More to be pitied than feared?

 It is starting to dawn on me that Trump, his slavish enablers, and his cult followers are more to be pitied than feared.  Watching the hapless Republican Party in the House of Representatives unable to pass a budget, and desperately trying to come up with some reason to impeach President Biden, they just seem not very smart.  Some of them are definitely not very smart, but even the smart ones have to do and say really stupid things to please their orange faced, rage and revenge filled master fulminating in Mar a Lago. 

Trump lost the election, but because he told the Big Lie that his MAGA Cult wanted to hear almost all elected Republicans have to swallow their shame and go along with it to codependently appease their master for fear of losing the next election in the primary to a Trump Cultist.

And now they have to go along with an even Bigger Lie - that all all all all of the many many many many criminal charges and indictments against the King of Corruption and Greed are politically motivated. 

They are not politically motivated.  Of course.  The lifelong criminal just does criminal things, daily, over and over, and has no way of being able to stop.  Because, frankly, he is mentally ill and compulsive.  He needs everyone to submit to him, in small and large ways.  He forces all of them to kiss his ring, to abase themselves at his feet.

What a sad, unbalanced little man.  It is hard to imagine what it must be like for smart Republicans who know what nonsense he is spouting, who know how damaging his endless calls to violence are, who know he is a danger to democracy in America and around the world, who know that he is a danger to the Republican Party, who know he is a danger to their own careers.  Yet, they cower in fear.  They either curl up and hope it all goes away, or they become cheer leaders in hopes of becoming a favorite of the blinded by the propaganda, blinded by the celebrity show, blinded by their own grievances MAGA hard core Trump supporters that they just hold it all inside themselves and go along with it all.  What is it like to swallow and swallow and swallow the truth and the outrage and the opposition every day, time and time again?  How does a personality cope with such endless suppression and humiliation?

I would like to think I would be brave and show the integrity and courage of 26-year-old Cassidy Hutchinson and just speak the truth - what do you know?  What have you seen?  What do you say privately and are afraid to say in public?

But who knows.  Everyone is brave when they don't have to be.  Being brave when it costs you dearly is maybe not so easy to do.  Maybe, There But For The Grace of God Go I.

I feel sorry for these frightened and cowering Republicans who aren't free.  

But I really do hope and pray that they wake up and realize they are paying a price of their own self respect, their own integrity, their own character to continue to play along with dangerous, violent madness of the Orange Emperor who Has No Clothes. 

I make no mistake.  The Former Guy and his cult are dangerous and violent. But maybe it is more a propaganda strut and show than I sometimes fear it is.  Maybe it is a bubble that will just go poof. 

Let the trials begin.  And ---- poof. 

Bank and insurance fraud. Goodbye Trump business?

Bank and insurance fraud.  This overgrown brat of a child has been nothing but a laughable fraud his entire make believe real estate career.  And it has finally caught up with him.  I think this means his New York real estate business is over?  Financial ruin for a con man and thief.  

He is not a successful businessman. He is a fraud.  Always has been. 

“Former President Donald Trump, his top executives, and heirs were declared completely liable of “persistent and repeated fraud”—and the real estate empire was unceremoniously stripped of its business licenses in New York.”

Finally.

Murdoch resigns

 Rupert Murdoch announced that he is resigning from Fox Corp and News Corp.  So what?  I suppose I can feel some hope and joy that such a toxic influence on the world is resigning but I am not so sure.  

As long as the right-wing extremist audience demands to be lied to and given fascist incendiaries, others will fill the void.  Witness the deaths of the execrable Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes.  Others filled the void.  Witness Fox News trying to say that the Orange One lost the election - they immediately course corrected and knowingly and deliberately lied saying that the big pumpkin won - in a landslide - in order to stop a sudden drop in ratings.

The fact that they lied deliberately was proven in court by Dominion Voting to the tune of $787.5 Million.  It was a business decision to lie. They still lie.  

Good for ratings doncha know?  And ratings ratings ratings and $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ is all that counts doncha know?

So, even if the extremist son Lachlan Murdoch fails to save Fox News, the lies will be picked up by other odiferous propaganda machines, and the country will continue to be bombarded with shit.

One down.  A few million to go.....

The 15% reason that Biden is president

 On Super Tuesday in March of 2016 I voted for Joe Biden to be the Democratic Party nominee for president. He wasn’t my first choice. I was deciding between Buttigieg and Bloomberg - two moderates I liked the best. 

But I found out that the rule for the primary was that any candidate that did not get 15% would get no primary delegates. And my biggest concern, by far, was that it was absolutely mandatory that the Democrat beat the idiotic, authoritarian, deranged Donald Trump.  And that meant that we could not nominate someone at the left extreme like Sanders or Warren. 

The moderate most likely to get the needed 15% was Biden, not Buttigieg or Bloomberg. So I voted for safe, unthreatening Joe. So did enough Democratic Primary voters across the many Super Tuesday states. 

So, Joe won the nomination. Not because throngs showed up at rallies filled with passion for him, but because he was not, and could not be characterized as a lefty extremist. 

And then in November more voted for the Democrat and against the execrable Trump than ever before in history. It was the country rising up to say no to Trump and his extremist authoritarian cult.  

And Joe, the politician and negotiator, has done a fine job as president. But I want him to step aside and let Gretchen Whittmer, Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzger, Josh Shapiro, etc., all very talented centrist Democratic politicians compete to take on the deeply corrupt and flawed Republican nominee and his cultists. 

Thanx, Joe.  Good job.  

Please follow the precedent of a previous Democratic President with many legislative accomplishments who realized he would likely loose the election, LBJ.  Please announce that you will not run and you will not accept the nomination for president. 

Good president.  Terrible campaigner. He looks old, shuffling, sometimes stumbling, forgetful, confused.  Unfair, perhaps, but if you’re a bad campaigner you don’t get re-elected. 

The only thing that matters in 2024 is that Trump and the authoritarian, anti-democracy Republicans loose and loose decisively.  If they win democracy in America is over for at least a generation. 

America needs to see and turn away from Trump and his extremists

What was it like living in Germany in 1933?  Maybe it was a little bit like living in America in 2023, 90 years later.  What happened when enough of the voters were Nazis?  What could happen if enough voters in America are MAGA extremists?  What could go wrong?

Why don’t we look at what Trump says he will do if re-elected?  Here is a good list from Chauncey DeVega of Salon:

• “Donald Trump told Glenn Beck during an interview last week that he is going to put President Biden and other "enemies" in prison when he takes by the White House in 2025”…the ex-president's desires to imprison his "enemies" are not new:  The "enemies" that Trump and his next regime want to put in prison or worse, include not just:
• President Biden, 
• the Democratic Party's leadership, and 
• the members of law enforcement who are prosecuting Trump for his crimes,
• but all people who he and the Republican fascists and MAGA movement deem to be "the enemy" and "un-American…
• If you are a black or brown person, 
• a Muslim, 
• Jewish,
•  an atheist, 
• not a White Christian, 
• a members of the LGBTQI community, 
• believe in women's reproductive rights and freedoms, 
• are deemed to be "Woke" 
• or tainted by the "Critical Race Theory Mind Virus" 
• or otherwise deemed to be the Other 
• you will also be targeted by Trump's next regime and movement.

But is Trump just blowing steam? Getting headlines? Or does he have an actual plan?  Oops, there is a plan:

 “Trump's Agenda 47 is a plan to radically remake the presidency and American government (and American society) in service to his neofascist vision that includes such goals as:

• ending birthright citizenship, 
• criminalizing migrants and refugees, 
• putting homeless people in camps, 
• instituting national stop and frisk laws, 
• restricting freedom of the press, 
• ending academic freedom at the country's universities and colleges and other institutions of higher education,
• replacing quality public education that teaches critical thinking and the country's real history with a form of fascist "patriotic" indoctrination, 
• ending environmental regulations, 
• more gangster capitalism and power for the richest Americans and corporations, 
• reversing the progress of the civil rights movement and the Black Freedom Struggle, 
• taking away the rights of gays and lesbians and other queer people, 
• further restricting women's civil and human rights, 
• and ending US support for Ukraine.

And, oh yes, helping Putin and Russia take Ukraine, the Balkans, and destroying NATO. 

How about the rest of the authoritarian party that still calls itself the Republican Party?  Do other authoritarian leaders have any plans? Yup:

“Project 2025 is a strategy that has been developed by right-wing think tanks and interest groups such as the Heritage Foundation. The main focus of Project 2025 is to launch a blitzkrieg assault on the American government by 

• ending career civil service and replacing it with Trump loyalists with the goal of eliminating any internal opposition to the Trump dictatorship. 
• In essence, these Trump loyalists will place his vision above the Constitution and the rule of law

Organized by the Heritage Foundation, the sweeping new initiative called Project 2025, offers a policy agenda, transition plan, a 

• playbook for the first 180 days and a personnel database for the next GOP president to access from the very beginning to 
• take control, reform, and eliminate what Republicans criticize as the "deep state" bureaucracy. 
• Their plan includes the possibility of firing as many as 50,000 federal employees.

When a psychopath tells you who he is and what he will do, believe him, please. 

And when a political party, the Republican Party, knows it can no longer win popular elections except in highly concentrated red areas, believe that they will enact their plans to get by force what they can’t win by persuasion. 

Trump is a vengeful child who wants to hurt all who do not submit to him. I think he may be more Henry VIII than Hitler. But remember that he will have nukes

But the Republican Party has a couple of very dedicated groups - white Supremacist extremist Christians bent on enforcing a Christian Taliban rule, and Plutocrats who want a weak, impoverished, submissive work force desperate for jobs. 

If Trump is re-elected he will never leave office. Elections will be as they are in Russia, Cuba, dictatorships everywhere, and the dictator will always be elected in a "landslide".  And many mini-Trumps will follow. 

If they get their way.

But they won’t. 

Because America is better than that. 

America has an unique magic, it embodies a hope not just of Americans but of people all over the world. It has always been the place to look to for a better life, and the world will not let that dream be squashed by an orange pig of a man and his wannabe autocrats. The world needs and demands that America be a force for good. 

And America is going to say yes. 

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. 

We

 “We” went to the moon. The first astronauts on the moon reported that when they went around the world people of all countries talked about how “we” went to the moon. Certainly, it was NASA, American scientists and engineers and astronauts who went to the moon. But the real story was recognized by everyone - we, the human race, went to the moon. We opened up to creative exploration beyond previous imagination. 

In the same way, “We” built the bomb.  Certainly, it was Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project scientists and engineers that built the bomb.  But the real story is that we, the human race, built a weapon that can destroy the human race. We opened up to destruction beyond previous imagination. (The Oppenheimer movie is excellent, showing the complex ambiguity of Oppenheimer and some of the scientists involved - it’s the last thirty seconds of the movie that punched me in the gut)

Also, “We” have created Artificial Intelligence.  Certainly, it was/is scientists around the world doing this.  But the real story is that we, the human race, have created an intellectual power beyond previous imagination.  And the very scientists that created it are giving us terrified warnings that AI could destroy the human race. And, it can achieve great things for the human race. (The James Olmos TV series Battlestar Glactica is a great series and explores this complexity)

“We” need to develop something now that may be beyond our imagination. We need to develop wisdom, maturity, caring, non-dogmatic spiritual connections with nature, with the Divine Oneness, with our humanity, with each other. 

Or “We” are toast. 

Trump admits guilt in top secret documents theft

Isn’t covering up direct evidence of guilt the same as an open confession of guilt?

new charges

"...explosive claims that he asked an employee of his Mar-a-Lago club to delete security camera footage sought by investigators probing his handling of classified documents."

Prison please. 

Toxic effect of football on manhood

 I used to love football.  Jim Brown, Gale Sayers, OJ Simpson, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice… loved them all. 

But then OJ slaughtered his ex-wife and her new lover…what?  

I turned more and more to golf, which I played, and which had an amazing moral code of sportsmanship where players called penalties on themselves, for example. 

And then I saw the documentary “League of Denial”, and later the movie “Concussion” and all I could see when looking at football was endless brain damage - CTE - Chronic Traumatic Encephalitis - brain death, personality change, high agitation, early and torturous death.  I can’t watch. 

But this post is about something more toxic about football than the damage to the brains of the players. It is about how the domineering win at all costs ethos of football has poisoned America’s vision of what it is to be a man. 

First, to be a man is to be BIG.  The average weight of men has skyrocketed since TV football took over the sports world in the ‘60s.

Also, to be a man was to be scary, intimidating, domineering. Pound and punish and push and humiliate your “opponent” (enemy).

And, to be a man was to do anything to win, win, win, win, win…just look at the two most famous football quotes - 

“ Winning isn’t everything; it's the only thing”. Vince Lombardi. Green BayPackers - actually first said by Red Sanders. UCLA 1950. “

“Just win, baby”. Al Davis. Oakland Raiders. 

I think these are toxic messages to American boys and men. It substitutes domination for legitimate masculine virtue. It is counterfeit masculinity - just be scary. 

And we have a large part of one of our political parties where the men are big and fat and wear camouflage outfits and carry pistols and assault weapons and drive huge pickup trucks with giant American and confederate flags from them and do their best to be threatening. 

And, let’s not forget that they elected a mentally disturbed wanna be dictator/king who never never never never admits that he made a mistake or that he lost. And is calling for violence now to stay out of prison. 

I choose a much better, and more deeply spiritual version of sport and of manhood. The great sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote in a time that honored sportsmanship:

For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He writes - not that you won or lost -
But HOW you played the Game.

"Alumnus Football” 
― Grantland Rice

Amen 

The future - authoritarian dystopia version

 Venezuela shows the world what happens when an authoritarian takes over and dominates a country - expertise and competence is replaced by ignorant, incompetent, and untouchable political loyalists. Venezuela had a thriving oil industry. It is in shambles:

“ Soon after President Hugo Chávez rose to power in the 1990s with promises to use the country’s oil wealth to lift up the poor, he fired thousands of oil workers, including engineers and geologists, and replaced them with political supporters, took control of foreign-owned oil assets, and neglected safety and environmental standards.”

Chavez was a left wing, socialist authoritarian.  But the problem was getting rid of the experts more than socialism itself.

Putin went to war because no one could tell him what he didn’t want to hear.  But his military was in bad shape and the country he was invading is fighting fiercely to drive him out. Surprise surprise. 

Trump listens to nobody- that is, he listens to nobody that knows anything. He listens to toadies who tell him what he wants to hear.  And he lost the election, and his Trump endorsed election denier crazies lost their elections in 2022, and he will lose the election in 2024.  And he will be convicted of his multiple crimes. Because is not a king. He is ignorant, and not smart, and cruel, and panicked, and delusional.  

Authoritarian rulers plant the seeds of their own destruction by surrounding themselves with self serving sycophants who are incompetent and often not too bright. 

He wants to be an authoritarian, and he believes he is an authoritarian, but I believe he is just a deluded old man who is on his way to prison.

I just hope and pray he doesn’t convince his cult crazies to kill people on his last sad little journey. 

Climate refugees

The terrible heat dome that has been smothering Houston and the Gulf Coast for about a month is only part of the story. There is a world wide crippling heat wave, and the northeastern U.S. has gotten a month’s worth of rain in a day or two resulting in terrible floods. 

This is not going to stop until we stop using the atmosphere as a sewer for fossil fuel burning and soil killing factory farming. And that is going to take some time, and dramatic political change, to happen.

So, the question is, when do we start seeing millions of Climate Refugees?  How can the Middle Eastern deserts support life going forward?  The same for the muggy Deep South and scorching desert West in America?  And that is just thinking about the places becoming too hot to live in. What about places that become too cold?  Or blizzards too violent?  Or coastlines that get too flooded?

I firmly believe that today’s kids see this problem very clearly, and they will grow up and they will vote,  and they will invent and innovate. 

My Boomer Generation created amazing personal freedoms, currently being attacked by other Boomers. But we have left an environmental disaster for others to deal with. 

I am hopeful and optimistic. I think they will. 

Right wing extremist authoritarian tactics

 How do right wing extremist authoritarians take over a country?  There is a playbook that is used over and over again.  You see it in Russia, Poland, Hungary, China, Saudi Arabia, and.... MAGA/Tea-Party/Freedom-Caucus extremists in America as well.

A basic move is to destroy the free press.  Drive it out of business.  Take over the media space with authoritarian controlled/authoritarian colluding pretend free press.

Then, of course, control the brains of the country with endless, repetitious, insistent propaganda and lies -- 

• blame liberals by calling them socialists and communists, 
• gaslight the news by claiming the news is fake, 
• pump lie after lie after lie into the brains of the country, 
• accuse the opposition to the authoritarian takeover of the same crimes the authoritarians are actually committing
• claim that only the right wing extremist authoritarians can save the country from the corruption and debauchery
• demonize all who aren't right wing authoritarian white supremacist men - 
• gays
• transgenders
• blacks
• browns
• reds
• yellows
• women
• flood the media avenues with crime after crime, corruption after corruption, lie after lie - just wear the country out so as to make them turn away and shrug in confusion and despair
• Take over the judiciary - put right wing extremist judges throughout the judiciary, including the Supreme Court
• Take over the military and put right wing extremist soldiers and leaders in the military
• Prevent those that oppose the right-wing extremists from voting

We have seen The Former Guy do these things for eight years.  Just because we are sick and tired of it doesn't mean that we can afford to turn away.  Now, and now, and now, and now is the time to see the authoritarian attempts to destroy American democracy. And we need to stay sane, and to insist on the truth, the truth, the truth - and to stop these domineering men from ending the American experiment in self-government.

A key to it all is having a country that is governed by the rule of law, not the rule of a "king".  The Former Guy still hasn't figured out that he is not a "king".  But he'll get it, eventually.

I am so sorry America is learning this lesson via the hard path of internal experience.  I just hope and pray we don't have to take it to the logical conclusion of Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy in the '30s and '40s.  Or of Putin today, who is likely to have a bad ending to his extremist, corrupt, domineering rule.

Prison please.

Understanding MAGA

I endlessly try to find ways to understand the Republican Party.  I used to be Republican but the Tea Party (Freedom Caucus) drove me out because it seemed to me they were dedicated to destroying needed government services, regulations, standards, and expertise.  Then came the Former Guy and he developed the MAGA following which drove me into the Democratic Party.  

But who are MAGA?  Why do the so unquestioningly follow such a man?  David French, Christian conservative and former Republican gives some remarkable insight.  I quote most of his recent article here:

What outsiders often can’t see about the appeal of Trumpism

By David French

I’ve shared this fact with readers before: I live in Tennessee outside Nashville, a very deep-red part of America....This is the world of my friends, my neighbors and many members of my family. ...

It’s hard to encapsulate a culture in 22 seconds, but this July 4 video tweet from Representative Andy Ogles accomplishes the nearly impossible.... the tweet features Ogles, a cheerful freshman Republican from Tennessee, wishing his followers a happy Fourth of July. The text of the greeting is remarkable only if you don’t live in MAGA-land:

Hey guys, Congressman Andy Ogles here, wishing you a happy and blessed Fourth of July. Hey, remember our Founding Fathers. It’s we the people that are in charge of this country, not a leftist minority. Look, the left is trying to destroy our country and our family, and they’re coming after you.

....It’s no coincidence that one of the most enduring cultural symbols of Trump’s 2020 campaign was the boat parade. To form battle lines behind Trump, the one man they believe can save America from total destruction, thousands of supporters in several states got in their MasterCrafts and had giant open-air water parties.

Or take the Trump rally, the signature event of this political era. ... you see the anger, but you miss the fun. ... the Trump superfans who follow Trump from rally to rally the way some people used to follow the Grateful Dead....They are major life events: festive opportunities to get together with like-minded folks

... The consistent message from Trumpland of all ages is something like this: “They’re the worst, and we’re awesome. Let’s party, and let’s fight.”

Why do none of your arguments against Trump penetrate this mind-set? The Trumpists have an easy answer: You’re horrible, and no one should listen to horrible people. ... they know that you’re horrible and that horrible people are capable of anything, including stealing an election.

At the same time, their own joy and camaraderie insulates them against external critiques that focus on their anger and cruelty. Such charges ring hollow to Trump supporters, who can see firsthand the internal friendliness and good cheer that they experience when they get together with one another. They don’t feel angry — at least not most of the time. They are good, likable people who’ve just been provoked by a distant and alien “left” that many of them have never meaningfully encountered firsthand.

Trump’s opponents miss the joy because they experience only the rage. I’m a member of a multiethnic church in Nashville. It’s a refuge from the MAGA Christianity that’s all too present where I live, ... “If you ain’t ready for death threats, don’t live in Franklin,” he said.

Trump’s fans, by contrast, don’t understand the effects of that fury because they mainly experience the joy. For them, the MAGA community is kind and welcoming. For them, supporting Trump is fun. Moreover, the MAGA movement is heavily clustered in the South, and Southerners see themselves as the nicest people in America. It feels false to them to be called “mean” or “cruel.” Cruel? No chance. In their minds, they’re the same people they’ve always been — it’s just that they finally understand how bad you are. And by “you,” again, they often mean the caricatures of people they’ve never met.

... Many of them will never know that their progressive neighbors have faced threats and intimidation. And even when they do see the movement at its worst, they can’t quite believe it. So Jan. 6 was a false flag. ...” It couldn’t have really been a violent attempt to overthrow the elected government, because they know these people, or people like them, and they’re mostly good folks. ... The real crime was the stolen election.

It’s the combination of anger and joy that makes the MAGA enthusiasm so hard to break but also limits its breadth....It’s one part Battle for the Future of Civilization and one part booze cruise.

The battle and the booze cruise both give MAGA devotees a sense of belonging. They see a country that’s changing around them and they are uncertain about their place in it.... they know they have a place at a Trump rally, surrounded by others — overwhelmingly white, many evangelical — who feel the same way they do.

Evangelicals are a particularly illustrative case.... it’s hard to feel a true sense of belonging unless you’re ideologically united with the people in the pews around you.

.... You can’t replace something with nothing. And until we fully understand what that “something” is — and that it includes not only passionate anger but also very real joy and a deep sense of belonging — then our efforts to persuade are doomed to fail. I have long believed that the glue that holds MAGA together is a need to belong felt by people who feel left out in today's America.  I never saw the FUN and PARTYING involved in this belonging.   Logic and facts have very little role to play in trying to convince our MAGA neighbors to let go of the Former Guy.  They cannot see us or hear us.  But... I believe the bubble will eventually burst. I don't know what it will take to dissolve the veils or delusion, but I have a deep hope and faith in the truth, the rule of law, and a persistent attempt to reach out to all Americans ...  ...and maybe most of all, if they can see the goodness in those of us they have been told to fear and hate....