Breaking Fake News Update (v11)

 Fake News Broke on August 19, 2025!

This was fun fake news to cook up, for sure: toss in a little bit of DOGE (remember DOGE? Where are our DOGE checks, by the way?), a teaspoon or so of crime (who doesn't love to talk about crime?), a cup or two of election fraud (every MAGA Republican has lived through a fraudulent election - just ask one), a heaping tablespoon of a geriatric Democratic demon, a dash of American warfighters (!!!), and a pinch of accounting, and you've got a blue-ribbon recipe, for sure!

And yes, FOTUS did say when *he* votes, he gets asked for his license plate - that part is not a figment of my imagination.

As always, when fake news is breaking, we'll be shaking things up and keeping you informed.

Ranting and Raving (v10): How Deep is the Deep State?

I shouldn't be shocked that "leaders" like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Why Didn't I Retire?) would cave to the pressure and stop supporting the immigration bill that the Senate has been working on, for months - although I was surprised it took him only three hours to do so.

I am definitely not shocked that my Congressman, Brandon Williams (R- MAGA Truffle Farm), is going along with the rest of the cult in the House and declaring the bill "dead on arrival" even though it's supported by the Border Patrol union.  And 

Heck, I'm not really even shocked that evangelical House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Last Best Hope to Lead) suggested that the union supports the bill because it gives the members a raise; after all, we know his coat has only one color.

But I should be mad, and I am, and you should be, too.

We should all be mad at, and sick and tired of, elected officials pissing and moaning about all of the problems we face, and how horrible things are in the country right now, and how the American people are almost as concerned about everything as Sen. Susan Collins is on any given day, and how the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket because Joe Biden is the president, Democrats control the Senate, and the House GOP majority is so stinking small that (dear lord, It's The Big One, 'Lizabeth) they might have to (gasp!) work with the Democrats to get something done. Clutch those pearls, baby!

Good lord, give me a break already.

The same people who pretend they don't need to do anything because the other guy can do something. Unless of course he does, in which case they'll challenge his every move, doubt his every motivation, and keep everything ground to a halt so they can claim they can't get anything done because the other guy, blah bippity blah bippity blah blah blah.

Or, they'll propose something so extreme even they know it won't pass muster in the other chamber - not that they care - because they can say, look, we did something, and everyone's ignoring us and so it's their fault that nothing's getting done, blah bippity blah bippity blah blah blah.

And all this time, for the last several years, we've been told that if only the 'deep state' - the George Soros-funded shadow government that's keeping the unelected, unmanaged, Democrat bureaucrats in place - was not in control, everything would be better and America would be great and people would be happy and our margins of victory would, you know, actually be margins of victory. 

And yes, you always blame the nonagenarian, Hungarian-American who fled Nazin Germany as a child for everything wrong in our country - that's the MAGA way. Well, you can blame Hollywood. Or black football players. Or white female singers. Or school librarians. But you can never speak ill of the Orange Jesus. That's right - Rep. Mark Greene (R-Not Half as Smooth as Tennessee Whiskey) or maybe another one of his ilk, referred to Donald Trump as the Orange Jesus.

Yep. The Orange Jesus, the OJ. The man who led the charge against the Soros Deep State, the unelected bureaucrats who he thinks should be 'his' people, who should do whatever he wants, regardless of, you know, laws on the books, or what Congress wants to do on our behalf, regardless of what they're required to do. (And who, by the way, the OJ has promised to fire.)

In his kingdom, everyone loves him, works for him, bows to him, kisses his ring (blecch), and if they don't, well, they're part of the Soros Deep State that's trying to subvert him and drive our country down a path that is decidedly not leading to the MAGA Camp. 

I'm not at all afraid of the Soros Deep State - but the other one, the orange one, scares the crap out of me, and - and it's hiding in plain sight.

Hell, it isn't deep at all - it's as shallow as a droplet on a rose petal in my garden. And, not only does it not subvert his will and desires, it actively, openly promotes them - they don't even hide it anymore. Maga Campers - the Deep State soldiers - ignore us, and rub our noses in it when they do.  

We elect these folks to state and national office because we're looking for solutions to the problems we've all been complaining about - often, for years. But now, they do the bidding of an unelected, unmanageable, in-it-for-himself, convicted sex offender who never should have been in office in the first place, and who should never be in office again? 

Really? Is that what they think is the right way to do their jobs? Is that any way to run a country?

It's like we shouldn't even bother having an election this year, since the OJ can just issue pronouncements from his gold-plated golf cart and his minions will all scurry off and do his bidding. (Not to mention, no one can steal the election if we don't have one, right?)

Where's the accountability?  What happened to country over party? How on earth do we find ourselves where we are right now?

What the actual hell? 

What the ever-loving actual hell.  

Sidebar: Could We Be Like the Ukrainians?

In my Sunday School Extra Credit post, I struggled with a story told by Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN), who had an encounter with an American one of her visits to Ukraine. Here's what he told her. 

You know, Victoria, these Ukrainians, they're actually more Americans than I thought. They really remind me of Americans, and they really inspire all of us.

I'm still struggling with his comment. There's no doubt Americans, and people all over the world, are finding inspiration in the resolve of the Ukrainian people, but I don't see them as being particularly "American." Honestly? I find them particularly not American - at least, particularly not today's American.

And this morning, as I waited for my first cup of coffee, I envisioned a crisis, an honest-to-goodness existential threat to the United States, not one of the many manufactured threats we're told almost daily we need to fear. Would we be able to pull together to defend each other and our republic (if we can keep it), the way Ukrainians are defending theirs?

Here's what fell out of my head.

• Red state governors would immediately call emergency sessions, or ditch their scheduled legislative agenda of book banning and enhanced cancel culture, and pass laws declaring that teachers, librarians, LGBTQ people, and abortion providers would all be conscripted into the military first, regardless of age, to get them the hell out of the way, so when the crisis was over, "we" would be safe from "them" and their agendas.

• If the Republicans hold Congressional majorities when my crisis occurs, expect the same to come at the federal level. But, on the chance that any of their relatives re teachers or librarians, they would be excluded from military service. They would still be outcasts in their families, but they wouldn't have to go to war. 

• Fortunately, there'll be no need to worry about trans people being in wrong-gendered foxholes; after all, real women won't be sent to fight. They shouldn't have to do that, except in places like Denmark, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Eritrea, Israel, and North Korea. But those countries are different. There's not like us. 

• The Rs in states along the southern border would race directly into the Rio Grande to pull immigrants from the water. Unaccompanied minors and other children would be sent to temporary detainment facilities to sew MAGA flags and make other mission-critical supplies, while adults, including parents, rapists, murderers, drug dealers and the other 'not the best people' will be sent with their COVID and fentanyl to the trenches. Promises of speedy citizenship would be dangled, of course, with no intention of anyone ever making good on them.

• The Ds would do their best to ensure that no one got sent to battle unless the government first wiped out their student loans, and guaranteed that, no matter what, they can't be evicted from their home for the duration of their service, including any time served as a POW or in any other state of confinement.

• The most progressive of the Ds would vote against any Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), unless we first ensured that all of our weaponry was carbon neutral, and that none of the bombs would hit the ground, preventing any environmental damage. The bombs would need to be of the 'bursting in air' kind, and would have to leave no trace. They'd vote no, even if 70% of our 'militaria' met the thresholds they demanded, because everyone knows getting nothing is better than getting a lot of what you want.

• Further, nothing could be fired by drone, because having pilots fire missiles and whatever else these things can fire, without being able to see the whites of the eyes of our opponent, is wrong.

• Meanwhile, back on the home front, people from dueling Charles Koch- and George Soros- supported think tanks would be thinking, fast and furiously, how they could make money from the war, and how many additional elected officials and unelected bureaucrats they would need to purchase in order to achieve their goals. And how to finance the purchases, too; I think they might ask Russia for help on that. Or the Saudi Crown Prince. 

• And, the Heritage Foundation would be building a list of potential candidates to replace anyone they like who got sent into battle (after the first wave of undesirables was conscripted). I think that process is called Indeed? Indeed, but I could be wrong.

 And when I had coffee in hand, my viewpoint didn't change all that much. 

• Hunter Biden painted a picture of someone who might be wife of the mayor of an enemy city's brother-in-law's niece's boyfriend's sister's daughter's illegitimate son's cousin, who may or may not have thought about giving someone named Biden some money to be used for something: drugs, paying for sex, buying gouache and canvas, or, maybe, bribing an elected official. The jury's still out on that, and we can't tell on social media. Or, maybe they thought about giving Biden the Golden some treats, I don't know. I can't be sure, because the fact-checkers aren't allowed to fact-check any of this.

• Separately, some young Rs in Congress freaked out about the groomer  thing, not realizing that groomers are necessary; sometimes, they even help people wear a coat and tie in the House. And we all know, without groomers, Shih Tzus would look like... you get the drift.

• Not only that, but they're also afraid someone's going to tell them that all of their friends and colleagues and R teammates around the country who've been arrested for things related to the kind of grooming the Rs are now freaking out about are, well, the kind of groomers the Rs are now freaking out about. The call is coming from inside the house, so to speak. 

• On the other hand, if they keep talking about groomers, no one will know they voted against the AUMF, too - not because of any policy idea, but because they're just trying to make sure President Biden and his agenda are stopped - so they'll probably continue pretending their colleagues aren't groomers.

• Democratic leaders in the House and Senate - with a combined age of 1234 years, 5 months, 6 days, 7 hours, 8 minutes, and 9 seconds as I write this - will be huddled in a corner of the Speaker's balcony, trying to figure out how to 'message' the existential threat, who should deliver the message, and how many focus groups will be needed to test it out. Separately, the 57 caucuses - the same number of states President Obama said he visited - all prepared self- serving, unresponsive responses to the official message, to be ready in case the leadership every issued one. The Rs prepared a response, too, for what's it's worth.

• Meanwhile, in the trenches, folks learned to sit around and wait for something to happen. Some people brought books - banned books, can you believe that? - with them to pass the time and that created almost more of an existential threat than the threat they were there to fight. Books don't belong in foxholes, it was argued. Foxhole is a dirty word and shouldn't be allowed, someone said. Others wanted to ban a book someone was reading, which led to hand-to-hand combat.

• And then there were cries for hand sanitizer, to prevent the spread of immigrant COVID germs, but no one thought to bring any. The issue was resolved when the germaphobes agreed to eat dirt, a man said he had eaten dirt as a child and hadn't gotten the Wuhan flu. QED. 

• Back home, people who had family breadwinners deployed, or who lost their jobs when the trouble started, or who were displaced, were looking for safe places to go. But some people wanted the safe places to be safe from conflicting ideas, including disagreement on the existence of the existential threat, and so the churches and schools that had opened their doors had to close, and the government had to step in to solve the problem. And we all know how that'll work out, right? 

This is an admittedly dark take on things, and yet, it presents Americans the way we currently present ourselves to the world, and to each other. I'm sure, if push came to shove, much of what's written above wouldn't happen. We could rise to the occasion, I'm sure. We pulled together after 9/11, for a while, and we could to it again. 

The hard part, for me, is that it seems we're willing to wait until another 9/11, or some other horrific event, for us to try and talk about where we agree, rather than where we disagree... about how we can make our country successful, rather than how we can make an administration fail...  about what's worth fighting for, and how we can go about it...

Wouldn't that be inspiring?