James Gillen

Well, we have just passed the milestone of 2024’s first election, the Republican Iowa Caucus. In this, Donald Trump, despite being the incumbent president (as far as his Party is concerned) only got 51 percent of the total vote, though that was still 10 percent more than his two main challengers combined, Ron DeSantis at 21 percent and Nikki Haley at 19. The remaining 9 percent was held mostly by Vivek “I’ve Got A Timeshare In Florida That I Would Love to Sell YOU” Ramaswamy, and once he realized how things would play out in a real election, Ramaswamy quickly suspended his presidential campaign.

So there’s that much good news. The bad news is that this makes Ramaswamy the leading candidate to be Trump’s running mate. The good news is that being Trump’s running mate makes one the prime target for assassination by fellow Republicans if (when) Trump loses the general election.

And just Sunday, DeSantis himself suspended his campaign after deciding to not even bother going to New Hampshire. So now Haley is thought to have a better chance of upsetting things in the New Hampshire primary, which is open to non-Republicans, and might also have a chance in her home state of South Carolina, although it’s doubtful this will do more than slow Trump’s path to Party nomination.

But the margins of the discussion, like, the fact that New Hampshire is an open primary and Iowa is closed to non-party members, or the fact that Democrats didn’t have a caucus yet because that Party moved its primary schedule, get to a point that explains a lot of what is wrong with our current election system. It’s the fact that the process is decided more by party officials than by state or federal governments. And this will cause conflicts between party and government when the government decides to set a standard.

It already has. In Nevada, a primary is mandated by state law (passed in 2021, largely to counter the clusterfucks of the last two national elections), to take place this year on February 6. But while the Democratic Party has dropped the caucus format and gone with the state primary, the Republican Party has decided to stick with their caucus on February 8, probably because the primary election process also includes mail ballots, which current Republican dogma holds are the work of the Devil, or worse, Dr. Fauci. So Republicans are able to vote in both contests, but the state party has dictated that only votes from the caucus will count, and candidates who run in the primary will not be eligible to run in the caucus. Naturally, Trump is running in the caucus.

In the Colorado Supreme Court case that is now scheduled for the US Supreme Court, the State of Colorado had ruled Trump ineligible to run for president in his party’s primary on 14^th Amendment grounds. The Nevada case is the exact opposite, where the state Republican Party (that is, Trump) said, “No, we’re not going to be in the party primary, because we don’t acknowledge the state position as valid.”

Nor is this strictly a Republican-created issue. As mentioned, Iowa no longer has Republican and Democrat primary/caucus elections on the same day, because the national Democratic Party decided to rearrange the primary schedule because unlike Republicans they didn’t want rural white folks in Iowa and New Hampshire to be the primary representatives of their party. Naturally, the status-conscious people in Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t like that. Iowa had its Democratic caucus moved to the same day as the Nevada primary while the primary in South Carolina (where Biden really sealed the primary race in 2020) goes before both of them. So, New Hampshire, where state law apparently dictates that it hold the nation’s first primary, is still supposed to be holding its primary for both major parties on January 23, and because of the disagreement the incumbent president’s name will not be on the Democratic ballot. “The state’s attorney general is accusing the DNC of voter suppression and sent the organization a cease-and-desist letter last week that threatened further legal action.” Conversely, the Democratic National Committee will not count the delegates from New Hampshire just as the Republican National Committee will not count votes from their Nevada state primary.

The fact that state parties generally set the standards for nominating ballot candidates gives the Supreme Court an out in the Colorado case, and potentially rule that since that is the precedent, each state can decide for itself what rules to set and which candidates to approve. But that gets into the point that the President is the only office where voters across the country vote in one race, yet by our Electoral College system, the results are determined on a state-by-state level, and so barring a candidate in some states but not others would hurt their chances in the Electoral College (however unlikely it is Trump could win Democrat-majority Colorado). And as Trump’s lawyers stated to the Supreme Court (in a rare valid point) :“A ruling that reverses the Colorado Supreme Court while remaining agnostic on President Trump’s eligibility … will only delay the ballot-disqualification fight”.

Milblogger Jake Broe (a Nevada resident) has said that he switched from registered independent to Republican just to vote in the Nevada caucus and vote for Nikki Haley because that’s the only way we’re going to have a Republican party that supports Ukraine. Which I frankly think is naive. Because I remember when I switched from Libertarian to Democrat in 2016 just to vote in the Nevada caucus for Bernie Sanders, because if the Republican Party was going to nominate Trump, we damn well needed someone other than Hillary Clinton to be his opponent. Well, Hillary’s people had other plans. I posted on Facebook in real time about the shenanigans they pulled at the Clark County Democratic Party convention to keep the Bernie people from getting a majority vote, only to fail after dragging things out till near midnight, only to succeed in the end at the state convention in Las Vegas: “The rules specifically (laid) out that all convention votes must be done by voice vote, and that only the convention chair can declare the winner or call for a more specific method of voting among the thousands of delegates. During the vote the convention chair, Roberta Lange accepted the “yeas” even though the “nays” were louder than the “yeas” in the room. Both preliminary and final delegate counts showed that Clinton supporters outnumbered Sanders supporters in the room, though many Sanders delegates had left after Lange’s decision and did not stay to be counted in the final count. When Lange accepted the “yeas”, some Sanders supporters confronted Lange and other members of the party’s executive board on the main stage. The event was quickly shut down after that. Casino spokeswoman Jennifer Forkis said the event ran over its allotted time by about four hours, meaning security hired for the event would soon leave their shifts. “Without adequate security personnel, and in consultation with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and event organizers, a decision was made that it was in the best interest of everyone in attendance to end the event,” Forkis said in a statement.”

Why am I STILL voting for Democrats after that crap? Because Republicans are more crooked and less reasonable than THAT.

The whole POINT of this year’s Republican caucus is specifically to thwart the popular will and get the guy the party fanatics want. That is basically what all caucuses are about, because they are more convenient for the political fan clubs and people with time on their hands as opposed to regular folks with jobs and kids.

And that is a big part of why this country’s political system is as screwed up as it is. In the Republican Party especially, you can’t get to the general election without being the biggest whacko, which either undermines the party’s chances in the general election, or ensures that the seat will be taken by a whacko. Even in the Democratic Party, the obvious self-dealing machinations of the presidential nomination process, especially in 2016, helped alienate a lot of voters that the party really needed and may need even more now.

Because the fact of the matter is, any political system that forces us to choose between the likes of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is already broken. If you seriously tell people that the only way they can avoid fascist dystopia is to vote for Hillary Clinton, well, don’t be surprised if you get the result you got in 2016. I personally think Joe Biden is an infinitely better choice than Clinton and even she would be infinitely better than Trump. But partisan programming means that the kind of people who base their identity on being “conservative” or Republican or “Christian” means that they would never vote for a Demonrat, which means that they would vote for a three-headed Chaos mutant who eats babies (said mutant would also be infinitely better than Trump) regardless of their qualms, rather than vote independent or stay home – and even though non-Republicans with conscience and forethought who don’t like the Democrat for whatever reason would rather vote for an independent or stay home.

Which is why we need various steps to reform – or give an enema to – the federal government. Such as child-proofing the White House to make it explicit that the FBI can investigate and prosecute a President who is suspect in crimes and to make it explicit that the President and other executive officials are “officials” under Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment. We also need to standardize election laws on a national level, at least for federal offices. And a big part of that is making sure that the election process is decided and regulated by governments, not by state parties with ulterior motives or bias. Otherwise you keep what we have now: instead of a party structure that facilitates the working of government, we have a government that exists to facilitate the establishment parties. And the results of that are all around us.

I had thought of doing something on pop culture leading into Christmas/New Year’s, but I wanted to give my opinion on the Colorado Supreme Court upholding a suit to bar Donald Trump from running for President in that state on the grounds of the 14^th Amendment. Special Counsel Jack Smith, smelling an opportunity, asked the US Supreme Court to expedite a ruling after the Trump team had already appealed, but this Friday the Court gave a unanimous decision pawning the matter off to the Court of Appeals for DC.

Like it matters. If the courts don’t give King Donnie the ruling he wants, he’s going to keep going up the ladder to SCOTUS so that his justices will give it to him.

So for snap analysis: It’s almost certain that the three liberal women – Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson – would rule against Trump. It is also almost certain that Clarence Thomas, whose wife Ginni petitioned to help the coup followers, would find some way to rule for Trump.

And then you have Chief Justice Samuel Alito. The 14^th Amendment seems to be plain and clear language, but the whole premise of Dobbs v. Jackson is that the 14^th Amendment is plain and clear language, but its meaning opposed Alito’s political agenda, so he just pretended that the Amendment didn’t apply.

This leaves the other four “conservatives” – Chief Justice (in name only) John Roberts and the three Trump appointees, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Comey Barrett, all of whom have ruled against Trump in the past, notably in a case before January 6, where Texas petitioned to throw out the election results in four states and it was ruled that Texas did not have standing to challenge another state’s election procedures.

To recap: The 14^th Amendment states in Section 3, “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. “

The case was originally taken to the Colorado courts by a coalition supported largely by NeverTrump conservatives. Previously District Court Judge Sarah Wallace had made a ruling that Trump had committed insurrection but was still eligible to run for office because the wording of the Amendment didn’t specifically bar running for President. And as many of us would point out, that position would mean that Nathan Bedford Forrest or Jefferson Davis or some other Confederate that the law was written for would be barred from running for Senator but NOT President.

Wallace’s ruling created an artificial dichotomy. It actually would have been more fair to rule completely in Trump’s favor and say that his free speech and actions on January 6 did not constitute insurrection and therefore he is not barred by the 14^th Amendment. If one has decided one matter (is Trump an insurrectionist?) then that decides the other matter. If it is established that one is an insurrectionist then one is ineligible to “hold any office, civil or military, under the United States”. This was the logical finding of the Colorado Supreme Court.

It has also been stated by Laurence Tribe and other judicial scholars that the 14^th Amendment is “self-enforcing” – that without the mentioned two-thirds vote of each House, the candidate in question is necessarily ineligible under the Constitution, just as one is ineligible to run for President at younger than 35 years old, and just as, under the federal Constitution, Arnold Schwarzenegger could run for Governor in California under its laws but not run for US President because he was not born in this country.

The Amendment is however not self-enforcing in that it has not clearly been established that Trump (or some other person) has committed insurrection, which is why the courts need to take this up. So, had Trump by his actions concerning the 2020 election, “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against (the Constitution of the United States) or given aid and comfort to the enemies thereof”?

Well, after Mike Pence refused to certify Trump’s fake electors, Trump twitted that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage” to do right by him and suddenly the crowd at his rally got even more violent and started chanting “HANG MIKE PENCE!” Coincidence? Well, given how many of these people thought to bring zipties, riot gear and a hanging scaffold to the proceedings, probably not.

Of course given that, as with Schwarzenegger being elected Governor, states can do as they will in their own sphere, the appeals court or SCOTUS could simply uphold the Colorado ruling as applicable only there (and Colorado is a liberal state where all the Supreme Court justices were Democrat appointees, so not like Trump was likely to win there anyway).

But wait – wouldn’t leaving the matter up to individual states mean some keep Trump on the ballot and some wouldn’t? Wouldn’t that undermine the chances of winning the Electoral College even if Trump states affirmed his right to run? Wouldn’t that be CHAOS? Well, Samuel Alito has made clear that it is not his job to care about the direct consequences of taking a national matter and leaving it to be decided by individual states, it is only his job to rule as he sees fit. Fiat justitia ruat caelum.

It is assumed (by Trumpniks and liberals who take them seriously) that any ruling against Trump’s sacred right to run for an office that he plans to abolish once he gets power will undermine Americans’ trust in government. Of course every time the Party of Trump says that no one trusts the government, they are eliding the question of who is generating that mistrust. Contrary to their position, the feds are not going to turn McDonald’s vegan, and they are not forcing white girls to have sex with dark-skinned guys who will get them pregnant, arrange for government-funded abortions, and then raise the abortions as trans. If anything, you talk to the “progressives” and they will tell you that the Biden Administration isn’t radical leftist enough. Perhaps because the Administration, unlike the radical leftists, do not think that the radical left in America is a majority with a mandate.

The reason that no other candidate is being treated like this is that no other candidate has acted like this, because other candidates knew that acting like a five-year-old wannabe Czar was not going to work. As I say, we are not dealing with white privilege, we are dealing with orange privilege, because not even other rich white people get a free ride as much as Trump does. Ask Sam Bankman-Fried.

And then there’s the otherwise valid matter that we should be leaving the matter of Trump’s fitness for voters to decide. First off, this is blanking out the point that the people DID vote on Trump after he was impeached the first time, and they wanted him out.

Republicans say, we’re not allowing “the people” to vote? Are these the same Republicans who sneered at Clintonoids when they lost the Electoral College that “it’s a republic, not a democracy”? Aren’t these the same Republicans who whined when the Dollar Store Duce got impeached the first time, wailing that Democrats were “thwarting the will of the people”? Weren’t they the same ones who supported their boy after the January 6 coup attempt, thereby showing what they think of the popular will AND the Electoral College?

In fact, the whole reason we have all these counter-majoritarian institutions like the Electoral College and the 14^th Amendment – and liberals, you need to read this too – is precisely to make sure we do not elect a criminal (and/) or unqualified moron President just because he got the most votes.

The irony being it used to be “conservatives” who correctly assessed liberals in government granting the President and federal government all sorts of powers they did not have in the original interpretation, while liberal Justices and legal scholars interpreted the Constitution as “a living document” that could be interpreted according to contemporary mores, in practice meaning, however the people in charge wanted government to be. Now in practice it’s the alleged conservatives who are interpreting the Constitution according to their contemporary standard, not “presidents have term limits”, “presidents are subject to the law” or “insurrectionists are ineligible to serve in federal office”, but according to the living document of the Republican Constitution, which is “Donald Trump was sent to us by Heaven, like Vishnu incarnating as Lord Buddha to enlighten the masses, lo, he shall reign o’er us forever and ever- ergo, Donald Trump can do whatever he wants.”

You can only rely on this Court to do what it thinks best for this Court, and most of the time that means a reactionary agenda. But again – you can count on the three liberal women to vote against Trump. You can count on Thomas and almost certainly Chief Justice Alito to go for Trump. That means the balance is with the other four, Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, who are certainly willing to promote the reactionary agenda but also seem to have some grounding in reality. And that means asking themselves if the reactionary agenda is best served by allowing a candidate who would almost certainly make the Court obsolete if he is allowed to run again and gets back into power. And they, like every other “conservative” who had a chance to call Trump to account and refused to do so before now, have to ask if they’re any safer as Trump’s step-and-fetch boys than standing up to him and risking the wrath of Meal Team Six. Ask Mike Pence and Lindsey Graham how that works.

If “conservatives” didn’t want to be in that situation, well, maybe they shouldn’t have put all their bets on the horse who is not only a raging authoritarian but a raging incompetent at it.

Happy Festivus, everyone. The Airing of the Grievances will continue until Trump is put in prison where he belongs.

EDIT: The case that SCOTUS sent back to the Court of Appeals was not the Colorado 14th Amendment case, it was the case on Trump’s claim of presidential immunity.

I regret the error. Specifically, the error of Trump being president.

In a true Hanukkah – or Festivus – miracle, a bipartisan Congress managed to pass an 886 billion dollar defense spending bill December 14, which includes money for Taiwan and $300 million for Ukraine. It is frankly the best our allies will be able to get since the House refuses to pass President Biden’s request for $61 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine. This on the same week that Vladimir Putin’s main ally in the European Union, Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban, held a planning session with Republican members of Congress, at the same time that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy (unsuccessfully) petitioned House Speaker Mike Johnson for the aid.

The worst case scenario is that killing Ukraine’s field army support will, at this rate very slowly, let Russia conquer Ukraine. Which, given their rate of success thus far, is still not very likely. I mean, no one wanted to support Ukraine when it was invaded in the first place because the “experts” all assumed Ukraine didn’t have the wherewithal to fight off the largest land power in Europe. But no, the Ukrainians had to disappoint everyone by fighting back cause they didn’t like being targets of genocide. And now we’re stuck with them. But even if Ukraine was militarily defeated, it might make Putin cream his slacks, but it wouldn’t actually end things. It would just turn the country into a very, very large Afghanistan, with a much longer border and more access points to send supplies to the resistance. Consider how much good American money did going TO Afghanistan to help the locals fight occupation compared to all the good it did IN Afghanistan when we were the occupation fighting the locals. Because money isn’t the only factor. The critical factor is a population that doesn’t want you there.

Supposedly Zelenskyy and his allies in Washington tried pointing out to Republicans that the money we spend to help him over there is money that we don’t have to spend fighting Russia in NATO territory, and it’s money that is steadily degrading Putin’s war machine. Except liberals forget, that’s exactly why the Party of Putin doesn’t want to do that anymore.

I honestly think most of the “Freedom Caucus” would rather send military aid and supplies to Russian soldiers than Ukrainian – or American – ones. Seriously, it’s not like Moscow is going to. Won’t someone think about the looters and rapists?

The thing is, it’s not like Ukraine is the only country at stake here. The bill in question is also supposed to send aid to Israel as it defends itself against Hamas. (While we’re talking about looters and rapists.) It’s supposed to give aid to Taiwan even as Communist China continues to take a more aggressive posture in the South China Sea.

Protecting Israel and opposing Red China were the reflex positions of the Republican Party. What changed?

Well, as I’ve said more than once, if Trump announced tomorrow that he is a woman and starting the process of transition, every Republican in Congress would fight to the death for a pair of rusty garden shears to be the first one to castrate himself on the grounds that masculinity is now “gay.”

It’s like this because the entire Republican Party is simping for Trump, who has long been simping for Vladimir Putin, who, as a direct result of his war of choice, now has to simp more and more to Chinese President Xi Jinping, so that he can replenish the military arsenal he wasted so that he can keep killing Ukrainian civilians. (If he kills Ukrainian soldiers, it’s kind of an afterthought.)

So there’s your new boss, Republicans. A communist, atheist, Chinese.

Think about that while you’re having your White Christmas.

Republicans didn’t have time to help our allies this week, but they could find time to stage a vote approving an impeachment inquiry on Joe Biden. This despite the fact that no one on that side can tell us what the charges are. I mean, Democrats had that on Trump. Whether you agree or not, Republicans had that on Clinton. Normally, you’re supposed to have evidence of real crimes and then start an impeachment. Republicans want to start an impeachment and then hope they’ll find real crimes.

Thus confirming that even when impeachment is justified it is completely useless for the stated intention of holding the president (or other official in question) to account and is much more about partisan political games.

Why? Because Republicans want to smear shit on Joe Biden’s face in the hopes that no one will notice that their boy is a talking, shambling Shit Elemental.

It’s of a piece with how Trump says he’s going to be dictator “for Day One,” he thinks Obama is still the President and he says Biden is going to start World War II, but the Republican response is “But Biden is THREE YEARS OLDER!”

Begging the question: Even if we conceded that point, if you can see how Joe Biden is now, what is your boy Trump going to look like in three years?

So as Congress prepares to go home for the holidays, having done everything it can to make the world worse, this year I refer to the European pagan tradition that has at least as much to do with Xmas as the struggles of a refugee family from Palestine. Specifically I refer to the Wiccan principle of Threefold Return. That is: This year, I wish that everything Republicans do returns to them threefold.

I wish that their sources of funding dry up when they most desperately need them.

I wish that voters see just how senile and unfit their Leader is.

And I wish that that Leader is prosecuted by the full force of a US government that no longer has any reason to play nice.

You’re a scum sucking maggot, you’re cheap and you’re haggard, Happy Christmas you arse, I hope it’s our last.

This Tuesday, Sean Hannity had Donald Trump on a town hall show for Fox, and Hannity interviews with Trump are always amusing because for once Sean has to be the smart one in the room. But he had one of those by now predictable comedy moments where Hannity would try to reassure the straights that Trump isn’t going to do anything rash or stupid and then Trump doubled down on the stupid. Specifically: “I want to go back to this one issue though, because the media has been focused on this and attacking you. Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight you would never abuse power for retribution against anybody-“

Trump: “Except for Day One.” Aside to the audience, “Look, he’s going crazy.” He then went, “I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.” Lots of cheering at that. But not only is that all stuff you would need more than one day to implement even if you were God-Emperor, it’s just more red meat to the audience that doesn’t care about anything but being played to, which is exactly why he said that.

Of course the real reason Trump would only need to be dictator “for Day One” is that on that day, he’d sell the country to Vladimir Putin and then we wouldn’t have America anymore.

The Atlantic devoted its entire December issue to a set of articles called “A Warning.” I can’t quote The Atlantic directly cause there’s a paywall, but one essay was reprinted on MSN. Money quote: “A good pitchman identifies a problem and sells a solution. A great one creates the problem to be solved. Trump, having lived his life as an endless ad, has mastered the art of problem-making. He churns out shock and amusement and outrage and absurdity with factory efficiency. He makes the world seem hard. And then he offers himself up as the person who will make America easy again.”

Which is exactly why Trump did not solve any problems in office, why he did not keep (most of) his promises and why he would not do so if elected again. If we solved the border problem, we would no longer have a border problem and then Republicans wouldn’t have any motivation. Trump, and his Party, have to keep making things worse and then offer themselves as the solution to the problems they create. If they solved the problems, people wouldn’t need them anymore. But that’s if you’re thinking logically. The point of Trumpism is not thinking logically. The point is the emotional indulgence of finding an enemy and getting mad at them.

All these Lamestream Media types are so fucking scared of Trump like he’s some invincible Dark Lord, but he’s not. He’s the guy who stares at the can of orange juice for five minutes cause it says “CONCENTRATE”. He’s so dumb he thinks he should’ve gotten a five cent coupon on his Nickleback album. The main differences between Trump and the ratty old bum at the gas station who begs you for change while screaming conspiracy theories are a few million dollars and no excuse for that haircut.

The problem is not Trump, it’s the liberals who think he’s a Dark Lord, and thereby give him credibility in the eyes of the people who hate them. But more than that, it’s those people, who are alienated from “normie” liberal culture and take Trump seriously because he’s the only politician who thinks and acts and talks like them.

Certainly leftists don’t need an excuse to hate this country, and its freedom, and its capitalism, but there is a problem here. Lenin may have been a little early in predicting it, but we are selling ourselves the rope by which we hang ourselves. This is why we have a dysfunctional “gun culture” in this country: Not because of an evil Second Amendment that was NOT causing mass shooters to pop up every fuckin’ day prior to the late 20^th Century, but because it serves the profits of gun manufacturers. This is why we have networks and radio hosts who appeal to rage more than reason, because rage sells. That is how Trump got to be a thing. And because of the way the Electoral College works, state by state, that is the reason why the mechanism the Founders intended to prevent a demagogue from using the vulgar mob to take power became the only reason that result occurred. Because if it had been a simple majority vote in 2016, Trump would not have been president.

Because while there may be a critical mass of gullible people who could swing the margin in limited circumstances, the simple majority is not fooled. Because, for now, most people have enough of a value system to put one foot in front of the other every day and pay their bills and not cause problems for others, as opposed to making the world worse and blaming everyone else.

Indeed, this general observation moves me to make it an axiom: Freedom promises emotional indulgence, but sustaining it requires emotional discipline. When you don’t have discipline, you get manipulated by people who want to put you under their control. Or worse, they don’t, and you just cast about making things worse for yourself and the world around you.

If you want to know what a second Trump term would look like, we don’t need to speculate. We have it now in the House of Representatives. Which is, for now, under a Republican majority. Because they only had a five seat majority to begin with, making it that much more difficult to rule unilaterally without input from the other side, as the Republicans are obliging both parties to do now. But they lost one of those votes last week when they got rid of George Santos (BR.-New York). Who’d never actually been convicted or even charged with a crime, as his defenders pointed out. Not like you need to be charged with an actual crime to be impeached though. Still, it was a mystery. This is a party of moralists defending an openly gay drag queen. This is a party that rails against the corruption of the “Biden Crime Family” while Santos won an election with fraudulent claims and used campaign money on personal expenses, a party that defends a man who engages in so much pathological lying that he actually exceeds Trump. But yet enough Republicans voted with the two-thirds majority necessary to expel him, despite the fact that Santos exemplifies all their demonstrated virtues. For example, hypocrisy. Like, acting like Santos’ mendacity is a dealbreaker when they still worship Trump. Of course, Santos doesn’t have a fan club of wannabe murderers who will storm the Capitol for calling him to account, so that’s one thing.

Then this week, former House Speaker (In Name Only) Kevin McCarthy (BR.-California) announced that he was not only not running for re-election next year, he is leaving Congress at the end of the year, which will drop the majority of the House GOP (Grabbing Our Pudenda) to three. The governor of California would then have to call a special election, and of course, Gavin Newsom is a Democrat. And he has a little bit of leeway as to how long he can wait to do so…

Which is just the latest example of why McCarthy lost his position even though Mike Johnson is obliged to do the same things that he did to work with the rest of the government: It’s not so much that hardliners disagreed with McCarthy’s policies, it’s that he’s a petty drip of a human being and nobody likes him.

To the extent that this taxpayer-funded Trump Fan Club does any work, it’s mainly in obstructing the actual process of government. Like, before the end of the year, the House is supposed to provide funding for the government. And Speaker Johnson is holding up both Ukraine AND Israel aid over various beefs and shifting goalposts. Right now, the pretext seems to be a demand for increased border security. In principle, I would be going along with this.

Yes. Lest my other posts make me seem like a flaming liberal, I direct you to recall the great Jeff Daniels quote from the pilot episode of The Newsroom: “I’m a registered Republican. I only seem liberal because I think hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not by gay marriage.”

Really, we need to crack down on illegal immigration and trade imbalance. We need a strong border policy. I mean, the Iroquois didn’t have one, and look what happened to them.

The problem is that the words “principle” and “Republican” not only don’t go together as well as they might have once, now they’re actually opposed magnetic poles. This applies to pretty much everything, but in this particular case, we have the bogus immigration system that we do because both parties want it that way, for reasons I have already gone over. That being the case, border policy, again, is just a lame pretext for obstruction, because the Republicans’ Master’s Master thinks it’s more fun to kill Ukrainians if they can’t shoot back. Killing Jews is less a priority, but Putin is Russian, so it frequently comes down to that anyway. Besides, Iran is Putin’s friend, and Iran funds Hamas. It was only recently pointed out to me that the October 7 raids over Israel’s border took place on Putin’s birthday. Suddenly it made a lot more sense.

And as we can see, it’s all Republicans can do even to accomplish a negative and obstructive agenda. They can’t actually be FOR anything, because while there may be a “silent plurality” of Republicans who remember when it was still politically correct to speak at a high-school level, they won’t have a majority without the dedicated Trumpniks, so that obliges them to be Trumpniks too. What else are you going to do, let the DEMONRATS win and take credit for everything??

But shutting the Democrats out in order to rule unilaterally requires everybody to be on the same page (especially with such a small majority), and that’s impossible when the purpose of your party is to indulge your emotions and petty grievances at taxpayer expense, as opposed to running a government. So these guys end up fighting each other at least as much as the Democrats.

They can’t control the process, because they can’t control themselves. At the same time, they will not acknowledge this and step aside to let the grownups take over. So the result is just extended displays of bullshit and grandstanding.

But that’s what you get when one of the two parties allowed in government is basically the January 6 riot in business suits.

There are a whole bunch of comparisons that could be made here; I’ve referred to The Picture of Dorian Gray. I could also refer to the Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. For the sake of their own self-image, Republicans want to think they’re well-behaved, Good Christians ™ like Mike Johnson, but like Dr. Jekyll, they want the freedom to indulge the Id. So they have Trump. The knuckle-dragging, rapist Mr. Hyde who doesn’t care who gets hurt as long as he gets what he wants. They’ve said it themselves. They like Trump cause “he fights.” They think that actual Christianity is “weak“. Their only complaint is “he’s not hurting the people he needs to be“.

And as Adam Serwer said, “the cruelty is the point.”

Of course, in the story, as with real cases of drug use, Dr. Jekyll built up a tolerance to his formula, such that the Hyde persona became his default and he needed more and more drugs to get back to “normal.” This led to cascading liabilities, culminating in Hyde killing someone, so Jekyll ended up killing himself to escape justice.

The Republican Party used to have it both ways, having Trump be their “fighter” while still having the cultural memory of being one of America’s two “real” parties, but the longer they are addicted to Trump, the more they become Trump, and the harder and harder it will be to pose as civilized humans. Only the Trump will remain. At that point they will indeed die, either because voters see that they’re not a “real” party anymore, or their increasing disdain for the republic and active opposition to it will oblige various levels of law enforcement to put them down. In this case it would be more “suicide by cop.”

It’s either them or us.

But the political bargain assumes that those with a monopoly on force are better than us. When it becomes clear that they are not, and that they will not follow the rules they enforce on the rest of us, people start to realize that there is no reason for the public to follow the rules either. You can only game the system for so long before there is no longer a system to game.

–Me

Rick Wilson famously said, “Anything Trump touches dies.” Unfortunately that may include the American republic.

Over the past year there have been initiatives in several states to disqualify Once And Future Viceroy for Russian North America Donald Trump from running for President, the most advanced of which was in Colorado. This idea is based on the 14^th Amendment, which states in (ostensibly) clear language, Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

District Court Judge Sarah Wallace ruled on the case this month, and said on one hand that Trump had clearly engaged in insurrection with his support of the January 6 riots, and yet also ruled that because the wording does not specifically bar a person from being President as opposed to Senator, Representative, or elector OF a President, that therefore Trump still gets to run in Colorado. Apparently “officer of the United States” doesn’t count. As several talking heads pointed out, this would mean that Nathan Bedford Forrest would be clearly barred from running for Senator but NOT President, such is the “logic” of this decision. Note, “Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability” is also the threshold required to convict an impeached officer in the Senate.

It would have been more consistent to either bar Trump from running on the grounds that he had committed insurrection OR ruled the matter in his favor on the grounds that his free speech did not in itself constitute insurrection. By ruling that he had in fact engaged in insurrection yet also ruling that, once again, the laws of this country do not apply to King Donnie, First of His Name, this judge pleased no one, including Trump’s team, who are making an appeal to a higher court along with the NeverTrump Republicans who filed the initial case. Now at least one of those talking heads also theorized that Judge Wallace was counting on exactly this, because her case that Trump engaged in insurrection was a “finding on fact” which is much harder to eliminate than her conclusion, which is a legal opinion. But still: Candy-ass. She knew how things were going to end up, she just didn’t want to be the one blamed by Trump’s mob of trogs.

There is nothing wrong with the US Constitution that cannot be or has not been reformed with the Amendment process. It contains everything it needs to enforce its provisions. But it still needs actual people to enforce them, and this is where America falls down. We are where we are because a Beer Belly Putsch tried to dispatch the core of the United States government, up to and including Trump’s own Vice President, and yet Putin’s Little Bitch Boy still gets to stink up the air with his mouth because a critical plurality of Americans think rule by “strong”man is a good idea. (Even if I agreed with those people, the problem is that Trump is neither strong nor a man.)

If it was a matter of the country going fascist because that is what a majority really wanted, that would of course be awful, but it isn’t even that simple. The last presidential election, not to mention all the midterm elections and special elections surrounding abortion prohibition, have all made it clear that the Trumpniks are not a majority in this country, yet they still have enough numbers to do real damage. Indeed, that is why they fight as viciously and maniacally as they do, because they know that despite all their protests to the contrary, Middle America is not on their side.

Not that it would matter if the rest of the country is against them if their chicanery works next time, because it doesn’t matter that not all the Palestinians are with Hamas, or that not all the Venezuelans support Maduro, or that Putin’s war of choice is increasingly unpopular. What matters at that point is that the thugs run the government and they will kill you for not obeying orders and being politically correct. Which is why we have to defend the republic while we still have it.

And yet that seems to be too much for some people.

As rump continues to get both more brutal and more stupid by the week – for instance threatening to prosecute Joe Biden even though supposedly Barack Obama is actually running things – President Joe Biden is also getting more unpopular by the week. One columnist dismissed Biden’s press secretary: “I would put the president’s stamina, the president’s wisdom, ability to get this done on behalf of the American people, against anyone,’ (Karine) Jean-Pierre said. ‘Anyone, on any day of the week.’

“Biden staffers can play make-believe all they want, but voters are smarter than that.”

When Trump won once and is now leading in the polls, saying “voters are smarter than that” immediately disqualifies your argument.

A huge part of the problem is a drop in support among the voters Biden needs most, young voters and people “of color.” A big part of that, apparently, is Biden’s approach towards Israel as it bombs the hell out of Gaza.

OK, so you’re mad because Biden is siding with the Israelis over the Palestinians. So, apparently the solution is to just hand the government back over to Trump, whose son-in-law handed the West Bank over to Israeli settlers. Gee, I’m glad that makes sense to you, cause it makes no sense to me AT ALL.

Lincoln was wrong. You may not be able to fool all of the people all of the time, but if you can fool enough of the people enough of the time, the rest of it doesn’t matter.

People like me didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and look what happened. Now little boy Trump feels entitled to power, and he’s gotten more spoiled, stupid and evil than ever. EVEN Hillary Clinton would have been a better choice than him. And Biden is a better choice than Hillary Clinton. If only by virtue of the fact that he’s not Hillary Clinton. I mean, until we got Trump Virus ™ I could almost understand people preferring the Trump economy to Biden’s, but after 2020, why would anyone in their right mind vote Trump? I mean, I would ask Herman Cain, but…

Fact is, Trump didn’t win the election in 2020 when he had all the advantages of incumbency, and it’s hard to see how he could win with all the liabilities he’s piled up since, and especially since there are fewer sympathizers in position to help him cheat. What he needs is another 2016 where he had just enough people in just enough states to either vote for him or not vote for the Democrat. And this is why Democrats are so hyper-sensitive about “spoilers.” But who exactly is going to do that? Right now the press seems to be focusing on a few candidates:
-Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia: He’s not running for re-election next year because West Virginia is the most Trumpnik state of the Union and it’s a miracle he’s held office as a Democrat this long. At the same time, Manchin has so much vanity and sense of entitlement – even by Senate standards – that he seriously acts like he has a mission to lead the country as President. This despite the fact that he can’t win his home state (and as Al Gore could tell you, that’s no way to win the Electoral College) and has no national following outside it, as opposed to-

Robert Kennedy Jr.: Who uses his family name and “progressive” reputation to foist policies that are the exact opposite of progressive. Like the time he said that the COVID virus was “targeted” for Whites and Blacks but not Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews. Now, wait, in his defense, if you’re Chinese and you’re going to spread a virus in America, who else is going to eat in Chinese restaurants?

Democrats are so scared that because he’s a Kennedy, Bobby is going to take Democrat votes away from Joe Biden, but he seems most likely to attract people like himself: aging ex-liberal Baby Boomers whose counterculture skepticism has curdled into paranoid conspiracy theory. In other words, the kind of people who weren’t going for Biden anyway, would have preferred Trump but might like another choice. Thus, he seems more likely to “spoil” things for Trump than Biden. Assuming he gets that far. In my opinion, Kennedy’s real problem is that his voice is completely shot, it’s hard to follow what he’s saying, and I don’t think most audiences would have the stamina to sit through one of his speeches, nor do I think that he would have the stamina to speak for very long.

And then you have the Greens, who don’t even have the name recognition of Jill Stein this time, and you have Dr. Cornel West, and I somehow doubt that the kind of people who would vote for Cornel West would want a result where Trump ends up winning the election.

And something tells me that all those “progressive” kids who aren’t going to vote for Joe Biden over Palestine are the same kids who weren’t a factor when they complained about Bernie Sanders losing the 2020 primaries, which he might not have if they’d voted for him then.

Face it, kids: We’re stuck. It’s either Joe Biden or Donnie Clownboy, and it’s a much easier choice than the media wants you to believe. I can understand why that’s not good enough for you. That’s why I voted “third” party for years. I mean, if you don’t want Joe, his designated successor is Kamala Harris. She ran against him the last time, and if that was good enough for liberals, she’d be at the head of the ticket and not him. And that’s all I need to say about that for now.

You want to do something about these lousy choices, we first need some better ones. There no longer is a center-right alternative to the duopoly, and again, the Greens are that much less a factor than the Libertarians. Even more important in the long run, we need to make the alternatives feasible. You’d first need the non-partisan runoff system like they have in California or the initiative they’re proposing for the 2024 ballot in Nevada to effectively make the primary round the first round of a runoff process.

It would mean changing the Electoral College to work like it already does in Maine and Nebraska, where Electors are apportioned by district and not winner-take-all. Yes, that would mean Republican districts in New York and California count for their candidate, which I’m sure is why Democrats will not change the Electoral College no matter how much they bitch about it. It would also mean that Democratic districts in Texas and Florida would count for their candidate, which they may not have considered. If you can shift enough of Texas to the Democrats, then the Republican Party will go the way of the Whig Party, only more archaic and with a smaller Anti-Slavery contingent.

But that’s going to be next year at the earliest, and only in some places. In the meantime you have the aforementioned problem: Republicans are getting increasingly belligerent and authoritarian at the same time as they get more unpopular (or perhaps vice versa) and thus neither they nor their Messiah will accept their reality. I mean, that would require listening to what voters want, which I guess defeats the purpose of being in government. As it stands, the 2024 campaign cycle will end in only one of two ways: Either Trump becomes God-Emperor or Trump goes to jail. Why not just cut to the chase?
It’s going to end up that way because the kind of party that would nominate a Trump is not going to listen to anyone else. The only way out of this is if enough Republicans see the light and nominate someone in their clown car to be the nominee instead of him. They’d still have lots of problems (as Trump would put it) but would be less likely to create a fascist regime. Based on the last eight years, I see little reason to think that would happen.

Although I could be wrong.

Hey, if you were paying attention to Washington political maneuvers inthe last few weeks – and you probably weren’t – you knew that the big story was how the Banana Republican caucus in the House of Representatives screwed themselves by voting out Speaker Kevin “King Pissboy” McCarthy (BR.-California) without selecting a replacement. This was really bad for their public relations but it also screwed the whole House because by law no work can proceed if the House doesn’t have a Speaker. At first they tried to nominate Steve Scalice (BR.-Louisiana), who on one hand told a local journalist he was “like David Duke, but without the baggage.” On the other hand, in today’s Republican Party, that made him the reasonable moderate. Which is probably why the Gossip Girl mentality of the caucus turned against him. Instead the consensus started to turn towards Gentleman Gym Jordan (BR.-Ohio) who previously was most famous for his time as a wrestling coach at Ohio State University, where he was “accused of turning a blind eye” to widespread sexual abuse of male students by staff physician Dr. Richard Strauss. This probably explains how he got the endorsement of Donald Trump. And yet despite his support for corruption and sexual degeneracy, Jacketless Jim Jordan couldn’t get more votes from the Trump Party than Kevin McCarthy did. In fact it only took three rounds of voting to make it clear he couldn’t clear the majority, and each round he actually got less votes than the last time, almost as if some people were holding out to make it clear how unpopular he was.

Allegedly one of the reasons Jordan couldn’t clear the hurdle is that like any good acolyte of Trump, Gym refused to admit that Joe Biden won the 2020 election fair and square, and therefore Donald Trump is the real president. One of the Congressmen who took this position was Ken Buck (BR.-Colorado) who told journalists that Jordan’s election denier posture was the main reason he wouldn’t vote for him. And, yet, Buck and literally every other Republican decided on October 25 to vote in Mike Johnson (BR.-Louisiana) as the new Speaker despite the fact that he’s that much more an election denier than Jordan is. “(Buck) drew a distinction with Jordan, arguing that Johnson did not engage in efforts to overturn the election at the same level that Jordan did. … But Johnson, too, was seen as an active player behind the scenes in in the effort to overturn the election results in late 2020 and early 2021. He collected signatures from fellow House Republicans in December 2020 for a legal brief that supported a lawsuit seeking to throw out the election results in key states, according to The New York Times. That lawsuit was defeated.”

So is Buck another spineless hypocrite like Susan Collins who goes along with the Mob regardless of their alleged principles? Well, he’s a Republican, so that goes without saying. But even if he had principles, it comes down to this: The Catholics have the Credo, the Muslims have the shahada, and the Church of Trump has “the election was rigged and stolen.” Excuse me, “STOLLEN.” This is what you have to believe, or at least pretend to believe, to be in the club, cause if you don’t, you won’t get far.

Basically, they’re ALL Trumpniks, so even if somebody like Buck would have had better taste, he didn’t have other options. Johnson is simply the Trumpnik election denier who had the least enemies. That, and Jordan’s example proves once again that being a bullying moron doesn’t work quite as well on Republicans if you’re not Trump.

Johnson at least seems well-mannered and capable of speaking standard English as opposed to Modern High GooGoo Muck or whatever Marjorie Taylor’s first language is, but he said in his first speech from the House podium, “I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority” and told Sean Hannity “Someone asked me today in the media, they said, ‘It’s curious, people are curious. What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, ‘Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it.’ That’s my worldview.”

Y’know, any time somebody says they follow the Bible, I seriously doubt they mean ALL of it.

Which goes to the fact that so many liberals and moderates find it odd that this professionally pious man would be so devoted to President Coup de la pousse’, but I’ve already gone over the issue several times: These people are a lot more concerned with power than their declared morality, and they’re just as willing to adapt to Trump as he is to them.

The irony being that the Party of Trump’s lust for power at all costs is what made their leadership of the House so precarious and why it continues to be so even now. The Constitution requires the House to elect its leader from the entire floor, and since that rule was created before duopoly politics was a thing, the House doesn’t have the Senate’s ad hoc precedent of assuming that the majority party’s leader automatically runs the chamber. Both chambers are designed to run on consensus, and that normally happens because the idea is that the elected represent their district or state, not their party dictator. As is, McCarthy and other Republicans whined that this all happened because Democrats wouldn’t vote to save him, which is like whining about water being wet. Not like it’s Democrats’ obligation to vote for McCarthy in particular, especially after the way he treated them. Not like McCarthy HAD to prostitute himself so deeply for the sake of the gavel that he would allow a one-person motion to vacate, specifically to appease Matt Gaetz (BR.-Bugfuckerstan), knowing he would do exactly that for any reason or no reason at all, and it’s not like Gaetz HAD to challenge McCarthy, especially without a replacement in mind. If Republicans had a bigger majority in the chamber, they would have more room to maneuver, but they don’t, which in itself ought to tell them they don’t have the mandate to rule unilaterally. As of now, Democrats under Hakeem Jeffries (D.-New York) are not going to cooperate with Republicans, especially if they want to put election deniers in authority. As for Republicans, a large reason their internal standoff lasted so long was because no one was going to reach across the aisle. Republicans aren’t going to negotiate with Democrats any more than Israel is going to negotiate with Hamas, because Republicans hate Democrats MORE than Israel hates Hamas.

Oh yeah. Speaking of that:

Not even counting the fact that Hamas used the Yom Kippur period to raid Israeli kibbutzim, and kill Israeli civilians, and expatriate bystanders, AND Palestinians, in the wake of their barbarism, the politically correct crowd has decided that anti-Semitism is making a comeback. Really, it never left. But in Sydney, you had protests at the Opera House chanting “Gas the Jews“, you have similar statements coming from the Left in this country, and just recently a Telegram channel for the Russian Muslim community spread rumors that Russia was planning to resettle Israeli refugees on their land. According to the Institute for the Study of War, “The Telegram channel called on Makhachkala residents to demonstrate at the airport on the night of October 28 and 29 and posted flight tracker data for the plane from Israel ahead of its arrival on October 29. …Demonstrators also checked identification documents in search of Israeli citizens, although there are no reports of demonstrators finding any Israeli citizens. Demonstrators have chanted ‘death to Jews’ and have also occasionally gotten physical with security personnel at the airport.” (Remember, with Putin’s Russia, nothing is a coincidence.)

All you “anti-Zionists” wondering why Israel has so little regard for internal minorities or the international community, it’s because the international community clearly has little regard for Jews.

I personally think that if world civilization ever straightens up enough to create a real space program that breaks the lightspeed barrier and reaches alien civilizations, within 40 years of first contact, the natives of Alpha Centauri will be blaming TheJews for everything bad that has ever happened to them since the dawn of time.

Not that Israel doesn’t deserve condemnation – on its own terms. I used to think calling it an apartheid state was an exaggeration, but not so much these days, especially under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is clinging to office mainly to stay out of jail, owes his position to the nutcase religious right, and foisted a scheme to kill the judiciary’s power of independent review so that he would have that much more unitary control. No wonder Trump used to love him so much. Here’s the thing, Israel, very much unlike Hamas-run Gaza or Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, is still a pluralist society where people from all walks of life (including the military) have been fighting against Netanyahu’s bullshit.

In theory, there’s a real difference between “anti-Zionism” and anti-Semitism, for instance with ultra-Orthodox Jews who don’t see the secular Zionist state as the legitimate government for the Holy Land. In practice, with those few exceptions, there IS no difference. The distinction is the idea that there is something uniquely illegitimate about the Israeli government not just in policy but in its existence, for example the idea that you can enforce BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) policies against it, but not against Communist China, whose human rights violations are that much more egregious, to say nothing of the United States, Israel’s main financial support and diplomatic shield in the United Nations.
But see, you can’t push Red China around, and you can’t push the US around. You can, apparently, push Israel around, or you think you can, and the fact that you can justifies doing so. But of course THAT position isn’t amoral.

If nothing else, the whole situation gives the lie to the idea that it’s impossible to be racist if you’re in an oppressed community, or that racism is defined only by power relationships. The Jews were an oppressed community practically everywhere, did that mean the Israelis learned fair play? Not really. And if being oppressed automatically gives the Palestinians the moral high ground, are they going to learn mercy and compassion when they get the chance to practice it? Well, Hamas gave us the answer to that question.

As a secular humanist, I would prefer that a religious ethnostate like Israel not even exist, but we know that it has to because Jews have not been safe as a minority in other countries – even the United States, to some extent. That’s part of why the US has basically treated Israel as having a blank check for support, because we know what would happen if it didn’t have one.

Which in a roundabout way gets back to the original subject, because the House prior to Mike Johnson still had to vote on aid to Ukraine, which is attacked by Russia. The House Republicans are dancing on Trump’s strings, and Trump is dancing on Putin’s strings. Hell, he’s practically twerking. Now under Speaker Johnson, the Republicans are obliging the rest of the government to choose between aiding Ukraine and aiding Israel, or in the case of one bill, choosing between Israel aid and funding the IRS.

Matt Gaetz started with a weak Speaker who was nevertheless capable of appealing to both Trumpniks and establishment Republicans, and now he has maneuvered things to where the House is led by someone who is that much more Trumpnik and election denying than McCarthy was. And in the interim he left the House leaderless and unable to approve foreign aid, and about the same time, Hamas, supported by Iran, which is an ally of Russia, decided to attack Israel. Almost as if they were waiting for a cue.

No, I can’t say for sure that Matt Gaetz is a paid agent of a foreign power. I am saying that if he were, it would be impossible to tell the difference.

Before I get to the other stuff, I’m going to briefly go over the hilarity with Viceroy Trump having his little mugshot when he was arraigned in Atlanta. One Internet character had the brilliant idea of casting all the 18 lieutenants who had to take mugshots (like Mark Meadows and Rudy Guiliani) as Batman ’66 villains with the final assembly, naturally, centered on Donnie Clownboy as The Joker. (Giving him the Cesar Romero mustache was a great touch.)

I also think not only that Trump actually rehearsed his pose for the shot, I agree with whoever said that Trump leaned over, not just to make that LookitmeI’msoangryGRRRRR face, but because the further out he projects his jaw, the harder it is to see his other chins.

It’s actually a little sad that because the mugshot was taken after Trump’s time in office (NEWS FLASH: Trump is no longer president) that it can’t be used as his official presidential portrait, since the picture that is actually used, while professional, fails for that very reason: Posing Trump at his desk at the Oval Office almost makes it look like he’s working. Even so, not even the Trump mugshot is as fucked up as the ACTUAL Chuck Close painting of Bill Clinton that is his official portrait in the national gallery. Yes, this is REAL.

But again, Trump staged his little pout very deliberately, and to present an image of being a lot more forceful and powerful than he has proven to be against actual dictators. And while to people like me, the effort is so obvious as to be comical, it actually seems to work with a large section of the public. And that gets to a matter that is a lot more relevant right now.

While The Lamestream Media seems to be focusing a lot on Trump’s malice and malfeasance, and (yet again) giving him a respectable platform for his lying, the main focus of national news seems to be how everyone in the Democratic Party, with the possible exception of President Biden’s own people, doesn’t want Joe Biden to run again.

And this shows that Trump’s emphasis on superficial branding actually works, even on people who aren’t brain-dead Trumpniks. It’s why people think that Trump is a financial genius because he inherited money and played a billionaire on “reality” TV. And they think that Trump is more young and vital than Biden because Biden actually looks his age whereas Trump uses a bronzer that the makeup department on the Original Star Trek would have rejected as too garish and cheap-looking.

But maybe because everybody knows Trump for what he is and some people accept it anyway, they’re more prone to judge Joe Biden in terms of his objective qualifications and circumstances, whereas Trump fans don’t believe in bourgeois conceits like “objectivity.” So “reasonable” and “moderate” people will look at all of Joe Biden’s gaffes and think he’s not fit to be president while a Trumpnik will still think Trump ha sempre ragione even when he says Biden wants to get us in World War II.

(I mean, isn’t that where we WON? Sign me up!)

It’s nevertheless true that whatever the Biden Administration’s real accomplishments on paper, inflation is still too damn high for most people to feel secure, so whatever the statistics are on the economy, a lot of voters just don’t care. That same economy is a lot of the reason why Biden and Democrats are losing support with the young and non-white voters that the party needs and traditionally relies on. It doesn’t help that the same policies that liberals credit the Biden Administration for are also the ones that spur inflation, at least in the short term.

To say nothing of the fact that Biden’s physical and verbal stumbles are of a piece with [the late] Senator Dianne Feinstein (D.-California) losing her train of speech and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Kentucky) staring into space for several seconds, on multiple occasions. Here I again point out that the etymology of the word “Senate” traces directly from the Roman Republic, where the Latin senatus is taken from the singular senex, meaning “old man”, which means a senate is literally a group of old men.

Fact is, the Establishment is a mess. That’s why Republicans have been able to capitalize to the extent that they have. But this isn’t 2016, when it was easy to critique Hillary Clinton and the Republicans had been out of power, so they didn’t seem so bad. Back then, Trump’s strongest argument was “Whaddya got to lose?” Well… now we know. And that was all before January 6, and the trials, and Trump saying that General Mark Milley should have been hanged for talking with a foreign power, not to mention being found guilty of fraud in a New York case where evidence was so overwhelming the judge saw no need for a jury trial.

The other issue again is that prior to Trump taking over, the “MAGA” mentality hadn’t been quite so dominant in political life, whereas even with Democrats controlling the White House and the Senate, the Trumpniks are increasingly overbearing in their attempts to impose themselves in state government and to the extent that they can in the Federal government.

This is why we, yet again have Republicans, mostly in the House of Representatives shutting down the government if they don’t get their way. In this case it’s largely because of SINO (Speaker in Name Only) Kevin McCarthy (BR.-California), whom journalists frequently describe as “feckless.” He is totally lacking in feck. Having given up all the authority of his office for the mere privilege of having it, McCarthy is obliged to go along with every childish whim of Matt Gaetz (BR.-Florida) and Marjorie Taylor (BR.-Georgia), for instance, stripping Ukraine aid out of a provision to keep the Department of Defense funded (because their Master’s Master thinks it’s a lot more fun to shoot Ukrainians when they can’t shoot back). Meanwhile in the Senate, Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville (the name is French for ‘village of tubers’) has been on a long-standing crusade to stop any government promotions of military personnel, including the heads of the Army, Navy and USMC, because the Pentagon allows women personnel to take leave for abortions after the Alito Supreme Court killed Roe v. Wade.

You certainly can’t shame right-wingers by saying that government bureaucrats won’t be paid for having to work. But what’s telling is that we’re expecting members of the military to go without pay (while the Republicans who created this mess get paid on schedule, of course). It may seem remarkable how hostile the “pro-military” “conservatives” are to our military and global position, and that not even an appeal to patriotism works on the Party of Trump.

Democrats still haven’t figured out that shamelessness is the Republican superpower. Republicans don’t care. What the real issue is is that you can’t even hit them with appeals to patriotism because they see this country and its government in proprietary terms. That is, unless they OWN this country, it’s not theirs, and until they own this country, this country is their ENEMY. If they were honest – or in some cases, just blabbermouth enough – they’d admit that they’re undermining our defense posture because they’re not patriots for this country, but rather for the country that their Leader does so much to emulate.

And they think that if they can make everybody hate the Democrats as much as they do, they’ll win. There’s just one problem. Everyone already DOES hate the Democrats, and they’re still winning elections against Republicans, which is why Republicans do everything they can to discourage voting and making sure votes don’t count.

So everybody hates the Democrats. Everybody hates the economy. What do Republicans propose to do about that? Shut down the government if Democrats don’t submit to blackmail, no matter HOW MANY TIMES the public sees whose fault it is.

And everybody IN the Democratic Party is the opposite of enthused with Joe Biden. Just like Bill Clinton was already getting to be a liability for his party and Al Gore even before Monicagate. And then Republicans impeached him and the Democrats rallied around their guy. Just like Donald Trump was increasingly unpopular even in his own party for his erratic behavior, and then he got impeached, and everybody in the Republican Party had to rally around him. And because actual conviction in impeachment requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate and there’s going to be at least one-third of the Senate in the sitting President’s party (were that not the case, that party almost certainly wouldn’t have elected the president), impeachment is damn useless for its constitutional purpose and by now both parties should know it. In the short term at least it only serves to boost a president’s support with his own party at the lowest ebb when he needs it most.

So what is Kevin McCarthy going to do?
What are you going to do, Kevin?
That’s right! Impeach the President!

Reeeeal Men of Geeeeniuus….

And in the midst of all this, I forgot about the second (non-Trump) Republican presidential debate Wednesday September 27. But I guess so did everyone else. For one thing, it was held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, an institution which now has as much influence on the Republican Party as any of the candidates. I gave up watching around halfway through when I couldn’t get past all the shouting and everyone talking over each other. When I could hear one individual speak uninterrupted, it was either lame jokes or more political hack sloganeering than any Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris speech, except Democrats are campaigning for a welfare state and Republicans want a place that makes Gilead look like Ibiza. As with the last show, Nikki Haley made the best impression, especially when she told Vivek Ramaswamy, “Every time I hear you I feel a little bit dumber.” So say we all.

So it made even more sense than last time for Trump to skip this whole thing (even though he IS a chicken for avoiding debate) because none of these guys are real competition and they’re not worth the effort. What then did he do Wednesday? Well, there was a lot of noise in the media about how Trump stole Biden’s thunder by using debate night to make a speech to auto workers instead, which is why the Biden Administration decided to counter by having the president join a UAW picket line Tuesday. But then it turned out Trump was scheduled by management to speak at a non-union shop for parts manufacturing, a shop which staffs 150 people even though the event drew 500, and told his massively huge crowd that because Biden was pressing to make all cars electric, “It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what (wage) you get because in two years you’re all going to be out of business.”

Donald Trump: It’s Morning in America.

I’m sure there’s lots of Republicans who would rather vote for somebody, ANYBODY, besides Donald Trump, but they’re not going to vote for somebody else, they’re going to vote for Trump. Likewise, Democrats may say they want somebody else besides Joe Biden, but they’re not going to vote for somebody else. Why? Because this is America, where we have freedom of choice.

Among Joe Biden’s many, many Dad cliches in speech is saying “Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.” And like much of what Biden says, it’s bland, it’s obvious, and it’s absolutely correct. Yes, he’s old, he’s slow, he was never that smooth on his best days, and if people had any confidence in Kamala Harris, people wouldn’t be so scared that he’d die in office. But then compare him to the guy who talks about starting World War II, then compare him to the various ankle-biters still running in what used to be the Party of Reagan, hoping maybe Trump will choke on a steak or something. Biden may not be Almighty God, but God Almighty, the alternative is a shit volcano.

OK, so reviewing the Republican candidates’ debate on Fox Wednesday, let’s go back to the Republican Debate Bingo Card: “Pledge to Pardon Trump” – Yes, actually brought up by the debate hosts, and answers were kind of a blur. “Crooked Joe Biden” “Radical Left” “Two-Tiered Justice System” – not really brought up, though every time people were obliged to admit Trump tried to stop the election verification, they acted like it was Democrats’ fault for doing something about it. “Drag Queens” – not that I recall. “Hillary Clinton Mention” – they MUST have mentioned Hillary, but I can’t recall where. “Child Indoctrination” – yeah, that was DeSantis. “Prosecute Dr. Fauci” – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he’d fire Fauci. Even though he’s already resigned. “Biden Crime Family” – not that I recall. “Crime infested blue cities” – not in so many words, but they talked about crime a lot. “WOKE!” -Not specifically. “Climate ‘Hoax'” – actually, nobody other than Vivek Ramaswamy said climate change is a hoax (and he got BOOED), and he was basically taking the “Drill, Baby, Drill!” position. “Mainstream Media” – you had Ramaswamy telling Chris Christie that he was auditioning for a job at MSNBC. He also said Nikki Haley was going to take a nice corporate job after this campaign, which raises the question of what company will hire him once he has to bow out after Iowa. “Biden’s Age” – oh yeah. “Assault on [insert] Liberties” – not an issue for anybody here. These guys don’t believe in liberty, even for themselves. Their approach to liberty is basically the Catholic Church’s position on freedom: They only do what the authorities tell them to do because that’s what they were going to do anyway. “Election Integrity” – not in so many words. “Anti-Ukraine Sentiment” – mainly from DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, which led to pushback from Nikki Haley in one of her better moments of the night, pointing out that on this very day Putin killed his own former henchman. “Hunter Biden!” “CRT” – that was DeSantis, mainly. “DeSantis Makes A Weird Face” – they’re ALL weird faces. “Referring to Insurrectionists as Patriots” – not really. “Soros Reference” – 49 minutes in! “Back the Blue” – not so much, but I did see a few people falling all over themselves to be the first one to invade Mexico to take out their drug networks. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind us violating their national sovereignty. After all, we do it all the time.

I kind of agree with the people who think that Tim Scott and Mike Pence, simply by not embarrassing themselves, did relatively well. And then you had Doug… lemme check… Doug Burgum. Every so often Bret Baier and Martha McCallum remembered he was on stage, and even more occasionally, so did he. And then you had the two mini-Trumps, DeSantis and Ramaswamy, and while Ramaswamy was kind of “cocaine energy” and sometimes just plain wrong, he was forthright and a good speaker. And then you had DeSantis. Baier told him crime was up in Miami. DeSantis responded that “crime is at a 50-year low in Florida.” Which didn’t exactly disprove the statement. (‘Sure I’ve got brain cancer, but my blood sugar is better than ever!’) The very first speech was DeSantis going “Our country is in decline.” Later Ramaswamy said “It is NOT morning in America.” So much for the Party of Reagan, eh?

Nikki Haley was formerly ambassador to the UN and conducted herself in such a manner, speaking very professionally. Haley said, correctly, that it was Republicans under the Trump Organization (where she served of course) that exploded the deficit. She admitted that is an issue everyone has to confront. She said that while she is pro-life, women should not be persecuted and prosecuted for being pregnant. She also said “what (the people) will tell you is, it is time for a new conservative leader… Trump is the most disliked politician in the country – and WE CAN’T WIN A GENERAL ELECTION THAT WAY.”

Asa Hutchinson, who was notably the only candidate who refused to raise a hand on the question of whether they would support Trump as the nominee, didn’t speak much, but he was very forthright on the point that Trump has disqualified himself, morally if not legally. Chris Christie said much the same thing, demurring on the point of whether he committed crimes but saying that character is an issue and the Party should not be supporting someone of such low character. He was basically saying the same thing Nikki Haley did, but took a lot more flak. At which point, he said the line of the night: “That’s the great thing about this country: Booing is allowed, but it doesn’t change the truth.”

And the response was generally, “SEZ YOU, COMMIE!”

Which is of course the issue in a nutshell. This was an audience that seriously believes that emotional partisanship can change the truth. The loudest cheers of the night, as with the question of who would support Trump as the nominee, were for “the elephant not in the room.” It was a decent debate in and of itself actually, mainly in the first hour, because you got these guys to talk about policy issues. And because you didn’t have Trump constantly talking over everybody, including the Fox hosts, to blather about himself. But the point is that policy doesn’t matter. About an hour in they had to bring up Trump and his legal issues, because Republican voters don’t care about policy issues, they want gladiatorial combat, and Fox knows that better than anybody. So since none of these guys have national reputations of their own, Fox got them to catfight over Trump. From their perspective it was the best of both worlds cause they got to bring him up without him being a liability to the event.

With the Republican Party, even the “adults in the room”, that is, the hosts, the network and most of the candidates, also believe that their emotions and wishes can change the truth of their situation, which is that this is not a party of conservatives but a Jonestown cult that would drink the Kool-Aid and belly up to the bar for seconds. They are of course still dominant in certain states mainly because they make the laws in those states, but everywhere else – including a lot of places where Democrats have no purchase – they’re losing the voters. Haley IS right – you can’t win nationally with the most despised person in the country. But try telling that to the cultists who think Trump is an invincible God-Emperor who’s gonna live forever and doesn’t have to worry about what happens when he’s gone. Not that he hasn’t lived an amazingly long time given his habits. But the adults in the room still think that what they do matters, on the impression that SOME day Trump’s not gonna be in the picture.

Ha Ha Ha. They’ve been wishing that for years and it hasn’t happened yet. I mean nobody’s gonna care so much about this on Thursday evening. Cause of course that’s when Liddle Donnie Clown Boy is obliged to surrender himself at the jailhouse in Atlanta, AND get a mugshot like all his lieutenants did Wednesday. Of course on one of his social media posts he taunted the judges for making him post bond, like he’s supposed to be slipping off to “Russia Russia Russia” and crash with Putin for the rest of his life. That would NOT be a good idea for obvious reasons, foremost among them that his overwhelming lead in party polls means he IS going to be the Republican nominee, meaning there’s always a chance he could win the general election. Plus, he’d have to somehow ditch his Secret Service detail, whose job is kind of keeping an eye on him at all times. But you never know. Sometime tomorrow he could be commandeering a white Bronco and trying to get a plane to Venezuela or somewhere. I mean, that would be UNBELIEVABLY STUPID. One of those things where you go “Even Trump can’t be THAT STUPID!” Which is what makes it all the more likely. Trump is like the Homer Simpson of fascism: Every time you think, “he can’t get THAT stupid!” he always finds a way to top himself.

The other surprise factor – which frankly I consider LESS likely than Trump trying to make a break for it – would be if the Georgia authorities, backed up by feds, surrounded Trump in the jail and said, “Hey you know all these conditions we set to release you from detention? You remember where we said you weren’t allowed to defame or threaten anyone involved in the case including law enforcement or witnesses or other people in the trial? And you remember when you posted the bond you specifically agreed you “shall make no threat of any direct or indirect nature” including but “not limited to, posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual on social media”? And what did you do then, Donnie?”

“Here’s your cell, Donnie. That’s where you’re staying till the end of the trial.”

Of course that would cause the entire “conservative” media sphere to explode like Krakatoa, as would Trump trying to flee America, because then they’d have more egg on their faces than the co-star in a James Deen money shot. Either way, Trump is once again the only object of attention, and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

This is another rant about Trump. But not entirely.

As we know, on August 1, Deranged Jack Smith (this is his first name now, apparently) released the federal charges against Donald Trump in regard to the January 6 case, and then the week after that Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis released state RICO charges against not only Trump but 18 co-conspirators including Rudy Guiliani and other insiders like John Eastman. Why does this matter compared to the other charges piling up on Trump? Because this is a state case, and a hypothetical President Trump or other Republican president cannot pardon state charges. Moreover pardons in Georgia are handled by panel, so the Republican Governor of Georgia cannot pardon Trump even if he were inclined to do so (which he is NOT). Moreover, the premise of a RICO case is that a criminal conspiracy existed. Unlike Smith’s federal cases, Willis does not need to entertain Trump’s bogus defense that he “really believed” he won and “didn’t think” he was doing anything wrong. All the State needs to do is establish that a conspiracy existed and that Trump was the focus of it.

Trump has been responding in his usual manner: with bullying and sleaze. He suggested that the former Lieutenant Governor in Georgia not testify against him, calling him a “nasty disaster” because he wouldn’t entertain Trump’s fantasy scenario that the election was stolen. He calls District Attorney Fani Willis a racist (remember, the world is run by Black people and they’re all trying to keep the Orange man down). On one of his weekend speeches, Trump decided to excrete this little story about how this certain DA had a case against a criminal in the past and ended up having an affair with him. Totally unproven, of course, but Trump’s fan club of not-so-closet racists ate it right up. Like caviar, or other Russian imports.

August 15, Trump posted on Truf Censhal saying “A Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia is almost complete & will be presented by me at a major News Conference at 11:00 AM on Monday of next week in Bedminster, New Jersey. Based on the results of this CONCLUSIVE Report, all charges should be dropped against me & others – There will be a complete EXONERATION! They never went after those that Rigged the Election. They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!”

Rigger, please.

‘Course, Mr. Alligator Mouth Hummingbird Ass ended up retracting all this last Thursday, saying “Rather than releasing the Report on the Rigged & Stolen Georgia 2020 Presidential Election on Monday, my lawyers would prefer putting this, I believe, Irrefutable & Overwhelming evidence of Election Fraud & Irregularities in formal Legal Filings as we fight to dismiss this disgraceful Indictment”. Yes, Donnie. Because that’s where cases are tried. In court. I’m sure your lawyers would prefer it that way, as, unlike you, they have training and qualifications and know what the fuck they’re doing.

The irony being that Trump clearly wants to pull an OJ and try this case in the media, but it would actually be easier to try it in court, because if Trump had competent lawyers (hypothetically) they could find all manner of technicalities to remove or mitigate charges, whereas the more he wants to turn it into a media spectacle, the more guilty and defensive he looks and the more likely it is he will turn off the people who he needs to vote for him. And since his transparent strategy has been to muck with things until the election in the hopes he will actually win, so he can declare himself God-Emperor and make Smith’s charges (at least) go away, that’s counterproductive.

But speaking of Trump being chickenshit, the other news this week is that Donnie decided not to attend the little debate of presidential candidates scheduled for Wednesday on Fox. Instead he’s releasing an interview he pre-recorded with Fox News exile and fellow professional racist Tucker Carlson.

In a New York Times article, the decision is framed largely from Trump’s perspective as a desire to get back at Fox for not uncritically reporting his positions 100 percent of the time, and because he seems to think they have it out for him. “Also, they purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not.” Spoiler Alert, Donnie: They’re ALL bad pictures. They’re ALL big orange pictures with a receding chin. Because you are an accident of Nature that never should have been, and you take a roller of orange paint and layer it on your face attempting to look younger. The end result just makes you look like a lobeless Ferengi with a Tribble toupee.

In truth, there are good reasons for Trump to avoid a debate, because it reduces his legal liability or chance of embarrassing himself if he goes “unscripted” with somebody like Chris Christie who might actually take advantage. Also: Trump has refused to sign the Republican National Committee requirement that anybody who participates in the debates has to pledge loyalty to whoever ends up being the nominee. (As Donnie’s wives could tell you, one word he can’t understand is ‘loyalty’) But given how most polls show Trump far ahead of not only Ron DeSantis but DeSantis and any two other candidates combined, it’s easy to believe the stated position that Trump’s not participating because his lead is so big he doesn’t need to compete.

There are now eight “qualified” candidates for the debate, not including Trump, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to help the moderation if they don’t have to keep cutting Trump’s mic when it’s not his turn, going MommeeMommeeMommeeLookitmeLookitmeLookitmeLOOK AT ME YOU GODDAMN BITCH, but it’s going to be another one of those points to raise the question as to why any of these guys are even there.

But if any of this legal folderol actually undermines Trump’s performance in primaries, it means the debate matters because it raises the question of whether there even is any such thing as a Republican Party outside of Trump. And so far, all signs point to No.

Most institutions operate on a premise of “monkey see, monkey do”, especially the Republican Party, which is owned by the biggest howler monkey in the world. Which is why you see the more ambitious Republicans trying to out-Trump Trump because they perceive that’s where the Party is going.

Take entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s been getting a lot of press recently. Ramaswamy had an interview with conservative Hugh Hewitt and said that once we develop our own semiconductor supply, China can have Taiwan: “they have unfinished nationalistic business dating back to their civil war in 1949,” he added. “And if that’s the sole basis for Xi Jinping going after Taiwan after we have semiconductor independence, then you know what? I am not going to send our sons and daughters to die over that conflict. And that’s consistent with my position on Ukraine as well.” In that regard, Ramaswamy told CNN’s Jim Acosta “I would freeze the current lines of control and that would leave parts of the Donbas region with Russia, I would also further make a commitment that NATO would not admit Ukraine to NATO.” Acosta told the presidential hopeful “that sounds like a win for Putin,” which Ramaswamy countered, “Our goal should not be for Putin to lose, our goal should be for America to win.”

May I ask, in what world does America not lose if Putin is winning?

The logical answer is, only a world where America is a partner of Putin and not a balance against him. And given Putin’s absolutism, this necessarily means an unequal partnership where America is subservient to Putin.

And given that Putin has had to make himself largely subservient to Xi Jinping just to keep running his war, that would make China the greatest partner in the triumvirate. In any event, we could no longer say we were leading the “free world.”

And then of course, you have DeSantis, who has all along based his politics on following Trump’s lead and now wonders why nobody thinks he’d be a better leader. But apparently he’s gonna keep doing that. In a now well-publicized leak that is not likely to improve his polls, DeSantis’ debate advisers told him “Defend Trump when Chris Christie attacks him” and “Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times.” I mean usually when somebody leaks your strategy you adapt and try something else that the enemy hasn’t prepared for, but DeSantis hasn’t been that flexible so far.

No surprise though that he and other candidates still want to defend Trump when the whole premise of the debate is that one of them is for some reason unexplained supposed to be a better choice. Especially when Mike Pence’s whole position is, “Look, Donald Trump tried to stop the proceeding of an election process and tried to have me lynched but I don’t think he did anything illegal.” And of course most of these guys are pledging to pardon Trump if he’s found guilty, if they get elected, which really begs the question, why do you think your chances of beating Trump to the nomination, let alone beating Biden, are greater than Trump’s chances of beating the rap?

Not to mention that the nominally better choices like Tim Scott, Nikki Haley and Chris Christie, while certainly preferable to Trump and his mini-Trumps, are still part of the same Republican Party that has its own issues with credibility, especially Christie, who was a problematic Governor of New Jersey and a former Trump enabler. I mean, better that he turns back to the side of reason rather than riding the toilet rim all the way down like the other cultists, but objectively speaking there’s not much to vote for if you’re an independent, let alone a liberal.

As for where the Republican Party’s collective mindset is and what they have to offer the country at large, let’s prep with one of the several bingo cards being offered on social media:

In this, I keep going back to a quote I’ve used before that really explains how the Right went where it did. There was an article in Reason Magazine, March 2017, after Trump got in the White House, and they were having an interview with Congressman Thomas Massie (BR.-Kentucky) who at the time was described as “libertarian-leaning.” And they were talking about how Trump was attacking the Freedom Caucus and the various other small-l libertarian, “ideological” people, and the question was: “As a person like you, a congressman like you, when you are in the Freedom Caucus, when you’re lined up ideologically, and you have a president that is like this, what is it like for governing, and what is your hope like for the future?”
And Massie said: “Well, I’m still hopeful, okay? There are moments when populism lines up with libertarianism. But let me tell you about a realization that I came to when I was in Iowa campaigning for Senator Rand Paul to be president.

“You see in 2012, his dad did very well in Iowa, got like a quarter of the vote and a quarter of the vote in New Hampshire, and did very well in Nevada. I ran in 2012 on the same sort of libertarian ideas. Senator Rand Paul had blown a hole through the establishment Republican Party in Kentucky in 2010 on libertarian/republican ideas, and so I thought the libertarian ideology within the Republican party was really catching on, that it was popular. But then when I went to Iowa I saw that the same people that had voted for Ron Paul weren’t voting for Rand Paul, they were voting for Donald Trump. And the same thing happened in Kentucky, the people who were my voters ended up voting for Donald Trump in the primary. And so I was in a funk because how could these people let us down? How could they go from being libertarian ideologues to voting for Donald Trump? And then I realized what it was: They weren’t voting for the libertarian in the race, they were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race when they voted for me and Rand and Ron earlier. So Trump just won, you know, that category, but dumped the ideological baggage.”

I should think, especially if the left-socialist political philosophy becomes dominant simply for lack of a serious alternative, that people will once again start examining the potential of a limited constitutional government that acts as a referee in private affairs and not as an interested party. But this is clearly not cool even in the actual Libertarian Party, let alone the larger Right political spectrum. In the short term, “conservatives” don’t want a serious political philosophy that can get the public behind it and change the government long-term. They want the craziest son of a bitch in the race. This is especially clear given how Massie, and the Freedom Caucus collectively, went from being a libertarian counter on Trumpnik populism to yet another extension of it.

If these guys had anything to offer other than being not “woke”, and if their actual policies on issues like abortion were not so deeply unpopular and counterproductive, they might be competitive without Trump. As it is, all they can offer is being the craziest son of a bitch in the race. And nobody can do that better than Trump. So in the unlikely event that Trump can’t make it to the finish line, this debate is significant only in that it confirms the real problem. The problem is not Trump per se. The problem is a voter base that seriously thinks Trump is the best choice.

Well now, on the first day of August 2023 we finally had Mr. Smith’s federal indictment of ex-Viceroy Donald Trump on charges related his attempted coup on January 6, 2021. Trump is the sole defendant, although the text mentions six un-named co-conspirators who are currently unindicted, probably to speed up the process of trial proceedings. Defendant Trump is under four charges. Count One is 18 U.S.C. 371 – Conspiracy to Defraud the United States. Notably, even before the actual Election Day 2020, Trump spread rumors about the legitimacy of the ballot verification and the results. He keeps stating that his efforts are supposed to “Stop The Steal” and stop “election fraud.”

The indictment lays out: “From on our about November 14, 2020 through on or about January 6, 2021, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, the Defendant (Trump) did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate and agree with co-conspirators… The Defendant and co-conspirators used knowingly false claims of election fraud to get state legislators and election officials to subvert the legitimate results and change electoral votes from the Defendant’s opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., to electoral votes for the Defendant. … The Defendant and co-conspirators organized fraudulent slates of electors in seven targeted states (listed), attempting to mimic the procedures that the legitimate electors were supposed to follow under the Constitution and other federal and state laws. …The Defendant and co-conspirators attempted to enlist the Vice President to use his ceremonial role at the January 6 certification proceeding to fraudulently alter the election results … After it became public on the afternoon of January 6 that the Vice President would not alter the election results, a large and angry crowd – including many individuals whom the Defendant had deceived into believing the Vice President could and might alter the election results – violently attacked the Capitol and halted the proceeding. As violence ensued, the Defendant and co-conspirators exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to lay false claims of election fraud and convince Members of Congress to further delay the certification base on those claims.”

In other words: ELECTION FRAUD.

One of these indictment counts, action against the citizen’s right to vote, (18 U.S.C. 241) is called ‘the Ku Klux Klan’ act, which given Trump’s family history, has gotta sting.

And yet the Fuehrer of Failure is still acting like HE’S the victim. Even before August 1, Trump responded to his metastasizing list of indictments by speaking to his fan club on June 26: “I’m being indicted for you,” Trump said, “and I believe the ‘you’ is more than 200 million people that love our country that are out there, and they love our country.”

Yes. Because the first three words we all think of when we think of Donald Trump are “self sacrificing altruist”.

Yet, the Church of Trump, who seem to think the actual Jesus is a woke pussy, still eat it up. While a majority of independents think Trump should drop out of the race, NPR says over 80 percent of Republicans want him to stay in the race and over 60 percent think he should be the nominee. In the previous indictment (for Mar-a-Lago) “Kevin McCarthy, the House speaker, lamented “a dark day for the United States of America” and said: “It is unconscionable for a president to indict the leading candidate opposing him.” Ron DeSantis, apparently forgetting he’s supposed to be running AGAINST Trump, said: “The weaponisation of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society. We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation.” One headline in The Hill said: “Trump indictment fuels GOP anger over DOJ ‘weaponization’“.

Oh, the Trumpniks are angry that their sweet little boy MIGHT actually get punished for being naughty? Have they ever considered the rage and hate that the REST of us feel that he used fraud and force to try and override our votes? Have they ever considered the rage and hate that the rest of the country feels at this stupid little brat who clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing, but insists on always being the center of attention and will never go away? Have they ever considered the rage and hate that the rest of the country feels about a political party that enables him every chance they get, and will not let us get rid of him, no matter how much damage he does to them??

This is what’s so infuriating about these people. They’re “gaslighting”, but they’re not even gaslighting. Gaslighting, to borrow from the original source, means a serious organized effort to alter perceptions and information to convince a target of untrue things. Contrary to what liberals say, what Trumpniks do isn’t gaslighting, it’s “don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining.” Like when Trump’s latest lawyer, John Lauro, did the tour of Sunday chat shows and made the proposal that because Trump couldn’t get a fair trial in DC (where the events of the charges occurred), they should move the venue to West Virginia, where the jury would be more “racially diverse.” As opposed to, say, Maine or Idaho?

Jesus H. Christ on a Popsicle stick, that is such screaming bullshit that not even a Democratic Senator would fall for it. (Well, maybe Dianne Feinstein.) But this is the Trumpniks’ entire approach to policy.

Serious question: WHY? Why do we put up with these people? They don’t take anything seriously, they don’t know how to run a government, they can’t even LIE right.

To go with what I’ve said on several other occasions: If you don’t have a better idea than your opponent, and you don’t have reason, and you don’t have negotiation, the only way you can get your agenda effected is with force. And force ultimately comes down to who has the biggest (or at least best armed) gang. By definition, you’re never going to be better armed than the government. Even in THIS country. And as for being the biggest gang, the existential terror of the Trumpniks is their subconscious realization that they are not the biggest gang, and at their current rate of popularity, never will be again.

So if a confrontation is ultimately not going to favor them, how do they keep getting over? Intimidation: the fear of what could happen if we don’t go along with them. Consider Trump’s role model, Daddy Vlad Putin. Every week or so, Putin and his state media stooges threaten to nuke everybody in the West if we don’t be nice to them and let them walk into Ukraine and kill everybody there. And the only reason NATO hasn’t already walked in and taken names like we did in the former Yugoslavia is because Putin does have nukes, and even with slipshod Russian engineering, some of them might go off as intended. Any strategic exchange would favor us, but Russia would do some damage- we just don’t know how much.

“Always remember the first rule of power tactics: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.”

As with Russia, this only really works if the government’s bullshit is a fait accompli that the people have to accept regardless of how stupid it is cause the government not only has the monopoly on force, they have the presumption of authority. But unlike Russia, one side has not clearly won control of the government. We don’t HAVE to put up with this bullshit “just because” Republicans are the authorities, even if THEY seem to think so.

Which is why I waited until after August 8 to comment on all this, because that’s when a state initiative was put up for vote, and the result of it is a good measure of how the public at large is reacting to the Party of Trump and its machinations.

In Ohio, the Republican-dominated state legislature foisted an “Issue 1” on the ballot for August 8, just months before an already planned Election Day vote to guarantee abortion rights and reproductive freedoms. Issue 1 nowhere mentions abortion in its text. What it does do is say any citizen ballot initiative would have to go from simple majority (51%) to 60 percent vote to succeed. It would have also required petitioners to get signatures from all counties to proceed (as opposed to the current 50 percent) and would have removed a ten day provision to correct erroneous signatures on the petition. “Issue 1 was proposed by State Representative Stewart and the state’s top election official, Secretary of State Frank LaRose. According to Stewart, Issue 1 is intended to stop “far-left ballot proposals” and “ballot campaigns [featuring] destructive policies that [liberal groups] could never get through a state legislature”, while according to LaRose, Issue 1 is “100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution”. LaRose later claimed that his statement was taken out of context and generally called the issue a “good government” move that blocks influence from out-of-state special interests.” The arbitrary and expedient nature of this scheduling was made clear in that House Bill 458, passed just months earlier, eliminated the August special election except in cases of fiscal emergency, “the stated rationale for this provision, given by Secretary of State Frank LaRose and others at the time, was the consistently low turnout seen in historical August elections.” Emphasis mine. In other words, break your own rules, so you can break the rules again. It’s almost like rules don’t matter, and laws don’t matter, and we’re “Fuck You and obey orders, cause we’re the government and you’re not.”

There was a good article in The Bulwark demonstrating exactly why this didn’t work in an otherwise ruby-red state: The author interviewed an art teacher in Cleveland, saying “(She) acknowledged she was concerned about the abortion factor in all this, but made it quite clear that abortion wasn’t the major reason she was voting no. Rather, she was mad about what she called Republicans “overstepping their bounds,” about their having “no respect for anything or anybody” and being willing to stomp on the rights of others “to get what they want.”

“It’s not that I expect them to act all nice and friendly while they are attempting to stab people in the back,” she told me. “But in this case, the feeling I am getting is that they thought most people were too dumb to figure out anything and that they could just walk all over all of us as if that is just how this world of politics works.”

Robert Alexander, a political scientist at Ohio Northern University came to this conclusion: “What the voters said to the Republican party in this election—and I’m talking about voters who voted both for Biden and Trump—is ‘Don’t try to treat us like fools.’”

This maneuver demonstrated both shamelessness and utter contempt for all voters, including (or especially) Republicans. Even if you are anti-abortion, even if you are in general on board with the Republican Party agenda, the premise of voting “Yes” on Issue 1 was: use the power of your vote so that in the future your vote will count for less. And on issues having nothing to do with abortion. But that is simply of a piece with what has been established. Donald Trump WILL BE the Republican presidential nominee. The Republican National Committee still has not enacted a party platform since 2016. The closest thing they had was an announcement at the 2020 RNC that “the Republican Party has and will continuously support the Presidents America-first agenda” – in other words, the only purpose of the Party is whatever Donald Trump says it is. Not only does he not acknowledge he lost the election, none of his attorneys will admit he lost the election, his entire legal defense in his case is that he “really believed” he won the election, and 2020 Republicans like Kari Lake in Arizona are still running around insisting “I WON.” For Trump, elections don’t count unless he wins. For an increasing number of Republicans, elections don’t count unless they win. That being the case it begs the question of why Trump and his Fan Club are even running for office when they won’t accept the results unless they win. If you’re voting for that Party in 2024, you’re voting to make sure that your vote will never matter again.

The irony being that this measure was put down by a substantial margin, but not by 60 percent or more – thus proving the need for the No vote. If you need 60 percent to get anything done, in this country you’ll never get anything done, and apparently that’s the way the 43 percent want it.

Which just goes to show that while the Party of Trump will never be a majority – especially at the rate things are going – they will always be in a position to undermine the country, at least as long as the system “works” the way it does.

It works the way it does because the federal system of our Constitution was specifically made to be counter-majoritarian with a whole bunch of choke points, and in many ways that’s justified but in retrospect just seems to be a case of the Founders out-thinking themselves. In particular, with the Electoral College, “A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations. …Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?” It was assumed that leaving the final choice for president to a general majority vote would elevate a candidate with “Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity” but a considered panel of electors from each state would be able to confirm a reasonable choice.

Well, as it turns out, while the American people collectively may be dumb enough to require a warning on cardboard sunscreens reading “DO NOT DRIVE WHILE SCREEN IS IN PLACE” the simple majority has never been dumb enough to say that a four-time bankrupt Jersey casino boss and “reality” TV star should get access to our national secrets and nuclear weapons codes. That takes a determined plurality in just enough states to force its will on a gross majority. And it was thus that the mechanism that the Founders intended to stop a creature of “foreign powers” from gaining ascendancy was the only mechanism by which that result could have occurred. And even then, that particular result only happened once.

Likewise the idea that a president or other official requires a majority vote to impeach in the House but a two-thirds vote in the Senate was considered an appropriate bar because any offense that could justify impeachment would have to be sufficiently grave that the need for conviction was obvious. But The Federalist Papers were written on the premise that the legislature, executive and judiciary were separate, even competing branches of government, and the Senate was an objective body to judge. That’s the Rules As Written. In the game as played, the three branches of government are the Democrats, the Republicans and the judiciary, and the last is selected by the dominant party of the other two. Accordingly, no impeachment vote is going to get the required threshold for conviction, because the Senate does not think of itself as a competing branch with the White House. One party thinks of the President as competition and the other party thinks he’s their boss. And you’re always going to have at least one-third of the Senate that will not vote against their boss. Which is why every time the Lamestream Media gives Trump the epithet “twice-impeached” they may think they’re attaching shame, but they’re merely making it clear what a joke the setup is. Impeachment should only be needed ONCE.

Even so, the Constitution’s Article II is not a universal standard in state and federal laws. But now that the problem with plurality supremacy is becoming clear to everyone, the Party of Trump wants to make it the standard and not an exception.

It’s the only way they can keep power.

I mean, they COULD try to do what Reagan and Buckley did and use positive philosophy to explain why the Right is superior to the liberal-left spectrum, but apparently that’s just being “woke” or something.

But now we are seeing exactly how the Trump Party’s anti-reality is going over with the rest of the country. Prior to Dobbs, Republicans could claim that it was Democrats who were trying to be extremists in removing all restrictions to abortion. Of course this was blanking out the point that Roe vs. Wade, which established the “quickening” or fetal viability standard, WAS the common-sense compromise on the abortion issue. And now that’s gone. And the same people who said the Supreme Court should not have made a unilateral ruling and the subject should have gone to the states are the same people trying to force abortion prohibition on states where it previously didn’t exist. And when you consider this radicalism in the wake of Trump, and then consider that Trump, the former New York socialite, has probably adapted more to his Party than the other way around, you see exactly how he achieved such identity fusion with the Evangelical cult that currently controls the Party: In retrospect, the Evangelicals are the only partner that Trump has never cheated or betrayed. He DID get the Israel embassy moved to Jerusalem, he DID get three Supreme Court Justices in one term and those three justices were the votes Alito and Thomas needed to kill Roe. Trump lost the Electoral College in 2020 before the Dobbs vs. Mississippi decision. And the rest of the country knows exactly who they have to thank for that decision.

So for all the polls I’m seeing showing Trump in parity with Joe Biden in the presidential race, I don’t think Trump’s chances in 2024 are any better than in 2020, when he had all the advantages of incumbency and was not saddled with all the scandals that came after that election. Not to say he can’t win – because God is real, and He hates us all – but as I’ve said, even the Supreme Being can only do so much to cover for his Meshuggah Messiah’s incompetence. It becomes that much more obvious when people in states where the Democratic Party has very little presence are still rejecting the Republican radical agenda.

So keep on treating voters like fools, Trumpniks. Next year, we’ll see who the real idiots are.