormy Daniels – from an earlier escapade in Moscow.

The UK judge in the case, Mrs. Justice Steyn DBE, declined to rule on the actual allegations in the case. TFG was just 6 years too late in bringing the suit.

There are no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed to trial,” she wrote.

So to help Orbis recover the legal costs it incurred in defending the case, the judge ordered an initial payment of £300,000 (381,000 in USD) in legal fees.

Now TFG, as a convicted Felon, is proscribed from travel to 38 countries in the world, including the UK. So, getting him to pony up during his next visit will be put on hold, although it is rumored that he does own some property in Scotland.

He also has other previous claims on his vast wealth, as noted above. So Christopher Steele will have to await his reimbursement check. But he should check with Michael Cohen, who reportedly arranged a reimbursement on an installment plan.

Maybe he will have a suggestion.

Friday Toons will be back in force next week. We are roaming eastern WA this week on the trail of the Ice Age Floods. Doing posts via phone is rather annoying and cell service is not always available. And for all my TX friends, i want you to know that a 3 CD set of Willie Nelson, and some Jerry Jeff Walker CDs, are among our favorite road trip tunes.

Some might recall that nearly a year ago, we reported on a series of local school board actions that resulted in a recall campaign.

Remember? Three right-wing evangelical individuals were elected to the 5-member Temecula Valley board in 2022 with the backing of a local church pastor. The new majority’s first act was to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory at all of their schools.

CRT is not taught in K-12 schools in California, but that didn’t stop them from outlawing it anyway. Boy, I bet it sure felt good.

Later, the board majority turned the heat up as they rejected a state-approved social studies curriculum solely because it mentioned the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay San Francisco City Supervisor whom they labeled a “pedophile”.

And then all H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks broke loose.

A committee was formed to recall the 3 new board members. They launched a petition drive. Midway through that, one of their targets, Danny Gonzalez, stepped down and moved back to Texas. Of the remaining two, only the board president, Joe Komrosky, got tagged for a recall.

Now, you might think this was just another local yawner election in Hicksville, California, and you could have been right. But the Trumps could not leave this one alone.

No, seriously.

On May 22, TFG’s middle son, Eric Trump, smiled his gummy smile for the cameras at the Temecula Stampede, a local venue hired for the purpose of staging a show of support for the beleaguered board member and president. He brought encouraging words to the assembled throng: “I’m sorry you have to live in communism.” He even brought his wife’s botox twin, Alina Habba, to help out. As it turns out, it was Habba that convinced the Trump scion to throw his family’s support to the beleaguered board trustee.

All for naught.

Because yesterday was election day in Temecula Valley Unified School District Trustee Area 4. Joe Komrosky’s area.

The county sent Area 4 voters a total of 21,578 recall ballots last month, and mail-in ballots have been trickling in for a month now. Combined with yesterday’s in-person vote, a total of 7,521 votes were cast, and Komrosky, who had a soccer ref-like system of yellow and red cards to warn and then oust citizen-speakers at school board meetings, got red carded by citizen-voters.

That’s 4,024 Yes votes to 3,491 No votes.

(For folks from non-referendum and recall states, a “Yes” vote is a vote to fire the man’s a-double-scribble.)

What’s a MAGAn to do? I doubt that Alina will be able to drag Eric out for another tilt at another windmill. So far, it has been crickets from the recall target. So I guess it’s up to me to fill in the deafening silence.

IT WAS RIGGED! THE WHOLE THING IS A HOAX! WE WON BIGLY! THERE WERE SUITCASES OF BALLOTS! WHOLE SUITCASES!
(repeat for effect)