Welcome Back to Pottersville: March 2023

Friday, March 31, 2023

There Are Two Americas

When John Edwards was running for president in his 2004 presidential bid, he'd delivered a famous speech called, "2 Americas". The then-South Carolina Senator was running for president against Kerry and others and this December 29 speech in Des Moines propelled him to the top of the polls. The effect was similar to Hubert Humphrey's speech in Utah in 1968 (.pdf file) in which he came out against the Vietnam War. He had found just the right words at just the right time and people responded.

But Kerry won the nomination in Boston and Edwards, who was seen as an instrument to help Kerry in the South where Democrats fare poorly, wound up on the underside of that ticket. It didn't matter much to people at the time that Edwards had shamelessly cribbed the phrase and concept of "Two Americas" from Dr. Martin Luther King. Edwards said it, people believed it, that settled it.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the White House. The story broke that Edwards had engaged in a hush money scheme regarding an affair he'd had. He was eventually indicted on six charges. The grand jury found him innocent of one and couldn't reach a decision on the other five. The judge declared a hung jury and the DOJ refused to relitigate it.

Edwards could've faced up to 30 years in prison and hit with a $1.5 fine. It's not clear if the six count indictment sank Kerry's campaign. Kerry lost the popular vote but he was running against an incumbent. Well, that and the Swiftboat Veterans for "Truth".

But the plain fact was, Edwards very likely committed campaign finance violations in paying off his own paramour with hush money and, back then, Republicans were feigning apoplexy that this man could wind up in the Naval Observatory. It was one of the most stunning falls of grace in the annals of American political history. Edwards hasn't ventured into politics since.

The Republican hypocrisy in light of Donald Trump's own indictment on similar charges is astounding but not unexpected or shocking. Both men committed their moral transgressions at very inopportune times. Melania was carrying Trump's child and Elizabeth Edwards was dying of cancer. But to hear Republicans talk these days, what's going on with Trump in the Manhattan DA's office is nothing short of a political hatchet job or, to use Trump's preferred phrase, "a witch hint".

And there's your Two Americas. The kind that comes down like a ton of bricks on people like Joe Biden for plagiarism (1988), Gary Hart for an extramarital affair (also 1988) or any other Democrat who ever got railroaded on chickenshit charges. So, if you're wondering how a political nonentity like George HW Bush got elected president and why the Democrats couldn't find anyone better than Michael Dukakis, wonder no more. And Dukakis got crushed like a used Dixie cup because he climbed into that tank.

When you consider how Republicans succeed, in heavily gerrymandered Congressional districts and the usual vote caging and other dirty tricks used by Republicans in Senate and presidential races, when you see the vast inferiority of the Republicans who, somehow, prevail, it all starts to make sense. Nothing about 2004 made sense. Draft dodger vs Vietnam War vet. The draft dodger "wins" when the veteran's courage and valor was called into question. There was a hue and a cry and that was it. No one went down for it. No one seriously challenged the strangeness of J. Kenneth Blackwell and, before him, Katherine Harris being allowed to press their thumbs on the scales.

But Joe Biden in 2020? No, he didn't win. He stole it. It was the Italians and their satellites. It was the Venezuelans and the rotting corpse of Hugo Chavez. It was two black women in Atlanta and food trucks!

And the media are equally complicit. The media seem to think it's simply sexier when Democrats get mired in scandals, especially when they're sex scandals. All we ever hear about is JFK's peccadilloes while hearing far less about the equal moral and sexual turpitude of the Eisenhower administration. That's why the media made such a big deal about Biden's plagiarism and Hart's affair while shrugging and having no appetite to seriously investigate the strangeness of George W. Bush's "elections" in 2000 and 2004.

However, this time around, it's different. The press is absolutely breathless in the wake of Trump's indictment because it marks the first time in American history that a former Commander in Chief has been indicted on criminal charges. Not only that, but 34 of them. But it's more than just the historical uniqueness.

Unlike Edwards, who was never accused of rape or insurrection or stealing government documents, there's a sense that the fat man is finally going to fall after being essentially a one man crime wave since he was in his 20s. From the time he and his father were found 1973 to have discriminated against African Americans seeking to rent their properties to the Trump Org being found guilty of 17 counts of fraud, Trump has always seemed to be made of Teflon.

But the walls are closing in and he knows it as well as us. When he's arraigned on Tuesday, he'll, of course, try to control the optics of walking into the police station for booking and walking into the court house. He'll mug for the cameras, ball up his tiny little hands into tiny little fists of defiance and smile for whatever few supporters that would be bothered to show up.

Alvin Bragg's grand jury's 34 charges may or may not bear fruit. But this is just the beginning and, with Trump's indictment, others could quickly follow in a judicial avalanche. There's Jack Smith's investigation in DC, Fani Willis' own in Fulton County, Georgia and Letitia James, as always, looms in the wings.

Yet, the bias remains. No, no one should be above the law. But we and the MSM need to get over this persistent, pernicious bias that says Democrats should be lower hanging fruit than Republicans, especially in light of the fact that Republicans are far more susceptible to crime than Democrats.

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Your Tweet o' the Day

Yeah, he went there, straight into the rabbit hole filled with McDonald's vomit, presumably leaving his nut sack behind.

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

We Need an Emmett Till Moment

Right after the Robb Elementary shooting nine months ago, CNN commissioned a demonstration as to the sheer, destructive power of the AR 15 using ballistics gelatin. After the segment, Jake Tapper talked to CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, to further explain the impact an AR15 round has on a human body.

He went into cavitation, or when a bullet creates a wound channel so wide that it collapses in on itself. It's permanent, catastrophic, often fatal, damage, especially when the round enters a child's body. Their organs are smaller and closer together and, in that horrifying scenario, we're talking about damage that's more than catastrophic. We're talking about more than just cavitation. We're talking about organ vaporization.

Dr. Gupta had also reminded us that when the police entered that slaughterhouse at Robb Elementary that rooms 111 and 112 had been turned into, at least one child was actually decapitated and that DNA had to be taken from the parents to identify their childrens' bodies. They simply didn't know whose body parts belonged to whom.

Then Gupta said we should have "an Emmett Till moment".

Till, of course, was the 14 year-old child who was visiting family in Mississippi in 1955 when he was murdered after being tortured for allegedly whistling at a white woman. It can plausibly be said that Till's murder was one of the catalysts of the Civil Right movement.

But that wouldn't have happened if his grieving mother, Mamie Till, hadn't famously made the decision she had. She insisted that Emmett's body be openly displayed, in an open casket, so the whole world could see what had been done to him.

Whether or not she knew it, Americans have always been a people with a very strong visual sense. We tend to rally around an iconic image, some perfectly representative picture that gives a visual sense of what we're dealing with. A visceral, perfectly-timed and artfully representative image can galvanize a people, give a face to an atrocity and even change hearts and minds en masse.

This is what Gupta was getting at in the essay he'd written on CNN's website that day (it's since been updated to include the Covenant school shooting of last Monday).

There was a huge kerfuffle in the gun community about showing the photos of the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting and for good reason. They knew damned good and well that if those pictures were released, it would finally rally the American people who would then exert unprecedented pressure on Republican lawmakers to pass gun safety measures.

And that's what we need to do to break the ice, the permafrost of Republican foot-dragging in helping Democrats pass gun safety measures that are actually worth a shit. Making background checks more stringent, passing red flag laws are all good and well but they're just a start. When Congress and Bill Clinton enacted an assault weapons ban in 1994, gun deaths went down by 43% in the first year. When Bush let the assault weapons ban lapse in 2004, gun deaths went up by 243% in the first year.

And this is what Republicans don't want you to remember, that gun control works, that Australia hasn't had a mass shooting since 1996 when they enacted some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, with a conservative government. Their gun buyback program took over half a million guns off the streets, further ensuring the safety of Australians. They don't want you to know that gun control works.

And that's also exactly why they don't want you to see the crime scene photos after a school shooting or any mass shooting involving an AR15. It would have to be done with the permission of the parents but I'm sure quite a few of them would consent to it. Fred Guitenberg comes to mind.

If anything would be a tipping point that would permanently change the gun control debate, that would be it. But Republicans, who historically are always trying to hide whatever dangers face Americans whether it's COVID, food and drug safety, don't want you to see the consequence of loosening gun control laws. This is also why they never want you to see the consequences of war because they're not interested in your informed opinion or protest or opposition to their agenda.

All children want to do is go to school, learn some lessons and get home alive in one piece. Instead, they're learning active shooter drills and, after some maniac shoots up their school with an AR15, they're not even getting home alive or in one piece.

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

American Exceptionalism

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

As I've said so often after a momentous event in US or world history, there are often iconic images that are taken at those precise moments or their immediate aftermath that become symbolic of that event. There's Alfred Eisenstaedt's immortal photograph taken on VJ Day at Times Square, one that expressed the relief and joy of a nation at the end of a four year-long war. And, six months before that, Joe Rosenthal's equally immortal photograph of the raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.

The lead image you see above is fast becoming the iconic photograph of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville yesterday. It perfectly expresses a child's horror and grief at having visited on her unimaginable and senseless violence when all she wanted to get was an education. When you look at the faces of survivors of school shootings, they always have that same look no matter the location- Disbelief that this has finally happened to them.

Even though we're just 87 days into 2023, this has already been the 33rd school shooting. We've had over 130 so far this year. Brady United, which compiles such statistics, defines a mass shooting as when there are four or more injuries or deaths not including the shooter. The one in this case, a transgender man named Audrey or Aiden Hale, murdered three small children and three faculty members before being shot and killed by Nashville police (Warning: explicit video).

Here are the facts, in case you're not already acquainted with them:

The United Kingdom hasn't had a mass school shooting since 1997, Bill Clinton's first term. Australia hasn't seen a mass shooting since they enacted strict gun control laws after the Port Arthur shooting in 1996, and that was with a conservative Parliament and Prime Minister. The United States is the only country in which there are more guns than people (over 400,000,000 for 330,000,000.) And even though we make up just 4% of the world's population, we own roughly 45% of the world's guns.

We're the only developed, industrialized nation on earth that allows its citizens to carry and brandish military-grade assault-style weapons whether it's open carry or concealed and often without permits or proper training. 45,000+ Americans die from gun violence every year and at the rate we're going, we'll perhaps top 50,000 by New Year's Eve. That's enough to fill Yankee Stadium. And, most tragically, we're the only nation on earth where the leading cause of death among children is gun violence, overtaking car accidents or disease.

Plainly, more guns and easier access to them and ammunition is not the answer. Eliminating safety training, creating loopholes in the background check process and lowering the age so kids barely 18 years-old can buy AR15s is also not the answer. We learned that after Uvalde and which came about thanks to the Texas legislature's and Greg Abbott's murderous initiatives.

But It's All About the Kids

Yesterday's Christian school shooting came about almost exactly two years to the day since Gov. Bill Lee signed a sweeping gun deregulation bill essentially allowing Tennesseans to carry whatever gun they like whether open carry or concealed even without a permit or federal restrictions, which don't exist, by the way. We don't even have a national registry, unlike many other industrialized nations.

And in the wake of every school shooting, you can count on Republicans like Steve Scalise to say that grabbing guns aren't the answer (Despite Australia's own gun buyback program that took 565,000 guns off the streets in '96 that greatly contributed to them not having another mass shooting since that year) and fake macho men like Ken Buck challenging Joe Biden to come to his office to take his own AR.

Or we hear asshats like Tim Burchett who seem to think the answer is more prayer and a Christian revival (I guess he didn't get the memo from the NRA that Nashville shooting took place in a Christian charter school in which prayers, as usual, didn't make a lick of difference). Or to come across a picture of Andy Ogles, in whose district the shooting occurred, posing with guns drawn with his family.

No, right wingers want to distract you from the real root cause of gun violence, such as lack of prayer in the schools, mental illness and gun free zones. Then they turn around after waxing piously about protecting our children while they ban Critical Race Theory and books in libraries.

Because it's all about the kids, you see.

According to Nashville Police Chief John Drake, Audrey Hale was able to legally buy seven weapons from five different locations while under a doctor's care for emotional issues. Just based on HIPAA regulations and doctor-patient confidentiality, the police can't very well be knowledgeable on who's getting psychiatric care and for what. So, to know who the likeliest candidates for gun violence are would virtually require that HIPAA laws be violated.

Again, we are the only country that refuses to ban guns but is fanatical about banning books and critical race studies that simply aren't taught in K-12. Republicans are absolutely obsessed with making sure the kids don't learn about slavery or Rosa Parks or the Civil Rights Movement or about teh gays and that especially goes for you RuPaul types and your grooming drag time story hours.

Because it's all about the kids. At least, the ones that are still above ground.

Friday, March 24, 2023

A Thug's Life

If Donald Trump was in any other family, after his early morning outburst this morning on Truth Social, they'd be forced to have a family intervention or put in motion the same type of competency hearing I'll have to endure for Mrs. JP. They'd by necessity do something to rein in the crazy uncle/husband/father to try to save him from himself.

But Donald Trump doesn't come from a normal family. Instead, he comes from one populated largely by wealthy Ivy League grads, one that told him and reassured him in word and deed over the first seven and a half decades of his life that he could do whatever he wanted and he'd never suffer comeuppance or even be forced to apologize for his actions. He was spoiled long, long before he was swaddled with the ridiculous immunity of the presidency.

That's why it seems perfectly normal that Donald Trump would essentially wish "death and destruction" on the Manhattan DA, who just today received an envelope full of white powder (inert and harmless) and came with a typed letter that said, "Alvin: I am going to kill you."

Even if it was talcum powder or baby formula, that's still serious enough to warrant a federal investigation. And I think any thinking person can safely draw a line connecting Donald Trump and his threats and childish name-calling and this, so far, anonymous miscreant who threatened DA Bragg.

Keep in mind that exactly a week has gone by and the grand jury hasn't voted whether or not to indict. In fact, as Amanda Marcotte reminded us in today's newsletter,

"What’s frustrating is there’s reason to worry Bragg is balking. Despite all his chest-thumping about how he won’t be intimidated, Bragg is suddenly finding all sorts of reasons not to move forward to indictment. First he canceled the Wednesday grand jury meeting. Then, when they reconvened, he pivoted to another, unrelated case, pausing the hush money inquiry, quite possibly indefinitely."

So Trump is screaming hyperbolically about death and destruction just at the merest, one week-old speculation of indictment and arrest that's looking less and less as if it's even in the offing and as it's looking more and more as if Bragg is losing his balls again.

That's because Trump has never been so close to actually facing accountability before, not even during his two impeachments because it was already pre-ordained that the Republican-run Senate would vote to acquit, which, of course, they had.

But I think it's safe to say this is the first time Donald Trump ever came this close to accountability since his brother Fred dumped those mashed potatoes on his head when he was seven. He's still that little boy, sulking and weeping with rage, wiping mashed potatoes from his head."

Plus, as Amanda Marcotte said, no one wants to get arrested or injured or killed over Stormy Daniels. It's, ironically, not sexy enough. Keep in mind this is a man who's so desperate for any love, validation and attention that he's "retruthing" an incredibly unscientific poll by someone named "Cat Turd".

Thursday, March 23, 2023

Like Waco Needs Another Wacko

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

On Saturday, Donald Trump is going to Waco, Texas.

But he's not going on just any day. It's yet another example of that despicable calculation that politicians and wouldbe politicians make while trying to send dog whistle messages that are better left uttered sotto voce.

We saw one of the most shameless calculations 43 years ago when Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 presidential bid in a little burg named Philadelphia, Mississippi. Philadelphia's only claim to fame up to that time was when three young civil rights workers were brutally murdered by KKK members that even included the county sheriff. He could've kicked off his campaign in his native Tampico, IL or in Sacramento, where he'd served as Governor of California. But he didn't. He chose little Philadelphia, MS.

So there Reagan stood, his collar open and his shoes caked with red Mississippi clay, trying to pass himself off as some long-lost son of their soil, delivering a speech almost surely written by the late Lee Atwater, who the year after had proudly decoded for a journalist what states' rights really meant. In fact, this is probably the most revealing paragraph:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “N-gger, n-gger, n-gger.” By 1968 you can’t say “n-gger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N-gger, n-gger.”

Reagan's campaign kickoff, in which he successfully passed himself off as a shit-kicking son of the soil just like them, became notorious for its dog-whistling. It was nothing more or less than a new phase of evolution in 1968's Southern Strategy used by Nixon. And the Southern Strategy (barely) worked for Nixon in '68, just as Reagan's despicable dog-whistling worked for him in '80.

Enter Donald Trump, looking to blow that same dog whistle in heavily conservative Waco, Texas, in a county he carried by 20 points in 2020.

The 30 Year Itch

Waco, obviously, is one of those places that's distinguished on a national map by big, red push pins in conservative households. Ruby Ridge is another and, up to a point, conservative anger is justified. The FBI did indeed set fire to the compound in Waco by using incendiary tear gas canisters and they did vent the main building by punching holes with tanks. Vicky Weaver got half her head blown off while holding her baby when sniper Lon Horiuchi fired into a dark building. In fact, Randy Weaver, Vicky Weaver's husband, got a good chunk of change from the government.

But much more reprehensible than the government's overreach in both affairs is people like Donald Trump trying to make hay over it barely after the wounds from 1993 had healed. There are hardly any coincidences in politics and it's no coincidence that Donald Trump is planning on going to Waco almost exactly 30 years to the day after the 51 day siege began.

Yet, unlike Reagan who sought to stoke even more division across racial lines with his purely cynical choice of Philadelphia, MS, Trump's choice of Waco seeks to exploit divisions along lines that don't really exist. He's always proved to be anti-government despite his ceaseless attempts to get elected as head of it these past eight years. It's a cynical calculation that's almost pre-destined to fail if the pathetic pre-indictment clown shows at Mar a Lago and Manhattan are any indication.

Trump's cynical ploy to stoke bad memories of the burning spectacle of Mount Carmel is designed to do one thing and one thing only- To cobble together enough support for him to successfully stave off indictment from Alvin Bragg's grand jury, which is suddenly looking a lot more problematic that it had six days ago.

But as we all learned from Dallas in 1963 or Memphis in 1968 or even at Kent State in 1970, all it takes is a handful or even one armed man in a place of concealment to make a horrible difference in human history. Maybe the next political sniper won't be stupid enough to announce his intentions so law enforcement can scoop him up before he loads his long rifle in his car. Maybe the next one will be egged on by Donald Trump at Waco.

Of course, Alvin Bragg's office in Manhattan is hardly the federal government but the polemics that Trump will obviously deliver in Waco this Saturday will be hot enough to blur the lines for anyone who feels they still have an axe to grind against the government over the Branch Davidian siege or a prosecutor whom Trump just called an "animal" who's unfairly trying to keep him from seeking federal office.

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

To Substack or Not Substack?

Commenter Dave C. (Yes, that Dave C.) left a comment for one of my more recent posts. But this one is potentially constructive advice.

I don't know if Dave has a Substack newsletter but I know of some prominent progressive voices on the site. It's a subscription service (Hence the "Sub" in Substack) and it's a new type of blogging site that actually lets you monetize your content.

Now, these days, I'm in a dark, dangerous place, especially today, I visited Barb in the hospital and, not only was I alarmed at her weight loss, the "social workers" presented her with legal paperwork they should've known she couldn't read nor understand. By the time I got back home, I'd already begun calling lawyers, including the Attorney General's Office to have them investigated and, hopefully, criminally prosecuted for medical malpractice and patient neglect. It is so fucking incredibly on.

But this isn't about Mrs. JP.

This is a trial balloon of sorts. I want to know from my readers if it would be economically feasible for me to move my content from Pottersville to Substack. Dave brought up a good point when he said blogspot is pretty much dead and played out, that's it's irrelevant and not a good platform from which to raise money. I've suspected as much over the last few years. It's not 2005, any more.

And, while it obviously isn't tops on my list of concerns, getting my girl back home is, if these duplicitous cocksuckers, God forbid, put her in a nursing home, they'll take her Social Security check with her, leaving me with $1007 to pay $2500 in monthly expenses.

Obviously, in that scenario, we've talking about imminent eviction. I'd lose this house and everything in it.

So, an alternative source of income is needed, unless I prevail in civil court and successfully sue UMass Memorial Hospital for millions, which is absolutely an option.

But, regarding Substack, would it be an economically viable move? As Youtubers say with wearisome frequency, "Let me know in the comment section below."

Monday, March 20, 2023

On the Road Again...

It's wheels up for Hair Force One. Vegas odds makers have narrowed down the two likeliest venues as New York City or Moscow.

Then again, outside odds say LA's 405.

Sunday, March 19, 2023

Stand Back and Stand By In Mommy's Basement

So, this is what happened today on 7th Avenue in Manhattan...

A bunch of Proud Boys douchebags got wind of a Drag Time story event that was attended by New York Attorney General, Letitia James, and decided it would be a corker of an idea to go protest outside the venue. Things kind of went downhill from that point on.

Some New Yorkers took exception to the presence of the Proud Boys and their incoherent bellowing and violence broke out.

Now, the Proud Boys are infamous from coast to coast for being a street-brawling gang who never shy away from a physical challenge. Hell, they were at the nation's Capitol on January 6th to burnish their street creds as a right proper conservative group that doesn't take shit from anyone.

At least until they got to Seventh Avenue in Manhattan.

One of the aforementioned bags o' douche got beaten and bloodied, forcing him to turn tail and complain, “I Came Here to Help People, Not Get the Shit Beat Out of Me.” It's unclear whom they were trying to help but the fact remains that their proffered help was not accepted in the spirit in which it was dubiously proffered.

Word of advice, tough guy: If you go where you're not wanted to needlessly stir shit up, this is what happens, snowflake. Now go back to Mommy's house in Long Island and lick your wounds.

And this whole victimhood mentality goes straight to the heart of the right wing mentality- It's always acceptable to scream talking points that aren't true but it's not OK if people push back. That especially goes if violence breaks out.

Well, everybody has the right to protest and speak their peace provided it isn't hate speech and serves the equivalent of yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater. And what they seem incapable of understanding is that sometimes, free speech, especially incendiary rhetoric, sometimes has consequences. Their whole mindset revolves around the inflexible belief that no one else should have free speech but them, they were there, after all, to protest a drag story time event. But if anyone else even opposes that hate speech, they're automatically the victims.

If the SA or Brownshirts, aka the Bund were meaningfully opposed in the 20s and 30s, they would've said the same thing. "Why are they assaulting us? We only wanted to help! Who cares about a few broken windows?"

In other words, right wingers show us time and again, they can dish it out but they can't take it. The violence they're willing to dish out to others, to innocents, suddenly becomes unacceptable when it's dished out to them.

Sorry, boys, that's not the way the world works. And no matter how many times you protest drag story times and looking like a bunch of bloated bumblebees, don't expect not there to be some significant pushback.

Saturday, March 18, 2023

"Will Be Wild 2.0"

Prologue

Damn it, I was supposed to enjoy this.

I've been dreaming of a day like this since 2016 when Trump's criminality was finally getting a national spotlight. It would've involved getting a $45 bottle of Bushmills single malt, maybe a bottle of champagne. I was supposed to have written about the imminent indictment of Donald Trump and short-stroked it until the Rapture.

Most of all, Mrs. JP was supposed to have enjoyed this moment with me.

Instead, she's lying in a hospital bed, about to be taken to a nursing home against both our wills. Instead, I just numbly look at the headlines knowing I can't do justice to them. I can't take any joy in this.

Blogging was always meant to be just a pastime for me, giving it away until I had to strike out on my own then it became my side hustle. Then it became my sole means of income and, with that, a greater sense of dedication and responsibility.

Now that my friend and benefactor is dead and Mrs. JP's about to get legally kidnapped and shunted to a human warehouse, her Social Security will go with her, leaving me with $1007 to pay $800 in rent and hundreds more in monthly bills. Obviously, eviction is on the horizon. The love of my life is being taken from me and, thus far, I have no legal recourse.

How can I take joy in this? Indeed, what's the point of living since everything's being taken from me all at once? What's the point of fighting to get her back if I have nowhere to take her back to? What's the point in fighting for anything?

Still...

Whether you look at blogging as my avocation or vocation, I suppose I still have a civic obligation to opine on this looming indictment, even if only for a very small dedicated readership. But plainly, I won't be going for laughs here and with none of my trademark snark. Indeed, this may be the last political post I ever make because my heart just got torn out over the course of a 42 minute-long phone call I got from a social worker yesterday.

The Indictment

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has given unmistakable signs that an indictment is coming. It started last week when his office had invited Donald Trump to testify on his own behalf before the grand jury. As expected, he declined.

Then yesterday we learned that Bragg's office has been consulting with the NYPD regarding security measures that will need to be implemented in advance of the indictment's announcement and when Trump will have to surrender himself. Liberals were giddy at the thought of seeing Trump doing a perp walk, in handcuffs, but that's simply not going to happen. Instead, Bragg was more likely conferring with police authorities over crowd control measures rather than the logistics of putting Trump in handcuffs.

In reality, we'll hardly get a glimpse of Trump when he arrives at whatever police precinct they take him to for booking and then the courthouse where he'll be arraigned. In short, if the Manhattan DA's office makes the mistake of turning this into a circus then that's exactly what they'll get, only it'll be the kind that gets people killed, like January 6th.

The Stage Is Set

As expected, Trump reacted to the inevitable indictment with an all caps, screaming jeremiad on Truth Social with the requisite misspellings, poor punctuation and name-calling.

But the only thing he said in his two part hissy fit that has any real world implications and relevance was his invitation to his supporters to converge on Manhattan to "PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!"

As former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said to Katie Phang this morning, this sounds alarmingly like Trump's well-stoked days-long invitation to his supporters to march to DC to stop the certification of the Electoral College results, or what Kirschner called, "Will be wild 2.0". Michael Cohen agrees.

However it shakes out, it'll surely one of the most noteworthy days in New York City history, a city that's already drenched with world-changing history. It'll mark the first time in US history that a former president has been indicted on criminal charges. It'll be a circus from the time Trump touches down at the airport in his 747 until he's arraigned in Manhattan. Then he'll be freed on his own recognizance and we'll get to see the circus replay only in reverse.

It's what will happen in between, during the actual arraignment, that has to worry officials.

The St. Patrick's Day parade that stretched from 44th to 79th streets yesterday will shrink in comparison to the crowds that will be at the courthouse. There will be plenty of Trump supporters and even more from out of state. Arrests will likely be made and people are almost guaranteed to get hurt.

Keep one thing in mind- Over 74,000,000 people voted for Trump in 2020. The DOJ has made barely over 1000 arrests related to January 6th. That's a tiny fraction of 1% of Trump's voters. I'm not saying all of them are violent but look what a few thousand of his voters did on January 6th. They nearly killed Mike Pence and stalled the certification for several hours while making over 530 lawmakers flee for their lives.

What to Expect in Court

Again, it won't be like when Allen Weisselberg was indicted last summer. The police had no problem putting him in handcuffs because who cares about Allen Weisselberg? Trump's own indictment will be a very different thing.

As I'm sure we all know, thus is about the hush money payment that Trump made through Michael Cohen to adult film star Stormy Daniels. While Bragg had upgraded one misdemeanor to a felony, he'd also downgraded more than one felony to misdemeanor status. Cohen might not even be at the center of this trial, despite his heavy involvement. He's testified to the DA's attorneys 20 times and to the grand jury twice.

But it's unclear if he'll even be called to testify during the trial itself on account of the massive amounts of evidence that Bragg's office has collected. And the charges involve more than just campaign finance violations (which would be a federal matter, anyway). It's about improperly keeping business records.

Trump's lead lawyer on this, Joe Tacopina, claims Trump simply made a $130,000 contribution to his own campaign, which is fallacious because that's exactly the amount Daniels was paid by Cohen. Plus, why not just transfer the money from his private account directly to his campaign's?

Plus, the prevailing opinion is when Bragg announces the grand jury's indictment, it will start a domino effect of other indictments and charges in both New York and Georgia. It'll be a spectacular fall from grace and before the dust settles, all Trump will have left are the dead-enders like Marjorie Taylor Greene and some of his voters.

I don't see Trump going to prison for any of these crimes but being multiply indicted, a fate spared his 44 predecessors, will finish him as a viable political entity.

Epilogue

Again, I wish I could enjoy all this with all the appropriate schadenfreude. But, I'm sorry, folks. My life's coming to an end. At least I can say I lived just long enough to see the downfall of the worst, most ruinous American who ever lived. At least I have that satisfaction.

For those of you who've stayed with me through Welcome Back to Pottersville's long stretch, I thank you. I especially thank those of you past and present, living and dead for your financial patronage until recently. I had some fun over the course this blog's 4100+ posts but, as the old saying goes, all good things must come to an end.

Fare thee well and keep kicking for those of us who can't.

Friday, March 17, 2023

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

I should be telling a joke. I should be telling an oft-told one on this St. Patrick's Day. Maybe the one about the judge who shit his pants after a pub crawl or the guy on the back nine who doffed his hat as his wife's body was being driven to her funeral. I don't observe St. Patrick's Day and neither do the Irish and they can't understand why we do, either. But it's what I would've done if I hadn't gotten a phone call today.

That was at about 3-3:30 this afternoon when I got a phone call from a social worker at the hospital where Barb's at now. She informed me UMass Memorial Hospital in Marlborough, Massachusetts is planning on taking control of Barbara's life and placing her in a nursing home. Not short-term rehab but long-term placement.

From the first time I'd visited her after her admission on March 10, they'd made it quite plain they didn't consider me a legitimate health care proxy. Yes, me, the guy who's been caring for her since her arrival in 2009 even when she was hale and healthy. I suspected something was up when they tried several times to call me on my Android the day before. I kept telling them that phone had a bug and no longer takes incoming calls and to call Barb's cell phone, which is newer and perfectly functional. But I learned they were just trying to get her sister's number.

But when I visited her that Friday, someone from "patient relations" curtly informed me they had no intention of recognizing me as her legitimate caregiver. I'm acknowledged as such by Baypath Elder Services in Worcester, MA, by the CDC program in which they'd enrolled me and by Tempus Unlimited, the company that does the payroll. When I called my contact person at Baypath, she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

They're pushing me completely out of the loop and refusing to acknowledge that I'm better positioned to make a long-term health care decision than literally anyone on earth. They're going through her sister, who's over 830 miles away on North Carolina and hasn't laid eyes on her in literally decades. But to the hospital, it all devolves on whether Barb and I are married. Sorry, but my position is that just because someone is genetically-related to someone, it doesn't make them a better judge to make an informed decision of this magnitude. And a marriage certificate wouldn't make me a better judge, either.

I earned the right to do so, as I had with all her previous admissions to that hospital, when I had full access to her doctors, PAs and nurses, when I was able to go over the treatment plan with those doctors and was allowed to fill her scripts and give the medicine she needed in the right dosages. But when I visited her that first time a week ago, the friend who'd taken me let it slip that I was Barbara's "partner" and that was when everything changed. In retrospect, maybe she should've kept her trap shut. Maybe the only reason why they consulted me during her previous admissions was because they assumed I was married to her.

Among the things I learned during that phone call that may well have announced the end of our lives as we know it was they've already gotten a docket number, meaning they have a court date for a competency hearing. The social worker who called me told me that as the common courtesy that the rest of the hospital refused to extend to me. Yes, you heard that right. They didn't even show me enough respect to give me the chance to fight for her.

She'd made great progress since her admission, which is another reason why this body snatching scheme makes no sense. While visiting her the two times I was able to, I was able to get food and fluids in her, whereas the hospital staff couldn't. In other words, I succeeded where they failed. To be fair, they can't sit there for hours at a time trying to get one meal in her, whereas I could and had when she was home, They have other patients to care for and can't give her the personalized one on one attention I could and had given her.

When she was admitted on the 8th, she was diagnosed with COVID-19, pneumonia, and a UTI. They've addressed all those issues and she ought to be taken off COVID protocols tomorrow. I planned on getting her home either tomorrow, with Monday at the outset. When I'd visited her, I noticed her mind was a lot clearer than it had when I had to call 911 and get her admitted.

None of that matters to them. I did the right thing by getting her the medical care she deserved and am paying a heavy price for it. If I hadn't, she probably would have died. So I was put in a position where I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't. Obviously, that's not fair.

My position is that once she's home, I can get her eating again now that the infections and the sore throat that kept her from eating are things of the past. The hospital never thought to give me the benefit of the doubt much less even attempt to do a rudimentary assessment as to whether or not I can adequately care for her at home if I got her back. They've completely pushed me out of the loop.

Then, there's the big issue, her dementia. Again, I know the history of her mental landscape over these last few years better than anyone. On at least three occasions, I've seen her experience a noticeable cognitive decline, only to see her claw back ground and get back to an acceptable baseline. I saw her do it again this past week. Once the infections were cleared or well on their way to be being cleared, I noticed immediately she was more cogent. She recognized me immediately, was glad to see me and, again, she ate for me both times.

So, once I get the docket number and the court date, I plan on being there and fighting to get my girlfriend back. I shouldn't be thrust into this position but I am. I am not going to shirk this duty any more than I shirked my duty in caring for her these past 14 years. No one in any nursing home would have all that history with her, no one would love her and, if she refuses to eat for them, the only way they'll know how to respond is to literally stick a feeding tube down her throat and force feed her. I've worked in nursing homes in the past. I've witnessed force feedings. They're ugly, hideous sights to see.

And they'd do it not because they're in love with her as I am but just to avoid legal liability.

Fuck Amy Wax

(Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC.)

This exposes one of the raw, quivering nerves, the hypocrisy with which we treat academics. Right wing nut jobs like David Horwitz are constantly screaming about "liberal bias" in our nation's institutions of higher learning and point to people like Ward Churchill. Churchill was fired for writing that infamous essay essentially saying that we brought on 9/11 through our toxic policies in the Middle East, which is at least partly true. His big mistake was in asserting that there were no innocent victims on 9/11, and they all were as far as I'm concerned, and calling them "little Eichmanns".

But this newest brouhaha over Amy Wax exposes the hypocrisy with which we treat not just academics but how we treat liberals and conservatives. However poorly he chose his words, Churchill didn't make blatantly racist, anti Semitic or homophobic statements. Wax has done just this virtually her entire academic life and tenure should have nothing to do with it. The idea of tenure was never to give a professor the right to say whatever they want, however injurious to society, without consequences.

And since UPenn is a private entity and not the federal government, the First Amendment shouldn't even be an issue. And while a balance has to be carefully struck between destructive hate speech and academic freedom, one also has to carefully look at current trends and judge whether such incendiary speech is contributing to and further exacerbating a problem. That problem is an uptick in violence against Asian Americans, African Americans, LGBTQ+ people and so forth. And, yes, I think Wax's hate speech contributes to the violence. Perhaps someone should take her aside and remind her that such hateful speech actually contributes to violence against her fellow Jews. Tree of Life Synagogue, anyone?

So, I'm glad they're moving to sanction her bony ass. As far as I'm concerned, they should fire her immediately, tenure or no.

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Pottersville Digest

What would you expect of a guy who once worked for a "stable genius"?

Typical craven right wing crook.

This guy is Central Casting's idea of what a mob lawyer should look and act like.

Well, Trump pulled off the New York trifecta - First, the NY AG's office then the Manhattan DA and now the SDNY.

What, he didn't sell tickets to the wake?

It's not as if Republicans as a whole are invested in maintaining Ukraine's sovereignty. They're just embarrassed because DeSantis said the quiet part out loud.

Thank you, Bethany. With everything I have going on in my life now, I really, REALLY needed this belly laugh.

In other words, "I reject your reality and substitute my own."

“The plea agreement filed today sends a clear message that bank executives who commit fraud and deliberately deceive regulators will get to skate and stay out of jail by taking an early vacation and paying a $17,000,000 bribe."

Meme intermission.

400 years, for being a getaway driver? Man, that's a harsh penalty for Driving While Black.

The only "insanity" was at these school board meetings at which school board members had their lives threatened by right wing parents who didn't know what they were screaming about. I point the finger of blame squarely at DeSantis for starting this by declaring war on the Florida public school system. Time and again, I read stories of entire libraries being cleared out on account of one single parent complaining about one book that they haven't even read. But at the bottom of all this is an insidious attempt to dumb down our kids, hence the next generation of voters, because the last thing the GOP wants is an informed electorate. (Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC)

Oh, shut up, you whiny twat. (A 2nd tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC)

"What Lauren Boebert doesn't know about American history could fill the Library of Congress." That's the most spot-on assessment of Boebert that I think anyone's ever ventured.

Yes, please keep this dear man talking! And finally...

With Trump, there's always a "perfect phone call" that interests prosecutors.

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

That's Some World-Class Trolling

Republicans are so fucking stupid, it almost hurts to look at them or to remember that they exist. This is a snowflake given to Ron DeSantis when he was making his whistle stop in Iowa just days before Trump's visit on Monday. The lady in the foreground also gave one to Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, who of course accepted it while thinking she was trolling and owning the libs.

Uh, not exactly.

Seriously, the nearly caustic level of Republican stupidity aside, it's having a detrimental effect on the national psyche. These right wing politicians know there are many feeble-minded Republican voters out there who don't need much prodding to set their delusions going at Warp Speed Ten. But they continue feeding their delusions, anyway, then wonder why they can't control them when they finally go full-out apeshit, like on January 6th.

Then they spin another delusion, that the Capitol riots were really antifa and/or BLM, or the FBI while saying at the same time it was a peaceful protest in which nobody got hurt. Well, nine dead people and 140 injured cops would beg to disagree.

But right wing narratives don't even have to make sense, any more, or make the slightest attempt at consistency. There's no way this shit would've flown under its own power five, six decades ago. What passes for right wing policy positions these days is nothing more or less than a shameless pandering to the worst fears and conspiracy theories of the people who are dumb enough to think have their interests represented by the opportunistic scumbags they keep sending to Capitol Hill.

It's gotten to the point where Marjorie Taylor Green is trying to couch the Biden-era CBP seizing over 1300 pounds of fentanyl a year as a failure. Anyone with even rudimentary intelligence and cognitive skills would know right off that the real failure would be in not seizing all those deadly drugs.

Then again. we're a nation that sent to Capitol Hill idiots like Green, Gosar, Boebert and a pedophile and rapist into the Oval Office. Yeah, Republicans eked out a razor-thin majority in the House but gerrymandering can only be blamed for so much. At some level, as with Georgia-14, one has to blame plain stupidity and a total lack of critical thinking skills.

Of course, Republicans respond with school library censorship, cuts in education budgets and outright lies in history, science, etc. DeSantis and the Florida legislature has passed into law a bill that was so vague and sweeping in its wording that all it takes is one idiotic parent to make one complaint about a book, whether or not they've read it, that they can single-handedly shut down an entire school library.

Meaning, at least in goober states such as Florida and Tennessee, books are banned in schools but guns aren't. Teachers are the real threat, not the resource officers who regularly brutalize our kids with near-complete impunity.

Because, as Mrs. JP is so fond of repeating, long before DeSantis and these other anti "woke" Nazis, in these very same schools with bare school library shelves, starting in the 70s, administrators and right wing politicians decided that Civics and teaching Critical Thinking and Logic were electives with which we could afford to dispense.

And successive generations of children who are taught not Civics, Logic or Critical Thinking but being taught they could do without it give us the idiots who are dying of ivermectin consumption and denying the existence of global pandemics.

It resulted in an electorate that stuck a shambling moron like Donald Trump in the White House and a House full of functional idiots like Marjorie Taylor Greene.

(As often, a tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC.)

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Pottersville Digest

Screaming at a snow plow? What's next, shaking fists at clouds? What is with these Republican psychopaths? Why are they so angry all the time?

I know this is Virginia, but it still amazes me how racist these assholes are. I wonder how many of these "ALM" people were at Charlottesville in 2017. (Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC)

Nine people died as a result of the riots but aside from that, no, it wasn't deadly.

Well, Republicans are finally getting that red wave they've been dreaming of.

"I alone can fix it"? This shit again?

But they'll continue taking the horse paste to own the libs.

The pro life party seriously considers the death penalty for women who have abortions.

Shorter Trump: "You turned my patriots into thugs and the violence they patriotically committed is all your fault."

"Beyond that we do not comment on personnel issues that do not rise to the level of discipline.” OK, my first question is, why doesn't grabbing an eight year-old girl by the neck rise to the level of discipline?