Friday, January 31, 2025

Where is America's Immune System?

 
     We all know what happens when you get a splinter in your finger. Your immune system recognizes a foreign body and mobilizes until it pushes out that splinter.
     Nations are like that, too, up to a point. As an invader invades the country or the body politic, especially if it's harmful, nations, often the grassroots, the vox populi, will mobilize to at least put up a good fight if not outright expel the invader. We saw this during the Arab Spring and, more recently, in Syria last month (although it could be said the overthrow of the Assad regime was just one terrorist organization replacing another).
     Yet in a political and social way, nations have an immune system of their own. And, often, when a head of state leads the nation to rack and ruin, corrective action is taken. Look at WWII Italy and 1989 Romania, for example.
     However, what we've been seeing over the last week and a half is a naked kleptocracy and kakistocracy successfully masquerading as a functional and functioning government. And yet, we're seeing little more than token resistance on the part of lawmakers, other nations, Big Business, the media and, most shockingly, the American people.
     Many of you reading this will easily remember the protests that clogged the streets of France years ago when the government even just suggested raising the retirement age. We've seen this all over the world since time immemorial- When governments enact incredibly unpopular policies or even suggest them, the people often show up to protest in the millions. Even in repressive Russia early in the Ukraine war, when Putin started forcibly rounding up Russian men in a ramped up conscription campaign, the people protested in over 160 Russian towns and cities, including Moscow.
     Yet, historically, we never see this here in America. Is it complacence, is it laziness, is it the losing end of a war of attrition? It could be all of those things or none of them.
     And this brings me to social media.
     Virtually every nation on earth has access to social media. Gigantic entities like Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter and the rising Bluesky are used in most nations or, as in the case of China, alternatives such as Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter (although it's, of course, tightly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party). People in other countries use social media as a means to an end. They use it to coordinate and mobilize when they feel a mass protest is called for.
     The United States is virtually unique in that we see social media as an end, not a mere means. We've supplanted protest with impotently screaming in the wilderness on social media because we've been led to believe that social media is a legitimate and efficacious outlet to redress our grievances. It's little better than handing people an Etch-a-Sketch and telling them they're iPads through which they can reach the rest of the world.
     Yet right wing tech bro billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, oligarchs with right wing agendas, have been lying to you all these years. Chances are your voice will not be heard beyond a small coterie of followers because they employ repressive algorithms that artificially suppress content that conflicts with the political agenda of the 1% who own these social media entities. On Twitter, it's called shadow banning.
     The closest we've seen to any organized protests in the US was the Occupy Wall Street movement nearly 14 years ago before that, too, was systematically and brutally repressed by police departments all over the country. Yes, we used social media to coordinate and mobilize back then. But then, the outrage over Wall Street's excesses, which have hardly abated since then, dissolved under police truncheons and backhoes.
     If you take away enough things that they need for basic survival (The French Revolution in the 1780s, it could be said, was touched off by high bread prices, something we ought to keep in mind here and now), they will rebel and, in some cases, will overthrow a regime, a government or a monarchy. The French Revolution was so transformative, they haven't had a monarchy since and the same could be said for the American Revolution.
     And yet, since January 20th, we do have a king, one we'd installed, a despot right out of the Middle Ages. In some ways, Donald Trump is a stereotypical lying politician who has no problem breaking campaign promises. Yet, in other ways, he's unique in human history, or at least in American political history. In just a week and a half, with the pernicious assistance of stooges and fascist apparatchiks, Trump's second administration is already the worst ever, even discounting his first term that saw 400,000 dead Americans during the pandemic.
     He's gutted entire departments through Executive Orders, basically by royal fiat. Less than two days after the worst air disaster since 2009, we're just waking up to the fact that Trump could've teed up that disaster by gutting the FAA just two days into his term.
 
 
     We're not entitled to be surprised and be shocked, shocked, that there's gambling going on in this establishment because on January 22nd, the White House announced on its website that they were doing just that and even crowing they were ending "DEI madness".
      And, just a few days before that, the day before the inaugural, Trump announced his own cryptocurrency, the $Trump coin. With all the challenges facing the government and this nation, Trump's biggest concern, it seems, was cashing in on another grift. This coin, 80% of which is owned and controlled by the Trump Organization, quickly ballooned in value, eventually reaching an artificial valuation of $32 billion. If he hasn't already, you can count on Trump to dump his shares in a classic Pump and Dump Ponzi scheme that'll leave smaller investors holding the bag as the coin (as opposed to an NFT) plunges down to nothing in value.
     Trump is trying to fire the entire Civil Service so he can replace it with 300,000 more of his stooges and is just now realizing he's not legally empowered to do that. That precipitated the letter he'd sent to government employees offering them a buyout whereby they were promised seven months severance pay and benefits. But, knowing Trump's track record for keeping promises, stiffing people and pulling the rug out from under people, the Civil Service employees are smart enough not to take his "offer" and are even staying at their jobs out of spite.
     Like a true dictator, Trump's going after those who'd investigated or even just criticized him. He pulled Secret Service details from Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Dr. Anthony Fauci. He's preparing to fire at least 12 DoJ attorneys who'd worked for Jack Smith and assisted in his two investigations. He's already fired over a dozen Inspectors General whose job it was to investigate waste and corruption.
     Plus, let's not forget the purge at the FAA 48 hours into his administration.
     And, after largely running on inflation, the economy and lowering prices, his economic and foreign policy antics are resulting in higher prices for Americans. Presidents can't unilaterally lower prices but they can certainly make them go up through horrible and misguided decisions. National and international economics are always a tricky balancing act that ought to be handled by those who know what they're doing. Trump simply lacks the intellect, the temperament and subtlety to even grasp all that.
     In short, Trump has turned the government into a shambles that, up until a week and a half ago, was a real, respectable government. It's like what would happen if you rented out your beautiful Air B&B in a toney neighborhood to the Hell's Angels.
     So, where's the outrage? Haven't we seen enough? Just the threat of raising the retirement age was enough choke the streets of Paris with outraged citizens. Caracas, Venezuela recently staged mass protests over the perception their recent election wasn't legitimate. 
     Where's our immune system?
     And what will it take to finally get us off our couches, Laz-E-Boys and computer chairs and use that first amendment right to assemble? Or are we content to be a nation of 330,000,000 frogs in a pot of boiling water?
     I cannot think of any analog in US history in which our nation, our very government, was under threat and a state of siege. And we keep forgetting those chilling words by George Santayana when he wrote, "Those who do not heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it." We've forgotten that fighting for and securing rights is only half the battle won, the much shorter half. Because each generation produces evil people like Trump and his enablers who will constantly seek to abridge or obliterate those rights entirely. The wolves have taken up permanent residence at the gate. Democracies weren't kept with complacence, compliance and obedience. They're maintained by constant vigilance and, when necessary rebellion.
     We need to remember that and act accordingly. Because, to quote Ben Franklin, we have a republic... if we can keep it.

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Sometimes Sea Changes Start in Rivers

 
(From the office of Cyril Blubberpuss, Conservative-American)

I'll always remember a talk I had with my friend Donald Trump during the inaugural lunch on Inauguration Day. We sat next to each other at the table and he began idly musing about the executive orders he was going to sign later that day. He mentioned firing over 100 high-ranking officials at the FAA. This took me aback.
     "Well, Mr. President, that's all good and well but what if an accident happens?"
     "I'll just find a way to blame Obama or Biden for it. And there's always DEI," he added with a wink.
     I myself had just landed at Reagan National Airport the night before and was about to board another plane at Reagan later that day and my stomach turned. Today, in light of last night's event, my stomach can't stop turning.
     Last night, an American Airlines jet collided with an Army helicopter, killing all 67 on board both craft, We lost three soldiers, many members of the ice figure skating community and 14 children. At least one was as young as 13. As of this writing, they're still pulling the bodies from the frigid Potomac River.
     Just hours after the disaster, Trump got on his Truth Social and blamed the tragedy on DEI, basically, anything and everyone but himself. He did, indeed, make good on his promise to purge the FAA of many high-ranking officials, including its administrator, Michael Whitaker. Even more horrifying, he did it at the behest of Elon Musk because Whitaker had suggested SpaceX should pay $600,000 in fines because of safety violations.
     It made me question for the first time who's really in charge of the West Wing and the White House in general. And that makes my stomach turn even more.
     Then there was the press conference at the Briefing Room this morning where he once again blamed Democrats and DEI driving out qualified white men from the FAA and traffic control towers. And the ironic thing is, many of the people purged because of Trump and Musk were white men, many of whom I assume were very good at their jobs.
     Then he kept digging the hole deeper back at the Oval Office. When a reporter asked him if he was going to go to the crash site, he churlishly asked, "Do you want me to go swimming?"
     Over the years, I'd overlooked my friend Donald's lapses in judgment and even basic humanity after floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, a pandemic and the like. And, over time, I had to confront the reality that at no time did Donald accept blame for anything. Every time, instead, he would thrash about and cast blame where it didn't belong.
     And, at some point, one has to accept that his niece, Dr. Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, may be onto something when she calls her uncle a textbook sociopath.
     Now, God knows I've always defended Mr. Trump through thick and thin. But many were the times when I'd ask myself, "How can I blame liberals for what's going to happen today?" It got to a point long before last night's disaster when I realized that intellectual and emotional burden is getting harder and harder to assume.
     To my dawning horror, it occurred to me that Donald happily accepts that burden without even realizing it's a burden. And the same could easily be said for those who choose to surround him.
     And what happened in the freezing waters of the historic Potomac River last night at an airport just a 15 minute drive from the nation's Capitol started a sea change within me. Children were killed last night along with some of their parents. We'd lost three soldiers. But at no time did the president show any sense of mourning at the loss of human life. All he could do was to assign blame elsewhere.
     And that makes my stomach turn even more, as the realization dawns that perhaps we'd made a tragic mistake and placed control of the government in exactly the wrong hands. Presidents in the face of unspeakable tragedy, even if they were also sociopaths with poor bedside manner, at least faked empathy and sympathy. They were there when and where they needed to be. And it doesn't even matter much whether or not you believe your bromides. Sometimes just saying the right words is enough because people still need to hear them.
     Donald couldn't even be bothered to do that nor did he seem to care how small and petty not doing so made him look. We deserve better as a nation, regardless of whatever party is in charge. We re all Americans. We're all human. Death is the ultimate nonpartisan. Now's the time to soberly seek answers and grieve, not to mindlessly assign blame for political brownie points.
     And I think my conservative Republican worldview needs reexamination.

Republicans Are Simply Useless in a Tragedy

 
     I'm just going to say that when you elect a sociopath to the highest office in the land, expect a front row seat to the DSM-V come to life. Trump's late night rant last night showed what a soulless sociopath he truly is. There was a major air disaster over the Potomac at 9 last night that killed 67 people, including at least 14 teenage figure skaters. 
     Trump chose to blame one of the victims, the helicopter pilot, for his own death. He didn't mourn the dead. He chose to assign blame as they were still fishing out the corpses of adults and children out of the Potomac River.
     But the fact is, in the opening hours of his "administration", he'd fired over 100 top officials at the FAA (at Elon Musk's insistence), resulting in at least one controller doing two jobs. It's as if Trump knew he was to blame for this tragedy and cynically tried to get in front of it and evade accountability by passing the blame on to a dead man. This is bottomlessly despicable by any rubric and he needs to be held to task for this, eternally.

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Gotham City Digest


     Donnie Dumbo loses in court yet again.


     How can something be "unconstitutional" if it's in, you know, the Constitution?

     It's no coincidence that this perfectly coincides with Donald Trump's improbable comeback.
     I'd love to know where he's gonna deport them to. (Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC)

     Oh, this also happened last week. So much for America First.
     This is the prick who'd just ordered the federal workers he hasn't fired, yet, to return to the office. (A second tip o the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC)

     "Hitler and all intelligent leaders throughout history have understood that the way to change a country was through the training of its youth, to get them while they are young."
     Gee, what a shock that this is coming from the state that gave us the KKK. And they clutch their pearls and scream about liberal indoctrination.

     "You can't have a security detail for the rest of your life because you worked for government." - Donald Trump So, that would include you, right?
     Meme intermission.

     Oh, Hitler and Goebbels would have loved this guy.
     I'm actually surprised Stephen Miller didn't use the word "Lugenpresse".

     And everything can change with a Truth Social post when, not if, when, he fires Wiles.
     Idiocracy is here literally with a vengeance.

     “It makes it all look corrupt and self-interested.” That's because it iscorrupt and self-interested,” you fucking moron.
     What these fucking idiots refuse to grasp is that enforcing the immigration laws is the sole jurisdiction of the federal government.

     Kristi Noem is literally a larper with a huge salary and budget. 

     “Trump is holding all the nation’s hospitals and vital services hostage to seize power from Congress and hand it over to billionaires... We must state the truth: this is a constitutional crisis. It’s a massive, illegal power grab that the House and Senate have a sworn duty to stop." AOC is right. Medicare services over 70,000,000 Americans, including yours truly. It's literally as if Trump is trying to kill as many Americans as humanly possible. And finally...

     This stupid cocksucker is going to get us embroiled in WWIII, you watch.

Monday, January 27, 2025

A Dictator on Day Week One

 
     Convicted criminal and adjudicated rapist Donald Trump has been squatting in the White House for one week. The guy who bragged to Hannity that he'd be a dictator only on Day One has shown no signs of letting up. And now that we have the bully back in the Oval Office, corporations, nations and the mainstream media have shown their usual fecklessness and began kissing the ring, axing or changing policies even before Trump took the oath of office.
     The guy who on the campaign trail tried to pretend he didn't know what was in Project 2025 despite it being written by up to 140 of his former aides and officials is, predictably, embracing it like the American flags that he molests. On Inauguration Day, he signed nearly 100 Executive Orders, not a single one of which being good for America, its interests or its people (except if you're in the 1%).
     It's not as if Trump is filled with energy. There were countless instances last year of him falling asleep at his trial and at the RNC convention last summer. But now he's aided by thousands of some of the most insane lunatics to ever infest the Beltway. It seems the whole point of this frenetic exercise in fascism is to simply overwhelm us and maybe it's working. America is a nation of 330,000,000 frogs in the same pot of boiling water and it's just a question of whether we'll jump out of the pot in time or boil to death while we wait for someone or some deus ex machina that'll finally put an end to this madness.
     What follows is a list that will hardly be complete or comprehensive considering the damage that Trump's already inflicted on our country in just one week.

Pete Hegseth
     As proof that we've been transported to some alternate dimension that would make even Rod Serling shake his head, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a former four star general and one of the best SecDefs in recent memory, was replaced by former Fox talking head Pete Hegseth. The very fact that he's calling the shots at the Pentagon shows what a wet-legged bunch of feckless cunts the Senate Republicans have become under Bwana Trump.
     Hegseth was confirmed by the Senate in the narrowest vote count for  SecDef in US history (51-50. with JD Vance, predictably, casting the tie-breaking vote.). Only three Republicans, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins, joined every Democrats in voting against Hegseth.
     Undeterred by the lack of confidence in the Senate, Hegseth then made as his first decision axing training films detailing the exploits of the heroic Tuskegee Airmen, or the Red Tails. This seems hardly surprising coming from a guy who wears white nationalist tattoos on his body. What was surprising was that this decision to get rid of videos of the Tuskegee airmen was reversed only when Senator Katie Britt of all people, expressed her outrage on social media. Hegseth had to be shamed into doing the right thing and reinstated the videos.
     The lickspittles in the Air Force could only say it was ""confirmed the courses with those videos had been removed and said it 'will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency and in alignment with national security objectives."
 
DEI
      In 2022, the boogeyman was CRT, or Critical Race Theory, about which Republicans pretended to be outraged. Now we're not hearing so much about CRT any more and the new Red Scare is DEI, or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Republicans and the occasional right wing Uncle Tom (pointedly, not a single one of them got a job in this criminal enterprise masquerading as a government) are always outraged over anything that tries to give African Americans a fair shot or even teaches about the real, racist history of the US. 
     By last summer, the manufactured hysteria over DEI got to a fever pitch, with three Republican scumbags calling Kamala Harris "a DEI hire" despite being elected vice president by over 81,000,000 voters. Well, Trump's loathing for DEI is so palpable that corporations have quietly begun getting rid of DEI initiatives and programs, especially after Racist Zero Donald Trump railed about it to his fellow billionaires at Davos last week. While they overwhelmingly voted against doing so in a recent shareholder vote, Costco also proposed getting rid of their DEI programs. Three days ago, Forbes published a list of all the corporations that proved to be more feckless and this list will undoubtedly exponentially grow over time.

Greenland
     Right after taking office, Trump had a call with the Danish Prime Minister that was so alarming, the government in Copenhagen lost its collective shit. Of course, the call was over Greenland, the world's largest island and one of some strategic importance. Trump suddenly became obsessed with acquiring Greenland during his first term and even floated the idea of trading it for Puerto Rico. The official narrative is that we need to own Greenland in order to counter Russian aggression, which is laughable considering Russia is the one nation on earth most responsible for shoehorning Trump back in the White House.
     No doubt, Trump threatened the Danish PM with higher tariffs, his default bullying tactic but, while I wasn't a fly on the wall during this talk, I'm sure Trump floated the idea of invading Greenland using US military forces despite being told time and again that Greenland is not for sale and that Denmark and Greenland are autonomous entities.

The Panama Canal
     Trump has also infamously set his baleful gaze on the Panama Canal, which belongs to Panama. Trump's contention is that it's being controlled by the Chinese, which China and Panama have strenuously denied. As I stated earlier, perhaps this is based on nothing more than a perpetual mad-on over Panama basically kicking out Trump and his criminal network that involved money laundering and drug and human trafficking through a Trump-branded hotel and carried out by Russian organized crime figures, some of whom winding up in prison.
     The Panama Canal has been completely in Panama's control since 1999 and President Jimmy Carter put that process in motion by signing a deal with Panama in 1977. And, yes, Trump has threatened to invade Panama using the US military as he had while threatening Denmark and Greenland. It's unclear what Trump's motivations are for this other blatant proposed theft but here's one theory.

Pardoning the Rioters
     Hours after taking office on January 20th, Trump made good on his promises (threats?) to pardon and commute the sentences of all the January 6th rioters. Thus, Trump emptied out our prisons by releasing 1500-1600 of the worst criminals, ones who had tried to overthrow the government and overturn a free and fair election. (Ironically, Trump said in Las Vegas a couple of days ago, "They empty their prisons into our country. Can you imagine somebody doing that to our country?") Yes, Donnie Dumbo, we can imagine it very well.
     Now, typically, we're seeing the fallout of those mass pardons ("Fuck it, pardon them all", Trump told aides). The January 6 committee members are seeing an uptick in death threats. Michael Fanone is seeing more of them. One pardoned rioter has already been shot dead by police in Indiana during an arrest. Another is at large after being charged with trying to solicit a minor under 17 for sex. Another was rearrested on gun charges almost immediately after being pardoned. Far from being angelic "patriots" who were simply making their voices heard, many of the rioters were already hardcore criminals, some of them being on parole or supervised release when they went to the Capitol. Plus, study after study shows that violent criminals have a very high rate of recidivism.

Mass Deportations
     One of the campaign promises on which Trump is making good is the rounding up of undocumented immigrants. The numbers are impossible to compile because ICE has been swarming all over the place like Orwell's Thought Police. If you were to ask "Border Czar" Tom Homan, who looks like Central Casting's idea of what a Nazi officer should look like, all the people who have been arrested were those with criminal records, although he couldn't promise that there wouldn't be "collateral arrests" of those without criminal records or charges.
     This Nazi-like purge of immigrants is coupled with a ridiculous Executive Order that brazenly tried to overturn or reinterpret the 14th Amendment, especially in trying to revoke birthright citizenship, which has already been struck down by a Reagan-appointed senior federal judge. Trump also revoked protections during "immigration raids on schools, hospitals, churches and other 'sensitive areas'", meaning we're going to see more families separated from their children. The last time, the crazy and cruel Trump administration separated 1500 children from their parents then lost track of them.
     Now we're seeing a mass exodus of migrant workers who are either not showing up for work or quitting their jobs for fear of getting swept up in an ICE raid. Let's see if Cletus McRedneck will step in and fill in the gap by taking back those jobs that Pedro and Maria stole from him so we're not paying $20 for a fucking orange.

Colombia
     Colombia (or, if you're in the Trump administration, "Columbia") is just the latest nation of a growing list that Trump has either alarmed, angered or alienated (Canada, Denmark, Mexico, Panama, the list goes on). This latest international crisis came about when Colombia, like Mexico, wouldn't allow migrant deportation flights into their sovereign airspace. Predictably, Trump threatened Colombia with higher tariffs. And even though he backed down from his tariff threats when Colombia's President Gustavo Petro laid down his list of demands (He didn't cave as the MSM keep insisting he had), coffee futures have already gone through the roof on Wall Street meaning that, even without this cost driver, corporate greed is already going to rise the price of coffee by as much as $3.50 a pound.

     These are just some of the evils with which the Trump administration has saddled us just in the first week. Our nation is burning, it's withering on the vine. Inflation is going up, nations and corporate executives are already showing their bellies to this administration of cheap schoolyard bullies. It will get worse.

Saturday, January 25, 2025

Good Times in Gotham City




Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Open Letter to Rev. Budde (Sent)

The Right Reverend Marian Edgar Budde

Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC

Dear Rev. Budde:

     While my opinion means little in the grand scheme of things, I feel I'd be remiss in my responsibilities as a patriotic American in a nation whose Democratic Republic is now on life support if I didn't personally applaud you for your words to "President" Donald J. Trump at the National Cathedral.
     This is the first time I've ever written to a religious leader because, frankly, I've been an atheist my entire life. Nonetheless, I have managed for the most part to lead what some would call a Christian life. I believe it was Dr. Richard Dawkins who'd once famously said (and I'm paraphrasing him) that adopting Christian tenets in one's life does not require a Christian belief system or religion. Myself, I'm of the opinion that leading a moral and supposedly Christian life and appending religion to the mix is like driving a car with a fifth wheel.
     I try to adopt the Christian virtues of charity, humility and compassion (which are often called upon, resulting in my middling efforts to help the homeless here in Phoenix, Arizona, of which there are many) when dealing with others who are even less fortunate than me without attaching to it a belief in a Supreme Being whose existence is easily confounded if not outright disproven by critical thinking and a layman's grasp of logical deduction.
     Having said that, your sermon from the pulpit at the National Cathedral days ago received worldwide attention both positive and negative. Let it be known that even those of us who do not share your religious values, in some cases, fellow atheists, loudly applaud you for speaking truth to power. If I were to suddenly abandon my atheistic values and place my spiritual salvation in the hands of any person of the cloth, it would be to either one of the Universalist Unitarians, a heavily secular denomination, or yours.
     What you'd said to Trump from behind the pulpit was something that needed to be said from a person of immense moral authority such as yourself, as no one else in your profession seems willing to walk into the Lion's Den. Your pleas to the new administration pleading for compassion and charity toward the poor and the migrants who have been immediately kept from crossing the border for immigration hearings fell on deaf ears.
     Donald Trump's face during your sermon showed he was bored and that he was only there at the National Cathedral for a photo op to show religious bona fides that simply do not exist. When you called for charity for the poor, "Vice President" JD Vance, who ought to have his hobo-bearded face next to the DSM-V entry for "sociopathy", turned to Trump and laughed. Compare Donald Trump's reaction to your sermon to that of the former House Speaker John Boehner, who was moved to tears while His Holiness Pope Francis spoke before the United States Congress (the Speaker resigned the very next day).
     Because to people of their ilk and political stripe, calls for "malice toward none, with charity for all", to quote our 16th president in his second inaugural address, is a punchline that's out of step with the realities of the world. And perhaps they have a point. Because, in the worldview of men like Donald Trump and JD Vance and those who blindly follow them, there are the Haves and Have Nots, with a vanishingly small middle class they also loathe between them. To quote Adam Serwer in a now famous article for the Atlantic, "the cruelty is the point".
     And Trump's midnight jeremiad against you showed you and the world what his brand of "Christianity" consists of: venality and retribution toward any who even mildly criticize him or even appear to. He lobbed attacks against you, called you boring, a Socialist, dishonest and unfit for the pulpit. He automatically defaulted to personal attacks against you because he knew he had nothing with which to counter your gentle counseling. In short, regardless of your intention not to do so, you embarrassed him. And, to a thin-skinned sociopath like Donald Trump, that is the unholiest of transgressions.
     The immense power of your pulpit and the amplification it gives your voice put him on notice that his jaundiced version of Christianity has not a single thing in common with the teachings of the Bible or any holy book. Don't forget, this is the same man who on June 1, 2020 used the police to violently displace nonviolent BLM protesters so he could safely walk across the street so he could have himself photographed awkwardly holding an upside down Bible he did not own in front of St. John's, a place at which he's never once worshiped. This is the same man who'd, when taking the oath of office last Monday, pointedly refused to place his hand upon the Bibles held up by his wife, even though one of them was a Bible used by the aforementioned President Lincoln for his Inaugural in 1861.
     There is nothing even remotely Christian about Donald Trump and even a blind man could see that. He cynically courts the evangelical vote because he's just smart enough to realize they make up a full quarter of the electorate and that it is impossible to win the presidency without it. Still, many believers gloss over and ignore his countless failures.
     You did not.
     And, like the back bencher junior high cheerleaders they are, several in Trump's orbit, like his spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt and aspiring man of God Franklin Graham, have lined up behind the head cheerleader, Trump, to add to the chorus of venal and puerile sneers.
     But these moral maladroits are not the ones to whom you should be listening. It is not succumbing to an echo chamber to listen only to the ones who support and commend you with full-throated praise. When your sermon went viral moments after you'd delivered it, those of us who are well-versed in the wiles and methods of the Evil One knew what to expect. And, sure enough, it came to pass. MAGA is outraged, as they are in the face of anything that does not equate to unconditional capitulation. Yet this was special because of your high position in the Beltway's religious hierarchy. It was akin to the Archbishop of Canterbury taking the Prime Minister to task during a high service. And, outraging the MAGA movement is not necessarily a bad thing.
     Reverend, I don't think you need me to tell you to literally and figuratively keep the faith. You are a woman of very uncommon integrity and common sense. Hopefully, your sermon will prove to be the first in a cascade of criticism aimed at Donald Trump, who is simply a one man crime wave and the most evil and shameless sociopath in human history without analog.

Respectfully yours,
Robert Crawford

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

It's Good To Be Back Home!

 (By Cyril Blubberpuss, Conservative-American)
We got the phone call from my baby girl, Bertha, just a week ago giving us the all-clear. Her call didn't come a moment too soon, either. Winter had deeply dug into the Czech Republic, which isn't as Republican as its name suggests, and my kid brother Cecil and I were shivering in the abandoned sex doll factory huddling up to burlap sacks of fresh yak manure (Despite what the town's mayor said, you don't get used to the smell).
    According to what Bertha said, there wasn't a spate of executive shootings after Brian Thompson and, since Bertha ran out of money to pay Sappho Security, they up and left when the contract was up. Still, she sounded happier and more relaxed since she was on the girl's weightlifting team in college.
     At any rate, Cecil and I had hastily arranged for a series of flights that involved a cheerful pilot in a leather cap and goggles, who actually had almost half his teeth, on a twin engine biplane. By the time we got to Kennedy International in Queens, people were giving us a wide berth on account of the smell of yak excrement and 25 pounds of goat cheese that clung to us like Socialist neediness.
     When we got back to 5th Avenue, I saw in the pile of mail awaiting me an invitation from my old friend Donald Trump to attend his historic inauguration yesterday. I say it was historic because it was the first time a man had taken the oath of the presidency after having been arrested four times in one year. And, if that isn't a Horatio Alger, rags to riches comeback story, I don't know what is!
     My brother and I didn't get home a moment too soon because we didn't come back from the Czech Republic until the 19th. So I barely had time to take a shower, change into my best suit and hop on another flight to Washington, DC. 
     Donald had the good sense to move the Inaugural indoors, especially as Cecil and I had almost succumbed recently to hypothermia. Plus, my old pal discovered the occupancy rate for DC's hotels was just 70% and he wisely deprived the liberal media of the opportunity to make hay over the fact that only 50 supporters would've showed up on the National Mall (which, strangely, doesn't have a single store or anything remotely resembling a mall. What a wasted opportunity for Commerce, a fact that I mentioned to Donald as he was leaving Blair House to be sworn in.).
     So we went to the Rotunda for the swearing in. Many of my fellow billionaires were there, including the "First Bro" Elon, Zuck and Jeff Bezos. Maybe I'm imagining things but they appeared to give me short shrift because I'm "only" worth exactly a billion dollars. I could be wrong but I could've sworn I heard Elon refer to me as a "pauper" under his breath when he wasn't practicing his stiff arm salute with instructions from Stephen Miller. The seating I got certainly suggested that Donald didn't have my best interests at heart.
   My seat, which is virtually isolated from the rest, put me beside a bronze statue of George Washington, which meant I had to keep my body perpetually turned to the left to see the proceedings. Still, it was an honor to be there and I considered myself to be ahead of the curve considering that former White House strategist Steve Bannon was outside freezing his fat, pasty ass doing his podcast.
     It was a splendid affair, with Trump stumbling just once (when he had to repeat his name. He kept saying, "I, John Barron" then tried to take the 5th when he was asked to uphold the Constitution). JD had taken his oath before and I could swear I heard him mutter through his smile at the president the words "25th Amendment", whatever that means.
 
     Eventually, I went with Donald to the Oval Office where, in an amazing burst of energy, he sat on his ass and signed nearly 100 Executive Orders that he was told to sign "or else". There isn't much truth to the rumor that one of them barred my kid brother Cecil from getting anywhere within 100 yards of Donald's grandsons or Elon's son that he's taken to carrying around on his shoulders (I heard a rumor the poor kid's spent so much time on Elon's shoulders that he actually forgot how to walk).
     But one of the EOs, one that made my heart burst with love and pride, was one that had been drafted out just that morning at the president's direction, designating the National Mall the Mall of America, although Minnesota already has one. In fact, the EO's title is "Fuck Tim Walz. I'm Claiming Mall of America." Not only that, it will allocate funding for an actual mall to be built on the current mall, with the anchor stores being an adult book superstore and a Victoria's Secret.

Monday, January 20, 2025

Top 10 Assclowns of the Inauguration

 
     Sieg Heil, Gothamites, and happy Inauguration day! Well, Donald Trump, the first man with a mug shot and rap sheet to be sworn in as president, couldn't wait to disappoint his supporters and opted to hold the inaugural indoors. Everyone is blaming the cold weather but the fact is, he was concerned about an anemic crowd size (No doubt, he'll still claim that 2,000,000 packed the Capitol Rotunda), thereby depriving America of another William Henry Harrison. But Trump (1, 2, 5) wasn't the only assclown in attendance, no siree. There was also Marjorie Taylor-Greene (7, 9) for shoving to the front row and claiming Democrats want to execute Republicans. There's Elon Musk (3) for his rather, um, distinctive salute and Melania Trump (8) for dressing like Jim Carrey in The Mask. So hop into the Nazi motorcycle sidecar as we celebrate the return of the Iron Eagle and much, much more!
 
10) MAGA Voters
      MAGA voters are perennially butthurt sociopaths and social maladroits who start reaching for their AR 15s when their pork rinds aren't crispy enough. So it's only natural that some of them had some whimpering objections when Trump decided to bring the Inauguration into the Capitol Rotunda (Yes, literally a case of the criminal returning to the scene of the crime). Some of them spent thousands in leaving their respective Upper Voltas of the American heartland so they could attend. But when Trump got wind the hotel room occupancy in the Capitol was hovering somewhere around 70%, he decided while they were still chugging along in their pickups to literally leave them out in the cold.

      This was what awaited the morons, who were told the tickets they paid for were "commemorative" and that the money they spent for them would be considered donations. One can reasonably expect this will no doubt be the first of many disappointments as Trump will show his voters who follows him like he's Jerry Garcia that he cares about as much for them as Hitler did the Jews who voted for him in 1933.

9) Marjorie Taylor-Greene
      Let it not be said that Marjorie Taylor-Greene stands on tradition. Rather, she stands on its neck. Greene went on Steve Bannon's podcast, Real Post Weimar Republic Germany's Voice, (also outside in the freeing cold) to brag about cutting in line at Trump's inaugural. Typically, at a presidential inauguration, your place in line is determined by seniority. But that's not how Greene sees it. She told Bannon, "As I looked along the entire line of Republicans and Democrats lined up, and they were lining us up by seniority, I looked at that, and I said, this is ridiculous. We need to be lining up by who supports President Trump the most. And that is, I said, that's me."
     Maybe someone should remind Trump's number one bleacher bum that, despite all her support over the years, Trump didn't see fit to give her a job in his government, thereby finally giving Georgia-14 a break from being represented by a spittle-flecked gym rat.

8) Melania Trump
      God knows this isn't a fashion blog but there are just some crimes of apparel that simply cry out for ridicule and commentary. And, Melania's choice of black certainly invites comparisons to funerals, which is very much in keeping with the nation mourning the death of our Great Experiment. And, fittingly, the woman who'd once decorated the White House for Christmas with dead trees decided to go to her husband's inaugural in an outfit that had to be seen to be believed. Her hat alone make her look like a cross between Zorro and the Hamburglar. Which is a pretty ironic thing considering Trump's unhealthy diet. I'm sure much of America can't wait to see what she wears to Trump's funeral, that is, if she can be bothered to show up.

7) Marjorie Taylor-Greene
     It shouldn't surprise anyone that MTG, like virtually every Republican, is an inexhaustible wellspring of wingnuttery, bile and ignorance. Her bragging on Steve Bannon's podcast about cutting in line at the inaugural was just a warmup for her newest conspiracy theory: That Democrats want to line up Republicans against a wall and execute them. This is what Greene said to Bannon, another wingnut left by Trump on the dustbin of history: "These people would line us up in front of a firing squad and kill us if they could. We know exactly who the Democrats are. Their mask is off."
     Maybe MTG shouldn't be giving Democrats any bright ideas, especially considering the Democrats' paucity of them. Besides, Marjie, shooting our enemies against toilet blocks is so 1989 Romania. That's why we have Jewish Space Lasers.

6) The Biden and Trump Administrations
     Wow, that was quick.
     Before the Trump junta even took over today, the government's Reproductive Rights website went dark and, as the above image shows, if you try to access www.ReproductiveRights.gov, all you'll get is a 404 page. Actually, according to the Wayback Machine, it was last active on January 15th, meaning the Biden administration began obeying the Trump junta in advance.
     Reproductiverights.gov offered women free advice on reproductive healthcare as well as directing them to much-needed organizations and resources. In fact, according to the Office of Population Affairs, it offered "birth control, medication, abortion services, and other preventive health services, as well as important facts about privacy, rights associated with reproductive health care, and how people with and without health insurance can obtain reproductive health care.” This comes off as especially tone-deaf considering the death yesterday of reproductive rights activist Cecile Richards.
     Just in case any of you were still hoping that Project 2025 wouldn't actually become a thing.

5) Donald Trump
     Here's what Sen. Richard Blumenthal wrote on Twitter today:
     "I was hoping for a unifying message — a speech seeking to bring us together & heal our differences. Instead, it was replete with grievance & grandiosity — playing to cultural & political divisions. I was struck by the panorama of Big Tech billionaires on a platform raised above Supreme Court Justices, placed ahead of Cabinet members. Governors were relegated to a separate room, including Republican Governors. It was a picture of a government for sale."
 
     Waving aside for a moment the laughable trust of Blumenthal actually expecting a message of unity from the most divisive world leader since Hitler, he pinpoints Trump's true loyalties, which should come as no surprise to anyone who's been paying even cursory attention to this corrupt assclown. The only surprise is that Trump didn't supplant the presidential seal on his lectern with a For Sale sign.

4) The ADL

     As you'll find out a little further down, Elon Musk got himself in the news again for giving Trump a stiff arm Nazi salute at the end of his speech at the Capitol One arena. You'd think that gesture would be readily identifiable to all, considering it was used by the Nazis and is still used by neoNazi organizations. It's easily the most identifiable gesture used by white supremacists. So we can call a spade a spade, yes? Not so fast.
     Musk's salute was shrugged off by the @ADL. Yes, the Anti Defamation League. It was "an awkward gesture", they said, "at a delicate moment." 
 
     We saw Elmo the Nazi giving a Nazi salute to other Nazis. This is apparently what the ADL saw.
     Yes, I'm sure the 6,000,000 Jews who were murdered in the death camps would've been just as understanding and deferential as you. This is the definition of "obeying in advance." Yes, the ADL, which has been combating antisemitism for decades, thinks Musk, who's essentially the spokesman for Germany's AfD, was guilty of making an "awkward gesture." Oy vey.
 
3) Herr Elmo
     I'm not sure that giving an iconic Nazi salute at a presidential inauguration is what I'd call emblematic of a peaceful transfer of power.
     Echoing Laura Ingraham's despicable Nazi salute to Trump in 2016, Elon decided to give his own at the Capitol One arena after his speech today. 

     It didn't help matters any that CNN, in its coverage of the inauguration, associated Musk with the still nonexistent Department of Government Efficiency, which would have to be created and funded by Congress. Seriously, folks, they're not even trying to hide it, anymore. Oh, and the German Nazi movement's official Get Out The Vote chairman is getting an office in the West Wing for a job that doesn't even exist.

2) Donald Trump
     Donald Trump's "second presidency" is already paying dividends. For instance, he saved the Capitol from burning down today. He did that by pointedly not putting his left hand on the Bibles held by Melania, one of which being the Bible used for Abraham Lincoln's first inauguration in 1861. And he prevented a fire because he knew that if he touched it, the Bibles would have burst into flames.
     Keep in mind this is the same asshole who'd preened for the cameras on June 1st 2020 just moments after he used police and the military to clear the streets of peaceful protesters. We all remember that shameful photo op in front of St. John's so he could hold a Bible upside down while he scowled at the cameras. Knowing he had no intention of defending the Constitution, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts Trump was hedging his bets and not swearing on the word of God.

1) Donald Trump
     So, after Donnie Dumbo misnamed Spain as a BRICS nation (Naturally, Pravda didn't call their boy out on that colossal flub), threatened a 100% tariff on BRICS nations, announced he was changing Mount Denali's name to Mount McKinley and that he was going to take back the Panama Canal, Trump went straight to the Oval Office and signed nearly 100 Executive Orders. One of them was to pardon virtually every single one of the January 6th rioters, about 1500 of them. They include the worst of the worst, like Guy Reffitt and Enrique Tarrio.
     This hardly merits this series' usual snark and humor because many of these lunatics have become more radicalized than ever. Families are in danger. The public at large is in danger. The Proud Boys leader is free. The Oath Keepers' leader is free. The people who assaulted 140 cops and made four commit suicide are going to be loose on the streets and they're going to have an axe to grind. It shouldn't surprise anyone that a convicted criminal would set 1500 other criminals free because Trump threatened he would. What he did today in setting those maniacs loose was the ultimate trolling of the criminal justice system that he's always held in contempt ever since it set its sights on him.

KindleindaWind, my writing blog.

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