Should Obama run for president? Or W?

 Should Barack Obama run for president as a Democrat?  Or W as a Republican? The Constitution says they can’t run for president because they already served two terms. Right? 22nd Amendment.

So what?  

The Constitution also says Trump can’t run for president because he led a conspiracy to overthrow the government.  14th Amendment. 

So, if Trump can do it, why not Obama? Or W?

What the hell?  

Just a thought. 

Ridiculous, of course, but no more so than letting one who violated the 14th Amendment run for president.  

But, by running for president, and by supporting his run for president, Trump and the Republican Party demonstrate that they totally disregard the Constitution and the Rule of Law, believing instead in the rule of threat, the rule of force, the rule of violence.  

Like ten year old bullies on the schoolyard their operating principle is “Oh yea? Who’s gonna stop me?”

Uh, the Rule of Law….is going to stop him.  

Trump should be, and I believe will be, barred from the presidential ballot on a number of states, including “toss up” states and even some “red” states. 

He disqualified himself.  Pathetic little person. 

All he had to do…was be a man

 All he had to do was be man enough to congratulate the winner and go home. Free to con his fools into buying the latest branded tomfoolery. But he’s not a man.  He chose this instead.  

Mug shot of defendant charged with 13 criminal charges trying to overturn the election results in Georgia January 2021. 

Trump knows and follows the Hitler playbook to absolute authoritarian dictatorship

 Salon's Steven Rosenfeld references notable civil rights lawyer Burt Neuborn's comparsison of Trump to the 1930s Adolf Hitler.  The parallels are too real to ignore.  Remember, Hitler, unlike Trump, didn't come to power over the largest empire in the world of his time, and he did not have an arsenal of nuclear weapons to terrorize the world with.  So it is wise to pay attention, it seems to me, to the parallels.

"A younger Trump, according to his first wife's divorce filings, kept and studied a book translating and annotating Adolf Hitler's pre-World War II speeches in a locked bedside cabinet, Neuborne noted. The English edition of My New Order, published in 1941, also had analyses of the speeches' impact on his era's press and politics. "Ugly and appalling as they are, those speeches are masterpieces of demagogic manipulation,"

Trump is not a smart man but he has a lifetime of successful propagandizing his "brand" and has a lifelong addiction of authoritarian forcing of underlings to submit to his lies and whims. And he is good at it.  It doesn't take brains, just cruelty.  

Here is my summary of Nueborn's list of tactics successfully used by Hitler, and by Trump:

• Endless attacks on truth
• attacks on reporters of the truth - the media
• attacks on finders of truth - science
• attacks on arbiters of truth - courts and the judiciary
• Endless spewing of lies, small or large or huge
• Use of a direct to his followers media that bypass professional media (Nazis passed out single channel radios to people, Trump uses social media)
• Mass rallies to create worship of the cult leader
• Extreme nationalism
• Close the borders
• Racist attacks on all who are not "superior" white men
• Protectionist policies for chosen industries, and their wealthy backers and donors
• Government money to the uber wealthy and their industries
• Despise and disparage diplomacy
• Believe in force rather than cooperative diplomacy
• Overt attack on democracy itself
• Restrict voting of opponents
• Reduce voting of non-whites
• Used violence to try to overturn 2020 election
• Attack the rule of law
• Attack judges in charge of his court cases
• Stack the judiciary with right wing extremists to empower authoritarian ruler
• Glorify the military
• Misogynistic attack on women
• Bigoted attack on gays

Hitler was elected to office and once in power he destroyed German democracy and became dictator.  Trump wants and plans to do the same.

Come, you say, isn't comparing Trump to Hitler just an intellectual failing?  Nobody is as bad as Hiter, right?  Oops - do we remember Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, Putin, etc etc etc? 

Come on, you say, sure Trump is a domineering bully, but Hitler slaughtered six millions jews, and started a world war that killed about sixty million people.  You can't say Trump would do that, right?  Oops - do you remember that Trump's main message in this campaign is that he is in it for retribution?  to punish all who have been trying to bring him to justice?  

Do you remember that Trump fully supports Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and will withdraw all aid to Ukraine if president, and will withdraw all help to NATO and destroy NATO in order to please his puppet master, Putin?

Do you remember that Trump has wondered aloud when he was president what was the point of having nukes if you don't use them?

Trump is stupid; Trump is ignorant and refuses to learn; Trump is practiced and expert at propaganda and lies; Trump has tried and will try again to end democracy in America; Trump has called for his Cult to use violence to install him in the White House; Trump will call for violence to keep him out of prison; Trump will call for violence to put him back in the White House; Trump will threaten the world with Nukes: Trump may indeed launch nuclear war - just in order to be remembered in history as the "most important" person who ever lived.

Trump is batshit crazy, but he has studied Hitler, admires autocrats everywhere, and is a danger to democracy in America and is a danger to the world.

This is not a joke.  Trump is ridiculous but is not a joke.

Thank you Pope Francis

 I stopped being a Catholic decades ago but I am inspired by this deep spiritual wisdom.  

"He may not be able to stand anymore and suffering has shaped his character but this speech from Pope Francis yesterday was just INCREDIBLE!"     

“You can have flaws, be anxious and even be angry, but just remember that your life is the world’s biggest contest.” Only you can stop it from failing. You are appreciated, admired, and loved by so many. Remember that happiness is not having a sky without storms, a road without accidents, a job without effort, a relationship without disappointments.

“Being happy means finding strength in forgiveness, hope in battles, security in fear, love in discord.” It's not only to enjoy the smile, but also to reflect on the sadness. It’s not just about celebrating success it’s about learning from failure It's not just about feeling happy with applause, it's about being happy anonymously. Being happy is not a fatality of destiny, but an achievement for those who can travel on their own.

“Being happy is to stop feeling victimized and become the author of your own destiny.” "It is to walk through deserts, but to be able to find an oasis deep in one's soul. It's thanking God every morning for the miracle of life. To be happy is not to be afraid of your feelings and to be able to talk about yourself. Have the courage to hear a "no" and trust the criticism, even when it's unwarranted. It's about hugging your kids, hugging your parents, spending poetic moments with your friends, even when they hurt us.

"To be happy is to let the creature that lives in us live, free, joyful and simple." You are mature enough to say, "I made mistakes". Having the courage to say I'm sorry. It's the sense of saying "I need you". It's having the ability to say, "I love you". May your life become a garden of blissful opportunities that in spring is a lover of joy and in winter a lover of wisdom.

"And when you make a mistake, start over." Because only then will you be in love with life. You will find out that being happy isn't about having a perfect life. But use tears to irrigate the tolerance. Use your defeats to train your patience.

"Use your mistakes with serenity of the sculptor." Use the pain to connect to pleasure. Use obstacles to open the windows of intelligence. Never give up... Above all, never abandon the people who love you. Never stop being happy because life is an amazing show. ".

(POPE FRANCIS)

I suppose the next pope is likely to be a dogmatic scold, but I am so glad to have seen this Pope in my lifetime.

It’s all about submission

 I just finished listening to the seventh and final episode of the Bullwark's Podcast of "The Corruption of Lindsey Graham".  The podcast itself is excellent daily by Charlie Sykes, former Republican who daily lays out the case against the Former Guy.  For the last seven Mondays Will Saletan has presented his series on The Bullwark that traces the fall of Lindsey Graham from an opponent of Trump who stated the obvious, that Trump was unfit for any political office, to a Trump sycophant and propagandist.  Graham is the example. Almost all elected Republicans are the same 

There are many steps along the way, but the biggest revelation that stood out to me was that once anyone gives in to any lie and to any pressure of an authoritarian, he’s got you on his game board of total domination.  Because once you cave to him on what seems like a little thing, then the next thing seems to be not that much more than before, and you cave and cave and cave until you end up pretending to agree that Trump only lost the election because it was stolen, or maybe you actually have convinced yourself that this latest piece of nonsense is truer than any facts ever presented to the contrary.  Because you sold your soul to him long, long ago.

Micheal Cohen, Trump's former lawyer/enforcer made the same point in his book.  The first thing Trump said to Cohen the first time they met was a silly lie, some kind of flattery or some kind of braggadocio, and it was just too easy/too polite to just go along with it rather than to take a stand and make the correction.  And so the deliberate, pre-planned sequence of reducing the will of whomever he is set out to dominate goes forth - one lie at a time, one violation at a time, one atrocity at a time. 

And, of course, there are threats and punishment and violence. And a few doled out “rewards”. It’s all about submission. 

The result?  A person whose spirit has been crushed and whose soul has been sold to the bully/authoritarian/autocrat/fascist.  One escalating violation at a time.

My biggest caution at this point is that Trump deliberately violated the mandate from the DC court telling him he could not threaten or intimidate any witnesses nor anyone connected to his trial, but one day later he posted "You go after me, and I will go after you".  Oh, you say - is this enough to pull him back to court and remand him to jail awaiting trial?  I say, yes yes yes yes yes yes.  You will note that his provocations will continue to escalate because he got away with the first one. And each further provocation is not that different from the previous one.

And in the end, he shoots someone on 5th Avenue and so what?  Nobody does anything because they haven't stood up to him before and are in the habit of caving caving caving caving....

Trump is not a smart man, but he knows this domination trick, and he has been using it for well over half a century.  And he is good at it.

Funny thing about those who are submissive - all they have to do is stand up and then the game of domination and submission is over. 

Prison please --- now.

Racketeering…conspiracy….

 From NBC:

“A Georgia grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump today, charging him with felony racketeering and numerous conspiracy charges as part of a sweeping investigation into the effort by him and his allies to overturn the 2020 election.”

FBI has to kill a would be Biden assassin

 A few days ago Trump posted “If you come after me,  I’m coming after you”  - this was a direct call to his cult to attack those he points to.  That same day he posted pictures of three Justice Department people prosecuting him, and also a picture of Joe Biden, who has nothing to do with these prosecutions.  And as I wrote at the time:

“ Indeed, he now influences his cult, some of whom are are violent and mentally unstable, who could well see this statement as the permission they have been waiting for to attack those that they have been taught to hate. ”

So, yesterday the FBI tried to execute a search warrant on one of Trump’s violent cult who was threatening to sniper kill Biden, and had to kill him in the process.

Charles Manson never killed anyone, nor did Hitler, nor Stalin (not so sure about that one).  But they were killers. And so too is Trump. This man was a Trump extremist assassin. 

Let this be a wake-up call.  the Former Guy is calling for killing judges and prosecutors - and juries? In order to stay out of prison. It is not going to work. 

Prison please. 

Depraved threats from Indicted Trump

 One day after the judge told him that he was released prior to his trial on the condition that he not commit a crime and not intimidate witnesses, Donald J Trump issued a very intimidating threat to all witnesses, judges, prosecutors, and jurors:

“If you go after me, I’m coming after you”.

This is not idle venting of frustration.  This is someone who could be president and have the entire government apparatus corruptly at his disposal to destroy peoples’ lives.  Indeed, he now influences his cult, some of whom are are violent and mentally unstable, who could well see this statement as the permission they have been waiting for to attack those that they have been taught to hate. 

I don’t see why he should not have his pre-trial release from prison taken away.  I think he should be imprisoned with no access to outside communication until after the trial. 

Prison please. 

"Too honest"

I just read the indictment against Trump and his attempt to overthrow the U.S. government. Some highlights of the charges:

• He knew he lost and lied and said he won
• He conspired with others to overthrow the government 
• Pushed officials in targeted states to ignore the popular vote
• Pushed states to send fraudulent electors to vote for him
• Tried to force the Vice President to decertify electors in targeted states and permit those states to overturn the will of their voters
• Used the violence of his MAGA crowd to delay the certification of Biden and push members of Congress to delay the certification 
• Was informed by dozens of his own Cabinet, Justice Department, intelligence agency, senior White a house Attorneys, staffers of his own campaign, etc. that he had lost
• Continued and continues to lie for months that he did not lose
• Launched his criminal scheme shortly after he lost on Election Day
• Guided a coordinated campaign to influence states to change their votes
• When Arizona asked a co-conspirator for evidence he said they had no evidence but lots of "theories" 
• The states being pressured to violate their voters’ choices all refused
• The co-conspirator Giuliani falsely accused two black women election workers of passing out USB ports containing false voting data - the women’s lives were viscously attacked and deeply disrupted
• He told the Georgia Secretary of State that he needed to find 11,780 votes for Trump, exactly one more than he lost to Biden by
• Just multiple examples of lieing, pressuring, and intimidating state officials to violate their oaths and declare Trump the winner
• Sham proceedings in seven states to cast fraudulent elector ballots for the loser
• The Acting Attorney General refused to say the election was stolen
• The co-conspirator that wanted to replace the acting Attorney General said they could use the Insurrection Act to use the U.S. Military to forcibly put down the expected riots in the streets if the overthrew the government!  Planning to use the military to overthrow the government!
• Tried to force the Vice President to refuse to accept the ballots of the targeted states, told him “You are too honest"

The indictment goes on in detail about crime after crime committed by Trump and his co-conspirators but I am just worn out by reading the endless and relentless violations of these terrible people. 

These are the first section of charges. They will present lots of evidence in the trial to prove these charges. A jury will decide. The future of democracy and the Rule of Law in America and the world is at stake. 

I trust that the case will be air tight and a conviction will be inevitable.

The best part of the indictment is the fact that so many men and women were like the Vice President - they were TOO HONEST to cave in to his demented demands. If the unthinkable tragedy of a second Trump presidency happens he will make sure that he does not have any TOO HONEST people in his dictatorship that would oppose him.

The only thing I wonder is whether it will finally penetrate the skull of this person  that he is going to prison. And when he finally gets that, will he do a plea deal where he loses everything, including any future political office, including nearly all of his fortune, in order to die elsewhere rather than behind bars? 

I don’t think he is sane enough to make that deal. 

Prison please. 

Indictment

 We all saw it. We’ve been seeing it for about three years. Trump tried to overthrow the elected government of the United States of America.  And today Special Prosecutor Jack Smith indicted him for his unprecedented crime against America and against the Constitution and against Democracy and against the American people. 

Finally. 

Thank you.