Trump’s Presidency is Sick

Trump has killed his own presidency, and he used the coronavirus to do it.

The facts are he ignored a deadly virus, which went on to kill more than 220,000 Americans, caught it himself, spread it throughout the White House, and has yet to be fully honest about it.

Most voters, I think, don’t see his battle with the coronavirus as a show of strength, but one of weakness and stupidity. One that could have been completely avoided but for Trump’s own carelessness. In 2016, he counted on a lot of swing voters and people ‘feed up with the system’. This time Trump is the system. Many who voted for him last time are now fed up with him. He learned nothing from his sickness. Trump has learned only one thing since the last election; his ‘base’ got him elected and it will be his ‘base’ that will get him re-elected.

There’s a problem with that; he’s driven off the independent and swing voters in order to keep that supposed base happy. He’s losing college educated Whites, seniors (seniors!), and women, lots of women. And everything he’s doing, or not doing, is driving them ever farther away.

Those that are not enough to see him win the election. This is why he’s losing; in the states were Trump, most show either he’s flat-out behind or within the margin of error. In the 2020 election, Texas and Florida could be swing states! The latest stunt Trump is pulling with Covid-19 shows that he still doesn’t understand, care or empathize with anyone not named ‘Donald Trump’.

This the covid infection that is really hurting him, both physically and electorally. As I said, he refuses to be fully honest about it. What we know about the timeline is; he and Hope Hicks spent time traveling around to RNC chair Ronna Romney McDaniel. McDaniel tests positive for the virus, which means both Trump and Hicks have been exposed. Ignoring this, continue to attend fundraisers, hold and event at the White House Rose Garden, hold meetings, attend rallies, all this, like I said, after being exposed. Trump knew he’d been exposed when he went to the debate, arriving too late to be tested as the rules he agreed to said. He probably figured he wasn’t showing signs, so he was fine.

Wednesday, Hope Hicks starts showing signs, and tests positive. Trump has been in close contact with her for days, protocols say he should quarantine and get tested. He does neither, he goes to a fundraiser instead. No masks, no distancing, potentially infecting everyone there. He doesn’t care. Then (the timeline here is murky because the WH won’t release the information or keeps giving out different stories) Trump takes a test Thursday, comes back positive, and then takes another later in the day, also positive.

So now nearly 40 people in the Republican leadership have tested positive, most coming from the Rose Garden event, most of them had in contact with the president. Trump was probably the super spreader at the event, infecting dozens of people. Seeing how stupid and dismissive of the virus this administration has been, something like this was inevitable. Trump himself insists on spreading misinformation to the public about the virus, somewhat delighting in downplaying it. And in the devastating response of the government to the coronavirus and it’s no wonder he’s shedding support, especially among seniors; they think he going to get them killed.

Women see how dismissive he is of their concerns (choice, healthcare) seniors see the GOP trying to kill Social Security and Medicare, collage educated and people of color look at his racism and response to protests and turn from him, but it’s the virus that’s scared many supporters away. It’s dragged all the selfish incompetence into the daylight. He’s still got angry White guys, so there’s that.

Trump and his response to the virus has killed 220,000 Americans, killed the economy, and has nearly taken down the country. The USA’s reputation has taken a hit it will not likely recover from for decades. I change in leadership will help, but the world’s confidence is shaken.

His base will never leave him, but he needs more than just his base. Those votes he’s driven off. 

Vote.

Does Pence Dismiss All women, or Just These Two?

Sen Harris and VP Pence. The Somewhat Less-Rude Debate.

Did it ‘move the needle’ to use the cliché phrase of the debate watcher.

Probably not.

I say that as everyone is pretty much set, and many have already voted, so there weren’t a lot of minds changed tonight. The fact that this was done live with both candidates in the same room instead of in different locations (Mike Pence has been exposed to covid and should by all rights, be in quarantine), and the Pence campaign throwing a hissy about having a plexiglass shield gave it a bit of excitement, but that excitement didn’t really dhow up at the debate.

Well, the fly that crawled around Mike Pence’s hair for two minutes twenty seconds will probably will get more ink than Pence himself.

Sen Kamala Harris spoke well, smiled, and strongly made her points. Vice President Mike Pence frowned a lot, shook his head and… interrupted Harris and talked over here and the moderator, ignored his entreaties’ that his time was up, often talking for another minute. More than once Sen Harris had to remind VP Pence that she had the floor and she was talking.

This… was not a good look for Pence, he came off misogynistic and rude. This was supposed to be the ‘polite’ debate, the one that made up for the ‘shit show’ of Trump/Biden last week. Is this a purposeful tactic, or is Pence a guy who just doesn’t value what women have to say? I’m sure a lot of women saw that, and it reminded them a lot of what they’ve had to out up with for years.

So, who won?

Oh, Harris, walking away.

Really, Pence had a hard record to defend, 214,000 dead because of a disaster of a response to the coronavirus, economy cratered, huge virus outbreak at the White House that infected 34 people, including the President and the First Lady. America is a laughing stock around the world right now.

Defend that.

Harris did everything she needed to do tonight and did it well. She got her points over strongly, came off as warm and friendly, but direct and no-nonsense. Pence was... okay. He lied his ass off, and ran out of talking points halfway through and just started repeating himself.

Problem is, Pence needed to do better than 'okay', he needed to show he wasn't a raving lunatic like his boss, he needed to show some decorum, and he needed to convince people that all the crap that has happened under Trump is somehow Biden’s fault. He didn't really do that. How could you?

First off, he was rude, as I said. Harris had to swat him back a couple times for interrupting her, trying to talk over her, and just lying. Again, he talked over his time, ignored the moderator, talked over her as well, and acted like he was entitled to go over. It was rude, and it looked misogynistic.

Really, does he treat all women this way, as if what they have to say doesn't matter? After the horrendous bullying performance of Trump, Pence had to show he could follow the rules; he failed. He was stiff, boring and he had no real passion for what he was saying. He was... okay, and okay right now is a failure.

So, Harris for the win. I don't imagine it will move the needle much, one way or the other., but it shows there are sane people in the race, who actually care not to infect people.

And that should be something.

Never Promised You a Rose Garden

The Covid-19 Class of 2020

How sick is the president?

What treatments are being used?

What is Pence doing and who has the power?

Has a transfer of Presidential power been drawn up and readied to sign, just in case?  

Answer to all the above?

We don’t know.

We don’t really know the status of the President. We had his doctor, an osteopath (not a virologist) perform a very misleading and evasive press conference where he refused to state whether Trump had been on oxygen (basically, ‘not today’). He spoke more like a lawyer with a guilty client than a doctor informing the world (as the world has a stake in this as well) about the health status of the leader of the United States. Then he gave some ‘alternate facts’ about the timeline of the President’s infection and treatment (placing his diagnosis as last mid-day Wednesday (it was announced Friday morning) and his treatments starting on Thursday (previously announced as Friday). And then walked them back in a rushed press relase (with misspellings).

Does anyone here know what the hell they’re doing?

Of course, I’ve been asking that for nearly four years.  

And how did the most protected man in the US get Covid-19? Really, Trump lives a viral bubble, you’re not supposed to get coronavirus anywhere near him or he’ll cry.

Again, does anyone here know what they’re doing?

And now we are finding out, almost by the hour, that the exposure most likely came from the nomination announcement/party thrown at the White House Rose Garden by the Republicans to celebrate their latest power grab at the Supreme Court. So far, we have President Trump, Melania Trump, Sens. Lee and Tillis, the President of Notre Dame University, Kellyanne Conway, campaign manager Bill Stepien, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, Sen. Ron Johnson and now Former Gov. of New Jersey Chris Christie, all testing positive from either direct attendance of this little shindig, or from contact with someone who was there. The pictures from the gathering are eerie, like a people posing on the Titanic before it sailed. You look at them, mostly maskless, hugging, leaning in to talk over the noise and think, ‘this is not going to end well’.

And they were warned, many, many times. Blinded by arrogance and political opportunity, they just sailed on, disregarding all precautions and safety measures, secure in their virus-free world. But corona don’t care.

It doesn’t care. If you’re aggressively stupid, if you politicize the basic measures available to you, mock them, make a show of flaunting them, it will find you, it will sicken you, it will kill you. It is the Liam Neeson of viruses. It doesn’t care.

I feel no sympathy for them. They showed no sympathy for those trying to stay safe, those with underlying conditions, those who wore masks, who stayed home, who cared enough to try to even keep them safe. They didn’t care, they showed their contempt daily, eagerly, gleefully. Now, many of them are paying a price. No sympathy. We’ll likely hear about more infections as those who have announced have probably infected others. They will probably infect others who have been working to keep safe, who have been playing by the rules. Drivers, aids, maids, servers…

Those people deserve some sympathy, (and the same healthcare) as do others across the world who depend on a strong America, and now see the weakness of a man so caught up in his power fever he refused the science and help that were offered, smacked it to the ground and dug his heel in it.

Trump and the GOP have failed America, on purpose is seems, to benefit their personal political desires. They’ve taken every opportunity to lie and downplay the threat to this nation, and now their arrogance has come back on them. Trump has endangered everyone near him: staff, Secret Service, supporters, other members of the GOP leadership, donors, hundreds of people he's personally responsible for exposing to this killer. The GOP leadership is taking a huge hit. And they only have to look in the mirror to see who is at fault.

Trump and the GOP are a complete and utter disgrace. to this country. Frankly, it was inevitable Trump would get this with his defiance of commonsense and science. He deserved it. 

And we still don’t know how he is. Like nearly everything this administration does, they’re not giving us the complete truth.

We all hope he pulls though, as that is one more thing in this disaster-movie-without-end year of 2020 we do not need. We all hope he’s learned something on the other side, maybe empathy and compassion.

But I doubt it.

It Was Inevitable

Donald and Melania, both taken ill.

My mother had this thing; if there was a problem she didn’t want to deal with, she just ignored it. She did it with everything; a bill needed paying? She ignored it until the power was literally turned off. Bathtub leaked? Ignore it until the floor rotted so much under it, it had to be replaced. Over and over she tried to gaslight her problems, until they grew so huge it couldn’t be ignored anymore and others had to step in to fix them.  

Then she went right back to ignoring them again.

This is Trump with the pandemic (with many things really).  

He tried to ignore it, he “downplayed” it, he flat-out lied about it. And now, surprise of surprises, he has it. Of course he does. It was inevitable. I’ll say it: with his behavior, he had it coming.

No, he's not faking it. As I said, he's been trying desperately for months to get people to look away from the pandemic. He’s not about to do anything to call people's attention to the virus. And he’s not trying to duck another debate, he thought he was great Tuesday night! He won, just ask him and the non-existent polls he quotes.

I hope he gets better, but I can't say I have a lot of sympathy for him personally. He has rigorously and purposely avoided taking precautions, not just for himself but for his staff: not wearing a mask, holding huge rallies with no care to his supporter’s health, and mocked those who actually worried about the health of others. Mask wearing in Trump’s White House is taken not as a sign of care, but of weakness. He downplayed and ignored the seriousness of the coronavirus, even just outright lying about it to the American people, while bragging in private to reporters about how deadly it was. It was inevitable he would get it.

Even after finding out he had been exposed (probably from Hope Hicks, whose infection we learned about in a leak, not an announcement) he went to a fundraiser in New Jersey while showing symptoms, without a mask and exposing over a hundred other people. To say nothing of the big rally in Michigan the night before. Selfish and stupid. Now we find Republican Senator Mike Lee has tested positive, and had been attending rallies and fundraisers as well, not taking any precautions, the head of the RNC is ill, and dozens have been exposed. How many prominent Democrats v Republicans have been infected? Why aren’t they taking this seriously, even after Herman Cain? To do so would be admitting the fact that they hadn’t been before, that they have been running a political sham operation to cover up their own negligence and incompetence. They would have to ‘self own’.

Can’t do that.

Now I see Fox is using pics from weeks ago of Trump wearing a mask he mostly, stupidly, refused to wear. Shamelessness is their brand, after all.

From the Trump down, the GOP is rotten. Proud, aggressive and purposeful ignorance. Insanity as a matter of course. 211,000 dead Americans, and they're still brushing this off, still trying to ‘own the libs’ and will continue to do so.

Until they die.

He Makes Everything a Train Wreck

Biden and Trump, the New Odd Couple

Good lord, that was a train wreck.

Seriously, what did we just watch?

Over at CNN, Jape Tapper called it “Horrific.” Co-anchor Dana Bash went one better: “You used some high-minded language — I’m going to say it like it is: that was a shit show.”

Shit show. Dana for the win.

Chris Wallace struggled hard to maintain control, but no one can control Trump. He was spewing nonsense on his time, on Biden’s time, talking over Wallace and at times, even interrupting himself.

Insanity. It was supposed to be 90, but it felt like hours. Trump was all over the map, rarely answering the actual question, insulting, lying, arguing, constantly interrupting. Just being an asshole, just being Trump. He was treating the whole thing as a monologue, as if it was a Trump rally.

And when was the last time you saw a moderator tell a sitting president to shut up? We did tonight, several times. Poor Chris Wallace, poor audience. And when Trump was finally, briefly, quiet, he sneered and pouted unable to keep still.

As usual, Joe Biden was, mostly, his calm and affable self. Trump was a bully, verbally shoving and pushing. Even Joe blew up a couple times. Telling Trump to ‘shut up” told him “You’re the worst president America has ever had. Come on!”and criticized his comments calling soldiers ‘suckers’, with Biden’s voice rising in anger, telling Trump that his deceased son who served in Iraq was not a ‘sucker’.

So, did we learn anything?

Well, Biden did fine, and will do fine. He stood up under the Trump blizzard of lies about as well as you can, the verbal vomit coming fast. He wasn’t thrown off too much. Trump is desperate to get attention and has a list of far right-wing conspiracy talking points that he got in regardless of what the actual question was. Biden tried to stick pretty much to the question and get through the constant interruptions.  

Some key moments?

To me, the key moments came towards the end, when Wallace asks both candidates about mail in ballots. Trump went off on his usual slurs and lies about the process, claiming non-existent fraud, and ended with “not going to end well.” It sounded like a threat. When asked if both candidates would pledge to call for peace from their supporters while the counting was going on, and to support the result once the votes were counted. Biden said, outright, of course he would. Trump?

Trump said he would send his supporters to the polls, to ‘watch the polls’ because of ‘fraud’. And he refused to answer the second part, about respecting the results. He said he might have to go to the courts, to the Supreme Court to ‘have the look at the ballots’. So, flood the polls with ‘watchers’ and try to get it in front of the Court where three of the Justices owe their seat to him. Of course that’s what he wants to do. Of course.

Tried to this is the other moment of the night, when Wallace asked Trump to denounce his violent supporters, the white nationalists and ‘militias’ that show up armed to protests. Both Wallace and Biden pressed him, and he hemmed and hawed, and said violence is “not a right-wing problem” and then finally, “Who, who? Give me a name”

Both Wallace and Biden suggested the ‘Proud Boys’, a white nationalist group that often threatens, and does, violence. “Sure, Proud Boys, stand down and stand by.” 

“Stand down and stand by” is not a condemnation. It’s telling armed thugs to ‘wait’. Maybe go to those polling places, with your guns. You know, to ‘watch’ and make sure everything is ‘fair’. Trump kind of ‘fair’.

Trump is dangerous, Trump is trying not to win an election, he knows he can’t, but he’s letting people know how he will try to steal it, and how they can help him do it. The Proud Boys erupted on Twitter at Trump’s ‘shout out’.

Biden won the night, but it wasn’t much of a night. He showed the world a contrast of decency versus angry bullying, clear competency versus incompetency, planning versus no plan. And I hope that will be enough

Dana Bash was right, total ‘shit show’.

Let’s go vote.

“Get Rid of the Ballots”

Angry Trump. Angry, angry, Trump.

This is not a chaotic election year. There is no widespread election fraud. None.

It simply isn’t happening. That doesn’t mean there isn’t stress, isn’t worry, isn’t anxiety over the pandemic and voting. Be calm, be clear of your goal in this election. Take a breath.

Counting the votes might take a little longer, but the outcome isn’t always known on election night, it’s not a big deal, and definitely not unusual not to know the winner right away.

So where is the fear, the shouts of ‘voter fraud, the stress over the election coming from, ’? Why are people running around, hair pulling and hand wringing? Because of the one person who should be calling for calm, who should be reassuring people and working to make sure that everything will go smoothly; the President of the United States.

Donald Trump is working hard to undermine the election, to cast doubt on the voting, on the voters, on the process, on holding elections themselves. He’s interfering with the Post Office, slowing down deliveries and hampering their ability to process what is looking to be a huge increase in mail-in ballots. He is trash talking the ballots, and whole concept of mail-in voting as is it were some illegal and alien thing, full of evil intent and dubious outcomes.

He isn’t even subtle about it

“Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferal of power after the election?” a reporter asked.

His answer:

 “Well, we’re gonna have to see what happens. Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a peaceful—there won’t be a transfer, frankly, there’ll be a continuation.”

Throw out the ballots, get rid of those bad, non-Trump votes and there will be a “continuation”. He’ll win, one way of another.

He wants to create chaos. Chaos is his brand, he lives and breathes chaos. In chaos, in doubt, in uncertainty, things can happen; votes can be tossed, election results ignored, boards of illegitimate electors put in place that don’t reflect the will of the people, and another Republican who lost the popular vote is installed with the assistance of the Trump/McConnell engineered 6-3 split on the Supreme Court. It’s Bush v. Gore, again.

I remember watching the GOP steal that election. I had already realized they had no morals after the stupid 'Whitewater/Vince Foster/any bullshit-they-want-to-investigate nonsense of the 1990’s. The GOP was incredibly partisan, spittle-flinging partisan, but I didn't realize they wanted to completely undermine democracy until that 2000 election. Here I learned they would stop at nothing to kill democracy and seize power by any means.

All they had to do was say "The Democrats would do the same" and that justified anything. Obviously, this was not true, as the Democrats didn't fight tooth, nail and congressional interns to stop the counting Florida as the GOP did, so fuck that. The GOP relied on getting the case to the SCOTUS, who stepped in and gave the election to Bush in a decision even they were embarrassed by.

Insane, but Gore (who won the popular vote and the Florida vote (which wasn't fully counted until after Bush was declared the winner) stood by and let Bush be inaugurated, even though many wanted him to protest it.

He didn't.

He was actually worried about America and democracy.

You think Trump and the GOP are worried about that?

No,

They are trying to figure out how they can stay in power despite the vote.

This is what we face: the same GOP in 2000, but even more desperate, more racist, more angry and more convinced of their own grievances. Anything they do, even bringing down democracy as we know it, is justifiable.

No One Is Coming

Romney has the look most of the country has right now. By Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

Seriously, people, did you expect Mitt Romney to go any other way?

Yes, he took a token stand when it meant nothing, and he knew it. He voted ‘guilty’ on one charge in the impeachment, but he knew it wouldn’t pass. He was already high on Trump’s shit list, he was in a safe seat, he had little to lose. But now? This vote is different and he knows it. So, he’s reminding everyone he’s the same stuffed shirt Republican he always was. No, this vote is different, this isn’t time for a symbolic stand on ‘principle’, this vote is about power, power that could change American life for the next 30 years. No, he's not about to risk everything, including a SCOTUS nominee that will kill the popular Roe v Wade and the ACA, for some silly 'reputation' as a ‘Reasonable’ Republican.

You kidding?

Ha!

It is long past time to get over yourself.

Did I know? I used to be a Mormon, and I know this; his church would not have forgiven him, and he is a sincerely religious man. I had a fleeting hope, but I figured his 'integrity' would go so far and no farther. In that safe vote 'against' Trump he was good, but denying his voters a chance to own the libs on the hated ADA (insuring some 10 million + people, and killing Roe v Wade, popular among a majority of voters) he folds like origami.

No, not surprised.

So, no, the fact that Mitt is an opportunistic Republican is not news (I followed his career, and that's what he's ALWAYS been) the fact that the ever-hopeful Democratic base thought he'd be anything else disappoints me.

Get over yourselves.

NO Republicans are going to step up and save you.

COME ON.

They have proved over that you can't work/trust with them, that should have been made clear in the past 30 some years, right? Good lord.

Fight.

Democracy is on the line.

The Trump Party will do ANYthing to win/steal this election. They believe they're entitled to do so. They have been gearing up for months to seize power by any means necessary. They can’t do it by ballots, they will do it with the courts, and now they have a bigger court majority than they did in 2000 with a 5-4 split gave the election to George W. Bush, a man who did not win the popular vote.

They have the Supreme Court, that don’t need the popular vote. They will shout ‘FRAUD!’, seize the ballots and throw enough confusion and lawsuits to drive it to the SCOTUS where a 3rd of the judges owe their seat to Trump. They will not recuse themselves.

Fight.

They steal SCOTUS seats? Expand the Court, expand the federal judiciary. Make territories actual states. Get rid of the Electoral College. Don't bother with what the GOP will scream, they will do that regardless. They play hardball, so the Democrats need to play hardball, and have to stop apologizing for it. Just stop.

Fight.

Fight everything. Make the GOP pay for the shit they pull, for a change.

Fight.

Democracy needs you now.

They Can Run…

Mitch, in the shadows, ready to jump out at democracy.

The GOP is showing how scared they are…

Right now, 66% of Americans want the selection of the next Justice for the Supreme Court to be done after the election, by the next president. 50% of Republicans think so as well. That’s according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Sunday.

It’s pretty obvious most American do not want Donald Trump anywhere near the next SCOTUS pick. Rushing a new nominee, and shoving it though in what would have to be record speed is incredibly unpopular. In fact, it’s suicidal to the GOP senate majority. This most shows the Republicans not only to be blatant hypocrites, but not caring in the least about the will of the people in replacing the most admired Justice on the Supreme Court. Don’t care, gonna do it anyway, screw you.

The GOP majority is near and dear to McConnell, why would he throw that away, and cause a (hopefully) ton of bricks to fall on him and his precious majority?

Joe Biden is ahead in the polls by 7 points, and he’s been leading since he secured the nomination. Trump has never led in the polls, unlike 2016 where it was close and leads traded a few times.

Never once.

That’s why: they think Trump is going to lose. Big time. If you going to get evicted anyway, why not burn the house down on the way out?

Over the weekend, from Friday when Justice Ginsburg’s death was announced and McConnell’s callus announcement minutes later that he planned to move forward with a nomination vote, ActBlue, a non-profit dedicated to helping Democratic candidates fund elections, raised over 100 million dollars. Individual Democratic candidates around the country saw their fundraising numbers shoot up. The GOP is defending 23 Senate seats this election year, with an incredibly unpopular president whom they cannot let go or their Trump loving base will turn on them. Many of those seats are underwater; Arizona (Martha McSally), and Colorado (Cory Gardner) look to be lost, Maine (Susan Collins) is behind, others like South Carolina (Lindsey Graham) are tied. South Carolina! With so many seats up, so many close or look to be gone, why do something that will make an already angry electorate even angrier?

Well, if you’re being evicted, and you are burning it anyway, might as well have something to show for it. The control of the Supreme Court, something the right has been wanting to decades, is that thing. McConnell must believe it’s worth killing his majority for that control (Trump doesn’t think that far ahead, it’s Mitch calling this one). Now comes the best, biggest, and baddest ‘own the libs’ campaign ever. They don’t need a senate majority now, they can have the SCOTUS kill anything the Democrats might pass.

This now puts them in place to destroy the ACA and take insurance away from millions, to finally kill abortion rights, the minimum wage, and all the other far-right things they have been promising since the formation of the Birch Society and the Goldwater campaign. I imagine they’ll try to repeal the entire Civil Rights Era, especially voting laws. Expect nothing the least bit progressive to be allowed to live for a generation. At least.

The problem is (there are many, but this is the biggest) these are popular programs with majority support. This new SCOTUS will not be the least bit interested in justice, but settling grievances with ‘libs’ and ‘atheists’ and host of others they feel have harmed them or their community. They will be going down a long list of perceived slights, gathered over decades, and start ticking them off one-by-one. We will have a Supreme Court not answerable to the will of the people, and, frankly, not ready paying any attention to precedent or settled law. It will be a far-right organization bent on repealing as much of the 20th century as it can get its hands on.

It’s Minority rule, basically what we’ve had in government for the past four years, but this time write large and lasting for decades. Now the GOP, who never liked governing anyway, can sit back while the SCOTUS, and all the federal judges they’ve appointed, do their work.

They don’t need a majority anymore.

This is why if the Democrats get control, they need to kill the filibuster, admit DC and Puerto Rico, and even the Virgin Islands as states, expand the federal judiciary, pass laws to kill partisan gerrymandering, and yes, expand the SCOTUS. The GOP will jump up and down, screaming, but let them. They don’t matter.

As they taught us, if you have the majority, the other side loses. Make them feel it.

More Than Roe…

Many will tell you that nominating a new Justice for the Supreme Court is just about filling one seat, that’s all. No big deal, right? What’s the fuss?

Either they have no idea what they are talking about, they are deliberately distorting the situation, or they are lying. This is not about ‘one seat’. This the culmination of a near 50-year campaign to turn the court, to finish the politicization, (or the ‘right-ization’) begun under Reagan. Some say it started earlier, under Nixon. The court right now sits as one of the most far-right courts in history, at an ideological 5-4 split, with Chief Justice John Roberts a sometime swing vote. That is/was until the death of RBG. That now all changes with a Trump appointee.

The right has insisted on basically one test for their increasingly far-right judges, ‘will you kill Roe v Wade?’, so the center-to-left has to play that game and ask them ‘will you overturn Roe v Wade?’, and that has been the test to get on the court since the 80s. From both sides.

So, here we are. With the death of Justice Ginsberg, and before her admirers are even allowed to morn, we have the Trump and McConnell GOP rushing at full speed to shove someone, anyone as far right as they can, into that seat, NOW. No idea if McConnell will even allow the whole kabuki dance of hearings or not. I’d be somewhat surprised if he did, but I assume they’ll have to do something to sell whatever nominee they choose to a public that is now more divided than ever. Even if it means destroying the legitimacy of the Court, something they really don’t care about anyway (that took a big hit with the stealing of a seat from Obama).

But this is much more than just Roe v Wade, for Republicans and Democrats, this is about the changing demographics and the shifting society. The Republicans know that their time as a national force is limited by the fact that America is becoming less White, less Christian, over all less religious, and less rural. This is the GOP’s base, the ones they have relied on for decades, and they are becoming a minority. Instead of trying to expand that base, as their own research showed they needed to do (the famous ‘autopsy’ in 2013) they instead decided to keep people out. They turned their back on anyone not White, not Christian, and doubled down on what was left.

The GOP gave up on outreach, and instead went with fear, went with hate, and since they could not grow their base, they made sure anyone not part of it wasn’t allowed to vote, to thrive, to grow.

But to achieve this, they needed the courts.

Every year, the number of people voting for the GOP declines, it’s a fact. So you gerrymander, you put restrictions on voting; who can vote, where they can vote, how they can vote. Now, for the most part, judges don’t like these kinds of tactics, and the Voting Rights Act was often cited. In fact, the VRA was passed specifically to stop those sorts of tactics. So, you get Justices who will kill the enforcement part of the VRA, you get far-right judges appointed who will agree with your ‘these people shouldn’t vote’ philosophy, you couch it in enough legalese, or hide your true motives just enough to give cover to their rulings.

The GOP has giving up governing, given up legislating, (what great bill has McConnell passed? What grand compromise has he made?) given up caring about anything but getting massive amounts of far-right judges appointed. Compromise, and learning to work with the other side is difficult, it’s a lot of work and you probably won’t get the result you wanted, so just get the courts. They know they’ll soon not be able to win national elections (they’ve recently had two presidents who’ve served without winning the popular vote) and might be soon reduced to a regional party. But if they can appoint enough judges, that won’t matter. If they can’t get national electoral power, they’ll rule though the courts. Long after the country has changed, long after the White majority is no longer the majority, the GOP can hold power over a country that has rejected their ideals by capturing, and keeping, the courts.

More than Roe, that is what this is about.

This is why the Democrats will need to appoint more Justices. They will never be anything slightly left of center upheld by the conservative SCOTUS, never. And a conservative court will then start on killing the entire Civil Rights Era. It’s been on the GOP list for years, and they’ve been itching to do it. Anything that might smell of progress will be slapped down, if it even gets past the GOP/Trump circuit and appeals courts. 2-4 new seats will restore balance. The Democrats will also need to expand the number of Federal judges as well, (they could use it) to rebalance a system that has been purposely skewed, to ensure justice.

 And that’s what this needs to be about, justice.

None of this will be easy, but if McConnell pushes this through, it will not only be needed, it will be necessary.

What is Legal, and What is Just.

Lady Justice, blindfold in place and holding her scales high.

Friday night, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed at the age of 87. She was a legal giant, beloved by people everywhere, an icon. Hell, she’s on t-shirts, earrings and brooches! One of the greatest legal advocates for women of the 20th century until two days ago.

The reaction was immediate; tributes poured in from friends, colleagues, and admirers… and then many from the right started in calling her ‘baby killer’, celebrating her death, and calling for her immediate replacement. Within an hour of her death.

She had stated, shortly before her death that she did not to be replaced before the election, it was her dying wish. It will likely be ignored by the GOP, who has vowed to forget about the bogus ‘McConnell Rule’ they used to block a nominee under Obama, and push through a nominee at lighting speed. Thus, stealing a second Supreme Court seat. They will jam though the farthest right judge they can find, designed to dishonor and undo as much of Justice Ginsburg’s legacy as possible.

Is that legal? Yes.

Is it just?

No.

There is a difference between what’s legal, and what's just. So far, the GOP has stolen one seat by extra-legal means, and not paid any sort of price for it. Now, they propose to throw out the slim 'justification' they use to steal that seat to, basically, steal this one. This may be ‘legal’, but it is not 'just'.

If they do this, and they will, as being hypocrites is their preferred managerial style, they will tear the country apart and destroy the reputation and authority of the SCOTUS, probably forever. They should understand they are finally freeing the Democrats to ignore any objection the GOP will have when the GOP is, inevitably, back in the minority. And if polls are correct, that day may be soon. The Democrats will have to make the GOP pay for their destroying of the moral guidelines of the government, and they will have to put in place rules, with consequences, to make sure the behavior of the McConnell years does not happen again, to make sure a Trump can’t thumb his nose at the law again.

The entire country is living the nightmare many warned about during 2016. We are on a precipice right now, threatening to tip over into minority, authoritarian rule. We can work to right and then fix the nation, or we can tear the place down and wander the ruins. These are the choices; is it legal, or is it just?

It is time for justice.

The Coming Fight

My last piece ended:

And the world will burn.

And it very well might, but what do we do about it? The public expects very little integrity out of the GOP these days, (not their brand in the Age of Trump) and blatantly ignoring the bullshit rule they used to steal a senate seat under Obama will be met by their followers with nothing but excuses, and hypocritical praise. You know, the ‘own the libs!’ mantra the Trump base so dearly loves. The Democrats are the ones expected to be ‘big’ about the whole thing, and not too ‘political’, because how is anyone going to expect maturity from the Trump Party?  It’s always defaulted to clean the GOP’s messes.

Trump will name a nominee (no doubt picked weeks, if not months ago) probably tomorrow or Monday and McConnell has proclaimed he’ll jam it through come hell or high water, hell being the more likely. Lindsey Graham has gone back on his word to hold any other president to the ‘McConnell Rule’, as I figured he would, so that’s a possible ‘vote against’ gone. But really, I never counted him in the first place; he’s an iron mote attracted to the strongest magnet in the room. That magnet used to be John McCain, now it’s Donald Trump. He will always go where Trump goes.

There is still the hope of conscience and integrity (that odd, odd word again) in the rest of the GOP Senate caucus, but that’s really just a sick joke, isn’t it? I am not an expert in the Senate rules, but I bet the parliamentarians on both sides are feverishly combing through the rules at this moment looking for ways to speed up and slow down the process. The Democrat’s will throw everything they can at the process, and the GOP will ignore any rules they don’t like, like always (skipping hearings and maybe just going to the vote? Would not surprise me). What can be done?

Maybe nothing at the moment, it’s very likely Trump and McConnell will get their pick. It’s going to be ugly, but if they have the votes, the process might be slowed but doubtfully stopped. What can be done, needs to be done is fight, and tell the GOP what the consequences will be if Biden is president.

One: Biden needs to be out in front of this now. A speech pointing out the divisiveness of the GOP’s actions and their lawless behavior is needed, one that trurns Trump’s so-called ‘LAW & ORDER’ nonsense on its head. It the GOP and violent police that are the problem and the lawlessness of the GOP is stopping the root from being dealt with. Their drive for power at all costs has corrupted this country of its government and courts, and need to be stopped.

Two: If the Democrats take the Senate, probable Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer has said he will ‘keep the filibuster in his back pocket’ like it’s some kind of threat against the GOP. This is insanity. The GOP doesn’t care, they’ll blow it up if they get the chance. No progressive legislation will get passed if they have to court far-right votes. It changes and compromises the bills down to nothing, and still won’t get any GOP votes. Didn’t they learn anything from Obamacare? Day one. It’s gone; majority rules.

Three: Expand the courts.

Yes, expand the courts. If the GOP, once again, pulls off a seat-stealing move like this, like Merrick Garland, there will be nothing they will not try. They have become an extra-legal gang in the government, roaming the halls and vandalizing the structure. This has to stop, there has to be consequences. The Constitution has no set number of judges to the Court, that limit is set by congress. The court over its history has been expanded five times; starting at six seats, going up to ten in 1837-1866, and then back to the current nine in 1869. If the Democrats take the Senate, expand the Court to 11-13 justices, negating the two stolen seats and restoring balance to the SCOTUS. It’s fair, legal, and needed. And not just the Supremes, the federal judiciary at-large should be expanded as well.

Announce this plan now. The GOP might actually think and back down, I doubt it, but they might. This entire Trump term has been about smashing and trashing the rules, and the checks and balances of the government itself, stripping out the oversite and grabbing power. Nowhere is this more evident than in the judiciary. Not just the Supreme Court, but the lower courts as well. Lists of unqualified, far-right ideologues were thrown robes and told to take a seat on the bench. This cannot be allowed to continue.  

Look at the damage to the integrity and reputation of the court wrought by the GOP and the conservatives on it: from the 2000 Bush V Gore travesty (a decision not driven by law but politics) and then the McConnell gambit of making up a ‘rule’ out of whole cloth to deny Merrick Garland a fair hearing, staining the eventual holder of the seat, and all their decisions, with illegitimacy.  

 Four: You got the senate? Vote in Puerto Rico and Washington DC as states, that will give the Democrats a possible four more senators to form a bulwark against the GOP, one that will be hard to overcome. Then, start passing the rule changes needed to stop this nonsense that Trump and McConnell have been pulling for the past four years.

Action is needed. People are tired, people are angry. This is the action needed.

The Fire This Time

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has died. In case you’ve been living under a bush the past several decades, she was a hell of a woman. In her 21 years on the bench (appointed by President Clinton) she has been an inspiration to friends and not-friends, ruling with passion and honor. During that time, she’s personally battled both with colon cancer, and won, and then pancreatic cancer in 2009. She fought it hard for 11 years, but succumbed on Sept 18th, in the Year of our Hell, 2020.

We have now gone from ugly election, in the middle of a pandemic that has killed 203,361 Americans, to a full-pitched political battle for the direction of the country for decades to come.

It didn’t have to happen. It really didn’t.

In 2016, Justice Antonin Scalia, died suddenly. With 11 months still left on his term, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, just the kind middle-of-the-road jurist that was Obama’s speed. All taht threre was to do now for the Senate was to follow the Constitution, hold hearings and a vote. Easy.  

No. Anything but a far-right fire breather would sway the court and change the majority, which is historically one of the farthest-right ones in decades. This can never be. So, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, already famous for a reputation of ignoring rules when it came to accruing himself and his party power, literally just made up an excuse not to do his job.

“The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.”

Mitch McConnell, 2016.

Complete bullshit, with no legal or Constitutional basis, but the right-wing Senators and pundits cranked out volumes defending it, casting aside any reputation for seriousness they might have left. Really, they’re a machine of obfuscations and out-of-context quoting. They were fooling nobody, probably not even themselves. This was no stand of integrity by a man who has displayed little his entire career, this was yet another smash the rules power grab.

And he got away with it. 

And the GOP and Trump have gleefully proclaimed their willingness to destroy the remaining public legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

Full screeching stop.

It didn’t have to happen. Still doesn’t.

Here we are, another justice beloved by their ‘side’ and died, some 40 days before a presidential election. How is that infamous ‘McConnell Rule’ applied?

“President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate,”

Mitch McConnell, 2020.

One Mitch, two different rules for two different presidents. And this is why the GOP is a party of hypocrites.

I’m just totally shocked. This is my shocked face. May never go back.

How bad is the hypocrisy? You have probably seen the quotes a dozen times by now, but here they are:

Lindsey Graham (R-SC), 2018:

“I’ll tell you this...if an opening comes in the last year of president Trump's term and the primary process has started we'll wait to the next election.”

“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination."

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)

Late in 2016, in an op-ed defending the McConnell’s decision: “voters — not a lame-duck president — should decide the composition of the highest court in the land.”

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.)

“The next president of the United States should have the opportunity to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Our next election is too soon and the stakes are too high; the American people deserve a role in this process as the next Supreme Court Justice will influence the direction of this country for years to come.”



Sen. Susan Collins (R-MN) have said similar things, as has Sen. Lisa Mukowski (R-AK), Mitt Romney (R-UT) is a wild card in this, sometimes showing some backbone. We’ll see.

Now, I suppose they’re not actually hypocrites yet, as they haven’t announced which they’ll vote, but past performance predicts future actions. They’re already coming up with bullshit exemptions to a bullshit rule, like the kid in a cops and robbers game calling out excuses why he wasn’t really shot.

Now, the question is; will they hold to what they have said in the past, or will it be exposed as so much ‘of-the-moment, forget-it-later’ hypocrisy? Well, looks like McConnell has probably solved that one for us. He will gather, pressure and threaten his caucus until he gets the result he wants, he sees what as his job; principles are things that stand between him and what he wants, he doesn’t understand them. This was already going to be a divisive election, one with decades long implications poised to make or break us as a country; now it could be a bloodbath.

It doesn’t have to happen, it really doesn’t. If Trump, McConnell and the GOP would put, for once, country above party, we can step back from the abyss. McConnell would abide by his completely made-up rule, and the choice would go to whomever won the presidential election. McConnell, of course, would never consider such a thing. He makes and breaks rules as it occurs to him to do so; when one is no longer convenient, new one’s spring forth from the head of Zeus, given the little ‘legitimacy’ that McConnell has left, and is treated as if it was always there in the first place.

Maybe the far-right’s beloved Federalist Society could step in to halt the coming destruction, announcing that the seat open should be left open. This would go a long way to cooling the flames and give cover to Republicans who might not to burn down the SCOTUS, not so soon at least.

There is literally no way this will happen.

The Federalist Society, McConnell and the GOP have been on a literal RBG death watch for years now, probably hitting refresh on their browsers to keep check, lists of names already disseminated and ready to announce.

Do I sound cynical? Decades of watching the GOP has made me so. I know to put nothing past them, to ‘trust but verify’ in Reagan’s smug but utterly nonsensical phrase. But I can’t even do that anymore.  

Mitch McConnell could have ended it, simply by following his nonsense ‘rule’ (not a rule), but he cannot pass up yet more power for his dying party. So, he will not.

Trump also could stop it, but he also cannot. This is his ultimate owning of the libs’ and he lives for the moment he can put his boot to the back of his ‘enemies’ neck and grind their face into the dirt.  

They like to see the world burn and fate has given them a blowtorch.

Maybe, just maybe, those Republican senators quoted above, maybe joined by Mitt Romney, will step up to save their party and country and vote either ‘no’ or ‘present’. Or just announce their intentions, denying McConnell and stopping the official vote at all.

But that wouldn’t stop them; the right would tar and feather them, in the press and literally if they could. They’d be fielding death threats like leaves in a windstorm. And Trump and McConnell would hold their vote anyhow.

Save the party or the country.

And the world will burn.

He Won’t be Happy Until We’re all Dead.

Smug, smug, smug.

He won’t be happy until we’re all dead.

In the last two days, reports have come out that the Trump administration had interfered extensively at the Center for Disease Control, changing guidelines for political purposes, bending and breaking the scientific facts that didn’t fit the Trump reelection campaign, muzzling and contradicting career scientists and doctors, and continuing to deny the seriousness of the pandemic affecting every country, even continent on earth.

For reelection. That’s the only, incredibly selfish reason. Petty. But that’s Trump brand, and if people have to die to achieve that reelection?

So be it.

Then we have the Director of the CDC, Dr. Robert R. Redfield, testify that a vaccine will not be widely available until sometime in the third quarter of next year. Most experts agree with this, but one self-appointed ‘expert’ does not. The President does not, can not agree with this because he wants to hold the hope of a vaccine over the heads of Americans until the election is over, even if one doesn’t how up, he wants that out there as an excuse to ‘reopen’, to get kids back in school, to shove people back into their jobs, to give some voters an excuse to overlook his disastrous handling of the virus that got us here in the first place.

Open now, because next month the vaccine will be here!

Dr. Redfield then veered off the topic of vaccines, held up the facemask he’d worn into the hearing and said that ‘this, this mask is even more important than a vaccine’, that it offered more protection than a vaccine will the first few months one will be available. He’s stated in the past that if everyone in the US just wore a mask in public for 6-8 weeks we could be out of this. We could, maybe, if we had leaders that supported public health, that cared about safely ending this pandemic nightmare or at least tamping it down, if…

… But we don’t. After Dr. Redfield’s testimony, Trump immediately announced a press conference with the sole aim of contradicting own director of the CDC. And he did; the vaccine was coming, soon, maybe end of October, maybe sooner, and masks aren’t that great (he continually doesn’t wear one himself and mocks those who do), and went back to his unproven talking point ‘lots of people say masks aren’t all that great…’

You would think he has a funeral parlor franchise.

Today, we have the news that a $150 million in prescription drug cost relief program that would have helped thousands was killed. Why? Because Donald Trump’s demanded that $100 “Trump Cards” be mailed to seniors before the election. 

From the New York Times:

“Then the agreement collapsed. The breaking point, according to four people familiar with the discussions: Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, insisted the drug makers pay for $100 cash cards that would be mailed to seniors before November — ‘Trump Cards,’ some in the industry called them,” the newspaper reported. “Some of the drugmakers bridled at being party to what they feared would be seen as an 11th-hour political boost for Mr. Trump, the people familiar with the matter said.”

So, the needed program was killed. Because Trump wanted ‘gift cards’ to go to seniors with his name on them. Now no one will get that benefit, as Trump has crossed his arms, stamped his foot, and walked off.

For his reelection.

He won’t be happy until we’re all dead…

…and he can sign the death certificate.

In sharpie.

Your Vote is Illegitimate

“The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.”

If you don’t vote Trump, your vote doesn’t matter, and can be rejected. End of story.

This is the message Trump is telling his supporters, telling them that the other side, no matter who they are, are illegitimate; their votes are illegitimate, their opposition is illegitimate, their opinions are illegitimate, their protests are illegitimate, they, themselves, their lives, friends and families, are illegitimate. It’s okay to ignore them, okay to treat them as less, okay to maybe kill them, they’re illegitimate after all. As his HHS assistant secretary Michael Caputo said: “And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin. The drills that you’ve seen are nothing,” he added, “If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get.”

Okay to kill those who disagree with you; they are other, they are wrong in themselves, they are dangerous, they are illegitimate.

Trump also claims the Governor of Nevada, Steve Sisolak (D) “is the same guy that’s gonna be in charge of the ballots. I’m winning that state easily (he’s not) but the one thing we can’t beat, if they cheat on the ballots, now he will cheat on the ballots, I have no doubt about it.”

Trump is giving himself and his supporters permission to ignore the results of a fair election. Any election he loses is not a fair election. Any election he loses needs to be resisted, fought against, and put down.

Arm yourselves, they are coming for you.

This is designed to do tremendous arm to civil discourse and society. This is designed to encourage the violence and panic Trump claims he is against. This licenses his supporters to do anything, by any means, to keep Trump himself in power. This is openly calling for the civil war the right has been talking about, and thirsting for, for decades

This is the insanity that fuels the grievance on the right, the anger and belief that they’ve been screwed, and it’s the left doing the screwing. For this you have to ignore the decades of the GOP (and the Democrats, yes) shipping jobs overseas, of the ‘trickle down’ promises that never, ever materialized, of culture baiting for votes while shifting power and wealth to the rich. Once you’ve established this to your own satisfaction (not hard to do when you’re inside the bubble, talking only to true believers like yourself) than anything you do to ‘fight back’ is justified. Arm yourself, the ‘libtard’ mob is coming for your home, you women, your country.

This undermining of democracy is not a secret, it’s happening right in front of us, right in the open. Trump has captured most the election machinery, and what he can’t control, he is openly undermining, with the enthusiastic help of the GOP. First, you declare the other side to be illegitimate, you demonize them, making any move against you (like, say, voting) seem as a move against the country, against your followers ‘values’, as something ‘sick’ and unnatural. Then you go about encouraging violence against anyone who disagrees with you (see the support the armed mobs charging statehouses get, the police brutality and the shooting and running over of protesters), then denial of of legitimate votes that don’t go ‘your’ way, stating things like only that the votes counted the night of the election are legitimate, and then you undermine the USPS and vote by mail as ‘fraud’.

Trump is stealing the election and encouraging his followers to fight any vote that doesn’t end with four more years of Trump in the White House. He refuses to say if he’ll accept any result that doesn’t go his way. His minions have called for armed insurrection if they don’t get the result they want.

As David Frum said:

“If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.” 

They are warning us right now of what they intend to do.

Take them seriously.

The World is Burning

Oregon, burning.

My home is burning.

I have lived in the West, in Washington State, nearly all my life, half in the dry, near-desert Eastern part, the rest in the green, wet Western part. I have lived in California and Oregon, have friends and relatives in both still. And our worlds are burning.

Today Seattle is dense with smoke from three different states, as Eastern Washington, Oregon and California are battling wildfires. I stand on my back porch and the house on the other side of the alley is hazy, the trees down the street are phantoms in the smoke. A warning has been issued for parts of all three states; stay inside, the air is unsafe. The very air can make you sick. On the other side of the Cascades, Yakima County is burning. Over 600,000 acres, a record, have/are burned/burning in my home state, and more are aflame every hour, every minute. Already one of the regions hit hardest by covid-19, now Eastern WA has to suffer another form of hell, a more literal one.  

Whole Oregon towns have completely disappeared into the flames, 500,000 residents are under evacuation orders. Thousands have been evacuated, dozens missing, several dead. I talk to friends who say the skies are literally red, like being on Mars, or the depths of hell. Idiot rumors spread, of wild gangs of Antifa running about with torches, coming to your town! Setting fires! Beware! Some people refuse to evacuate, sitting on their porch’s instead, clutching weapons and looking down the roads, waiting for the BLM and Antifa mobs to come and… set fires in the middle of a fire?

Holy hell. In the midst of so much to fear we make up boogeymen to add to the misery.

And the skies glow hot red.

A heat wave and a dry summer have baked California, temperatures over 120 degrees in LA County. Over 3.2 million acres of California have burned in a wildfire season barely begun. 28 different wildfires are burning there now, including the largest in the history of the state.

“I have no patience for climate change deniers,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom. Indeed. We are often the cause of our own nightmares, and climate change is becoming the biggest nightmare we face, even in this time of covid. And the biggest fool of all, the idiot in the White House taunts California, refusing to help because they were rude enough not to vote for him.

“You gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests,” the president of only his own voters’ yells, ignoring the fact that nearly 48 percent of the land in California is federally owned. These are his floors, his forests that are burning. Insanity builds on insanity until it collapses into madness.

And the West burns.

Trump is coming to look at the ashes, shake his head, and get in some digs at the Governors. Washington, Oregon, and California will go on beating, stomping, spraying, and dousing the flames, trying to help those that need help and avoid breathing in too many ashes and soot.

And covid.

 So much lost; lives, houses, animals, land, forests.

The world is burning.

The Lawless Law and Order President

Angry little man rages at the press.

Donald Trump loves him some Twitter. He’s on there incessantly, obsessively, tweeting Fox & Friends talking points, retweeting racist crap that he ‘didn’t know’ was racist, attacking people and name calling, you know, all the things a president with any decency or integrity would not be doing. Anything besides working.

Lately the thing he’s been spewing out is ‘Law & Order!’ Oh, excuse me, that should be ‘LAW & ORDER!!!’ Because all caps makes it that much more serious. But, here’s the thing; how are we supposed to take that message seriously when it comes from the most lawless president to ever occupy the office?

Trump has turned the Department of Justice into the Department of Trump Justice, with Attorney General William Barr his personal lawyer, the ‘Roy Cohn’ he’s always wanted in that position. He has been manipulating the Border Patrol and federal prison guards into his very own secret police and using them against American citizens. He’s breaking laws without repercussion or redress, because he’s captured any organization that would stand against him; The Republican Party is now the Trump Party, and not the least bit interested in bringing him to account. The DoJ? Forget about it. The courts? There are enough good judges left, but Trump has been shoving as many far-right and unqualified people into every open slot he can find, so we might not have much justice there for long.  

And that’s the way he wants it.

He’s been using these captured agencies to go after his perceived enemies, he sends his fellow Trumpublicans after anyone that doesn’t toe the Trump line, fires anyone that dares to contradict him, and has been ‘investigating’ those who had investigated his own shady and illegal actions, threatening political opponents with jail.

Today, we find that one of those political investigations has lost a head prosecutor. Nora R. Dannehy, member of the one of the Durham investigation, named after U.S. Attorney John Durham. Durham was appointed to investigate the people who investigated the Russia probe. While once thought of as a respected career lawyer, Durham is seen more and more as someone doing the will of Trump and Barr. Dannehy quit, citing political interference in the investigation, as Barr presses them to release their conclusions before the election so Trump can use them against his ‘enemies’. Lord knows he needs something else to talk about.

This is the sort of thing Nixon dreamed about; using the powers of his office to attack and possibly jail anyone who might dare rise up and tell him ‘no’. This is the Trump goal, the dream, anyone who has a cross word, anyone with an unwelcome thought will be destroyed. Not fired, not mocked on Twitter, but eviscerated, ruined, burned to the ground and the earth salted after. He is a scorched-earth authoritarian, burning his imagined foes to the ground even if it takes the country with them. As long as he personally doesn’t get burned, why should he care?

The country can burn, as long as he gets his way.

Donald Trump is a con man, a tax cheat, a pathological liar, a fraud, and that was before he got into office. Now that the spotlight he has been so desperate for has been burning him for nearly four years, and it hasn’t been good for his already sady reputation. These nearly four years have exposed Trump, reduced and defined him down to his essence. Pure rage and grievance. He and his supporters are burning the country to the ground with it.

And salting the earth after.

“LAW & ORDER” indeed.

The Weakest Strongman

Kim and Trump, love at first site.

Trump just can’t give up Obama. Even when sitting around, shooting the shit with murderous dictators, Trump is the guy on a date that wants to rag on his ex. He just brings everything back to Obama:

“I don’t think Obama’s smart,” Trump told Woodward in an interview for his new book, ‘Rage’. “I think he’s highly overrated. And I don’t think he’s a great speaker.” Trump added that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un thought Obama was “an asshole.”

Kim Jong Un thought Obama was an asshole. Huh, great. Did you get those nukes from him Donny, like you promised?

No. What we learn from Woodward is that Trump has a sick crush on a killer.

Trump goes to say he was overwhelmed in meeting Kim for the first time in 2018 in Singapore: “Holy shit,” he thought, this guy Kim is “far beyond smart.”

“Beyond smart.” In comparison to Trump himself, I suppose.

Holy shit indeed.

Trump, the president of the United States, sitting around with Kim Jong Un, a dictator who thinks nothing of starving his own people to build up his nuclear arsenal, talking shit about the previous president like two Mean Girls in the cafeteria.

How is this not treason? How do we even deal with bullshit like this?

Good lord. And now we have those ‘beautiful’ letters, the ‘love letters’ between these two leaders. They write mash notes back and forth, praising each other in a psychotic mutual admiration society, Kim calling Trump "Your Excellency”, which Trump just giggles and gushes about. Trump also brags about Kim giving him all the details of how he killed his own uncle, Trump drinking it all in enviously, probably thinking about a few reporters he’d like to try these new pointers on.

A special, special friendship.

But the best (worst, most insane) quote?

This one right here (and thanks to Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark for pointing it out):

“Trump reflected on his relationships with authoritarian leaders generally, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them,” he told Woodward. “You know? Explain that to me someday, okay?”

It needs no explanation, we all know what it means.

And it ain’t funny.

With Blood on His Hands

Donald Trump, lying about his lies, while blaming his lies on the person who recorded him lying and published his lies. Wednesday in TrumpLand.

200,000 Americans are dead.

Probably more really.  

And today, we find out that Trump was not ignorant of the facts, Trump was not just putting out happy talk of what he wanted in that crucial time from the end of January through April. He knew, he always knew just how deadly the coronavirus was, he knew it was worse than the flu, knew it was highly contagious, spreading through the air like dirt in the duststorm, knew it could/would kill tens of thousands of Americans. He knew all this and more.

He just didn’t care.

He didn’t care. He let it happen to protect his glorious stock market, his ‘amazing’ economy, (not his really, that’s another article), he let it happen to save his reelection. That’s what he cared about. Not your grandparents, not your husband, wife, partner, lover, friends, not your children. No. His reelection.

That’s all he cared about. Screw the rest.

How do we know? Because it’s an election year and Washington Post editor Bob Woodward has another damn book out, ‘Rage’, (I have it on pre-order), and he sat down with Trump 18 times, 18 TIMES! For interviews. And Bob records his stuff so people can’t come back later and claim, “I never said that!” And Bob will play the tape. Nixon taught him much. Trump? Trump never learns anything.

What did he tell Woodward?

“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward on March 19, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

He said “You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed…It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.” This is while he was telling the American public they didn’t have to worry, that it was the flu, it was just going to go away….

Go away, no more dangerous than the flu, play it down, always down, that’s what he likes to do. How many people believed him? How many ignored doctors, ignored loved ones and didn’t take even minimal precautions because they believed the man they voted for, the man they trusted.

How many do you know believed Trump, believed him when he said it was nothing, it was a hoax, that it would blow over.

How many of those people are sick?

How many of those people are no longer here to praise the man who they believed, the man that helped get them killed.

200,000 dead, how many because they believed a man who never gave a damn about them?

Why would Trump admit to depraved indifference to human life? Why would he sit down and talk with one of the most notorious outers of presidential secrets? My guess it’s the same ego that makes him proclaim himself a genius, expert in all things, and the only one who can fix (fill in the blank). He thought he could beat Bob Woodward at the game Woodward has honed to a sharp point. Bob is just a member of the ‘fake news’ and He is ‘The Donald’. He lost. The proof is hours of stupid things on tape, and soon in print.

Trump now says it was a ‘political hit job’ and that his lying to the people ‘showed leadership’:

“We have to show leadership, and leadership is all about confidence. Confidence is all about confidence in our country.”

“I’m a cheerleader for this country. We want to show confidence. We don’t want to instill panic,” He now says.

All of this is the opposite of leadership, the opposite of what was needed. He lied for his own petty needs, showing how small a man he truly is… as if we needed more examples.

And thousands have died needlessly.

There is blood on his hands, the blood of people who put him in that office, blood that will not wash off.

Because This is What We Want

WTF. Linden Cameron, 13, was shot repeatedly by police after his mother called 911 to ask for help with the autistic boy, his family says. If all you have is a gun, everyone is a victim.

When Golda Barton called 911, she wanted a crisis intervention team to help with her autistic son who was having a mental health crisis.

She got guys with guns.

When activists say 'defund the police', they are NOT saying 'eliminate the police'. That is the political 'interpretation' of those who want to use the violence these communities are suffering against them; using their pain to scare voters in shutting down any sort of reform. Often this is led by the police unions, scared they might lose their power over the population.

THIS is what is meant by defunding the police; take away those functions where police are not needed. Police are not medical experts, crisis or social workers, and have to stop expecting them to be. Helping an autistic child doesn't require someone with a gun. Yet, here we are again, another officer solving a metal health crisis by shooting or assaulting the person having the crisis. Problem solved.

I haven’t written anything here since my article about Jacob Blake. Really, the horror, the disgust I felt about that ‘incident’ left me bereft of any warm feelings toward humanity. Truth. Every day I wake up to more grotesque actions and celebrations or utter inhumanity. As iof this is somehow the new ‘normal’ in Trump’s America. Good lord.

It’s… insanity. I try to understand why the police feel the need to shoot, wound, and kill unarmed ‘others’, but I really can’t. I… just can’t.

It doesn't have to be this way… yet it is. The powers that be would rather a few kids, men, women die than allow a broken system to be fixed. They'd rather use any attempts to reform the small things, (say, like tracking overtime pay) against the reformers for fear they might try to reform the big things (police killing of unarmed people, of beatings and unjustified use of force). They live in fear of reformers, so they make sure it never happens. And we get Linden Cameron, we get David Prude, we get George Floyd, we get Breonna Taylor, and so many others, every damn day. '

This is the way we must want it, because this is what keeps happening.

Why America Burns

Jacob Blake, father, son, brother, human.

Once again, we see the way the police go about ‘policing’ those not white among us.

Please, please, please, we need no more examples of this kind of policing, of this police brutality, of this murder.

We have enough, we have had enough.

Jacob Blake, father, son, brother, was shoot in the back seven times by a policeman with one hand on Blake’s shirt and the other holding the gun that did it. While he was getting into his car, and in front of his children.

Why?

We don’t know. Kenosha Police aren’t saying, they’re ‘investigating’. As always, ‘investigating’. They want to make sure their brother officers have justice, unlike the ‘justice’ served Jacob Blake, father, son, brother… who lies in a hospital bed, partially paralyzed by this policeman’s actions. The policeman is suspended or reassigned, with pay, of course.

Of course.

We shall hear the familiar reasons, excuses, that the policeman feared for his life, that Jacob Blake, father, son, brother, refused commands. We’ll get the usual blaming of the victim. All is this too familiar, all of this nightmare lived before, again, and again, and, again.  

His sister, Letetra Widman, said: “When you say the name ‘Jacob Blake,’ make sure you say ‘father.’ Make sure you say ‘cousin.’ Make sure you say ‘son.’ Make sure you say ‘uncle.’ But most importantly, make sure you say ‘human.’ Let it marinate in your mouth, in your minds. A human life. … I don't want your pity. I want change.”

Jacob Blake, father, son, brother, human.

What the hell. What the hell.

The other side? How do the Kenosha police treat young white men who have actually committed a crime? We have an example of that as well. In the protests, and yes, riots in the past three days, we have these ‘militia’ types showing up with their guns, ‘protecting’ things, really, looking for an excuse to use that gun they carry around at the grocery store.

Last night, one of them found an excuse.

17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, a white ‘militiaman’ from Illinois, crossed the border in Wisconsin, looking for a fight. He illegally brought his AK with him. Moments after getting thanks, approval and a free bottle of water from the police, he opens fire and murders two people during a protest in Wisconsin last night, wounding one more.

Cell phone footage shows Kenosha police telling armed insurrectionists, “We appreciate you guys. We really do,” and giving them bottles of water, including this killer. So, we see how police handle armed white guys.

Shortly after this video was taken, this murder shot and killed two protesters and wounded another. These guys, supported by the police.

From the Washington Post:

“A Washington Post journalist who observed the scene saw the man with the rifle run by with a few protesters in pursuit after gunfire erupted about a block away. He tripped and fell, rolled into a sitting position, raised his gun and opened fire at his pursuers.”

Still sketchy, but it sounds like he fired, got chased for shooting someone, fell and started firing again. He will say one of two things: He acted in self-defense, or they deserved it (I’m seeing both of these in right wing media right now). There will be more blaming of the victims.

And how did this killer get away and run back to Illinois? How did this guy, armed with an AK get past a line of police and their vehicles as protesters cried out that he had just shot someone?

By walking right by them.

This is how the police treat a white man who just murdered two people, and this is how they treated unarmed Jacob Blake, a father, a son, a brother, a cousin, an uncle… a human being.

This is why people are in the streets. The Kenosha Police Department has painted broadly the reasons America is burning.

Black Lives Have to Matter, but they don’t matter to many who have the power over those Black Lives.

This is why America burns.