The Insurrection Was Live Streamed

Huh. Where is the tear gas? Why aren’t the cops beating these MAGA idiots with baton, hitting them with rubber bullets? Weird.

Here we are. Gil Scott Heron was wrong, the revolution, the insurrection really, was televised. The nation, the world saw it happening in real time. In real time we saw a group of speakers whip the crowd up over lies and fantasies of a ‘stolen election’ with the President aiming the angry thousands directly at his own Vice President. It is a stupefying fact that a sitting president of the United states tried to overthrow the government and install himself for another term as president is... well, is there a word to describe this? It's such an overwhelming thing, it beggar’s description.

Seriously, I am so angry, furious, and fascinated at the same time. I find myself pulled in every direction. Furious at Trump and his enablers, who have been building up to this since 2015 with his CYA talk of 'rigged elections' (in case he lost, which he expected to). Yes, something like this has been coming for years with the cynical exploitation of the fear and grievance of his base. But I am fascinated by the passion and anger that drives the 'disenfranchised' Whites to think a grifting 'billionaire' gives a damn about them.

I fully expected something like this insurrection to happen, but not so naked and raw, so exposed and open. It was a river of grievance and anger, flowing from across the country and firehosed by Trump and his enablers right at the seat of American government. We must hold these terrorists accountable, every last one of them to the full extent of the law, but they were following the orders of people like Trump and his sycophantic and cynical enablers. They are every bit as much to blame as the Trump insurrectionists themselves. All need to be dragged blinking into the light of justice, but blame should be apportioned to those who believed the lies and followed, and those who didn't but thought it would look good on their resume. Those who called to overthrow a government with their eyes on 2022, or 2024.

These are resume builders, the cynical enablers, the 'why not-ers' including most of the 147 Republicans who 'objected' to Biden's palpable win (the number went down, slightly, to 138 after the insurrection), to the process of democracy they took an oath to defend.  Yet, here they were, objecting to avoid mean tweets, to position themselves for whatever race was next, ignoring the Constitution to gain the favor of a man who also ignored the Constitution. 

And five people died.

Was it worth it?

The 'base' seems to think so, pledging their soul to Trump and his 'next term' that will never materialize, a phantom 'four more years' the promise of which Trump has used to suck 300 million dollars out of them. They are willing to destroy democracy in order to ‘save’ it, by installing the dictator of their choice. 

This is not who we are!

But really, it is

It's crazy, a plot of a movie review on a 'so-bad-it's-good' youtube channel, not at all the sort of thing you associate with America. But that is because I'm a middle-aged White guy. Black and Brown will tell this is the America they live every day. Angry White people shoeing their ability to do the things that any person not White would be killed for.

They see no irony in this. Angry Whites thinking they have the right to cut in line, say anything they want, do anything without fear of being shot and killed (screaming into a policeman's face, actually pulling them to the ground and beating them into unconsciousness with an American flag), yep, everyday reality to many. I look at this and wonder in horror, they look and nod in affirmation. I see sick aberration, they see nothing new. 

Trump and the GOP know this, and play hard to the fear, the hate, and anger of the dying light, the panic of the waning White power, they mine that fear like the desperate prospector chipping away at a played-out mine, knowing this is all they have. This is why they fall into line with Trump and 'Trumpism', because it has taken over the party.

Without that White anger, the GOP would be nothing.

On my other site (www.tompstewart.com) I write about pop culture, history, comic books, my life as an actor and writer, various odd things. I would like to get back to that, really. I would dearly love to write about 1960s Batman comics, but these are not the times for an in-depth discussion of Batman’s ‘New Look’ of 1964. I can’t look away from this shit-show that is the Trump administration, and neither can history. I have to look, whether I want to or not.

We must evaluate and assign blame, hold the guilty accountable, now, and in future elections.

It’s our duty as Americans.

They Wanted a Massacre

Trump’s MAGA mob of traitors, bringing shame to the nation.

This was UGLY. The more we know about what went on, the uglier it is. They came with bombs, guns, Molotov cocktails, flex cuffs, knives, homemade weapons. They were looking for blood, chanting 'hang Mike Pence'. They were invited to DC by Trump himself, promising them it would be 'wild'. Trump and his enablers were calling anyone who actually acknowledged the fair outcome of the election was a 'traitor'. Rudy called for a ‘trail by combat’, Trump told them Mike Pence held the power (he doesn’t) to turn the election, and the White House, over to them, if he would only ‘do the right thing’. Anyone who stood in the way were traitors. ““We’re going to the Capitol,” he said. “We’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”

The president added: “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Then he invited them to ‘walk to the capitol’ and ‘cheer’ the lawmakers on.

Vice President Pence announced that he would not object to the vote, which the president tweeted about, to his followers, the fired-up and angry mob he had just sent to march on the US Capitol. Trump told them, but his own rhetoric that Pence was now a ‘traitor’. He refused to do what Trump wanted him to do, but what he legally could not do. He would now just be part of the cast of traitors that stood between them and their prize

And they went looking for those 'traitors'. They went looking for a massacre.

They beat cops, they beat up reporters, smashing their equipment, the broke down doors, smashed windows, they ransacked the offices of the capitol, smashing and vandalizing as they went. They shit and peed on the floors and walls, looted, probably allowing foreign agents access to the building, including the Speakers laptop which went missing.

They beat a policeman to death.

Five people died during this insurrection, this attempt by Donald Trump to overthrow an election he can't admit he lost fair and square. He nearly got his own Vice President killed. It was ugly, deadly, and disgraced America in the eyes of the world while delighting its enemies.  

And they had wanted it to be worse, they had wanted actual blood for their ‘tree of liberty’.

Now, the very people who incited this travesty, Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Keven McCarthy, Hawley, Cruz, and every Republican who defended this ‘stolen election’ nonsense, the 147 Republicans who objected on Jan. 6th to the certification of Joe Biden’s election, these people with blood on their hands are calling for ‘peace’, ‘healing’, ‘unity’, they are demanding not be held unaccountable for their own actions, their words, for inciting a mob that tried to do exactly what they were asking them to do.  

No.

Just. No.

The House will vote to impeach Trump, making him the only president to be impeached twice. He deserves it, a thousand times over. He’s a literal traitor to his own country. The rest must be held accountable, held to the oath they took when they were elected:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

“All enemies, foreign and domestic”. That includes the President and those that supported and enabled the actions that led to the debacle, the insurrection aimed at installing Donald Trump as a king over America, because that’s would he would have been, that was Trump’s endgame here and that of his supporters. It failed, as any rational person knew it would, but Trump and his supporters are not rational. Never have been.

The only way to deal with them is the take them out of power and make sure they never get back in.

Never.

The Stolen Steal That Must be Stopped

We must stop the steal that isn’t actually happening. Poor, deluded souls, almost feel sorry for them, but nah.

Stop the Steal.

Really?

What the actual fuck with these idiots. Do they believe this? Some do, god knows. I think most Republicans in the leadership don’t believe it, and are pushing this crap for their own motives (like being white-faced scared of Trump’s cult) they have shown, over and over to be brimming with bad faith. So, yeah, screw those guys hard. But the down market ‘Republicans’ (really, a lot are there for Trump and Trump only) actually believe it. Go on Parler (a ‘free speech’ site, but really full of whiny Trumpers, screaming, crying and threatening over the 2020 loss) and glory in the insanity; the people claiming Trump couldn’t have lost because of ‘crowds’, because of ‘boaters’, because of the ‘Trump Train’ truck rallies. It mystifies them that Trump’s super-spreader events didn’t somehow translate to a Trump win. Something musty be wrong! Trump must have won, and all evidence to the contrary must be wrong. Because! There cannot be any other result. can’t! Yeah, the crazy is thick and slimy with these desperate people, but the problem with desperate people is they do desperate things.

Like the ’Proud Boys’.

This is a group of idiots looking for an excuse for a fight. They’re that bully in Junior high that would get in your face, poke you in the chest and yell ‘What you gonna do about it’ while spraying spittle all over you. They want a reason, and if they can’t get one, they’ll just make one up. ‘Cuz, Trump, mofo!

Yeah.

We are in a dangerous time. We are in a time were the leaders of our government (126 of the bastards) are pushing a ‘lawsuit’ brought by an indicted Texas AG (who would like one of those pardons Trump is writing out, BTW) whose motives are questionable, and a majority of the Republicans in the House have signed out to it. They want to throw out the votes of tens of millions of Americans for the crime of not voting for Donald Trump. This is utterly un-American. This is a delectation of duty and a denial of the oath they took to defend the Constitution.  

Not that they care.

They hew to power, not to ‘truth’ or ‘rightness’, antiquated concepts that get in their way. Arguing in bad faith is second nature by now. Of course, that doesn’t make them any less the traitors than they are. Again, either they believe this nonsense, (they don’t) or they are pushing complete nonsense for they’re own benefit. It like they’re waving to Trump and saying ‘Hey! Donald! Look at me kissing your ass! See me kissing your ass? Tell your friends on Twitter…please..?

Yeah. Traitors for hire. The whole GOP is like this. Why people still vote for these grifters who lie to them election after election I will never understand.

Nuts.

321,094+ lost to covid, as of Saturday December 19th.

We may take as many precautions as we can but those who think the whole thing is a 'hoax' (as pushed by the president) refuse to take even the most basic measures continue to fuel the huge spike in numbers. We keeping falling into the pit because people insis it isn’t there. It's Insanity, utterly.

Those same defenders of Donny aggressively ignore the hundreds of thousands of deaths under his watch. They will point to the vaccine (not created by Trump) that came out while he was president that he seems to think he forced into being with his own mighty will. Bullshit. This is the idiot who denied the science, who tried to muzzle the scientists who were warning him how serious this pandemic would be.

321,094, I don't understand those who think this is acceptable, those who believe wearing a mask is somehow a horrible encroachment on their 'freedoms'. People are dying. If we had listened to the experts, if we had not allowed our 'leaders' to politicize the precautions to this damn virus, we could have been out of this by now. We are suffering, over and over, the arrogance of the minority.

We are chained to the least of us.

We await the coming of Biden/Harris not as a ‘savior’ but as sanity. The GOP already making plans so he won’t be able to fix anything (I said they were traitors, but we saw this behavior under Obama as well), and he will have a huge uphill stuggle just to do the basics of governing. That’s where we are, even simple agreements, like allowing the lights to stay on at the State Department is politicized. Everyday we have to fight the insanity because it’s important, because if we don’t turn on a light, the world sits in darkness.

January 20th cannot get here soon enough.

Trump Gives Up

Trump walks away, just like he’s walked away from everything worthwhile that didn’t have something in it for him.

296,637+ dead from covid as of today, 15,817,962 infected. Numbers spiking all over the country, the so-called 'red' states are getting slammed. Nearly every day we’re beating Pearl Harbor numbers. Every day setting new records, and the man who actually wants to handle the virus relief, Joe Biden, is being denied the information he needs to start helping the country on his first day. Why, because of pure, unadulterated, pettiness.

The guy whose response to the threat has put us at nearly 300,00 dead, put us into the vast and deep hole of despair, what’s he doing? Holding ‘vaccine conferences’ that the vaccine makers refuse to participate in (feeling it’s just another political grandstand, it was), where he takes laps for a vaccine he had little, if any, involvement in, and playing golf.

He’s walked away from everything important and worth caring about, shrugging his shoulders at the cratered job reports, the surge of unemployment, at the deaths. He’s done. He’ll keep working and milking the election grift for everything he can get, but he’s done.

He doesn’t care, and never will. Now that the election is over, he can just drop all pretense, bitch about the election and play golf. Screw the virus, and screw you.

Rudy Giuliani’s positive COVID-19 diagnosis has now led to a shutdown in the Arizona legislature. Doctors are saying since he had to be hospitalized now, he's probably be sick for days and had the chance to infect hundreds of people. His co-counsel, Jenna Ellis, has also tested positive and, like Rudy, has been attending White House staff parties, meetings, hearings. Both have exposed probably hundreds in their failed quest to overthrow a fair election.

This administration is irresponsible and utterly incompetent, they can't keep us safe, or even their own people. Covid has burned though the White House staff twice now, both because of arrogant maskless 'events' held at the WH, infecting everyone from the First Family, to members of congress, their staffs, the WH staff, insanity.

Because, of course... of course. What else should we expect?

They even had a plan. Back in the spring, a national plan was formulated but Trump and Kushner refused to go forward with the comprehensive plan to battle the virus because 'it only affects 'blue' states. Idiots. It's like passengers on the Titanic not worrying about abandoning the ship because their cabins are dry.

So, Trump just did little to actually help, taking over his task force briefings and treating them as if they were ‘The Trump Show’, contradicting his own experts, dispensing complete lies

This is utter cruelty, psychopathic indifference to the pain, deaths, and grieving of others. This is also typical of Trump's approach to everything; what's in it for me. He ignored the pandemic, as to fight it (he thought) it would hurt his reelection. He was wrong. To fight it, hard and public, would have been seen as heroic, to ignore and downplay it was seen as callous and cruel. It's probably the biggest reason for his loss. 

Since his electoral drubbing, he has completely given up caring about either the virus or the economy, or anything but trying to erase the label 'loser' from his name.

He doesn't care, he never cared.

And 296,637+ Americans are dead.

Trump Lies, Democracy Pays

“Suckers” as Trump would call them. But really, we’re all getting screwed.

Trump lost an election, he’s a loser, and he’s making sure we all pay for it.

He can’t admit to being a loser (which is what he is, a loser), so he’s screaming fraud. And he won’t stop for the next four years, hell, for however long he lives he won’t stop. There is, of course, no evidence of any widespread fraud. But this is about evidence, this is about the long con, and power. Trump yells ‘RIGGED!!’ He begs for money to ‘stop the steal!’ and then diverts that money into his personal ‘leadership pac’ (slush fund) to the tune of 200 million or there about. Jesus.

Insane. He’s grifting them, admits (at the crazy Georgia rally) to grifting them, and supporters give him more money to continue the grift.

I think the Kevin Bacon character in ‘Animal House’ defines the ardent Trump supporter. As a pledge being whacked hard on the ass all he can say is ‘Please sir. May I have another?!’

Yep. ‘Please sir, even though you are actually keeping my money and not giving it to fellow grifters Rudy Giuliani and Jena Ellis (Well, not all of it) please take more of my money anyway!’

Trump will probably announce a 2024 run, even if he doesn’t really mean it. This will ensure that he keeps owning the GOP and that all candidates have to kiss what must be a well-callused ass. It gives him the power and attention he desperately needs. Attention is like oxygen to him; without it he will wither and die.

Trump and the Trump Party (really, it kisses up to his ass so much it’s really the only honest label/name for the former GOP) is going to push this ‘rigged election’ nonsense and use it to shove (and probably pass) new and even stricter voting restrictions, coming down hard on Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, students, anyone who might be seen as a ‘Democratic base’. Trumpubican legislatures and governors will use the idiotic claims of the Great God Trump to screw anyone who might dare to vote Democratic. The ‘steal’ will be the excuse for years to come, a reason for draconian measures to make certain a Trump loss will never happen again, no matter which Trump is running. The Trumpers will punish anyone who would dare to vote against them, legal or not.  

This lie of a stolen election will consume the Republicans, if it hasn’t already. It will burn in those whose anger and grievance already overwhelms them and those Republicans that don’t show enough fealty to the lie, or to Trump himself, (the president-in-exile) will be purged from the party.

The faith cannot handle the influence of the non-believer.

Trump lies, and democracy pays. He and his supporters will make sure it will.

"We're All Victims.” …Yes, We All Are, Of Tump.

The Devil Went Down to Georgia. There, I had to use the most obvious joke, but only as a caption.

On a day that saw 227,885 new cases and 2,607 deaths from covid-19, Donald J. Trump, failed President of the United States and loser of the recent election, went to Georgia to have a campaign rally for a campaign that ended a month ago. He was holding a rally of some 10,000 mostly maskless people in a state that is reporting record infections and deaths.

And this was after calling Governor Kemp in the morning and demanding he throw out the votes of the people of his state, and call the legislature into session to have them hand the election to Trump. This is illegal, by the way. Simple as that. Still waiting for the GOP to say something about it.

They won’t.

Trump was tweeting insults at Kemp the whole plane ride to Georgia, demanding he ‘signature match’ the ballots (you can’t, after verification the envelopes and ballots are separated to ensure anonymity of the vote) and again calling for a special session to pick electors to steal the election for him. I imagine the whole of the election staff is really sick of his shit. “Oh god, he’s tweeting again…”

How did he greet the large crowd after Melania introduced him?

“You know we won Georgia, just so you understand.”

With a lie. Of course.

No, he didn’t win, obviously, and the popular vote wasn’t even close. In Georgia, the votes he constantly complains about were counted, and then recounted, Biden winning each time. Biden/Harris have won this election several times by now. The first lie set the tone, and was quickly followed by more. All on pretty much the same theme; what a big, big winner who wins super bigly at everything but especially elections, he is. He was a fire hose of nonsense, attacking the election, the Governor, the election officials, and anything that strayed across his mind.  

“We didn’t lose. Let me tell you, this election was rigged.”

If you read this far, or have been alive and paying attention the past month you know this is a lie. It’s grown from slightly amusing, to infuriating, to exhausting watching the electoral steal team Trump has fielded, claiming to have ‘proof’ of this huge election steal yet never offering any up.

“We actually won. Remember, so many of the states, I won every one of them. Every one of these states…. and by the way, the swing states that we’re all fighting over now, I won them all by a lot.”

So, he didn’t actually lose any states, he won them all, by a lot. It’s like he’s reading a thread of his own tweets out loud. He’s a human Facebook argument, dismissing all facts he doesn’t like.

“And I have to say, if I lost, I’d be a very gracious loser! If I lost, I’d say ‘I lost’ and I’d go to Florida and I’d take it easy and I’d go around and say ‘I did a good job’ — but you can’t ever accept when they steal and rig and rob.”

Sigh.

"We will find that hundreds of thousands of ballots were illegally cast all over your state, and all over the country by the way. More than enough to give us a total historic victory…. Hopefully our legislatures and the United States Supreme Court will step forward and save our country"

I can’t see how screaming about ‘rigged elections’ will help elect two Republicans to the senate, but I can see how it would discourage anyone from bothering to vote. Why vote? It’s all rigged! That’s how they get ya!

"We're all victims. Everybody here. All these thousands of people here tonight. They're all victims. Every one of you."

This is the GOP slogan, the perfect representation of the Trump presidency founded on victimhood and White grievance. ‘It’s not our fault! It’s theirs! Anyone Non-White, immigrants, ‘antifa’, ‘elites’, all of them! ‘It’s their fault’. They’re the victims, it’s them being discriminated against, THEY’RE THE VICTIMS!!! And they gather together on the Georgia tarmac to listen to a man who will feed their greivance, and tell them fantastical tales in which they’re the heroes and everyone else is the villain.

No wonder they voted for someone who says out load what they whisper to themselves every day. "We're all victims.” They should put it on bumper stickers, tattoos, t-shirts so Trump can make even more money to throw in the 200+ million he bragged about wringing out of them to fight ‘fraud’. Oh yes, he told them about his grifting them. They cheered.

Of course, they did.

“We will never, ever surrender" Yep, not as long as he can add to that pile of cash, he and his family will continue to grift. And grift, and grift. And his supporters will gladly help him do it.

"Everything that we've archived is on the line on June 5th."

Yes, it is. Georgia, on January 5th, vote out the two crooks currently representing only themselves in the senate, and vote in someone who will actually work for you… and us.

The Republicans Hate Our Democracy, They Just Hate it.

The poor, harried and over worked election officials of Clark County listen while a fool Trump supporter goes off on an angry, incoherent rant. They’s been hearing this cap all night at this point. He went away and they went on with their business.

2020, the year the GOP stopped trying to hide their slow destruction of democracy, and openly took sledgehammers, jackhammers, and bulldozers, setting them loose on the foundation of our country; specifically, our right to vote and have that vote counted.   

This is not new, the GOP has been suppressing votes and intimidating voters for decades (the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, William Rehnquist, used to challenge Latino voters who would dare to try and vote in Arizona back in the 1960’s), in fact, this was the first time in decades that the GOP wasn’t under consent decree to not intimidate voters. Oh, you don’t know about that? Okay, let’s have Politico explain it to you:

“The decree, which dated to 1982, arose from a Democratic National Committee lawsuit charging the RNC with seeking to discourage African-Americans from voting through targeted mailings warning about penalties for violating election laws and by posting armed, off-duty law enforcement officers at the polls in minority neighborhoods.” 

Yep, that’s true. The GOP posted armed ‘watchers’ at ‘certain’ (read ‘Black or minority) communities and were righty slapped down for it. 2020, that didn’t apply anymore, because (as Chief Justice Roberts reasoned in gutting the Voting Rights Act), since it worked, it’s not needed anymore. We don’t need to protect the votes of Black folks because you know, racism is gone, everyone will play fair and do the right thing… right?

Right.

As soon as that ruling was published, states rushed to pass laws they’d already written, restricting voting; shortening, or taking away early voting, requiring voter ID’s, requiring street addresses, passing ‘exact match’ rules on voter registration, blatant gerrymandering by race, doing away with polling places in poor and minority neighborhoods, all affecting those non-White voters who stubbornly refuse to vote for the one-true party, the GOP.

Trump has been setting his plan in motion for months by crippling the United States Post Office, lying about the ‘dangers’ of vote by mail, refusing to say whether he would abide by the results of the vote, questioning whether ‘late’ ballots (those postmarked by election day and arriving during the legal window) should count, and if we should just stop counting altogether at the stroke of midnight. He wants to disenfranchise millions of legal votes, and many ion the GOP are either actively helping, and trying to ignore it.

It’s insanity, and we would never allow any elected official to go off like this without serious consequences. Yet, there’s Trump, running down democracy for all the world to see. And the world is watching and wondering what the hell is wrong with us.  

Now, we and the world are seeing Trump not only refusing to concede an election he lost by 7 million votes, he is actively undermining the election and the election officials themselves by claiming massive ‘vote fraud’ (really election fraud) perpetrated by Democrats and Republicans somehow working with the Democrats (yet, somehow, the Democrats weren’t able to steal the senate outright? And down ballot races the GOP won are still good?). And he has plenty of help from far-right media such as NewsMax (rapidly growing as Fox can’t lie fast enough anymore) and OAN, an outlet that will say or do anything to support far-right power and Trump. The fact that this threatens to tear the country apart seems to be the goal; grab and hold to power, no matter what.  

For the Republicans, it’s always about power, whether that power be in the form of money, influence, threats, or armed far-right terrorists in the streets. Right now, they still control the presidency and the senate and will use them both as weapons against democracy. This minority government will work to undermine confidence in the vote, in elections, in government, in democracy itself because those institutions are a threat to their power, and a constraint on their permanent hold on that power.

Burrowing in for destruction

How will they continue their destruction once they are out of power? By making sure they are never out of power. They have been constructing a minority government and judiciary, impervious to votes and who or what the majority wants. Running down and choking the vote is just one way of doing it. Another is to take over the government itself without have to win any votes. To this end, Trump has stripped by Executive Order, thousands of civil servants of their job protections (ones that protect them from political whims) claiming them to be 'policy making' positions. Trump then demanded lists of those workers made up that fit his new guidelines. These lists are due by January 19th, the day before inauguration. The goal here is the mass firing of thousands of essential government workers, to be replaced by 'presidential appointments', basically turning purposely non-partisan positions into politically partisan ones. It is called 'burrowing', placing political allies into civil positions, but this is on a mass scale unlike anything ever done before, and of questionable legality.

Jason Briefel, director of policy and outreach for the Senior Executives Association, a professional organization for senior civil servants, called the order “a constitutional dumpster fire that everybody’s going to have to figure out how to put out together.”

Trump soaks the place in gasoline and throws a match on the way out the door.

Boom. Doesn’t care. Anything he and the GOP can do the destroy the place, our place, our democracy, they will do. It’s what they do.

This is a Republican takeover of the government, a government-wide minority power grab of a government they, by democratic vote, lost. They have to be called out, exposed, dragged into the sunlight to show everyone what they have been doing and how close we could be to losing our democracy.

The Republicans don't care about democracy if it gets in the way of their power. They will choose power over country every time.

Why Does He Want the Job?

Tried Trump, the end times of TrumpLand are coming…

Why does he want to be president?

Why?

He shows no real interest in the job. He has never really bothered to preform major parts of it unless it put him in a positive spotlight (‘positive’ is subjective here). He doesn’t even try to work with congress, passing Executive Orders of dubious legality instead of working to finding legislative solutions. The only thing he seems to like to do is keep bilking the American taxpayer for millions through the constant use of his own golf courses and hotels, and punishing the people around him with humiliation and firings.

He doesn’t care, unless it’s about him, and even then, he grows tired of having to actually do the job. Yet he clings onto it like a shipwrecked man clings to a battered board in the sea.

And we’re all paying; in blood, treasure, loved ones.

Trump is a fool intent on smashing things on his way at the door. Right now, he's the most dangerous man in America as he's furious, hates losing, blames everyone but himself, and has the full power of the presidency and government behind him. He's a man with the world’s biggest hammer, and we're all nails.

Wham.

If you are the least bit worried about this ramping up of the coronavirus levels In America (and you should be) then it will reassure you to know you are no alone. Most state governments (at least those with Democratic governors) are worried as well, and issuing lockdowns or mask orders to protect their populations.

But.

Where is the federal government?

Where is Trump? Where is Pence?

Is there anybody out there?

They’re AWOL. Buddy, you are on your own because they just don’t fucking care.

"The president has not attended a coronavirus task force meeting in 'at least 5 months"

Reported in the Washington Post. It’s not about him, it’s not important.

He's given up. Like I said, he doesn't care, he never cared. He lied, he denied, he downplayed, he mocked, he called it a hoax, he claimed it would 'go away', he pushed quack cures, he sidelined experts, he did everything he could to shove it off stage so he could win an election for a job he doesn't like doing. He just hates losing. He say he did everything he could...

...except trying to actually fight it. He never tried to rally the people, never tried to give straight information about the virus, never tried to really help the states or the frontline workers who put themselves in danger to help people.

To Trump, helping others means you're a 'sucker', a 'chump'.

If Donny doesn’t want to do the job, he should step aside, allow Biden access to what he need to safely take over, to finally deal with the virus that is again, engulfing us, burning through the country at rates higher that those previously seen. But, he won’t. He can’t. His fruitless lawsuits keep annoying the judges forced to hear them, the ‘window’ of opportunity narrows (held open only with lies) as votes are counted, or recounted, and states certified.

He lost, but he literally cannot admit it, it goes against every fiber of his being to say, “I lost.”

Trump’s cannot lose, ergo, Trump did not lose. Trump won. All those votes against him (and yes, many voted not so much for Biden as against Trump) must be false, because Trump cannot lose. Biden is the loser, Trump is the winner, thus it ever shall be.

Today, 253,000+ are dead, record numbers of infections, and he hasn't bothered to read a report or take a meeting in five months.

January 20th cannot come soon enough.

And for many, even some alive today, it will be too late.

The Soft Coup in the Time of Covid

245,557+ dead Americans.

We set four new records for infections, that's worldwide. Over 100,000 new cases a day.

We are on track to have 400,000 dead by inauguration.

Trump is busy desperately defending bogus claims of 'voter fraud' rather than trying to save the lives of Americans. Prominent Republicans are backing him in this. He is refusing to concede, refusing to allow Biden his transition budget, offices and access to the materials, and to people he needs to be ready on January 20th. Trump is not allowing Biden to be briefed on the security issues he will need to know for the safety of this country. It’s a slow-motion, soft coup, happening right in front of us. No one seems to be in charge; those who want to do something aren’t allowed, those who are supposed to be doing something want to burn things to the ground. And around a thousand people are dying from covid every day.

In Texas, El Paso has had so many deaths, they had to order more refrigerated ‘morgue’ trucks just to store the dead. Utah announced they will have to shut down due to mass outbreaks of the virus. There are huge spikes all across the Midwest. We are setting the wrong kinds of records.

So much winning.

All this death, all this pain, all this grieving, and we have no stimulus package, no help is coming, and probably will NOT be coming as long at Mitch McConnell is in charge of the senate. He's always more interested in power than people, if screwing Americans allows him to keep that power, so be it. He did it before in whacking the American economy and slowing recovery under Obama. He will cite the debt that he and Trump ran up (adding over two trillion from their tax cuts with more to come) and will stand in the way of any help to people that desperately need it. That’s the playbook he worked from before, that’s what he’ll do again. They don't care, unless it's about them. Hell, they all have get free health care, they’re good!  

Who is in charge of the covid-19 program, why has is been a disaster? Trump and Pence, and Jared (sometimes, kinda, sorta, but yeah). They turned it political, made it an act of defiance to go to Walmart without a mask and film yourself swearing at the clerks. Very brave. And once Biden is in charge, how much will his polices be blocked by spite and McConnell’s power plays? President-Elect Biden announced on Monday the members of his new coronavirus task force, a shadow-cabinet that will take on the task that Trump never really bothered to do. That’s the good news, finally an adult is on the room and making decisions. But how much will he be allowed to do, and now much will the GOP try and stop him from doing antything?

I celebrate having decent leadership once again, but worry the GOP will stymie that leadership as much as possible, letting Americans die to keep their power. They are signaling just that right now.

McConnell said he wanted to make Obama a 'one-term president' and he undercut the country to try and do that. He will do it again, and people will die. Again, it’s all about power. They are a minority party, running a minority government, unrepresentative of the country as a whole, and they know it. That’s what installing all the judges has been about; if they get voted out, their policies won’t die, not with the far-right judges keeping them alive, like zombies. If people have to die to keep power, to ‘own the libs’, then so be it.

Trump is pulling a soft coup right now, covid be dammed. We can’t let him.

We must watch, we must keep on this, we must help the Georgia senate run-off races, we must help Biden/Harris fight, because this isn't just their fight, it's ours.

We have to fight for us, and for the 445,557.

Donny, We Need To Talk

Loser Donny, the losing-ist loser in a family of losers. You don’t have to go home, Don, but you can’t stay here.

Donny, dude, you need an intervention, so let me ‘intervent’.

Donny, all this ‘voter fraud nonsense your pushing, even you know that’s crap, right?  You just come up with a crazy claim out of thin air (or your ass), and then go looking for evidence of your made-up claim, smearing election officials and voters as you go, and encouraging your supporters to continue to harass and threaten them? That doesn't seem to be how that is supposed to work… at all. In a real investigation, you investigate, find out what going on (you know, find evidence, facts, proof) THEN you make your judgement. Right now, you're just spewing nonsense ("I won the election... by a lot!" classic tweet there, Don, but not true).

I know, I hear you, you say I’ve been told ‘Trump is a liar’ over and over (anyone ever tell you this ‘talking about yourself in the 3rd person’ thing is weird? Cause it is). Ya see Donny, I have not 'been told' Trump is a liar, I see you lie ALL THE TIME. I have eyes and ears, almost every time you open that mouth, you lie. Sometimes I think you lie just for the practice. Now you’re claiming your election watchers were not allowed in the counting rooms? Come on, I mean, come on… Your own lawyers admitted in court that the watchers were in there, watching. Didn’t they tell you? You say there were 'massive' irregularities? What evidence is there? Investigate, find evidence, THEN you can make those claims, otherwise dude, you're just spewing. Seriously, if those vile, evil DemoRATS were going to steal elections, why didn't the steal the senate as well? They didn’t think of it? Uh… right.

All this yelling about fraud in the counting is dangerous, you know that, right? You heard about the death threats against the Republican Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt has been receiving over the ballot counts? From your supporters?

No Donny, the evil 'progressives', ‘socialists’, and AOC are not making death threats in an election they won. You realize that makes zero sense, right? They aren't hiding anything. Seriously, you've bought into this so hard you don't realize you're talking and pushing baseless conspiracies.

Or do you..?

No one stole this election Donny, there is just no evidence of fraud, none, nada, zilch, just a lot of butt-hurt whinny Republicans who didn’t get their way. Even the Republicans in charge of the elections in their districts and states are saying it was a clean election, unless.... OF COURSE!!! They're only pretending to be Republicans! They've spent years undercover, knowing someday Biden would need them to smuggle in millions of ballots, disguised as Fox New camera equipment. Then, when all the aggressive GOP poll watchers' backs are turned... BAM! All those pre-marked ballots are thrown into the sorter. Election... STOLEN!!!

OMG… it’s all true!

Pre-tty nefarious. Really. See what I’m getting at here, Donny? See where it is allllll heading? Nutsy, coo-coo squirrel land. Yes, I'm making fun of the idea, but mine makes as much sense as what you, your family, and the GOP is selling. You do know Biden is up by 7 million right now. All fraudulent, I suppose? Donny, Donny, stop screaming. You want a soda? Press your Diet Coke button, buddy. Use it while you still can.

That better? Good. Where were we… Ah, yes, facts. Did you know that Republicans have struggled to win nationally for decades? Since 1992, only ONE Republican has won the popular vote. No, that wasn’t you pal, you lost by nearly three million votes. Yes, you did. Yes, you did. Donny, there is no evidence three million people voted illegally, none. No, there isn’t, No… Here I’ll press the button this time. It’s true, without the Electoral College saving them, Republicans can't win. You’re running out of angry White people. No Donny, it's not a conspiracy, it’s called ‘demographics’, and you’ve known it was coming for ya for years. And since you refuse to court POC, it's going to be harder and harder to win a national election.

Yes, even you, Don.

Come Donny, you know this nonsense is designed to undermine fair elections, undermine democracy (on the ‘Trump’ brand there), rile the armed far-right up (the ones making anonymous death threats, because classy) and give them a narrative to sell in 2022 (don't let them steal THIS one)…crazy.

You must know you can’t win, but you want to tear the whole place down out of spite. If you can’t have it, then no one can.

Like I said, on brand.

Movers will be here in January. Have your shit ready.

One Night, Four Years in the Making

Count every vote. We now have to actually demand, and make sure, that all the votes are counted. 2020 folks.

Four years ago, Donald Trump lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes. That was when the folks who weren’t around for the 2000 fiasco got a lesson in the Electoral College. I had already had that lesson, staying up all night in November of 2000 watching the vote totals shift and the cable news anchors sweat. It was not pleasant, and the fact that the recount of the vote in Florida was never completed due to Republican shenanigans on the ground and the most ridiculously biased ruling in the history of the Supreme Court made it even more unpleasant.

No. “Unpleasant” is too mild a word for a stolen election. I don’t really have a word that can describe that one. It radicalized a lot of people, probably on both sides; the GOP saw what they could do, what they could get away with because the other side believed in ‘norms’, ‘rules’, and ‘laws’ and pushed forward into new frontiers, and the Democrats and liberals learned just because there are ‘rules about such things’ doesn’t mean the other side will follow them.

No, I take that back. The Democrats didn’t learn that, as the last four years have shown us. The GOP and Trump have mowed down the rules once more, and that there was little they could do except to point out that there are, yes, ‘rules about such things’. Ten years of the GOP pulling this crap, twenty if you start at 2000 (which I do), now maybe they’re finally learned that the GOP, as a party, are not their friends.

Now, here we are, another election night, after four years of nearly constant turmoil in this country, fueled by Donald Trump and the Trump (formerly GOP) Party. 237,000+ Americans didn’t live to see this night, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd didn’t live to see this night, and many more who should be here will not see this night. This is our mission, a sacred one, to change this country, change this government, change this world, so there will be fewer virus deaths, no more Floyds, no more Taylors. And no more demagogues like Donald Trump.

It seems silly to say we have to save democracy, but that’s exactly what we have to do. It was hurting and fractured long before Trump came on the scene.  We had taken poor care of it, allowing evil men to steal parts of it, not extending its cover to all that deserved its protection, selling off bit and pieces for money, security, and because of cowardice. If Trump and enablers are allowed to hold onto power, I fear we won’t have a country in four years’ time. At least, not with a semblance of the democracy we have left.

Why is this night like no other?

Because tonight is election night in an election like no other, a chance to change, to fix, to take back.

These past few weeks we have been voting, praying, huddling together on social media, drinking, and fretting with anxiety. Today, some of that will end, but new anxieties will come as we have to watch Donald Trump act like a firehose, spraying us all with anger, lies and bile. I believe he’s going to lose, and lose big. And, insane as this is, we all now have to see just what the hell he’s going to do about it. We have to wait, tense and with jaw clenched, while the President of the United States figures out what he will do about losing.  

We are living in a new version of the infamous Chinese curse:

May you live in unprecedented times.

Take care of yourself. We will see each other again, on the other side.

To the Trump Voters

Trump supporters. Yep.

Okay. I know, I spend a lot of time, talking to people who do not like Trump. There’s a lot of them out there. I mean, this is a president who has never cracked 50% in the polls, never. The majority of the country can’t stand the guy, but he could still be reelected. Really. If not outright, he could try and throw the election into a very friendly Supreme Court and have them basically appoint him president (happened in 2000, I remember it very well). As we’ve seen, over and over, he is not above undermining confidence in the election, in the ballots, in the counting of the ballots, or even demanding they stop counting any votes after midnight, somehow giving TV networks calling of an election the power and imprimatur of an official government agency. 

But now, let me put all that aside, ever so briefly, to talk to the Trump supporters.

No, really. 

There is around 40% of America that supports Trump. You are out there, ready and willing to give this man another four years, proud of your support and assured that another four years, just like the last four, will be a good and needed thing for this country. We don’t deserve a man as good, honest, forbearing, and true as Donald J. Trump, but you’re going to give him to us anyway.

Do me a favor.

Don’t.

I don’t mean, ‘Don’t vote’, I would never say that. Just don’t vote for him. If you can’t bring yourself to vote for Biden, write in ‘Ronald Reagan’, your grandmother (she was nice), a favorite uncle (not that one, the other one) anyone but Trump. Vote like your life depends on it, but it kinda does.

Be truthful, are things better now than they were four years ago? There are 235,000 dead people and hundreds of thousands of their families, friends, and loved ones who don’t think so. There are over one thousand parents and thousands of their relatives who had their children stolen by the Trump administration who don’t think so. I’d say most countries of the world, looking at the state of the once admired America, would not think so either.

My friend, please. What are you actually voting for? Healthcare? Trump has been promising a plan for four years, the GOP now for a decade and have never delivered, and never will. Not really in their interest to do so. This is a transactional party headed by a transactional leader; if they can’t get something out of it, they won’t do it, end of story.

Jobs? Contrary to what Trump says, ‘his’ economy was not the greatest ‘ever’, heck, Bill Clinton had him beat by a mile. Jobs are down, the actual economy has tanked because Trump doesn’t understand he has to get the virus under control before the economy can fully come back, but he’s so far in denial about this he can never admit it. You want jobs to come back you have to vote for someone who can get the virus under control. That’s not Trump.

Are you fighting for cultural issues? Because that’s what they want you to do. They want you to be distracted, vote on the cultural issues they really can’t do anything about (The LGBTQ community are people, they are here, and deserve the same rights you do, get over it, same with BLM) as they enact their tax cuts for wealthy donors, strike down regulations that affect their donors’ businesses, and destroy any controls that stand in the way of complete power. Have they enacted those promises they made you? Do you have that great new manufacturing job that Trump brought back? Has Mexico paid for the wall that isn’t built?

Friend, you need to open your eyes as to what you're supporting. Trump and the GOP are poised to go down in a huge Blue tsunami and there's only one reason for it: the embrace of Trump and 'Trumpism'. As I said, 235,000+ people are dead due to his ego and inaction, over 500 children parentless because of his policies, the economy cratered, businesses, entire industries on the brink of disaster, and all of this because Trump is too stubborn, too egotistical to admit he screwed up and too afraid of showing ‘weakness’ try to fix things. While infections have surpassed the summer rates, he's holding infection spreading rallies and denying there's a problem. He doesn’t care about anything or anyone not stamped or named ‘Trump’.

It didn’t have to be this way, it really didn’t. 

In 2012, after getting their butts handed to them a second time by Obama, the RNC did an 'autopsy' trying to outline the future of the GOP. It recommended abandoning hard Reaganism, try to open themselves up to new ideas, to appeal to People of Color, and move into the 21st Century. But no, that was too hard, sounded too much like Communism (oh dread!). Better to just double down on White grievance, use as your nominee someone who was pushing a racist 'theory' (birtherism, WTF with that?) and hope for the best. They got lucky that time with the Electoral College, it saved them when they lost of the popular vote by nearly three million votes (In over 30 years, the GOP has won the popular vote exactly once). If the movement to get rid of the EC succeeds, I bet it'll be a long time before that happens again.

This Tuesday, the Democrats are probably going to win the WH, the Senate and keep the House (and might flip a few state legislatures as well). Yes, this is my prediction. Why such a huge wave election? It’s all because of the behavior of Trump and the Trumpers. Going forward, if the Democrats are smart, they'll get rid of the filibuster, and that'll be it for the GOP. Fix a few laws and they won't be able to cheat their way back into power for a while (they'll find new ways to cheat, they always do). Minority status for the Republicans while the Democrats fix (again and again) the damage wrought by an out of control GOP, an incompetent president, and his enablers.

So, you, proud Trump voter, take a look around you. Trump talked of ‘American carnage’ at his inauguration, and then he went out and created it. America is in near ruins, gun sales up 91% over last year, so bad that Walmart took them off sale until after the election.

That’s enough.

235,000+ dead Americans, 500+ purposely created orphans. I'd say that’s legacy enough for Donny, don't you?

Vote for the Human Middle Finger

Donny, innocently ‘scratching’ himself. Yeah, subtle as ever.

It is now blatantly clear: Trump has no plan to deal with the coronavirus. None. The closest he came to a plan was to cross his fingers and hope he could lie it away. 231,000 dead Americans later, we see just how well this has worked. He rails about his great economy, and if everyone would just stop worrying about the virus that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, ignore all precautions and open everything up again, the economy would come ‘roaring’ back. He’s never understood that to save the economy, you have to control the virus. It’s like selling an old car; ‘two dented fenders, seized motor, broken windshield, otherwise mint’. You can’t ignore what’s in front of you and skip to what you want it to be. Everyone knows this.

But to around 40% of voters, that doesn’t matter. They don’t care about the Trump administration’s display of utter incompetence, doesn’t bother them at all. Some will support him no matter what, believing him to be the most sinned-against president in history (he’s not), dragged down and plotted against by the evil cabal of liberal elites (no to that as well), others seems to think his ‘policies’ (racism, misogyny, fewer taxes on the rich and large corporations, snuggling up to murderous dictators, kidnapping children, I could go on and on…) are great for Americans, or at least for them as an individual. Then there are those who just want to see the world burn, who see Trump as a human ‘middle finger’, a ‘fuck you’ to all they and he, hates.

Trump hates all the things that they hate. Fuck you! 

They don’t care that Trump has no plan for the next four years, that he can’t articulate even a vague plan. They just care about ‘owning the libs’ and ‘liberal tears’, the fact that another Trump term will finish his campaign of tearing apart democracy is something they don’t care about, just as long as those ‘libs’ keep crying. The world burns and they’ll go down with it, as long as the evil liberals go first.

Four More Years?

Just what are they torching democracy for? They can’t say, but then neither can the GOP or Trump himself. The Republican platform was literally thrown out for the first time since… the founding of the party? The new plan was ‘Whatever Trump Wants to Do”.

Here’s what Donny told the ace, tough interviewer, Sean Hannity, when he asked what Trump was planning in a second term:

"Well, one of the things that will be really great -- you know, the word experience is still good. I always say talent is more important than experience, I've always said that. But the word experience is a very important word. It's a very important meaning. I never did this before. I never slept over in Washington. I was in Washington, I think, 17 times, all of a sudden, I'm president of the United States. You know the story, I'm riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our first lady and I say, this is great. But I didn't know very many people in Washington. It wasn't my thing. I was from Manhattan, from New York. Now, I know everybody and I have great people in the administration. You make some mistakes like, you know, an idiot like Bolton. All he wanted to do was drop bombs on everybody. You don't have to drop bombs on everybody. You don't have to kill people." 

And when he was thoughtfully given a do-over chance at the question again:

“I think I’d be similar.”

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe four more years of an out-of-control pandemic, hundreds of thousands of more deaths, economic free-fall, more Nazis killing people, more racial protests, more of the decline of America’s position in the world is exactly what they want, I mean beyond drinking all those sweet, sweet liberal tears. Maybe that’s exactly what they want to happen. Bring on the new civil war, as they were itching to go ‘elite’ hunting anyway, a zombie apocalypse, with liberals as the zombies and Trumpers as Rick and Chuck.

Vote for the Human Middle Finger, bring it on faster.

And watch the world burn.

Here’s the Deal

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the end-dream of the far-right move to control the courts.

Here’s the deal, as Joe Biden would say. The moderates in the Democratic Party constantly complain that the progressive wing won’t support them, won’t turn out for elections featuring moderate candidates, and complain that the moderate policies they push are, well, too moderate.

The progressive wing says that they have no seat at the table, that their ideas are consistently ignored, even ridiculed, and their support, when granted, is rarely rewarded. Why bother when they’re not listened too, are given no power in return for your support, and left out of major policy decisions?

In the past, campaigns have been won using the progressive’s ideals and style: Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign was a progressive (for its time) campaign, and Obama’s 2008, and especially his 2012 campaigns were as well. And then they turn into moderates. It’s almost a bait-and-switch. What happened?

Clinton ran hard into a wall GOP hate, constant bogus investigations, and he quickly tacked right. Obama was always more moderate than he campaigned, and was only too happy to run a center left administration. He also faced strong GOP opposition, taking too long to take their threats seriously, not believing the Republicans when they said they wanted to destroy him.

The deal is? The Republicans DO want to destroy you! Believe them when they say this, they’re serious. And they have been working towards this for decades. Denying Obama more than a hundred judicial nominees, and a SCOTUS seat, to pack the courts with far right (and unqualified) judges. It was a major, long awaited play for them and now this last rush to pack the Supreme Court is endgame, probably checkmate.

How does our moderate Democratic candidate want to address this? With a plan to take back the stolen courts with a legal expansion, to protect rights and laws that have been passed?

No.

He wants a blue-ribbon, bi-partisan committee.

Joe.

Pal…

No.  

Buddy, you’re a nice guy, I like you, already voted for you. But this is not the way to handle what the Republicans have been up to. This is pretty much what they (barring killing it altogether) want you to do. It’s like this; you know when you would ask your parents “can we go the movies” or “have pizza tonight” and they would say ‘We’ll see.” “We’ll see” was always “No.”

Always.

It’s a parent’s way of saying ‘no’ without have to disappoint expectant, hopeful faces by slapping them with a blunt declaration.

A ‘committee’ is the “We’ll see” of government.

This is just a way to get the subject off the table and kill momentum. This is exactly why the left has had it with the moderates and why the Democrats have gotten steamrolled by the right time after time. The moderates seem to think they're dealing with a reasonable, functioning GOP, and no amount of evidence will convince that they face a party of radicals, intent on destroying them and repealing the 20th Century. Haven't they been paying attention to the hearings going on right now?!

The moderates will dither, think, investigate and when they finally decided to act, it'll be a year too late. The right has no compunction to follow rules and will be throwing case after case at the now far-right SCOTUS to kill voting rights, healthcare, kill gun restrictions, and destroy protections for the LGBTQ community. They’re achieved their dream, and they’re giddy with power. They will move as fast as they can, while a bi-partisan, blue-ribbon panel meets, drinks coffee and snags Costco poppy seed muffins from the muffin basket. And talks and talks…

The GOP is seeing their electoral power shrink as the country changes and diversifies, and instead of trying to appeal to a larger majority, they doubled down on what they have, and threw themselves into a decades long quest to install their minority power in such a way that they can still control the country without being elected by a majority. Packing the courts (as McConnell himself called it) would do just that.

If the GOP insists on going forward and voting in this last attempt to killing the Living Constitution, the Democrats must take steps to reign them in, using every tool at their disposal. We have to hit the ground running, prepared to contain and repair the damage done by righting the system and restoring some fairness to institutions that have been deliberately broken.

We don’t have time to stop and think too much about it, and I doubt that are any sane Republicans who would participate in such a committee (the party would never forgive them).

It’s up to us, Joe, don’t tie our hands when we need them to fight.

Trump Fatigue

Trump, putting himself to sleep.

He is exhausting.

By design.

Trump creates chaos in everything he does, in everything he says; in tweets, at his rallies, his responses to bad news. Chaos is where he lives, where he breathes, where he thrives. He lies, he struts, he frets his hour upon the stage, full of sound and fury…

…signifying nothing.

And that’s the way he likes it. He likes being a human headache, a whirlwind of contradictory ideas, saying one, and then the opposite, always ready to drop that for whatever advantage he can get. And then denying he’d ever said anything else. And his supporters constant noise cheering him, praising everything he does, egging him on and begging for more. So tiring. And what are you going to do? After a while you stop trying to figure out what to do and just throw up your hands.

It just wears you out, starts to numb you; the next insane thing tops the last insane thing which topped the one before that. It’s just… exhausting.

By design. It is in that exhaustion Trump and his enablers do their best work. To them chaos and exhaustion means people aren’t paying close attention, it their version of the magician’s distraction, the coin palm while waving the other hand in your face. But even during this slight-of-hand we need to pay attention, close attention.

But the madness brings tiredness, numbness, brings depression, anxiety, anger overload, brings Trump fatigue.

How can you fight when you’re too tired to keep caring? This is part of what Trump is after; the tired-of-it-all, giving up, screw-them-all exhaustion. How do you deal with it?

Take a break. Stop hitting refresh on the news sites, stop doom scrolling on Twitter and Facebook, stop arguing with trolls, old high friends and family members. Shut it down. Turn off the phone, close the laptop. Talk to someone about something besides the election or covid, take a walk, get out and get away. For your own sanity.

Take care of yourself, you don’t want to break down in the final days of the most important election of your life, right? If you have early voting, try to do it now, or when your ballot comes, fill it out and get it back right away. Believe me, once you had that ballot in (and track it to make sure it’s been received) you’ll feel a lot better.

Take care of yourself and your mental health, then get back into it.

Because it ain’t over.

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.

“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.