What is Legal, and What is Just.

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

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

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

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

Is that legal? Yes.

Is it just?

No.

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

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

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

It is time for justice.

Trump is Going Nowhere.

Trump smirks and then pouts his way though the grievance fest that is his ‘press conference’. BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS

Trump is going nowhere.

I don’t mean he’s going to win the election, I mean he’s going nowhere, not him, and not the party he embodies. This is what many people (including Joe Biden, I believe) are missing, The GOP is Trump, Trump is the GOP. You can cut off the head, but the body will just go doing what it was doing before. And Trump himself, bar going to jail, will still be around, still be telling it what to do, think, say, and taking his network of grievance and hate and just installing it elsewhere, maybe in a new subscription TV channel that he can spew nonsense on 24/7, without any ‘enemies of the people’ to question him.

Trump is going nowhere. The GOP has not been so much transformed as it has come of age, reached the goal it (and others) set for itself back in 1964 with the defeat of Goldwater. It absorbed the John Birchers, it invited in the religious far right, it purged itself of anyone and everyone to their left (if there was such a place), embraced the crazy and conspiracy, and folded its supposed ‘big tent’. Gone is/was any talk of ‘compassionate conservatism’, hell, most of them never really knew what Bush was talking about… sounded weak, sounded left.

Trump is not the aberration, Trump is destiny, he is the messiah, riding his donkey into the White House, arriving to lead his people into the promised land of power. He is the ‘Chosen One’, the One they have been waiting for since Goldwater. He is the one who will no longer smile, no longer couch his words with niceties, or hide his meaning behind ‘dog whistles’. Trump is the human ‘fuck this shit’. They delight in his crudeness, his racism, his bigotry, because he’s finally saying what many of them have been thinking or whispering to each other for decades.

Trump is going nowhere. If he’s voted out, (and is dragged from the White House by his ankles, his hands clawing at the carpet), he becomes the Messiah-in-Exile, Napoleon at Elba, waiting for his chance at power again. Be serious with yourself; do you really think his minions won’t be working some angle to get him back in power? They’ve already proved, over and over, that they will lie, they will seek out enemies of America for help, they will go to any length to give him more, and more, power. And if not Trump himself, there are many Trump children and hangers-on to assume power while Trump whispers in their ear.

You might shake your head and think this is all crazy. Well, four years ago, did you think we’d have an American President who worked with the Russians to get elected, asked two foreign countries to help collect dirt on a political opponent, worked hard to undermine allies while showing sycophantic affection for murderous dictators, and who has stood by while an est 200,000 of his own countrymen died?  

This is where we are.

So, don’t fool yourself.

Trump is going nowhere.  

If Only We Had a Leader, Not a Whiner

Pouty McPouterson, pouting.

“Oh, you libtards! You blame Trump for the pandemic!”

No. The pandemic is not his fault (not the fault of China either, but that’s another post), no, we blame him for his response to the pandemic.  The fact he wasn’t ready hasn’t helped much. I mean, firing the people responsible for dealing with a global pandemic, cutting funds and eliminating the programs that were set up to deal with a major health crisis didn’t help when one actually hit (as he was warned it might) all pretty damn stupid, and thoughtless.

Now, 165,000+ dead. Virus is burning though the country uncontrolled. Double digit unemployment, economy cratered and not coming back any time soon. Ugliness reigns.

No matter how you look it (unless you just want to lie about it), Trump has screwed this up, big time.

Simply no other way to look at it. He didn’t act fast enough; almost all of his actions have been reluctant, half-hearted, like a kid told to clean their room and after an hour they’ve picked up one sock. He ignored his own experts, he undermined their advice and when guidelines were actually put out, he immediately ignored them, recommending the opposite. Trump is so focused on his reelection that he just doesn’t care about anything, or anyone, else. And this is for a job he didn’t want in the first place….

He just doesn’t give a damn.

I was making this very argument on the Book of Face yesterday while deep in the enemy territory of a Trumper’s post, and I got one of those smarmy replies; ‘well, what would you do, it you were President? With the laws and powers available and not overstepping them.”

You see the trick here is that he would consider anything Trump did within the ‘law’ and anything done by a Democratic president to be far, far outside it (see Obama, Barack). I see this smug little game all the time, if we talk facts to Trump supporters we all see it. But, we’re in lockdown, I ain’t doin’ nutin’, so why not?

The First Week of the Tom Stewart Presidency,: (What I would do if I ran the zoo)

I would put out national guidelines based on science AND FOLLOW THEM. Weird, huh? I do this because Trump immediately undermined his own recommendations, and his doctors. He never took it seriously, at all. It was like he was trying to 'will' the pandemic away, hoping if he ignored it, it would all just ‘blow over’. My mom used to try this with the light bill. She was soon sitting in darkness.

I would have a national testing and tracing plan in place, relieving some of the burden on the states, and I would work with the affected states, making sure they had what they needed, you know, instead of pissing, moaning and complaining about them, as Trump did. Trumpy’s way really worked well for all involved, especially the 165,000+ dead.

I would also use my power to order more ventilators and PPE manufactured (Trump threatened this, but didn't do it, because of many, many reasons… I’m sure) and then I would ensure the equipment got where it was needed through FEMA and the CDC. This is instead of walking away and letting all 50 states fight it out like a pack of hungry dogs over a bone.

I would reach out to our allies, ask for assistance and offer ours in return. I would learn from them (look at S Korea and New Zealand, they could have told us a lot, if we had leadership prepared to listen). I would have used my national platform to inform the people, stepping back to let the doctors give real, unvarnished information, (not get up, lie about the efforts, undermine what they just said, push phony cures, whine about how mean people are to me, etc…)

…and I would talk about the lives lost. The people, the friends, family, husbands, wives, sons, and daughters lost to the awful pandemic, and offer my empathy and prayers to the ones left behind.

No finger pointing, no crying about the election, no name calling other countries, none of that bullshit. There’s no time for nonsense while people are suffering, and people are dying. I would try my best to be a leader. 

We don't any of that right now. In case you haven’t noticed.

Now I’m going to sort my comic book collection and pray for better times, better leaders, and better hope than the tattered one I have left in my broken heart.