Monday, 20 January 2025

At noon today, a convicted felon, who is barred by the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution from doing so, will put his hand on a bible and lie that he will uphold the Constitution.

Due to his fear of following in the path of William Henry Harrison (yes, you should know this), as well as potential hair problems due to the wind, the event has been moved indoors. At least a thousand of his minions have used their beer and cigarette money to travel to DC, and will now either watch on the jumbotron at the Capitol One Arena or perhaps they will go home ahead of time. Likely, they will not be partaking of any of the history available throughout the District. Luckily for them, the bars will likely be open.

Following that, “Dictator on Day 1” will be signing already composed Executive Orders, and going to join his minions at the arena. Then, more signing. Remember, the goal is cruelty.

The deportation raids will begin. They have mentioned Chicago, and other sanctuary cities. I have a question. The biggest complainers about immigrants are Abbott in Texas, and DeathSantis in Florida. Why not start there? Maybe it’s just me, but I would think the jackboots would go for the path of least resistance, and Texas (and to a lesser extent Florida) would provide the most bang for the buck.

I wonder if they’ll try a wall again. It was a complete failure the first time: parts blown over by wind, flooding ruined gates, not to mention ladders, and the use of cheap power tools that just cut through. More info.

Perhaps there will be tariffs. Hard to tell how far he’ll go at the outset.

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We say goodbye and thank you to some incredible people who embodied “public service” in their roles in the Biden administration. Here is a list of them, in order of succession.

As you go forward into retirement, thank you, President Biden, for leading us out of the Covid pandemic, for the Inflation Reduction Act, and for every decent, humane thing you attempted in your four years in office.

Thank you to Vice President Harris for stepping up.

Thank you to the cabinet members (EXCEPT Merrick Garland) for all you did within your purviews to protect America, and do the right things.

Special shout out to Mrs. Biden: thank you for reminding us how important teachers are for the world.

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As the day begins, we are in Day 2 of the Meta blackout. It won’t do anything, but it will be a message to Zuck that giving up on fact checking, implementing onerous Terms of Service, and showing complete fealty to the Orange Menace is not playing well with his customers¹.

And then there’s TikTok. It’s off, it’s back on, who knows? I assume that Von Shitzenpants will grant the 90-day window for TikTok to find a buyer, which will give his bros time to raise the money for a bid. I don’t care if they buy it, I just hope that Byte Dance doesn’t give them any of their proprietary algos.

The Orange Menace’s latest is that he wants US ownership of half of TikTok. Um…who did he think would buy it? If I had to guess, he wants to personally own half of TikTok, which, in my estimation is even more of a national security threat than if China owns it. Already, Senators Cotton and Ricketts have come out with a statement against the extension. Face it, the Congress voted overwhelmingly to make TikTok cease operations unless they divested, and the Supremes upheld the legality. That’s two out of three of the branches of government, and the Executive branch has no legal right to overturn it.

It would be early in the regime’s new term for a constitutional crisis, but there you have it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have never seen TikTok. I only know about TikTok from having read about it - things like people paying to watch people unbox things and to dance. But perhaps they actually sell things. I honestly don’t know. But it appears people make money on it.

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It’s the Martin Luther King Day of Service. I hope that all of you will find a way to be contributory to society, not just today, but on a regular basis. As we enter this time of deplorable horror, we each have a choice to make.

The only thing we each get every night at midnight is 24 hours². We can use our time to be productive and contributory, or we can choose not to do those things. Please choose wisely, and be kind.

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And on a personal note…

There is something wrong with my leg. In the world of “modern medicine”, doctors rarely see patients, they see body parts, at incredible levels of specialization. My leg has been through an MRI, a vascular ultrasound, and a biopsy. It has been seen by an oncologist, a dermatologist, an internist, a chiropractor and an orthopedist, in that order. There is no diagnosis. Without an accurate diagnosis, there can be no viable treatment.

While this makes me want to write a tome of the state of health care and insurance in the United States, I’m going to save that for another day. I’m telling you this because I need to see a specialist, of which there are six (6!!!) in the area. My assumption is that this will involve more tests, possibly another biopsy, a lot of money, and a bunch of time.

I will be FINE because I have a great attitude, and I don’t have time to be incapacitated. There are doors to knock, calls to make, speeches to give, events to attend, all in the name of doing the right thing to save America and democracy.

So, if I miss a day of blogging, that just means I had some test that knocked me out for a day, and I chose sleeping it off over writing. Apologies in advance if it comes to that and I disappoint your morning inbox!

1. I am boycotting Facebook - if you are used to seeing me there, you can instead follow me on Bluesky: @docjess.bsky.social. And yes, I’ll follow back!

2. Yes, one day, hopefully not soon, it will be fewer hours.