Month: July 2026

Even a Man Who’s Pure at Heart

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SS – Good evening xe, xer and all the ships at sea, this is your intrepid reporter Snott Smelley here on my Substack; “The Smelley Report!”  And tonight, I have an exclusive interview with that rising star of the communis…, I mean of the progressive wing of the Democrat party Gland Splatinher.  Good evening Mr. Splatinher.  May I call you Gland?

GS – Hello Snott.  Sure thing.  I’m just a simple oyster farmer from here in the heartland of Maine trying to strike a blow for just plain folks like myself.

SS – Well, Gland, things seem to have gotten complicated out here on the campaign trail for you lately and I thought maybe you needed to have a high-profile platform to get your side of the story out.

GS – Well, thank you Snott.  Yes, as of late, my enemies have been weaponizing the news reports to spread lies about my past.  They’re painting me as this angry, drunken, Neanderthal who brutalizes and rapes women on a regular basis.  The truth is that I have no more than 5% Neanderthal DNA and there is absolutely nothing regular about my attacks.  They’re completely random and completely justified.

SS – Justified?

GS – Sure!  If you just listen to the latest story about me, it’s crystal clear that I was “black-out drunk” when I showed up.  Well, that means I was not responsible for my actions.  This puts me in the same category as Larry Talbot when he becomes the Wolfman.  Sure, he tears his victims limb from limb but when he wakes up, he has no memory of his killings.  So, ipso facto, he’s innocent.  What my opponents are trying to do is paint me as more like a Count Dracula that is fully cognizant of his attacks and drains his victims of blood in the unholy quest for eternal life.  My enemies are intentionally trying to conflate werewolves and vampires.  But this couldn’t be farther from the truth in my case.  In many ways I’m more of the victim than these accusers.  After all, they had the chance to block me on Kik but encouraged me instead.  Basically, they were painting a pentagram in their palms as far as I’m concerned.

SS – Well, Gland, that’s all very interesting, but how will the voters of Maine view this situation.  Word is that all of the Democrat power brokers have turned on you and demand that you drop out of the race including Bernie Sanders who when he heard of the latest accusation broke into Yiddish and had a minor stroke.

GS – That’s where you come in Snott.  With the long reach of your platform, I can get my story out.  With your 300 million viewers I can get public opinion on my side and crowd fund my campaign to shout down the haters.

SS – Well I think there’s been a mistake.  I said I had 300 viewers.  You must have thought I meant 300 million.  But I didn’t.  But don’t worry, those three hundred are super loyal viewers and have netted me more than eleven dollars of super-chat money several times this month.

GS – Three hundred?  Three hundred?  What are you, an idiot?  My cat videos get a thousand times that every day.  Eleven dollars?  I’m going to need eleven million dollars in lawyers’ fees to keep me out of prison on the assault charges.  If you were in the same room with me right now, I’d finish you.  Don’t ever contact me again you loser.  (The feed closes)

SS – Well folks, you heard it here first.  Gland Splatinher will be using the Larry Talbot defense in his upcoming campaign and subsequent assault trial.  This is your humble servant Snott Smelley signing off and wishing you a safe, seen and centered tomorrow.

Guest Contributor – ArthurinCali – 07JUL2026 – PlatnerGate

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My theory on PlatnerGate.

>Allegations 5+ years old.
>Recollection of events make no sense.
>Let him sleep it off on her couch and doesn’t call police or go to hospital because she didn’t want him driving drunk.
>No police report or SA kit evidence collected.
>She reliably “tells” next partner about assault and an unnamed therapist.
>Campaign drop out date one week away.

“Racicot said she was torn over coming forward in part because she agrees with Platner politically. “One of the reasons I didn’t come forward sooner was, the huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his politics, but not supporting him as a person,” she said.

Huh?

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Two things can be true at once: 1. This isn’t a defense for Platner’s political positions, online history, nor his multiple personal issues. He is a walking dumpster fire of a candidate that I would never support but Mainers picked him as their choice. Being convicted in the eyes of the online and media public is not a conviction in court. 2. This was a political Samson Option by the DNC that undermines any semblance of their precious devotion to the democratic process. My theory is the calls from donors kept coming in saying get Platner off the ballot by any means necessary, thus the MeToo tactic was revived with smelling salts to be used. Anyone with eyes and critical thinking skills can see a political hatchet job in action. Platner being shown the door does more for the Dems than for the GOP. If that happens, they get to pull the old Biden/Kamala trick and install who they want to run, voters be damned.

—————————————-

“But they’ll lose the race.”

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So what? Susan Collins is a reliable Democrat ringer in the GOP. They do not care if she wins another term. What happens if she does? More voting with Dems against RW domestic issues? More mass immigration from Somalia to Maine? Look up her record and you’ll see another Democrat who ran as a Republican simply to get the office. A RINO.

_____________________________

Honestly, this is bigger than Platner. Sure, he’s a walking disaster all by himself, but the big picture view should show normies of all political stripes how “managed” this entire idea of Democracy really is. From Bernie to Kamala, the illusion of choice by the voters is mostly a farce. The same-day orchestra of a pre-taped CNN interview dropping, multiple rescinded endorsements and ready-made statements from various DNC outlets show how planned the rollout of PlatnerGate was designed for full effect. Making Platner drop out and installing another candidate is a seldom glimpsed example of how the political sausage is made in the backroom. The tattoo and past online comments didn’t sway Maine voters, so the donors got too nervous and demanded the DNC get him off the ballot. Why? Because if he did happen to actually win this November, he’d be a pariah too radioactive as a Senator for public records of donor contributions, or get involved in a political patronage system in the Northeast region. A distraction and cudgel that would be used repeatedly against the Democrats. Pushing him aside also gives the added bonus of Democrats strutting around with the mantle of morality after he is vanquished, pretending that they actually cared. The idea of the Democrat party becoming the moral voice in the room is laughable. This is the party of Ted Kennedy and Scott Weiner. Of drag queen story hour for children. A party that shrugged off Clinton’s “The Bimbo Brigade” as a Right-wing conspiracy.

They don’t believe all women, just particular ones that can be politically useful to them. Progressives only care about power and control, and this is another example of tactics to that end.

Tom’s World – 07JUL2026 – Atlanta Road Rage – Part 2

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Tom | Flickr

TomD

Below from Google AI in response to a search. You can see elements of prejudice in the framing of the intended traffic mitigation efforts in terms of “sprawl” and civil rights.

Did it ever come to light who was spearheadding the successful opposition by federal lawsuit to Atlanta metro traffic inittiaves circa 2002?

The prominent federal lawsuits that successfully disrupted and reshaped Atlanta metro traffic and highway initiatives circa 1999–2002 were spearheaded by a coalition of environmental and civil rights organizations, most notably led by the Sierra Club, Georgians for Transportation Alternatives (GTA), and the Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice. [1, 2]
The primary public figures and legal minds anchoring this push included:

Context of the Legal Battle
The litigation (most notably Georgians for Transportation Alternatives v. Shackelford and Sierra Club v. Atlanta Regional Commission) alleged that Atlanta’s multi-billion dollar, highway-expanding Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) violated the federal Clean Air Act. Because metro Atlanta chronically failed to meet federal ground-level ozone and smog safety deadlines, the lawsuits successfully froze federal funding and forced a historic out-of-court settlement. [1, 2, 4]

The Outcome
Rather than stopping transit outright, the opposition successfully weaponized federal law to force a massive pivot away from sprawl. The settlement required state and regional planners to scrap dozens of major road-widening projects, reallocate roughly 40% of regional funding directly into mass transit, and heavily analyze the civil rights impact of traffic planning on low-income and minority neighborhoods. [1, 3]

Believe All Men!

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Well, it looks like Graham Platner is headed for the last roundup.

The bearded, oyster-farming, nazi-tattooed, philandering communist has now been accused of sexual assault by one of his old girlfriends.  And the Democrat party endorsements are being pulled back so fast the friction is causing them to burst into flames.  Well, I guess he finally exceeded the maximum allowable Democrat slime limit.  And it’s interesting to see how that limit has evolved over time.  At the height of the #MeToo movement, Al Franken was forced to resign a senate seat based on a photo of him joking around with a woman back when he was a comedian.  But as of 2026 the Democrat voters of Maine were cool with Platner dragging a girlfriend out of a cab and locking her in a bedroom against her will.  Now granted, she was a Republican so you could say, “She had it coming.”  But it’s good to see the Democrats are evolving their stance on “Believe all women.”  Now it’s, “Believe all Democrat women.”

I heard that if Platner agrees to drop out of the race, the Democrats have until July 13th to replace him on the November ballot with the candidate of their choice.  Of course, the voters won’t have picked this candidate but that’s no different from Kamala Harris’s selection for the 2024 Democrat presidential spot.  So there is plenty of precedent.

Now, how does this affect the race?  Well, I’m guessing that if Platner refuses to relinquish his spot on the ballot, he will lose to Susan Collins by a good margin.  But assuming that he is going to step aside, which seems very likely, what are the chances for a replacement to beat Collins?  Well, let’s assume that Janet Mills, the 78 year old Maine Governor who was running against Platner before she suspended her campaign is selected.  So she’s another old woman like Collins but she’s a Democrat.  I feel like in this anti-Trump environment in a New England state even a RINO like Collins will be unlikely to survive this election.

I’m assuming this will eliminate the last remaining Republican holdout in the New England Congressional delegation.  And that’s no surprise.  It’s a 60/40 state and in a statewide election like senatorial races there isn’t any reason to imagine a Republican winning.

So I’m guessing Susan Collins will make a last gasp effort to get Platner to stay in the race.  She should spend up to a million dollars on an ad campaign that will be based on, “Believe All Men!”  She can have Bill Clinton get up in front of the camera and tell his story about how all those women lied about him and sullied his good name.  Maybe she can even get Hillary to talk about how bimbo eruptions hounded their whole professional lives and how unfair it is that people tend to believe women when they say they’ve been harassed by such upstanding citizens like Graham Platner and Bill Clinton.  Yeah, that might work.

Keanu Goes to the Devil

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Keanu Goes to the Devil

I’ve mentioned the movie “Constantine” tangentially while discussing comic book movies and some other topics that occupied me back a few years ago.  This 2005 movie stars Keanu Reeves as a Los Angeles based exorcist and general enemy of demonic forces.  He’s a sort of angsty noir character who is angry at heaven since he is doomed to hell because he attempted suicide as a teenager over the horror he experienced as a psychic.

The movie follows a “logic” about the rules in place for angels and demons that makes absolutely no sense but allows for the plot devices that move the story along its arc.  And much of the action is plodding and mechanical.  And yet I find myself watching this turkey (or parts of it) over and over again.  Why?

Well, the two aspects of the movie that stand out in my head are two very different things.  The first item is the visualization of Hell.  You could say this is just a special effects technique but it really is a rich imagining of the underworld.  The idea of Hell as our own world but turned into a burned-out husk makes for a vivid background.  And then the demons as these mutilated corpses with the tops of their heads sheared off is bizarrely fitting.

But the second item is, I think, the more compelling.  It is the representation of Lucifer during his arrival to harvest the soul of Constantine.  As promised in the country song, the devil wears a white suit.  As played by Peter Stormare, Lucifer is a witty, amiable fellow who enjoys chatting with his old acquaintance Constantine prior to bringing him back to Hell where he claims he has “a whole theme park full of red delights” for Constantine to “enjoy.”  He even helps Constantine light his cigarette when the exorcist can’t manage his lighter because of the cut finger tendons incurred when he slit his own wrists in order to summon up Lucifer.  Of course, the devil can’t help pulling the flame away two or three times just for fun.  It’s this pettiness and banality that adds interest to the part.  It’s contrasted with the menace that shows through whenever Lucifer’s plans are challenged either by demon, angel or divine law itself.  But it’s the human face of evil that makes Lucifer compelling.  His vindictiveness, cruelty and pride show up as the proof that angels, devils and man are all creations of the same maker.  We all have the same stamp.  We’ve been given free will and we can use it to reach a higher ground or fall off the mountain.

So that’s why I guess I enjoy watching this silly movie (or at least parts of it).  Not for the absurd plot or the goofy take on Christian theology as it relates to Hell.  I guess I just like to think about Satan being this provincial, bureaucratic apparatchik fighting with humans and God to protect his turf and cause as much mischief as he can.  It just seems to fit what I’ve seen of human nature.  At least some of it.