America Didn’t Elect This Joe

Trump and Manchin. Looks like a Junior Prom photo.

I had hoped after I finished my last article on West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin I was done talking about him, just like I had hoped we were all done talking about Donald Trump after November 2020.

But here we/I are, talking about both Joe and Donald still, one for being obstinate and clueless, refusing to let the outdated past go and the other…

Well, for pretty much the same thing.

This weekend Trump gave what had to be the laziest, more low energy speech I’ve ever seen him give, playing the hits for the crowd (stolen election, covid not his fault, Trump good, Biden bad) like a 60s band of on the second to last date of a year long 50th Reunion Tour of dive bars; tired, bored of their own crap, and ready to go back to the greenroom party. Really, I think Trump is a horrible human being, but he can fire up a crowd, and play it like Satan’s golden fiddle. This time, he seemed to be playing Satan’s cousin’s borrowed tambourine. Dead, boring, droning and not wanting to be there. Even Fox News didn’t bother showing it, one of the few times I’ve agreed with Fox.

Trump made no real news, said nothing that wasn’t predicted by nearly everyone, and the biggest takeaway seemed to be that he was wearing something beneath his pants. Maybe an adult diaper, maybe not, but still odd. Can’t say I really care. We’ll see what kind of things he says at the rallies he’s starting to book, to the people who show up to worship His Orangeness. He’s down, but his not out.

Fucking Joe Manchin.

Really, so tired of this man. The world’s most aggravating politician, friend of Donald Trump, shooter of bills he doesn’t like, and almighty Emperor of Bipartisanship, Manchin has now fully come out against the Democrats voting rights reforms, stating he refuses to modify or “weaken” the filibuster, that undemocratic relic that has been used to stop progress for decades. Seriously. Joe Manchin is more interested in protecting the rights of the minority in the Senate, than protecting the rights of minority voters. A bill that protects the voting rights of the American people is too ‘partisan’.

Too partisan.

Making sure people can exercise their right to vote, that states will have to be free and fair in their districting, that they must be answerable to the Constitution, is ‘partisan’? That’s nuts. It makes no sense, unless bowing to the GOP’s screwing of those who dare not vote for them is somehow ‘non-partisan’.

Insanity.

I don’t understand his endgame here. Does he really believe his own crap? Is he really thinking the Republicans are operating in good faith? Where are his ten Republicans, good and true, who are ready to help Biden fix this country?

They aren’t there, and won’t be.  

I’m sure Joe believes he’s the hero here, the one saving democracy from those damn liberals intent on destroying it, hell, we’re all the hero in our own Hollywood screenplay. But the nation did not elect Joe Manchin. For the past ten years, with McConnell in the Senate, (and then Trump in the White House) we have had a minority-ruled government, where people not elected by the majority of Americans, thwart what the majority of American voters want. The minority gets to say ‘no’ to the majority, over and over again. With little to no consequences. They have done this with the filibuster, using this archaic instrument to smash and kill everything not proposed by them.

Long past time for that to change.  

I don’t think Joe’s a stupid person, in fact, I think he’s fairly intelligent. This is all about being a Democrat in a deep red state. If he can stall the popular Biden agenda with silly ‘bipartisan’ nonsense, it gives him cover at election time. Maybe I’m wrong, but I bet I’m not. A political calculation is holding back the necessary reforms needed to keep this ‘American Experiment’ safe and functioning. Much like his Friend Trump, he’s willing to gamble country for reelection.

But if he really wanted to do something about the filibuster, but keep it in place, he easily could.

He could have proposed a ‘talking’ filibuster, as used to be the case (see ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’, no, really, go see it), or he propose could flipping the vote requirements. Right now, the majority has to get 60 votes, but the minority doesn’t have to do anything, nada, squat. Make the minority prove they have the 40 it would take to uphold their filibuster. Make them gather them up for every vote, and then spring votes on them, make them work to keep their filibuster going. My bet is they’re going to get sick of the whole thing pretty quickly and give in.

There are ways to fix it and still keep it, lords knows why.

But Manchin has proposed nothing. Nothing. He made a couple feints at the beginning of congress, sounding almost reasonable, and but just wants to stamp his foot and hold his breath. If this were a terrible sitcom, we’d have a shot of Manchin, arms crossed and shaking his head, saying “You can’t make me, you can’t make me!” and then cut to him voting ‘yes’ on the bills.

But this isn’t ‘Gilligan’s Isle’, and we’re all the worse for it. At least Gilligan listened to his Skipper.

Manchin has proposed nothing but hope. He ‘hopes’ he can get more of his bipartisan, Republican pals to come to his party, over time, but until then he’s going to keep the rec-room lights on, the punchbowl filled, the chips and dip laid out, and Buck Owens on the turntable. And he’ll sit in that old recliner (with the handle on the side), just waiting for his buddies to leave the frat and show up.

Like we have all the time in the world to save democracy.  

Michael Flynn Goes Full-Traitor

General Flynn as a cowboy. Hee-ha.

"I want to know why what happened in Myanmar can't happen here?"

The questioner from the audience at Dallas, Texas Q-Annon conference asked former National Security Director and confessed felon, General Michael Flynn.

The audience cheered and applauded.

"No reason. I mean, it should happen," said Flynn.

They cheered and applauded even more.

In Myanmar, a democratically elected government was overthrown in a military coup, the leaders of the government seized and imprisoned. When the people protested, the military then turned on their own citizens, killing some 800 Burmese people, including at least 40 children. This is according to Myanmar's Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. More than 4,000 citizens people have been arrested and are being held in the continuing aftermath.

This is what Flynn, and the right, are now calling for here in America. Demanding that the United States military install Q-Anon’s favorite ‘strong’ man, presidential loser Donald Trump as a dictator-in-chief.

This is, simply, treason.

And Flynn called for this during the weekend reserved for memorializing and remembering those we have lost in our nation’s wars. He either forgot about honoring them, or didn’t care.

It should be no surprise to anyone Flynn decided to go full-on traitor, he’s been dancing on that line for years, especially since joining Donald Trump on the Trump campaign trail. He was bound to fall over the line sooner or later. He worked behind the scenes with foreign entities to advance the Trump campaign, and lied to the FBI about it. He confessed, and then (once Sydney Powell stepped in to start spewing right wing conspiracies about Flynn) withdrew his thrice confirmed confession. Then AG Barr tried to undermine the case, and several prosecutors resigned in disgust. The fight over Flynn’s guilt and sentencing continued until he was pardoned by Trump.

During the last days of the election, and in the months after, Flynn was a man unleashed and unhinged. He, Powell, (who had briefly joined the Trump defense team before being pushed out for being too crazy even for them) and Trump advisor and some-time lawyer Lin Wood during the post-election lying seemed to compete with one another over who could be the craziest and make the biggest, most treasonous statements. He even took the Q-Anon ‘pledge’.

Flynn in December was pushing Trump to declare martial law and seize the reigns of power, regardless of the election outcome. As news of this push leaked out, Flynn stated on NewsMax (one of the Trumpier of the right-wing ‘news’ pushers):

"People out there talk about martial law like it's something that we've never done. Martial law has been instituted 64 times." (68 times actually, never in an election)

No big deal, nothing much to see here, just taking over the government with the military and installing a dictator. Please, go about your business.

Calls for outright violence have been louder, shriller and more desperate and Trump’s lies of a ‘stolen’ election were absorbed and amplified until they spurred the violence of January 6th at the Capitol. That violence, that attempt to overthrow the election is celebrated by Q-Anon and many on the right, and new violence is constantly advocated, constantly escalated. Again, as if the most outrageous statement wins.

This new statement is Flynn being more explicit about violent overthrow. As a retired general, as a former Trump official, Flynn is a rock star to Trumpers, one they listen to, believe, and follow. To call for a military coup from this platform is irresponsible and utterly dangerous. We’ve seen where this shouting ends. During the last five years we have all seen what the overheated lies and violent rhetoric can do to a crowd ready and willing to do the bidding of those yelling the loudest.

All they need is to believe.

Mitch Has a Message For America

Mitch might be putting up a thumb, but he’s really thinking ‘middle finger’.

There was a time, and I’m not completely crazy here, when politicians actually tried to help people other than themselves. Or at least they helped other people while helping themselves. Something got done, benefits at least trickled out occasionally to ordinary Americans and the country lurched slowly forward.

 Yeah, those were good… times?

All that’s done now, and has been for the last few decades. Helping people had its run, but we’re on to other things now. We’re in the age of announcing, via statements to the DC press, that we’re helping ourselves as policy and acting as if that is a benefit, as if that was what we were elected to do in the first place. Hurting the country and their own voters as if that is what those voters wanted all along. “Please, make sure our lives are harder, our struggles more painful so you win more power!”

“Can do!”

Kentucky Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is always one to put his own power and that of his party before the good of the country. We saw that under Obama with McConnell’s proclamation that his job was to make Obama a ‘one-term president’. Fought everything, from healthcare for the uninsured, to stimulus designed to get us out of a financial disaster presided over by Obama’s Republican predecessor. This opposition lengthened the recovery by years, needlessly causing financial pain to Americans. Now, he’s at it again.

This time McConnell has said “One hundred percent of my focus is on stopping this new administration.” Not on helping the American people, not on getting the country back to sanity after a devastating pandemic that killed well over a half million people, not trying to revive the economy, no. Petty politics is where his head is, preserving his own power at the cost of the country is his goal, but then it always was.

Not only did he try to kill the covid relief bill, now he’s trying to kill infrastructure, voting rights, and a bi-partisan investigation into the origins and happenings of the January 6th insurrection. After the Democrats gave basically everything the GOP was asking for, he proclaims it ‘not enough’. He not only is trying to kill it by allowing a filibuster, he’s also lying about the nature and makeup of the committee itself.  

Why?

He’s worried it could “could hurt the party’s midterm election message,” which is ‘Biden is horrible, he’s done nothing (because we made sure he could do nothing), he’s too ‘woke’, he destroying America, so vote for us’. He’s worried finding out the truth about an attack on the US Capitol would somehow hurt the GOP’s message. Scared of the truth.

Again, why? They claim it was ‘antifa’ and Black Lives Matter supporters, now is their chance to prove it.

Why is the GOP afraid of what a bi-partisan look at the insurrection would find? Well, they must know it was their supporters out there beating police, using the very Trump flags they were flying as blunt weapons to put cops in the hospital, smash windows, and use the shields stripped from the police to break down the doors of the Capitol. Instead of facing up to this fact, and dealing with the fallout and the lies that brought us all to that day and to this, to try to protect themselves and their colleagues from further attacks…

…they filibustered it. Ignore it, and the insurrectionists will just go away.

I hear Joe Manchin is oh so very shocked and disappointed. The very thing that nearly everyone told him would happen, that the GOP would block everything regardless of benefit no matter what, has happened.

And I hear there’s gambling in the back room at Rick’s.

And then McConnell announced opposition to police reform that does away with ‘qualified immunity’, the bizarre rule that lets police get away with civil and criminal acts (like killing people), upending negotiations his own party member Tim Scott is carrying on with the Senate Democrats.  

So, no money for crumbling infrastructure, childcare, elder care, no police reform, no voting reform and protection, no investigation into the threat against our democracy, all because it “could hurt the party’s midterm election message.”

The Republican message seems to be “Fuck You.”

And nothing has stopped them from getting that message out in the last 40+ years.

Are you finally listening, Senators Manchin and Sinema?

The Fifty Six Percent

Trump supporter shows his opinion of the media. Uh huh.

Oh boy.

The latest Ipsos poll is out, with some good news, and of course, worrying news, because this would not be 2021 without some bad news lurking around the corner preparing to jump you. 

Here’s the good stuff, to bolster your sagging faith in humanity: 75 percent of Americans believe that Joe Biden is the “true” president, while 55 percent think he is the “legitimate and accurate” president; 25 percent disagree with each. Well, not crazy about the 25%, so let’s break this all down and look at the ‘by party’ numbers. This is where the face-palming comes in:

“56% of Republicans believe the election was rigged or the result of illegal voting, and 53% think Donald Trump is the actual President, not Joe Biden. Only 30% of Republicans feel confident that absentee or mail-in ballots were accurately counted, compared to 86% of Democrats and 55% of independents. As a result, 87% of Republicans believe it is important that the government place new limits on voting to protect elections from fraud. Finally, 63% percent of Republicans think Donald Trump should run for President again in 2024, compared to only 8% of Democrats and 23% of independents.”

56% of Republicans think the election was stolen from Donald Trump, somehow, someway, 53% of them think Trump is actually still president, and 87% of Republicans want to limit the right of non-Republicans to vote. These are the people Democrats are supposed to ‘listen’ to and ‘empathize’ with. Really. They are still firmly embedded in November of 2020, to just before Fox News called Arizona for Biden, still sitting in front of the TV or hitting refresh on the Fox site to see the numbers. They are so far beyond rational political thought they’d have to get off the bus and walk back ten miles to find it.

That’s the definition of ‘delusional’.

There’s simply no way to reason with or ‘understand’ the MAGA voter when they sit down opposite you with this already in their heads. If this is their starting point, where could the conversation even begin? If months of no evidence of fraud hasn’t shaken lose this dog bite clamp on the leg of the election, you calmly explaining their faulty reasoning/logic isn’t going to do it. This won’t be solved over a burger and a handshake.

Maybe though, just maybe, they’re playing us, trying to own the ‘libs’ though the polling. They might not actually believe what they claim to believe. Maybe they’re just telling the pollsters something outrageous to invite controversy or prove a point about mean liberal polling, as they seem to think the House/Senate races were just fine. Expressing their anger at the loss by stating something they don’t truly believe but wish to be so. Maybe we’re all being played.

I seriously doubt it, but maybe…

Of course, if this were true, it causes a big problem as well. The far right at the moment is a swirling cesspool of grievance, anger, blame, conspiracy theories, and potential violence just looking for an excuse to explode. The ‘Big Lie’ over the election is fueling that time bomb. The Republican leaders, in pushing and supporting that Lie, are working to light the fuse in the belief that that is what their supporters want. They are rightly scared to death of their own base (after January 6th, I don’t blame them). What if their base doesn’t actually believe the ‘Big Lie’? We have the perfect feedback loop, the base feeding the Lie to the leaders, and the leaders working on feeding it right back to the base. With each cycle, the belief in the Lie grows stronger, more ridged, harder to break, or break away from.

The GOP is using the whole mess as an excuse to push voter suppression (they are the same people who disastrously put together a commission trying to find 3 million ‘illegal’ votes in the 2016 election), to try and make sure they can hold power without having to worry about elections. But in doing so they are also riling up a base desperate to be riled, desperate to be told that yes, they are right; people are out to get them, to do them harm, to destroy them over their religion, politics, way of life, skin color. Yes, they are the true minorities and they are the true persecuted. The more the Republicans push this lie for their own ends, the more dangerous the situation becomes.

In the end, whether the base believes the lie, or the leaders are cynically pushing the lie to gain power, it doesn’t really matter. The end will be the same, destruction of our democratic ideals.

An AEI poll this year found most Republicans agree "the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it." They’re primed, 56% think they have an illegitimate president in the White House and 53% think the former president is still in power, or should be. Will they sit by and do nothing?

56% would rather live their shared delusion, stuck in their 2020 infinity loop than come forward into the sunlight.

And that’s where we are.

Ain’t No Civil War

Civil War? Don’t believe it.

I know. The press has to have their stories, with their storylines, ones they can see coming in advance, ones that fit past narratives and are easily pitched at the morning meetings. It’s very comforting, like a Simpson’s writing saying “Oh, we did something like that in season 12, but we can just give it a twist here. It’ll work!” A Republican civil war is an easy narrative, heck, you can just pull out and blow the dust off the ones from 2006, or ’12, or the summer of 2015. And the ones from 2015 have the advantage of not having to change most of the names, as many of the players are the same.

But that is just lazy, by-the-numbers sort of thing, above anyone but hacks on a deadline. Now, I can’t say anything about the ‘hack’ part, heaven forfend, but the lazy bit… well…

People love to see what they want to see, what they are expecting to see, and everyone loves a good fight. So, some Republicans are fighting some other Republicans and we’re all pulling up our lawn chairs (six feet apart, of course) and popping up the popcorn (salt, light butter) getting ready to watch the fight.

But there really isn’t one.

The fight is over. It ended with the nomination and election of Donald Trump. The professional sycophants (Cruz, Rubio, Graham) went from highly critical to embarrassingly praiseful overnight. It was like a photo-finish. I can see the 8X10, all three (there were more, but let’s go with the big three) in a leaning-forward run, lips outstretched, all aiming for Trump’s large ass.

The ‘civil war has been over for years. Trump swallowed the party whole. Oh, he burped out a few, Jeff Flake, Justin Amash, Republicans who couldn’t take Trump (but still voted for many of his policies) and left before the humiliation of their Trumpified voters kicking them out.

So, this isn’t a ‘civil war’, this is a purge. The last of the previous generation of Republicans, themselves heirs of a previous right-wing coup and purge (the ‘Reagan Revolution’), are now getting flushed out by the very radicals they nurtured, the vipers they thought they could control while they passed on to ‘elder statesman’ status. They were wrong. Vipers do what vipers do, they strike.

See, they have been striking for years, but with Trump giving the order that the ‘stolen election’ bullshit is now the Golden Rule by which all must be judged, the strikes, the Purge ™, has been increased in speed and scope; everyone who dared to question, dared to stop Trump’s steal must be cast out into the wilderness. They must be burned to the ground, and their cubicles and office mugs salted so no one who might question The Donald can grow there.

Liz Cheney? She’s just the most public face. The local GOPer’s, the ones who certified the votes, who oversaw the Republicans elections in reddish/purple states and followed the rules, all those Republicans who put in place all the rules designed to elect Republicans (that failed to elect Republicans this time), they’re either gone, or have had their power so curtailed they might as well be gone.

So, put away the popcorn, there’s no fight here. Everyone knows what’s up, everyone knows how this is going to go. Except those in the media who just don’t get it, or like the narrative too much to tell their editors what is really going on. The War is over, the War has been won, they’re dragging the bodies off the field.

The GOP is Trump’s party, has been for years, they’re just cleaning house. 100% Trump, or 100% gone.

Don’t Cry For Liz Cheney

Boom goes the dynamite. The Republicans continue their relentless march to turn Trump lies into the GOP reality, no matter who is in the way.

And just like that, Representative Liz Cheney is gone. If not in body, in power. She was the 3rd most powerful Republican in the House leadership and she lost that position for taking an odd, and at odds position to her colleagues; she insisted on telling the truth about the former president.

Nothing is punished so much as being right in a wrong world.  

She went down shooting though;

“We cannot embrace both the big lie and the Constitution," Cheney said on her way out the door. She says she'll do "everything I can" to ensure Trump never gets near the Oval again. "We cannot be dragged backward by the dangerous lies of a former president."

And then the door slammed on her, as a victory howl went up from Mar-a-Largo. High fives all around!

And she’s out, by a non-recorded voice vote, McCarthy and the House GOP were on-brand cowards to the end. This is what happens in today’s Republican party for daring to put your head up and say, “Hey, wait a minute, this isn’t right…” You get that head chopped off. Dare to admit Trump actually lost the election by 7 million votes (which he did) and you’ve suddenly got Donald Sutherland pointing and screaming at you.

This is also what happens when a party becomes not a political entity of like-minded people, formed with the goal of governing, but a personality cult huddled around one god-like (or maybe, ‘god-claiming) person from whom all favor flows. To speak against that person, to poke that bear, gets you the fate of most who do venture their hand into the den; you get eaten.

Trump has consumed the GOP, well, since he’s lazy as hell, they consumed themselves for him, re-making the party from the ground up in gold plate, velvet curtains, and long red ties. They had their chance to walk, and almost did so after Trump incited the riot on January 6th, even McCarthy briefly grew a spine and blamed the President for his actions… and then went to Mar-a-Largo to kiss his ass and tell him how sweet it tasted. He was quickly followed by Cruz (who never misses a chance at humiliating himself, seems to enjoy it in fact), Lindsey Graham, (who literally has no shame, probably born without it) and others who have made the journey in spirit if not action.

"We cannot be dragged backward by the dangerous lies of a former president." Cheney said.

Sure we can. It’s happening right now, aided and abetted by the entire Republican party. The GOP is already there. They took that one little step, that toe-in-the-water after 1/6, shivered and went back in the Trump cave, never to venture out again. “Dragged”? Hell, they’ll happily march in lockstep by Trump. They like it, they want it, and have for decades. Trump, and everyone who has eyes and a keyboard (hello!) has said this; Trump did not spring up suddenly and unexpectedly, and this is true. The GOP arrived at Trump. Trump had his arms opened wide, and welcomed them… home. You can finger-trace the curve from the John Birchers in the 50s, to Goldwater in the 60s, though the Nixon ‘Southern Strategy’ in the late 60s-70s, to Reagan (a darling of the far-right from his time as governor of California) and his embrace into the GOP of far-right Christianity, to the demagoguery of Newt Gingrich and the rise of far right media in the 70-80s, all of these elements joining together with Fox News and Rupert Murdoch in the 90s to drive the right’s narrative ever farther and farther right to end at the warm embrace of… Trump.

End of the line. Everyone out.

Trump became the vessel for all the worst of the GOP; all the bile and hate and grievance and paranoia had found an umbrella to shelter under, a home to put their feet up, relax and plan/plot. They had seen each other across a crowded room and it was love at first sight.

Yeah. Ick.

Do not cry for Liz Cheney, I know I won’t. She is a person who supported torture, and threw her own lesbian sister under the bus to advance her career. She is an extremist in her own right, and is now enveloped by the hate her party has been nurturing for decades. The burning to the ground of the GOP has been coming for decades and it’s not over yet. Just as the Reagan/Gingrich movement purged anyone thought of as ‘liberal’ from the party, they will now also be purged for the sin of blasphemy, the sin of pointing out the nakedness of their own emperor. The purge is had been going on in the states for the past couple months, Cheney is just the most public national example of it.

No, Liz will be fine. She might lose her seat in the next election, but she will be seen as a martyr to the cause, and have many high paying speaking gigs and consultancies with the old guard Republicans (the true GOP) to tide her over before her inevitable run for president as the ‘Sane Republican” ™. She’s good.

The problem isn’t her, the problem is the GOP, once again, straining to reshape reality to a more comfortable (for them) environment for them to thrive. They’re trying to terraform democracy by getting rid of the ‘democracy’ part and forcing the country to accept it, basically trying to ‘Cheney’ the entire country until the only votes that count will be theirs, the only laws they obey will be the ones they pass and force on the rest of us, backed by the judges they appointed.

Don’t cry for Liz, she helped make this bed, She’s snug.

Cry for democracy.

All Because of a Lie

They came in answer to a lie, told by a tiny man with pointed them at out democracy and said ‘sic’ em’. Photo by Jessica Griffin.

2024. The election is a decisive one, the Democratic candidate wins the popular vote by some 8 million, the electoral by 30-40 points. Maybe even enlarging the senate control. Everything will be fine… right?

What happens when local GOP controlled election boards in both red and purple states decide they don’t like the way their own voters have voted, when Republican controlled state legislatures refuse to certify Democratic wins, sending instead their own slate of electors to Washington? What happens when a GOP House refuses to certify the presidential vote, when the GOP refuses to seat Democratic senators?

What happens?

Think this nightmare scenario can’t happen? Remember January 6th. We believed it couldn’t happen then. Well, maybe “believed” is too strong a word, “hoped” is better. We already had all the signs, the right-wing violence and threats against officials, the storming of state capitols and city councils, the lies from top officials, Trump on down. It was building, making the violent insurrection on the DC Capitol inevitable. It was a mad rush and build, an escalation to madness and attempted coupe, and then they all went home, contrite and regretful… right?

No. It’s not over. 1/6 was prologue. It was the person before the play, it was Shakespeare, sending his actor out on the stage to tell you what you will be soon seeing, that while you are witnessing this, there is so much more you don’t see. When you see fights, please, gentles all, imagine wars.

This is the GOP; they start fights but they are planning for wars.

All for a lie, all because the huge ego of a tiny man could not deal with the obvious fact that he lost an election, could not admit he was not the god of his speeches but the grifter and con man the election revealed him to be. So, he decided he didn’t have to admit it, didn’t have to accept it, and that his voters and members of his party would back him up. And they did, to the great disgrace of this nation and the weakening of our democracy.

A lie and a man’s ego has managed to kill people and brought us where we are today. It’s… crushing, the shear stupidity of it all. Here we are, still dealing with the muck and suck of the hate and violence. Because it ain’t over, as Yogi maybe said, ‘til it’s over.

Because the insurrection didn't end with the Capitol Hill police ushering the violent insurrectionists out of the Capitol. Like an out-of-control AI, they have learned, absorbed, pinpointed where they failed and are shoring up the weak spots; ridding themselves of anyone moral enough to say ‘no’ to Trump’s election lies, casting out anyone who might have enough principle to stand against a naked power grab, and readying for all-out war on a democracy that stands in the way of total power.

Citizens don’t want to vote for them? Fine. They’ll just take that little voting problem away, thank you very much.

No, the insurrection continues with the nearly 300 anti-democratic voting bills being introduced and passed around the country, with the 'forensic audit' being conducted by the GOP version of the 3 Stooges in Arizona for no other intention than to undermine a fair election and to bolster lies. This is all leading up to the 2024 presidential election where the GOP will try, once again, to steal an election.

This time, with those objecting purged, who will say no? That's a big thing that saved us; many in the local state GOP didn't go along. These are officials who I’m not so sure were brave, but defending a system that they set up to elect Republicans that failed to do so. Not sure much ‘brave’ as defensive and indignant. But they were there and they stopped it.  

Republicans are in the process of fixing that. Stefanik for Cheney, censure and eventual expulsion of anyone who pointed out the lies (listen, I have no love for Cheney, who supported wars and torture, but in this stand, she’s actually right) anyone who might slow the Trump train to election must be crushed, whether Trump is the engineer this time or not.  

The clear message the GOP is sending to its representatives is: you stand up for the Constitution and democracy, we’ll knock you down, hard. We’ll erase you not only from the face of the GOP but the earth. Scorched earth against their own party. The reps hear, and obey.

That's what this is about; hobble democracy with even more restrictive voting laws to make themselves completely voter-proof, and if somehow that's not enough, just take it. Claim victory anyway and this time with the entire GOP on their side, they're that much closer to succeeding. 2022, 2024, they will try until they succeed.

That's the plan; permanent Republican rule, voter proof. Will it work? doesn't matter, it's what they'll try. They've been setting it up for decades.

How can they be stopped? Through attention paid, taking them seriously and heading them off though public opinion and the courts (Trump and McConnell have made that much harder, but not impossible).

This is why there are and will be constant lawsuits filed against these bills, playing a legal whack-a-mole, that's why more grassroots are forming to re-register the people the GOP are purging from the rolls. It's why the spotlight has to keep shinning and pinning them down like an ant in the sun, paying attention to the state and national GOPs and their efforts to kill democracy and snatch power.

They love to work in the dark, the bright daylight gives them away.

They’re probably working on blocking the sun.

Trump Seal Team Super StrikeForce, Ninja-Robot Warriors.

Rudy laying down the first wave of crazy, Sidney Powell ready to bring on the second.

Here we are, nearly 3 weeks from election day, two weeks since the outcome was obvious (hint, it was Biden, with what is looking in the end to be a margin of 7 million votes). So, Joe Biden is President-Elect, Kamala Harris is Vice President-Elect and the country can move on, start dealing with the many crisis’ created by the previous administration.

Right? Please?

Sigh.

No.

You see, we have this malignant tumor bunkered down in the White House, refusing to utter the words ‘Biden Won’. Can’t do it, just can’t. He instead, after some media calls election night, came out at 3am and gave a rambling ‘victory’ speech (at a victory party that turned into another White House, covid super-spreader event) claiming victory, spewing nonsense about ‘voter fraud (really ‘election fraud’, but there ya go) and seeming to go from rage, to despair, back to rage again.

Really, I think he was going for an Emmy.

Immediately he started filing a lot of baseless lawsuits, getting laughed out of court by Republican judges, and shedding lawyers like a sheepdog sheds hair in summer. Right now, his team is led by Rudy Giuliani, the human self-debasement machine, whose previous actions helped to get Trump impeached, and by Sydney Powell, a lawyer under investigation for possibly tampering with court documents for her other client, Michael Flynn.

You hit the Batty Signal, you get the bats.  

Still, even though no reputable attorney will work for them, Trump Team Crazy is busy, filing lawsuits left and right, tossing them out like t-shirts to a crowd, shouting ‘voter fraud’ up and down the hallways.

So, how are all those 'voter fraud' cases going?

They're not. So far Trump 'Elite StrikeForce Team' are 1-33. That means out of the 34 cases they brought, they're won one. One. Here's another thing; they're not actually voter fraud cases.

While Trump is screaming in all caps on Twitter. and Rudy G. and Sidney Powell are making bizarre claims about 'Hugo Chavez, communists, and China' funding secret vote-flipping machines, and election fraud on a massive scale, they have yet to make these claims in court. In fact, they go out of their way NOT to claim fraud... because they have no proof of fraud. They start bringing charges of fraud then the judge is going to ask them to prove it. No, the cases have mostly been about oversight, have been about such pettiness as in Arizona, when 'sharpies' used on ballots supposedly caused them to be rejected (their own witnesses proved this to be nonsense), poll watchers not allowed in polling places in Pennsylvania. There the lawyer pissed off the judge by trying to get cute:

Judge: "Did the plaintiff have representatives in the room?"

Lawyer: "“There were a nonzero number of people in the room."

Judge: “I’m asking you as a member of the bar of this court: Are people representing the plaintiffs in the room?”

Lawyer: "Yes."

Judge: "Then what are we here for?"

Always good to en-madden the judge hearing your case.

One case filed was, literally, based on what one witness was told by another poll worker who had overheard something someone else had said. No kidding. A sort of 'double heresy', the judge laughed that out of courts with a big, fat 'come on!'.

In Georgia, Trump lawyers and minions are doing stellar work. Cybersecurity worker and expert witness in the case, Russell J. Ramsland Jr., claimed in an affidavit that his company had uncovered “evidence of inconsistencies in electronic voting machines”. Maybe he did, but not in Georgia, the districts he list were in Michigan. Red districts that voted for Trump. Oops.

He also listed a bunch of towns and counties he claimed showed there were more votes than voters. Again, maybe so, but he was listing towns in Minnesota, not Michigan. Or Georgia.

Judge tossed it. No evidence. Huh.

In Michigan, a state court judge lovingly took apart the six witnesses with claims of improprieties at the counting center, noting that had they not skipped orientation, most of their claims would have been answered. The Trump team also mis-filed a Michigan case in a court in DC. Working hard to bring the best in incompetency.

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

Stormtroopers on the Death Star had better aim.

The Trump team have no real cases, they have no real chance as the numbers are against them. The plan, as near as anyone can figure, seems to be to get Black votes (city of Detroit) thrown out because... the poll watchers didn't stand close enough to the counting...? Something insane. That would give them Michigan, then… something, something… Georgia and Arizona, and bam? Election won?

Really. They would have to flip three states, disenfranchise millions, and forever kill any trust in our election system.

But they’re good with that.

There is no plan, no endgame here, just throw everything at the wall and keep refiling to try and get a judge more interested in party than justice.

They're out there, McConnell saw to that.

Which brings us to the Republicans, the GOP, the party of ‘Law & Order’, friend of the ‘working man’ (that’s White working man), what are they doing about this situation?

Nothing. With a few notable exceptions, they are maintaining silence, like they always do, or crying ‘let it play out’, as Trump hacks at Democracy with an axe. Why won’t they say something? Several factors:

One; he’s still the head of the party. Hell, it IS his party, he’ll cry if he wants to, and that big, beautiful base of his is loyal not the GOP, but to Trump himself. To speak up now is to anger the base, which they will need in their next reelection, or in 2024 if their ambitions carry them that far.  

Two: mean tweets. Trump’s base may be angry, but Trump is angrier, and can focus his hatred, and that of his base, right between the eyes of anyone daring to step out of line, even a little. He loves doing it, his thumbs are fast, and he doesn’t care about spelling.

Three: they want him to succeed. Sure, it’ll tear the country apart, but hey! They stay in power another four years, country be damned. That’s what really matters, doesn’t it?

So, they’ll stall the transition of power, watch as Trump demands no one speak to the Biden/Harris team, and valuable time is lost, information is lost, chaos seeps into every crack and corner, and Trump hides behind his extra-tall, super-secure fence, and tweets all caps into the void.

January 20th cannot come soon enough.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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.

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?

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.

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.

What the Hell did I Just Watch?

Evita of the Trump Party.

Distorted history, outright lies, a lady angrily screaming into an empty hall, and a speech from Donny Jr, so disjointed and incoherent, that as he spoke, #Cocaine was trending on Twitter. It was supposed to be ‘uplifting, positive, very positive’, Donny Sr. promised! Instead, we got anger, bile, lies, lies and more lies. And yelling, lots of yelling. It was pretty… amazing.

The theme of the night was ‘The Land of Promise’, and they promised light, positivity, optimism, you know, all the good stuff. Right off the bat we had Trump storming in like your drunk uncle who wants to settle who took his favorite skateboard (you now, that one he put the ‘Hanging Ten’ sticker on) back in 1977. He started in attacking Biden, Democrats, China and claimed Democrats were promoting and using ‘voter fraud’, trying to steal the election by saying that votes should, you know, be counted. It was his usual disjointed rambling, a bitter grievance masterpiece. The Qanon cultists were taking notes so they could decipher the ‘breadcrumbs’ for the “real” message later. (When it comes to Qanon, “quote marks” are mandatory.)

Oh, and all the horrible stuff happening under Trump? Be totally worse under Biden. Totally. Fear Biden! Everything that Trump did is actually Biden’s fault!!

So there.

And he’s going to do this stream-of-consciousness ranting EVERY night! That means he’s going to work four whole night in a row. That’s dedication. That’s how desperate he is, he’s coming close to doing his job.

Nikki Haley was there, completely forgetting her trashing of Trump four years ago, trying to present herself as a sort of ‘sane version’ of Trumpism, Trump scrubbed of the overt racism and outright hate; Diet Coke Trumpism. It was a good speech, even if it had to, like most speeches of the night, ignore Trump’s actual record and rhetoric to make its points. Talking of ‘cancel culture’ and political correctness’ Haley claimed the president “knows that political correctness and 'cancel culture' are dangerous and just plain wrong.” This ignores the many times, like just last week with his attack on Goodyear Tires, Trump has put out a ’cancel’ fatwa of his own on journalists, Hollywood celebrities and entire organizations for not praising him enough. Ignore reality and blame whatever is going on in America on anyone but Trump.

As a possible 2024 prospect, she was the one of the calmest people in a night of yelling and arm waving.

There was a lot of that, of ignoring actual reality in favor of what they would like things to be, you know, like praising Trump on the now ruined economy (by time traveling back to December), rewriting his coronavirus response, dismissing his actual racial rhetoric and record. Some circus strongman level bending and twisting of the truth.

The most cringe-worthy moment of the night in the many on display, was when former hostage Andrew Brunson thanked Trump for getting him out of the Turkish prison where he’d been sentenced for 28 years. And Trump replied: “I have to say, that to me, President Erdogan was very good.”

That would be the brutal dictator that threw Brunson in prison in the first place. Brunson just sat there, looking at him while he went on to praise Erdogan some more. It was a version of “Well, sorry he killed people, but he’s never killed me.” Insane.

The ‘real people’ stars of the night were the two personal injury lawyers from St. Louis, Mark and Patty McCloskey, who thought it a good idea to wave guns at people who dared to walk past their house. They were there, again, to tell you the things happening in Trump’s America were actually happening in the mythical ‘Biden’s America’, where every day would be a mix of Soylent Green, Mad Max, and Planet of the Apes. You could boil the whole thing down to: The Black people are coming to riot and move in next to you. These are the ‘ordinary Americans’ the GOP wants to praise, protecting their gilded McMansion against… passersby.

That was a bigger theme than any openly announced; Be Afraid of ‘Those People’. There were several Black speakers on this first night: Senator Tim Scott, State Senator Vernon Jones, Kim Klacik, Herschel Walker, there to say how terrible Democrats are to Black America and how un-racist Trump is. Now, the Democrats do need to do better on race (we all do), but that’s not why these Black speakers were there. They were not there to appeal to Black and POC, (Trump support in the Black community is so small as to be a blip) they were there to reassure the white voters that they’re not racist. It’s okay to vote for someone with Trump’s abysmal record on race, it won’t make you racist. I’m sure that was not the intent of the sincere speakers, but it is the intent of the Trump Party.

The Promised Land indeed.

One of the most batshit things of the evening was Kimberly Guilfoyle, ex-Fox News host, ex-wife of CA Governor Gavin Newsom, girlfriend of Don Jr, and an important and effective fundraiser for the GOP. She gave the standard ‘Dems comin’ for your money, guns, and babies, gonna make you all socialists’ speech, but delivered it in a such a shouting, shrill, angry fashion I cringed at home. I thought something was wrong with her. I’m an actor, I wanted to tell her that they have microphones, you don’t need to yell. It was as if she had practiced it to be shouted at a noisy, crowded, and rambunctious room and couldn’t adjust to the fact the hall was empty. She even still had all the applause lines. To the echo of no applause.

Should I mention Guilfoyle got her own heritage wrong, claiming her mother wasn’t a citizen (she was born in Puerto Rico, which makes her an American citizen), and calling herself a ‘1st generation American Citizen;’ (getting the nomenclature wrong) when she’s not?

Nah, that’s petty. And I don’t want to be petty about pettiness.

We end here with probably the more anticipated speech of the night: Donald Trump Jr. Don Jr. started with his dad’s campaign, figuratively (sometime literally) fetching the coffee. It was Jr. who brought the Russian spy to Trump Tower to pitch her anti-Hillary, Pro-The Donald portfolio, which everybody knows was a great move. In the past few years though, his position has become point man for his father, and he and Guilfoyle have become a power couple in the Trump Party and a ‘credible’ prospect of running for president in 2024. Of course, that was before this speech.

Really, maybe he was just stunned by Guilfoyle’s speech, or deafened, but he delivered his usual ‘Imagine how the world would be if my father was not president’ speech with red, weeping eyes, and stuffed nose. It lite up Twitter for all the wrong reasons. This is the future of the Republican Trump Party.

What all these speeches have in common (besides Trump good, Biden evil) is trying to blame everything that has gone wrong under Trump’s presidency on the Democrats and Joe Biden. The coronavirus, the cratered economy, the double-digit unemployment, the protests, the est. 200,000 dead Americans and the rest of us not knowing how we’re going to pay rent or even eat. None of this is Trump’s fault. It’s all a plot against him, it’s all the Deep State ™, it’s really what will happen under Joe Biden. This night is like all other night’s in the Trump Party; they shout, they point, they exaggerate, they twist, they lie to avoid any sort of responsibility, and then say they deserve four more years to save you from… them.

Tuesday night; more of the same.

Where Goes Q, Goes the GOP

“Trust the Plan” they say, you know, when it looks to be insane bullshit. It’s not! Trust it!

The GOP has embraced a far-far right-wing conspiracy theory, or it has infected the Republican party enough that it has to embrace it or be swallowed. That theory, really a worldview and way of life, is called: Qanon.

What the hell is ‘Qanon?

Qanon is a bizarre, through-the-looking-glass movement, the new Tea Party, but crazier, stupider, and much, much more dangerous. The whole thing was started by an anonymous poster claiming to be a 'top level intelligence officer’ in the Trump administration. They posted on Reddit under the name ‘Q’ and started outlining their ‘insider knowledge’. After the initial drop, they would should back up and post what the increasing followers would call 'breadcrumbs' (and what one study claimed to be random keyboard hits) which true believers (now calling themselves Qanon, or just 'Q') would then 'interpret' as they saw fit. And boy did they see fit.

Essentially, the world is run by a cabal of Satan worshiping, pedophile cannibals, (this includes Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Tom Hanks. TOM HANKS!!!), and many many more, mostly Democratic politicians and Hollywood celebrities, anyone to the left of Satan. This ungodly cabal will, any day, be rounded up by Trump, who has been secretly working behind the scenes (with Robert Mueller, Yes, this is part of it!!) and then Trump will lead the nation back to the truth, the light, the church and Christ.

Trump. He's going to do all this.

Any day now.

We're all waiting.

Okay, I make fun, but.... there are several true believers running for seats in congress right now, and a couple that will probably make it in. What will they do, all the true 'Q' believers? What did the Millerites do when they waited all spring of 1843 for Jesus to show up to smite the non-believers, and he never arrived? They doubled down, and waited until spring 1844, really, really sure Jesus would show up this time. When Jesus still didn't show up (I assume they sent him an invitation) they tripled down, changed the name of the group to the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and continued on thinking they were smarter and better than anyone else.

Because they knew 'the truth'. Just like the Q-anon believers do, as the Trumpers do.

They will double down. And I'm afraid they will do so violently. They've been violent before, killing police, shooting up a DC pizza parlor to free the abused children in the basement (no kids, no basement). The FBI considers them a domestic terrorist threat, and they like to show up at rallies with far-right anti-government extremists and Nazis. They are looking for a fight.

“Where We Go One, We Go All" is their motto.

 And when the Chosen One is in danger, (like losing an election) they will be there, ready for that fight.