Pre-Turkey Day 2024

Good morning from my Hunker-Bunker overlooking the Puget Sound from West Seattle. It is 0900-ish and it I am sitting here looking out my window watching the racoons and squirrels outside, while my indoor cat is about to knock down the screen door and kill, kill, KILL things. She’s a big pussy, being a Maine Coon Cat with an attitude…

… now she’s mad at me, because I closed the door. I’m suddenly the bad human. Oh well, she’ll get over it.

So I fucked up my knee again. Not as bad as last year, but it hurts in a different way. Now, I can walk all over the place with no problem, it’s sitting down which causes pain. Forget driving a clutch for the moment… I blame Trump.

So depending on who is reading this, tomorrow is Thanksgiving/Indigenous Massacre Day/National Family Health History Day/National French Toast Day/Albanian Independence Day. You do you.

I’m going to be here all alone. I have a traditional Thanksgiving meal set up, with all the trimmings for one. I’ve been cheating a bit by using the cranberry orange relish on my hamburger last night. You have no idea…

It’s going to be great, don’t worry about me (as if you would). I’m going to be here in my Hunker-Bunker, the wife is next door — with the in-laws. They don’t have a clue.

At any rate, here is the news I’ve spent the past hour or so gathering up and glancing through before deciding whether I want to comment on it or not. Yesterday, I had twelve things ready to publish, and decided that it really wasn’t worth the electrons to comment on it. So I trashed it and went on with my day.

So let’s see what happens today.

A Dying of a Format / Model

MSNBC Loses Almost HALF Its Viewers in Stunning Post-Election Ratings Report

MSNBC is facing a staggering ratings collapse in the wake of the 2024 election, with the network’s audience shrinking by nearly half as Fox News became the only cable news outlet to show post-election growth.

According to Nielsen data, MSNBC’s total viewership has dropped by 47 percent post-election, and its critical 25-54 demographic plummeted to just 63,000 during primetime—a sharp contrast to its pre-election numbers.

The losses are particularly stark compared to rival network Fox News, which solidified its dominance as the most-watched cable news network during and after the election.

While MSNBC pulled in 644,000 viewers in primetime, Fox News soared to 3.2 million, an 86 percent year-over-year increase in total viewers. In the coveted 25-54 demographic, Fox saw a 147 percent surge, averaging 476,000 viewers.

For the record: It’s been three years next month that I stopped watching cable news of any brand. It’s literally toxic to the mind, and that’s no joke. Three years after detoxing from that habit, I can see how bad it has polarized this country with pure bullshit. I’m not talking about just MSNBC, I’m talking about ALL of them. It’s pure indoctrination to the point where you cannot tell what is real and what isn’t. The repetitive bullshit regardless of the ‘show’ you are watching gets drilled into your head to the point where it becomes second nature. You are hooked, and nothing else is real, and quite possibly deliberate disinformation.

Everyone with a view that is contrary to yours is ‘suspicious’ and/or the ‘enemy’. “Oh, you are one of those….“

But this isn’t what is tanking MSNBC, it’s that most of its viewership has switched platforms completely. Television isn’t where most of these younger people get their ‘news’ and information these days. They get it from TikTok and to a lesser extent, YouTube and podcasts. Also, MSNBC is an upper tier cable channel, whereas CNN and FOX are available on the lower tier packages. That NBC / MSNBC licensing mess is expensive for both. When Microshaft weaseled out from the original partnership, it left NBC holding a bag it never wanted. Maybe now that Comcrap is finally going to pawn it off as part of a package to anyone who wants it, then maybe they can sink or swim. I’m guessing they will sink, because the television format as it is is dying.

Everyone is suddenly a journalist, I ironically type…

I guess we can politicize everything these days

How political hatred turns people against everything from chocolate to charities

Do Republicans and Democrats have different tastes in chocolate? A new study finds our sweet tooth may lean to the left or right just like the rest of our politically polarized bodies.

Imagine standing in the candy aisle, reaching for your favorite chocolate bar, when suddenly you hesitate. You start to think, “What if choosing that brand makes me look like I’m siding with the political party I can’t stand?” Well, it turns out that’s exactly the kind of bizarre mental calculation we might be making without even realizing it.

The provocative new study by researchers from Linköping University in Sweden reveals that political tribalism runs so deep, it can dramatically influence our choices of seemingly neutral products — even something as innocuous as chocolate.

Led by Arvid Erlandsson and published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the researchers conducted four intriguing experiments that exposed a surprising psychological quirk: people tend to deliberately avoid products associated with political groups they dislike.

“It’s less about you associating with what your own side likes and more about avoiding what’s liked by the opposing side,” Erlandsson explains in a university release.

Remember the buzz in 2015 when US Weekly revealed that Donald Trump’s favorite ice cream flavor was cherry vanilla? This seemingly trivial tidbit serves as the perfect example of what researchers call “indirect political distancing” – the tendency to develop aversions to products, brands, or items that become associated with opposing political figures or groups, even when those associations are completely arbitrary.

I’d like to say the cupcakes caught my attention, but no, it was the headline.

Who the fuck comes up with this shit?

But then I got to thinking: I still have a Keurig coffee maker that my neighbor threw out because the company said or did something that wasn’t ‘conservative’ enough for him. If I recall, it was some AM radio clown who told his listeners to throw out their Keurigs.

My Dick is Bigger Than Your Dick – Part MXXVII

Homan says he is willing to put Denver mayor ‘in jail’ over deportation position

Tom Homan, President-elect Trump’s pick for “border czar,” said he is willing to put Denver Mayor Mike Johnston (D) in jail over his vow to protect migrants in the city after Trump promised a mass of deportations — particularly in sanctuary cities — when he returns to the White House.

“All he has to do is look at Arizona v. U.S. and he would see he’s breaking the law,” Homan, the former director of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said of Johnston in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity.

“But, look, me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing. He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail,” he added.

Cool story, bro…

Except that the US Constitution stands in the way. The federal government does not own or control state or local resources, such as the police, jails vehicles, etc. If the mayor of a city doesn’t want the city’s resources going to helping the federal government, it has every right to say “no”, and sit it out.

A city, county or state can “invite” the feds in to help on some kind of situation or operation, but the feds cannot order the cooperation and usage of local resources without their permission.

It will be fun to watch Homan try to toss a mayor in jail for refusing to participate in any of this.

We have become an oligarchy

‘Soros of the right’ Elon Musk eyes progressive prosecutors as next target

Donald Trump adviser Brooke Rollins had a question for the crowd celebrating his election at his Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month. “Where is the George Soros of the right?” she called from the stage, referring to the billionaire investor and prolific liberal donor.

To loud cheers, a younger billionaire in the audience threw his right hand into the air: Elon Musk.

Musk is being likened to Soros in Republican circles — and embracing the comparison — after he plowed more than $118 million into his pro-Trump super PAC to support the former president’s campaign. He is also planning to use Soros’s past donations as a road map to guide his own political targets.

The tech mogul told advisers shortly before the election that America PAC should challenge “Soros DAs,” referring to a cohort of progressive district attorneys across the country who received support from Soros and affiliated organizations, according to two people familiar with Musk’s plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Musk believes that prosecutors linked to Soros are too lenient on crime and directly responsible for theft and other quality-of-life issues in cities across the country, the people said. Many DAs linked to the liberal donor campaigned on platforms of criminal justice reform and were elected in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

“The progressive district attorneys are a problem, and they are easy pickings,” one of the people said.

I’ve always been amazed at how the Right has focused on George Soros and his tendency to donate to Liberal groups, while completely ignoring how several billionaires have been funneling large sums of cash into Conservative groups. In just this election cycle alone, Elon Musk spent $200 million to get Donald Trump elected so he could have someone to hang around and try to control. I don’t think poor Donald can take a shit on his gold-plated toilet without Elon standing there holding the toilet paper roll. I wonder how much cash he’s going to spend to get the Constitution changed so he can run for president himself…

Question: How many government, national security, and military contracts does Elon Musk have with the US government that he just bought partial control of?

Doesn’t anyone see the corruption here?

I’ve been saying this for six years now…

Big Oil doesn’t need to ‘drill, baby, drill’

Trump wants to expand production. Oil companies already have record output.

Donald Trump wants America’s energy companies to produce more oil and “unleash” a new era of energy independence. “Drill, baby, drill” was a perpetual refrain on the campaign trail. There’s just one obstacle now that he’s been elected: The energy companies themselves.

“Oil and gas companies probably have other ideas,” said The Guardian. The United States is already the world’s largest producer of oil and gas, and has been for the last six years — since the last Trump administration. Big companies right now are profitably focusing on low-cost, high-production wells and reluctant to spend money drilling new wells while crude oil prices “stay flat,” said the Guardian. “Nobody’s got crazy plans to be drilling at accelerated rates,” said Peter McNally, an analyst at Third Bridge.

Among the notable skeptics is ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods. “I don’t know that there’s an opportunity to unleash a lot of production in the near term,” he said to Semafor. Most companies are already “optimizing their production.” Woods naturally opposes climate policies designed to produce a “rapid phaseout of oil and gas consumption.” But he doesn’t see a need to expand drilling, either. “I don’t think today that production in the U.S. is constrained.”

There has NEVER been a shortage of spots to drill in this country. And I am not even talking about the huge number of leases on federal land that oil companies hold and will probably never drill on.

Oil companies are already producing to the limits of their capability. (man power, equipment, refineries, transportation, ships, etc.) We went for a period of time in this country where we weren’t producing much oil because it was cheaper to get it from Saudi Arabia just after the first Gulf War. So wells were capped here in the US and oil produced elsewhere for cheap.

That’s changed now. Oil companies pump where it is cheapest for them to pump. Right now, the geopolitical landscape makes the US the better place to produce, so that’s what they’ve been doing.

But you probably never would have known this if you were getting your news from one of the silos.

Another Pearl of Wisdom I’ve been saying for years

Searches of ‘who pays for tariffs’ sees massive spike after Trump’s announcement

Google users have a question: who pays for tariffs?

The phrase exploded in Google searches in late October and saw a massive spike again on Monday night. Those searches are no doubt driven by Trump’s insistence on levying tariffs on foreign-made goods. It appears a lot of people voted for Trump, but only thought after the fact to understand what those tariffs might mean for their wallets. It appears the same thing happened again this week after the president-elect announced new tarrifs.

Trump vowed that he would enact a 25 percent tariff on products from Canada and Mexico, and a 10-percent tariff on Chinese made goods — acts that would likely raise the prices of everything from basic consumer goods to high-end electronics to lumber for homes and commercial buildings.

President Claudia Sheinbaum has warned that if Trump tariffs Mexico, the nation will issue its own tariffs against the United States.

In Canada, President Justin Trudeau said he planned to hold an emergency meeting to discuss Trump’s tariffs.

But back at home, regular folks are just trying to figure out who is going to be paying for the increased costs.

First of all, let’s get something straight: CONSUMERS WILL ALWAYS PAY THE TARIFFS. ALWAYS

Let’s say Walmart imports a $100 widget from China, and sells it at their store for $150. Along comes the Trump administration and they impose a 25% tariff across the board for all goods originating from China. This means that the importer is now going to pay $125 for that widget, and in order for Walmart to maintain it’s current profit margin it will now have to sell that widget in their stores for $175.

China isn’t going to pay a dime for the tariff, any more than Mexico was going to pay for ‘the WALL. This was the Gypsy Twist that Donald Trump sold a lot of people. The bamboozle. The rinky-dink.

Okay, with me so far?

Donald has been throwing out these messages that on his first day he’s gonna do this and he’s gonna do that. He’s threatening to impose 25% sanctions on both Canada and Mexico “if they don’t do something about the fentanyl coming in”

This is a TACTIC, and the audience is for both Canada and Mexico. He wants to squeeze them a bit to assert his power and to show them who’s ‘boss’. He would have hundreds of American businesses here in this country screaming at him if he were to go through with a full 25% on either country.

As far as the fentanyl coming in: Most of it gets transported by American citizens.

Want to stop the flow of illegal drugs of ANY kind coming across the border? Take away the demand. As long as there are a record number of people USING here in this country, there will ALWAYS be the smuggling across the border. This is the nature of drugs and drug addiction.