McCarthy and the TFG Wing of the GOP are suddenly clutching their pearls and swooning over federal spending and budget deficits under the Biden administration.  And during such pearl clutching, they keep citing “$31 trillion in debt,” and that “we need to get spending under control.”  At the same time as he’s introducing turmoil into every American’s life by threatening the global economy, he’s decrying causing turmoil.  Saying he wants “government to work,” he’s guaranteeing on several fronts that it doesn’t.

The debt is currently about $31 trillion dollars, which sound like a huge number, right?  It is, but let’s look at it in perspective.  US debt was at $20 trillion when TFG took office.  When he left office, it was $28 trillion, caused by a gigantic tax cut to billionaires, a huge spending spree on his wall, defense spending, and bungling of the pandemic response which caused the highest unemployment rate in history as well as collapsing the economy.  In fact, that $8 trillion increase represents 25% of all US debt today.  And it goes without saying that McCarthy and his Trumpist friends increased the debt limit THREE TIMES without conditions during that same period of time to fund the TFG spending spree.

So Kevin, let’s stop bullshitting ourselves about spending and the debt.  The facts are that when there is a GOP president in office, spending and deficits don’t matter.  When a Dem is in office there’s nothing more critical than spending and deficits with a 24/7 hysteria over spending.  This is blatant mob style hostage taking to keep their base whipped up going into 2024.  Like 2011, Republicans are once again threatening the GLOBAL economy to extract unspecified spending cuts (except for threatening seniors with cuts to social security and medicare, AGAIN).  Obama learned the hard way not to negotiate with hostage takers.  Thankfully, Biden was there and learned that same lesson.  All McCarthy deserves from him is the middle finger.

I’m personally sick to death of McCarthy’s bullshit.  I know it won’t change anything, but I feel better at least telling him so.

God; Guns; Gays; Prayer in Schools; War on Christmas; Politically Correct; Death Tax; Illegals; National Anthem; ACORN; Benghazi; Massive Voter Fraud; Stop the Steal; White Genocide.  These, and dozens of other bumper sticker talking points are all fodder to whip up fake outrage in the base to keep them wound up and angry over non-issues.  The latest is Critical Race Theory.  Virtually unheard of before March of this year, it is now the key topic on Fox Noise, OAN, social media, and Hate Radio all over the country.

What’s going on?  What’s going on is what always goes on…whip up an issue to piss off the base, flog it until it becomes ingrained in conservative DNA, then find another fake issue to piss off the base, flog it until it becomes ingrained in conservative DNA, rinse, repeat.  They use the tactic to drive the base to the polls and for fundraising.

Media Matters has been following these tactics for years and have publish a new review to the Critical Race Theory outrage.  Now, to be clear, Critical Race Theory has been in academia for over 40 years.  It was developed back then, primarily in law schools, including Harvard, to frame the approach to legislation in an effort to understand how racist policies from centuries ago have become ingrained in our laws.  It’s not political and has not been taught in schools to children.  This issue was dredged up as Trump started flogging the fake issue by banning discussions of race in the military and in government agencies call it “sensitivity training” and other pejoratives as part of his campaign in the 2020 election.

To show how these issues are flogged, Media Matters tracks the number of mentions of certain key words.  Here’s their recent tracking of Critical Race Theory on Fox Noise.

Media Matters did a great exposé a couple of years ago about how Bill O’Reilly and Lou Dobbs whipped up the War on Christmas in 2004 which is now resurrected and marched down Bullshit Street every holiday season.  Bullshit is the proper descriptor for all of this, but it’s worse than that.  It’s corrosive and undermines people’s confidence in government, has destroyed all decorum between political ideologies and is a common tactic in totalitarian governments like Russia.  The proliferation of this bullshit makes truth unknowable.  Normally rational people spout said bullshit on social media in a continuous stream, destroying civility between digital and even actual friends.  This is how you get a HUGE proportion of Republicans actually believing Trump is still president and how whites are being systematically eliminated from society.  It’s all bullshit, but it’s also ingrained in the belief systems of millions of Americans.  Even in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary, people still believe this bullshit.

It’s tragic and seriously threatens our democracy.

Trump’s tsunami of bullshit dragged on for over an hour last night, illegally staged at the White House Coronafest of loyalists and GOP congressional invertebrates.  During his narcissistic tirade Trump repeated one of his favorite whoppers – that he created the “greatest economy in history” and that last month the US added 9 million jobs, “the most ever added in history”.  The tiny detail he omitted is that we’re still down 12 million jobs lost since, asleep at the switch, he allowed COVID-19 to paralyze the economy, costing trillions of dollars, millions of lost jobs, and wiping out the savings of millions of Americans.

Trump is the biggest bullshitter in the history of the presidency.  Hell, he’s the Mozart of Bullshit.  I’m pretty sick of it and how his sycophants swallow said bullshit as if it’s apple pie with Blue Bell. Let’s hit these lies head on.  The following charts are 25 years of key economic measures.  First, GDP growth:

Average GDP growth tends to run 2% to 3% per year.  That continued during the entire Trump infestation, with no material changes up until this year. There are two notable aberrations in the rate, one the Great Recession in 2008 at the end of the GWB administration, and, of course, this year where Trump’s incompetence has driven the economy into the ditch and will probably finish down 14%, the worst economic performance in modern US history.  This is what happens when you have a lunatic at the helm of the US government.

Second, wage and salary growth:

Wages and salaries follow a similar pattern general rising and falling with the economy.  The same aberrations are apparent here, with no abnormally high growth rate during the first 3 years of the Trump infestation.

Third, unemployment rate:

Unemployment, up until Trump’s massive 2020 failure, continued to follow the same trajectory established during the Obama administration as the economy recovered from the Great Recession.  You can see the explosion in unemployment rate this year.

Lastly, the S&P 500 Index:

There is one measure where Trump is correct – the stock market.  With the Fed pumping in trillions of dollars into the economy by buying US debt, it is propping up stocks.  Combine that with Trump’s massive tax cut in 2017, and there is clearly a winning class in this economy, and we know which one that is.

So, I’m here to call Trump’s bullshit, bullshit.  He has fabricated from whole cloth a booming economy and prosperity which simply doesn’t exist in any form.  Add this to Trump’s massive failures in public health, diplomacy, trade, environment, and social justice and it’s impossible for anyone only marginally objective to call Trump qualified for another term.

Early yesterday morning, two Aramco crude facilities were attacked.  Shortly after, satellite photos showed plumes of smoke coming from multiple locations at a scale that could be observed from space.   The Saudis announced that HALF of their production had been taken off line.  When international trading started a few hours ago, crude prices jumped $6.00 per barrel, increasing to over $60.

Just a little while ago, Trump tweeted: “Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!”

Yemeni Houthis claimed responsibility for the attacks.  Mike Pompeo accused Iran for the attacks.  I call bullshit. This has all the markings of Wag the Dog as a pretense to start a war with Iran.  Here’s why I say this:

1. The Houthis have been using quadcopters and other small commercial drones bought off of Amazon for their attacks on Saudi Arabia.  These drones have little capacity to carry munitions that would cause significant damage.
2. Iran has apparently been supplying parts and training to build cheap drones, yet they are small with little capacity to carry significant explosives.
3. The attack early on Saturday morning caused enough damage to shut in FIVE MILLION BARRELS PER DAY of Saudi production.  This kind of damage was not caused by homemade drones or quadcopters from Amazon.

The Saudi facilities that were allegedly attacked are massive, with modern controls and redundant systems.  To claim that an attack with homemade drones was significant enough to shut down 5 million barrels per day of production is laughable.  This incident is one of three things:

1. An actual attack from Iran, which would be suicide by said country, and an accusation I reject.
2. An attack by some other power trying to instigate a war (the US) which is certainly a possibility.
3. The entire story is bullshit.  Trump and Mohammad bin Salman are in cahoots to start a war with Iran and jack up crude prices.

I’ll take Door Number 3, Monty.  This “attack” stinks like yesterday’s crawfish boil, and Trump tweeting that he’s awaiting instructions from Saudi Arabia is the tell.  Let’s be clear here:  The storyline is that a fleet of small homemade drones from Yemen, built by Iran, was so effective that it knocked out 50% of Saudi Arabia’s production.  Bullshit. Alternatively, Iran was so stupid as to attack Saudi directly with powerful drones (or warplanes) guaranteeing a lethal response from the US and its Middle East allies.  Bullshit.

I believe that this is nothing more than pretense to justify attacking Iran.  Worse, Trump is subjugating the US to Saudi dominance, publicly announcing that he is awaiting instructions from that murdering SOB MBS for how our country should respond.

Christ on a Crutch.  2020 or impeachment can’t come too soon.

You know how the propaganda machine pumps out books during election years peddling bullshit as fact to rile up the base.  In past years, it was manure shoveled by the likes of Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly where they wove fantastical fairy tales claiming that up is down, left is right, and the sun rises in the west.  One magnificent piece of work is by Dinesh D’Souza, The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left, where he does mental gymnastics to assert the case that American progressives were connected to Hitler and Nazi Germany.  It’s idiotic, especially to anyone who has even fleeting familiarity with high school world history, but a huge hit among the drooling class who slurp it up while filling D’Souza’s pockets with millions of dollars.

One new piece of work, written by David Brody, a reporter with the Christian Broadcasting Network, and Scott Lamb, a Baptist minister and biographer of Mike Huckabee and the baseball player, Albert Pujols is a new low in right wing manure.  It’s called The Faith of Donald J. Trump, A Spiritual Biography.  Wrongly classified as a biography rather than fiction, it spends 375 pages trying to convince the reader that Donald Trump, owner of casinos and topless bars, swindler, and world class philanderer, is actually a devout Christian.  You read that correctly – this work of fiction actually asserts Trump is a man of God.

There is one good thing, however, that has come from this book, and that is the review of it in the LA Times by Lawrence Downes, titled “Holy Crap – The ‘Godly Side of Donald Trump’ which contains some very meaningful insights about the book.  A few of his better quotes:

and this little tidbit,

“Decency, honesty, charity, humility: Who cares if the president does not manifest these things in what he says or does? Never mind the Lord’s commandments, like the ones forbidding idolatry, bearing false witness and moving on thy neighbor’s wife like a bitch.”

Unlike the actual book, this review is a great read, highly recommended.  I’m dubbing it Best Book Review Ever.