Firehosing the country

One of the terrible things I have learned from Donald Trump is the firehose strategy.  Just turn on the firehose and blast out a jet stream of:

• lie after, after lie, after lie, after lie, after lie, after lie, after lie, after lie, etc
• and crime, after crime, after crime, after crime, after crime, after crime, etc
• and stupidity, after stupidity, after stupidity, after stupidity, after stupidity, etc
• and ignorance, after ignorance, after ignorance, after ignorance ,etc
• and cruelty, after cruelty, after cruelty, after cruelty, after cruelty, etc.
• and threat, after threat, after threat, after threat, after threat, after threat, etc.
• and hatred, after hatred, after hatred, after hatred, after hatred, etc.
• and bigotry, after bigotry, after bigotry, after bigotry, after bigotry, etc.
• and outrage, after outrage, after outrage, after outrage, after outrage, etc.

So what happens is that it becomes impossible for people to focus on one deplorable outrage because another even worse deplorable outrage just happened, and tomorrow another even worse will happen, and tomorrow another even worse will happen - and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow - so, what was it we were so alarmed about a couple of weeks ago?

Fortunately, we now have four of his most egregious crimes in focus in the ongoing trials against this pathetic but dangerous little criminal - 

• Jack Smith's indictment for his attempt to overthrow the U.S. government on January 6, 2021 and times leading up to that violence - trial coming.
• Fani Willis's indictment for his attempt to fraudulently change the vote count in Georgia - trial coming.  
• Jack Smith's indictment for his stealing (and possibly selling?) U.S. secrets after leaving the White House - trial coming, even though the Trump influenced judge is trying to push it out past the election.
• Letticia James indictment for his decades long bank fraud and tax evasion in New York, trial happening now, already found guilty, and all this is left is the determination the final amount of the fine, the selling off of properties - and the ending of his ability to do business in New York.

And, by the way, a number of states are claiming that because he led and insurrection against the duly elected government he is disqualified to run for office because he violated the 14th amendment.  Seems like a slam dunk disqualification to me.  The country never passed a subsequent Constitutional Amendment cancelling the 14th Amendment.

The Firehose Guy continues to blast out outrage after outrage into our collective minds in hopes of distracting the country from his actual trials holding him accountable for specific crimes.  But, as the great boxer, Joe Lewis, once said - "He can run but he can't hide."

Destroy his Fraudulent businesses - and put him into prison please.

Old bigotries never die - we just hope they infest fewer minds

 It is so discouraging to see the old bigotries come roaring back into America.  

The antisemitism was just waiting in the wings for an excuse to come back full toxin. 

Well, you say, what about the terrible civilian casualties in Gaza?  Well, I say, did you have the same outrage against Syrians as they slaughtered hundreds of thousands?  Was there similar outrage against the slaughter of Somalis up to half a million?  Was there really equal outrage against Hamas as they deliberately targeted civilian men, women, children, and babies? as opposed to Israeli killing civilians in an effort to get to Hamas, who are dedicated to the total elimination (killing) of all Jews in Israel?  

Believe me, I have long despised Netanyahu and his extremists who are now in charge of Israel, and I note with no sense of satisfaction that their extremist stupidity has reaped the whirlwind. But hating the Netanyahu government is not the same as hating Jews.

And as a matter of fact Muslims are not Hamas but anti-Muslim bigotry thinks there is now permission for those hatreds.

And, of course, it looks like the entire Republican Party is dedicated to continuing its crusade to overturn all of The Voting Rights Act - and thus go back to the nauseating Jim Crow days of the South to disenfranchise black and brown people - and put White Christian Men in charge of all of our lives.

Let's not forget the assault on gay men and women - as the Republican extremists do all they can to make their lives miserable and outlaw gay marriage, gay love, gay public existence.

And how can we ignore the dedicated Supreme Court assault on women and women's right to choose their own reproductive destinies?  

Coming soon to a country you live in - trying to outlaw all forms of birth control and contraception - what a horror it must have been for these "good Christians" to see America allow, nay encourage, women's empowerment to create lives of their own choosing, skills, talents, and ambitions as opposed to White Christian Men's insistence that they stay home, raise lots and lots of children, and cook for and screw their masters.

All the old bigotries are trying so hard to take over our country.  

Thank God - literally Thank God - they are going to fail.  They are not the only people in this country, and the rest of us are noticing these assaults on human freedoms and have something to say about it.

I beseech those who I know who have been Republicans to realize that the Grand Old Party is no longer the Republican Party, indeed it has been taken over by the extremist revolutionaries whose visions and goals come from centuries ago in times of oppression and darkness.

Elon Musk, like Henry Ford - dangerous bigots

Elon Musk continues to show his extremist, antisemitic, right wing autocratic self.  He has just recently praised a vile Jew hating tweet.

"An X post Wednesday afternoon said: “Jewish communities (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.

In response, Musk said: “You have said the actual truth.”

As I wrote a year ago, Elon Musk is like Henry Ford, a Jew hating bigot who did as much as he possibly could to inspire the Nazi holocaust:

Automaker genius

 Once upon a time there was a genius automaker who’s car revolutionized the world. 

His entrepreneurial success convinced him that his genius was needed to run the world during a chaotic time. So he set about communicating his genius to the world so as to save it from dark forces. 

His name was Henry Ford. He was a vicious bigot. He discovered and published the vile, antisemitic false and dangerous “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” which falsely accused Jews of heinous crimes and behavior. Because is his wealth and reputation as a genius the Protocols was published in many languages. One of those languages was German. Slaughter ensued. 

Oh, did you think the automotive genius that decided that his genius was needed to run the world was Elon Musk?  A different right-wing fanatic?  Well, you may have been right. 

Nice cars. Dangerous right wingers with more influence than justified. 

Believe the fascist’s promises

 The history of authoritarian/Fascist/dictators is that they are never taken seriously in the beginning. They seem ridiculous to normal people. And then it’s too late.

 Turns out what they were promising was not just political theater nor just blowing off steam. They were promising to do exactly what they said they would do.  So normal people who have become used to normal political parties and normal political intercourse can’t really take the promises seriously until it is too late.  Normal people are shocked when the country becomes a cesspool of violence and vengeance.  They are surprised.

But there is another group of people who do take them very seriously want and expect the threats to be carried out, and they want to be the ones who carry out those threats. Hitler did not personally murder 6 million Jews, Nazis did. Nazis loved doing it. Nazis wanted to do those things that Hitler promised.  They can’t believe their luck that they get to be violent and vengeful. They are joyful.

Our country has had two times in the past that are very much like today. The America First movement in the 1930s was infiltrated by and run by Nazi sympathizers and Nazis themselves. Today’s Republican Party is filled with Russian sympathizers and perhaps Russian agents. 

Secondly, in the 1950s the McCarthy “Red Scare”  hunted down liberals calling them communists and ruined many lives.  Today liberals are being wrongly accused of being socialists and communists. It can happen here. It is happening here.

The historian, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who specializes in the study of authoritarians, teaches that there are two stages of rhetoric used by fascist autocrats.  First they normalize violence.  They call for violence so that people get used to accepting violent speech - “punch a protester in the face”, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”, “ you'll never take back our country with weakness”, etc. etc. etc. etc….

The second stage of rhetoric is to dehumanize those who oppose them - “ root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, …”

I believe Donald Trump will do exactly what he promises to do if he is put back into the White House. He has plans which he is announcing. And he has his enablers who know how to carry out those plans. 

I believe if he loses he will refuse to acknowledge that he lost, and he will call upon his fascist well armed cult to install him by force. (If he loses the Republican nomination he will attack the Republican Convention)  

By the way, those who think they can use the fascist authoritarian find out they can’t.  German industrial giants could not contain Hitler, and American oligarchs would have the same fate - and, if Christo-fascists think he gives a crap about their religious fantasies they could be in for a very rude awakening.  

I believe he will fail.  I believe in people of integrity upholding the Rule of Law. And I hope even his “base” will grow tired of this toxic person  

We are on a dangerous journey, but I believe in America. 

MAGA extremists out to shut down the government and destroy it

 Historian Heather Cox Richrdson has a good summary of the MAGA extremists in Congress who are refusing to fund the government:

"They want to gut the government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights...If they can prevent the government from accomplishing anything, they will have achieved their goal.

I would add that the White Christian Nationalists also want to rule the country by their own distorted authoritarian version of the bible:

"North Dakota state representative Brandon Prichard has previously called for Republican-dominated states to “put into code that Jesus Christ is King and dedicate their state to Him.” 

Our democracy is under attack, and it is not just by the vengeful, frothing at the mouth madman, Trump, who is out to destroy it.  MAGA extremists are about to shut the government down with little hope of the extremists ever letting it be funded.  They think they are being "courageous" or "principled".  But they are just tiny tots holding their breath until they get their way and turn blue in the face - only it's the rest of us who will "turn blue" and reject their insistence that we suffer their cruelty.

And it's not just the current continuing the funding of the government, some other particulars they target is the Farm Bill that will need funding this year (they really hate that SNAP program - Food Stamps - hate feeding poor people)

And let's not forget that they intend to cut funding to Ukraine's fight against Putin's invasion - they are Putin's puppets.  Are they just foolish, or are they being controlled by Russia?

Greed, theocratic fanaticism, white supremacy, domination, alliance with dictators - these are the things that have taken over what used to be the Republican Party.

We are in a crisis in this country and a lot of us know it.  And I firmly believe that the majority of Americans see this and will reject it.  But these extremists are doing as much damage as they can while they can.  

Very, very sad.  America used to be great, before the Former Guy hopped on the forces of American destruction and is trying to ride it into an Oligarchic-Christo-Fascist police state where he gets to be King and the most important person in the history of America - the one who destroyed it.

But I believe in the essential goodness of America to see, be appalled by, and overthrow these terribly misguided forces.  

They are going to lose. And they are angry about it.

Republican Party fundamental belief is that democracy needs to be overthrown

The thing that still calls itself the Republican Party gave up on Democracy a while back, as evidenced by the Republican Supreme Court overturning the Voting Rights laws followed immediately by red states finding many ways to reduce Black and Brown voting, including closing polls, radical gerrymandering, intimidating poll watchers, and making it punishingly hard to vote.  

These make believe Republicans have no choice but to abandon democracy because they know their desires to impose Christo-fascist domination is abhorrent to the majority of voters. They are convinced that the country has literally gone to “the Devil” and the only way to save it is to impose the strictest Old Testament bigotries on us all, thinking that will somehow please the vengeful Old Testament God of Cruelty who will Make America Great Again (Make America Grovel Again?).  

And since voters are not going to vote for the Christo-fascists they have to destroy democracy.

The extremist Rick Santorum spoke their extremist truth after more states voted to make sure women decided their own reproductive lives yesterday when:

“Santorum argued that Ohio was proof that “pure democracies are not the way to run a country.”

I understand that we are a democratically elected Republic, but we also have single issue referendums to thwart unresponsive political machines.  Hurray for Ohio women!

At least he spoke their basic world view. 

Machiavelli and Hamas

 The terrorist Hamas committed nauseating horrors against Israeli Jews on October 7, 2023 and committed these inhumane atrocities joyfully and proudly.  Then they retreated to the shelter of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza strip.  We are witnessing a principle of Machiavelli playing out now. Machiavelli counselled "The Prince" to do all of the terrible things to people on one day, and then do a few good things spaced out over a period of time.  Because people will respond to the terrible things once but respond to the good things often over time.  

Hamas's terrors will never be forgotten by Israeli Jews nor Jews around the world.  And the world was shocked for one day, and a bit longer.  But now we see day after day the Israeli defensive attacks that sadly include innocents in Gaza and respond day after day to their pain, and it is too easy to see the two horrors - civilian deaths - as equivalent.  But one was an attack that targeted civilians, elderly, children, babies - and the other is an attack trying to avoid the innocent but since the terrorists use the innocent as protective shields, the world's natural feelings of compassion can easily turn against the Israeli defensive attacks, and turn against Jews around the world.

It is deeply horrible to watch Gaza be destroyed and civilians being inadvertently killed. I think a smart thing I read was from David French:

"As a former JAG (or Judge Advocate General’s Corps) officer embedded with a combat arms unit in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, I know that you can’t simply merge law and tactics and declare that everything that is legally and tactically sound is also moral, much less wise. We veterans know that the challenge for the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza isn’t simply to win the fight with Hamas within the laws of war. There is a third imperative, one that will define the soldiers who fight and the nation they defend for years to come: Do not destroy your soul.

This is much easier said than done."

Seems to me the only real path forward is to ignore the endless fights about who should be driven from the land, look only to the future rather than the past - and the only future that has ever made sense to me is a two-state solution.  The Islamic extremists have always said NO and there are some Israeli extremists who also say NO. 

 
So, here we are - again.  I pray that all of the Middle East opens their hearts.  

Christian Reconstructionists are worse than I thought possible

Last Thursday I wrote in dismay: "The MAGA Cult white supremacist Christian Nationalism coup attempt continues". And now I am afraid that the capture of the Speaker of the House by Mike Johnson is even worse than I had realized.

Frank Schaeffer reveals Mike Johnson's commitments and beliefs.  Schaeffer is a man who was a prominent leader in the Christian Evangelical movement and split away from them decades ago and is dedicated to warning against them ever since.  I came across this Substack video of his yesterday (It Has to be Said - Substack) and it is deeply alarming.  Unfortunately, it is video only and not a transcript.  About 20 minutes.  He outlines who Mike Johnson, new House Speaker, is.  It is terrible. 

Mike Johnson in not just an Evangelical Christian. He is not just a MAGA Cultist.  He is not just a white supremacist.  He has been indoctrinated into the Christian version of the Islamic Taliban - Christian Reconstructionism. Here are some of his beliefs, which are based on the harshest parts of the Old Testament and apparently ignore Jesus and the New Testament:

• Execute gay men and women
• Execute prostitutes
• Execute adulterers
• Outlaw abortion
• Outlaw the pill
• Outlaw all sex outside of marriage
• Outlaw divorce
• Re-establish slavery
• Whites are superior to all the inferior races of color

These folks have been deeply inculcated in a biblical extremist view that goes back to the horrors of hundreds of years ago. The belief system is Christian Reconstructionism (Theonomy) - a mandate that the country needs to be ruled by Old Testament biblical "law".   A key founder of the cult was Rousas Rushdoony.  

And they are not joking.  It is a deeply believed and fully funded attempt to make white Christian extremist men rule the country and the world according to the most radical Old Testament bigotries.

Schaefer's father was Francis Schaeffer, who was apparently a founder of the Evangelical movement to overtake the U.S. government and rule by the harshest Old Testament interpretations.  His warnings are from inside the movement and show what is underneath the reassuring soft peddling of these radical beliefs by those in office.  

And one of them is now the Speaker of the House of Representatives.  And, it seems to me, that at least one of the Supreme Court Justices, Amy Coney Barrett is one of them as well.

Now we know.

The Coup attempt continues

 The MAGA Cult white supremacist Christian Nationalism coup attempt continues with the Republican election of MAGA-Mike-Johnson as the House Speaker.  He is an avid election denier.  Does he believe the lie? or is he just spreading the propaganda lie to refuse to certify the next election winner?  And thus, to continue the long planned and well-funded attempt to establish a nationwide Bible Belt Jim Crow extremist America.  

“Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) called the new House speaker “MAGA-Mike-Johnson ” on Wednesday and onlookers suggested the moniker was, unfortunately, a good fit. 
“MAGA is ascendant,” Gaetz told Steve Bannon on the ex-Donald Trump adviser’s podcast.”

Democracy is not just under attack, it is being destroyed by authoritarian cultists.  

But they will not succeed. Especially when the authoritarian cultists are such repulsive personalities like Trump, Gaetz, Bannon, Bobert, Green, Jordan, etc. who are abrasive showboats monetizing TV time to preach hatred, bigotry, and fear.  

I have faith in the strength of American democracy and American Rule of Law. 

What crime wave?

 Is Trump and the Republican extremists right that crime is rising and out of control in America? Well, of course not. They are lying.  It's just campaign disinformation and propaganda.  Here is the actual data from Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winning economist:

"Now, sometimes popular impressions are more or less right. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when Hollywood was producing vigilante thrillers like “Death Wish” and dystopian sagas like “Escape From New York,” violent crime really was surging:

F.B.I., via Jeff Asher

However, violent crime began falling rapidly in the early 1990s, for reasons that remain unclear. Whatever the source of the good news, there were two remarkable things about this decline. First, it was truly epic; as someone who has lived in New York since 2015 but visited it many times over previous decades, I can attest that the city feels infinitely safer than it did in the bad old days. Second, most Americans didn’t notice."

A good rule of thumb is that if Trump said it he just made it up and expects his cult to believe anything he says.

Threatens the life of Leticia James

 Donald Trump just publicly threatened the life of Letitia James, Attorney General prosecuting him in New York. This is not subtle. I want him in prison. 

Former President Donald Trump on Monday shared a link listing the home address of New York Attorney General Letitia James while accusing her of committing a “miscarriage of justice.”

His entire life is dedicated to the idea that he is above the law. And he will kill those who apply the law to him. 

Prison please

Religious fanatics

 I have never focused on the Israeli Palestinian history because I never thought it would be resolved, but would just be a persistent toxin. There are thousands of details I don’t know. But listening and reading about these latest horrors I think there is one overwhelming fact. Religious fanaticism. 

Hamas is an extremist religious fanaticism dedicated to driving all Jews out of all of Palestine (Israel). They are like ISIS who want a fanatic Islamic Caliphate. 

And there are Jewish extremist religious fanatics dedicated to driving all Palestinians out of Israel. 

And the corrupt Netanyahu needed to stay out of prison by becoming Prime Minister so he joined up with the Jewish fanatics who openly claimed their desire to clear Israel of Palestinians. 

And Hamas saw Saudi Arabia on the cusp of making a deal with Israel. 

Boom. 

Seems like whenever there is the threat of the two state solution one of the extremist fanatics destroys it. 

I am so tired of religions. I wish all people would just walk away from all religions. Go out into God’s majestic creation and be touched by the wonder of the moon, the wonder of the stars, the beauty of the flowers and trees and birds.  And ask the Infinite Divine what do I need at this moment to be closer to You?  The true answer will never be Go Kill People of such and such religion. 

But, we have religions. So we get slaughter instead. 

Is it chaos or is it sabotage?

 The House of Representatives is not IN chaos. The Republicans, who are in a slim majority, are CREATING chaos.  Kevin McCarthy sold his dignity to the right wing extremists in order to become speaker and he was voted out by the extremists in less than a year for the sin of  committing a reasonable action. 

Then Steve Scalise, another right wing extremist, was to be the Republican choice but was discarded. Now the repulsive bully, Jim Jordan, seems to be more or less chosen by the Republicans. But, he will never get the needed votes. 

With no Speaker of the House of Representatives there is no House of Representatives. So there will be no aid to Ukraine.  No aid to Israel. No military. No regulation.  No safety net. No government funding for anything. There will be no United States Government. Who does that make happy?

The current explanation is that these extremists are incapable of cooperation and consensus. Authoritarians see anything short of CONQUEST as a failure of  MANHOOD. They Don’t Play Well Together. Maybe that is all there is to it. 

But I wonder. Are some actually doing what they seem to be doing. Are they actually acting to destroy the American government?  Are they actually acting to weakening America?  If so, why?

To me, a real possibility is that America’s enemies are targeting many Americans, including politicians, and are finding ways to control them. We know that Russian intelligence operatives are deeply involved in American politics.  Media too?  We know a little of the way they force people to do their bidding.  Kompromat (compromising proof that can destroy their lives and maybe even send them to life in prison - proof of money laundering? Proof of pedophilia? Proof of gay sex? Proof of any number of crimes?).

 Or they just bribe them to attack their country. Do they find someone who feels they have never been given proper respect? Or money? Or opportunity?  Or maybe they are just simple souls who can be controlled by flattery, or resentment, or celebrity. Easy prey for the Russian SVR.

Russia, or China, or Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or….?  There are many countries that may want to knock the “king of the hill” off and take the top spot. 

There is a small handful of right wing extremists who “seem” to want to burn down the government and weaken the country. 

Maybe that is exactly what they are deliberately doing, because of deep angers or hatreds, or are easily manipulated, or because they have no other choice.

Maybe one of them is The Former Guy. And of course, the “Freedom Caucus”/the Putin Wing/the Deconstruct the Adminstrative Staters.  

What this is showing is American Democracy’s vulnerability.  We have a handful of Republican extremists holding the government hostage. We have one dimwit Alabama Senator crippling the U.S military.  Our enemies may have found and are exploiting America’s structural flaws.  

I wonder.

How did Iran/Hamas get past the Israeli defenses? What did they know?

 I remember one of the first most shockingly stupid things Trump did in the Oval Office was give Russia Israeli military secrets.  Remember?  Did those secrets get passed along to Iran and thus Hamas? Did this nitwit help Hamas slaughter Israelis?

And, oh yes, what about that copy machine next to top secret files in Trump's Mar a Lago?  Any chance that a number of foreign spies just happened to find secrets there?

0% intelligence combined + 100% fragile pathelogically needy ego = many many deaths around the world.

And people voted for this nitwit.

Slaughter in Israel

 Religious fanatics, Hamas, attacked Israel, killing about 700 and over 2000 injured!  They shocked Israel, but how?  Israel has been protecting against this for many years. But somehow they pulled it off. Israel will respond, and likely “win” militarily. 

Iran is behind Hamas. Russia too?  

I don’t deeply think about Israel and the Palestinians because it has long seemed to me that a two state solution is the only solution but extremist on the Palestinian side want to drive Jews out of Israel and extremist Jews want to drive Palestinians out of Israel, and that seems to be endless. 

And then, the deeply corrupt right wing Netanyahu couldn’t form a government without joining with the extremist right wingers who openly announce their aim to drive the Palestinians out. And he and his right wing fanatics have torn the country apart by gutting the judiciary so they can establish fanatical authoritarian theocratic rule (sound familiar?). 

So, Netenyahu in order to keep from trials that would imprison him, joined forces with the craziest and most dangerous parts of Israel and threw gasoline on the ever smoldering coals of the conflict, and who would have guessed? The fire has exploded. 

Russia invades Ukraine, and now Hamas/Iran invades Israel.  Not a good sign for the world. 

An Insurrectionist to be Republican Speaker of the House?

Jim Jordan was part of the Trump conspiracy to overthrow the 2020 election, according to Liz Cheney, former Wyoming conservative (not Trump MAGA nut case) Republican who co-chaired the House investigation into the Trump led attempt to overthrow the 2020 election issues a very urgent warning about Ohio wannabe fascist Jim Jordan's attempt to become the Speaker of the House to replace the deposed Kevin McCarthy.  

“Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for January 6th than any other member of the House of Representatives,” Cheney said. “Jim Jordan was involved, was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election.”

While Cheney said she didn’t expect Jordan to win the upcoming contest, she said his potential ascension to the position would send a strong message about where the GOP’s allegiance lies.

“If they were to decide that, there would no longer be any possible way to argue that a group of elected Republicans could be counted on to defend the Constitution,” she said.

Jordan has secured the endorsement of Trump, who continues to exert influence on a big chunk of the Republican caucus.

“He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House,” Trump said of Jordan in a post on his Truth Social platform."

It is up to the Republican Party to announce who they are - conservatives who believe in democracy or Trump Cultists who believe in force rather than the Rule of Law or the Rule of the Constitution.  I don't expect a lot from the House of Representatives, unfortunately.

What do you do when "God" tells you what to do?

 What happens when "God" tells you that you must rule a country, but you don't have the votes to win the elections you need in order to do so?  

This is not hard to figure out, you gerrymander your state so that you "win" more elected seats than you would in a fair election.  And you close down voting spots in areas that vote against you.  And you do all you can to limit voting where they vote against you. And you flood the media zone with a firehose of disinformation, propaganda, and lies about the "godless filth" of those who vote against you.  And you... behave just exactly the way Evangelical Leaders (and plutocratic so-called capitalists) do.  You destroy democracy so that you don't need to win votes.  You cheat.  

And the one that "God" told you is your savior on this earth of today, Trump, is such a good example of cheating, isn't he?  He cheats in counting the votes, cheats in his fraudulent business practices with bank fraud, insurance fraud, tax fraud.  Cheats his vendors by not paying what he owes, cheats his lawyers by not paying what he owes, cheats on his wives by sexually assaulting and raping women while he is married, cheats on his score playing golf, cheats on his commitments made for running his golf courses, cheats on his "charities" and steals from them...  Oh, what a glorious and inspiring cheat he is.  A model for all devoted Evangelical White Christian Nationalists around the country.  

But, how do you know what "God" is telling you to do?  David French points out today that the Evangelical voters are only able to hear one thing - the "prophecies" of the evangelical "prophets", or perhaps the "Holy Spirit" speaks directly to you and tells you to vote for Trump, or whoever follows Trump once he is gone.  From is article:

",...prophecies, like the declarations from Christian “apostles” that Donald Trump is God’s appointed leader, destined to save the nation from destruction. Sometimes there’s no need for a prophet to deliver the message. Instead, Christians will claim that the Holy Spirit spoke to them directly. As one longtime friend told me, “David, I was with you on opposing Trump until the Holy Spirit told me that God had appointed him to lead.”

But, they will not destroy democracy in America and the world.  We can choose a better America than the bible thumping fire and brimstone world of make believe prophets spouting their bigoted hatred from their pulpits.  America has always had those fear based folks and all I can think to do as pray that the real God Goddess All That Is finds a way to soften their hearts and help them just let go, just let it go, you don't need to be afraid of those who are different.  Satan has not captured Democrats.  The world (and Satan) is not out to get you.

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.