The Enemy From Within, Indeed

 

     So there a hunched over Donald Trump sat across from Maria Bartiromo, looking like a melting bowl of orange sherbert, and saying in the slow, raspy, low energy cadence of an aging mafia don, that the National Guard or even the military needs to be deployed against (ho hum) "radical left lunatics" (which is essentially anyone who disagrees with him about anything).

     At best, as any critic of media can expect, this produced little more than a low hum, like the kind a very small percentage of people hear in Taos, New Mexico.

    Naturally, the right wing broke their thick necks to circle the Nazi motorcycles complete with the sidecars to explain Donald Trump didn't say what he was recorded on videotape as saying: That he fully intends to violate the Posse Comitatus Act of 1874 or invoking the Insurrection Act against American citizens that he perceives as enemies. Oh no, that's not what he meant, they assured us. It was, uh, the Russians and Chinese who are, uh, the enemies from within. That would be the Russians and Chinese that Trump never once meaningfully opposed when he was allowed to pose as the president.

     Whose leaders Trump has praised time and again.

     Since then, he's only doubled and tripled down on his worst tendencies, such as at today's "town hall" he had with Harris Faulkner (VP Harris had her own time on Fox today with Bret Baier, who tried to fool Harris and the American people that Trump has indeed walked back his threat to sic the military on us by airing a very selectively-edited clip.).

     It doesn't really profit you or I to say just how horrible and fascistic this is, at Trump threatening to brutalize or kill Americans just for criticizing or disagreeing with him because these things should be self-evident.

     What's even scarier and what we should be talking about is what the Republican Party's real plan is for Trump. I'd already gone into this over a month ago. It's not Project 2025 with which we should be immediately concerned but their Project 25.

     In case you missed that post, it's where I proposed that the GOP's ultimate plan, their long game, is to drag Trump's bloated body across the finish line, then immediately invoke the 25th amendment, then shoehorn Vance into the padded chair behind the Resolute Desk. This makes an abundant amount of sense. Vance is about to turn 40, meaning he still has decades to go. Trump is obviously past his expected life span and is getting more senile by the day.

      Now, two decades of political punditry has shown me too much for anyone to dissuade me from my belief that Republicans are the world's stupidest meatbags on two legs. But one would have to be an utter moron to not see and admit at least privately that Donald Trump is crazier than a shithouse rat on meth. And it's probably on more than one Republican's 2024 Bingo card that Trump will walk out any day wearing a Pennywise costume and painting the Last Supper on a nearby wall with his own fecal matter. Consider what had happened just yesterday in Oak, Pennsylvania.

     There Trump stood at a so-called Town Hall. It was sweltering in the box where they held this event. One person fainted from the heat. Then another.

 

     The rallygoers yelled at, begged Trump to have someone turn on the air conditioning. He sat there, looking at one or the other, completely as one could expect unconcerned about the safety and well-being of his supporters. Suddenly, Trump decides he's not going to take any more questions and to just play music.

     So, for the next 39 consecutive minutes, Trump stood on stage waving his hands and doing his jerking off two invisible gigantic penises dance while his every gesture was aped by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Maybe Noem didn't get the memo that JD Vance was named his running mate but during those excruciating 39 minutes, Noem gave the impression that if Trump wanted to throw pieces of a dog at the audience, Noem would've run out to the parking lot, grabbed her gun and killed someone's dog for Trump.

     It was classic sundowning.

     Sundowning is actually a medical term for sufferers of dementia who begin to fade at the end of the day. There weren't just two medical emergencies in that glorified storage container but three. Seriously, Trump decided on the spot to play nearly 40 minutes of music while people were fighting to stay conscious, playing DJ like he was at a wedding.

     Again, this was ostensibly a town hall, a venue in which politicians answer questions from the audience. 

     Now, speaking as someone who's cared for someone with dementia, I can state with absolute authority that, at a certain point in the disease's progression, the derangement progresses exponentially. In other words, skills are lost one after another with lightning speed. And the closer we get to the election, the more Trump is losing it. And at the rate he's slipping, he'll need to be spoon fed by November.

     Republicans, as stupid as they generally are, cannot avoid seeing this. Dementia affects all too many families regardless of political allegiance. They know Trump's not going to be around much longer. Mounting another campaign for the 2028 election is simply not happening. By then, if he's still alive, Trump will be spitting tapioca all over his bib.

     Therefore, if you're a Republican, it makes much more sense to play the long game and Vance is certainly in on it. All they have to do is play Weekend at Bernie's with Trump's bloated body for the next three weeks then invoke the 25th Amendment the minute Trump starts dribbling diarrhea out his pants leg. Vance becomes the 48th president, Project 2025 becomes a thing. Fade to black. Forever.

     Trump is officially a Trojan Horse at this point and the sooner we fully admit this, the better prepared we'll be on Election Day.

I'm in Facebook Arkham Asylum

 

     There's something truly sinister going on with social media and it's not just one or the other. It's both Twitter and Facebook. And the trend is unmistakable. People critical of Trump and the right wing are getting suspended left and right (actually, just left) or, as in the case of Ken Klipperstein, getting their accounts axed by Elmo just for reporting the truth.

     Four days ago, I got suspended from posting on Facebook for putting up the first lead image. It was allegedly for just 24 hours but, true to Fuckbook form, they've been capriciously adding another day on every day. Every time I log on, I'm told my "posting privileges" won't be reinstated until 2:46 tomorrow morning. It's like Groundhog Day, minus the laughs.

     Of course, it's all done with brainless algorithms but the way they're programmed is unmistakable - If you're against Trump, expect to get swatted down. Elmo Musk has made his bias unmistakable so there's no doubt in anyone's mind why he bought Twitter two years ago.

     But Zuckerberg has hardly been more subtle and he hides his own passive version of fascism with hardly more nuance. Think this is another liberal conspiracy theory? Try this on for size:

     

     Let me introduce you to Dustin Carmack. Carmack, as the picture tells us, is a contributor to the universally-reviled Project 2025, the radical right wing's version of Hitler's Enabling Act. Everything in that picture is true. "Public Policy Director", his official job title, sounds like something that would've been dreamed up by Goebbels. But being the author of a chapter in Project 2025 is just the tip of the iceberg.

    Carmack also recently worked for Ron DeSantis' slow motion Hindenburg of a presidential campaign. He was hired by Meta last August by Zuckerberg for obvious reasons, to suppress left wing content on the big blue meanie but it actually goes a lot deeper than that.

     This revelation of Carmack's hiring was broken by Alejandra Caraballa on Twitter and whose Twitter account was, surprise surprise, taken down by Elmo.

     This neatly dovetails into Facebook's and Zuckerberg's pious decision to avoid political content during this election cycle, which I guess included lifting Trump's ban from the site as well as allowing right wing content to spread throughout Facebook like a sewer gas leak.

      While progressive content and pro LGBTQ posts to get taken down under the vague and obligatory "goes against community standards", right wingers and neo Nazis are allowed to call gay people "pedophiles" and "groomers".

      All this is supposed to calm the jitters of Fuckbook's investors who don't want a repeat of the same clusterfuck that hit the domain after the 2016 election. And if you have any illusions that the restrictions will be lifted after this election, guess again.

     Former GOP Congressman Bob Barr once famously said, "If you give government power, it will use it "

     Does anyone out there think the same doesn't apply to right wing, self-dealing corporations like Facebook?

America First

      As I've stated recently, Trump's three campaigns for president are loaded with inflection points. They are thickly studded with deal breakers that would spell doom for any other candidate for president. Joe Biden's own bid for president in 1988 was immediately derailed with allegations of plagiarism. Gary Hart's candidacy was ended with news of an affair. Same thing with John Edwards. In fact his own affair ended his entire political career.

     That same year, 1988, Michael Dukakis' bid for the presidency was torpedoed because he got into a tank. George HW Bush's scummy Willie Horton ad didn't help any. That failed bid essentially ended Dukakis' political career, as well.

     Back then, that's all it took. It was the heyday for political scumbag tricksters like Lee Atwater. A little rumor, well-placed news article alleging some middling moral or ethical turpitude and you could call it a day.

     With Donald Trump, there have been so many missed opportunities to end his campaigns that it's laughable to even expect there will be an inflection point that will get him out of our lives forever. At this point, Trump could literally shoot someone on 5th Avenue and this race would still be neck and neck.

     Because when you lead a cult consisting of 70,000,000 people, all is forgiven and you can literally do no wrong. And there are almost too many of these deal-breaking inflection points to count over the last nine years.The first one arguably was in July 2015, just weeks after he rode down that escalator, to savage Sen. John McCain's war service. "I like guys that weren't captured," said the five time draft dodger. It should've ended right there.

     Then he mocked a disabled reporter. Asked Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's emails. I haven't even gotten into 2020. It's literally insane that the GOP's nominee in 2020 was a guy who was already impeached once but there we were.

     There have been plenty of inflection points galore in this election cycle, God knows, especially as Trump's dementia progresses. And then Bob Woodward provided us with another bombshell. In his upcoming book, War, Woodward tells us that Trump had given Vladimir Putin COVID testing kits at a time when we had had precious few. 

     Naturally, Trump snarled at Woodward and called the allegations fake news. But the problem is the Kremlin itself had supported Woodward's account and admitted that Trump did indeed send them to Russia. But, as usual, the press got it wrong. These weren't mere testing kits like the swabs you still have in your medicine chest at home.

     These were molecular point-of-care test machines that hospitals desperately needed at the time to rapidly detect infections at the onset of the pandemic. And not only that, they were sent for Putin's personal use. Specifically, the ones he'd sent to Russia were the Abbott Labs test machines that quickly acquired a reputation for giving false positives and negatives, which is the only funny part of this story.

     Of course, this was done with the usual hugger mugger secrecy because that's the way Putin wanted it. The Russian dictator tried to couch it in terms designed to show concern for Trump but the reality was, Putin didn't want to be exposed as being the dictator of a country that was so primitive it didn't even have testing technology for the deadliest pandemic in a century.

     Of course, if we were still living on Rachel Maddow's Earth One, this alone would place indelible mockery on Trump's dog-eared motto of America First (that was first used by the KKK, don't forget). But we no longer live on Earth One. We live on Earth Two.

Good Times at Pottersville

 

Rest in Peace, Kit

  I rarely check my Facebook notifications. I just found out today how much I truly suck at it.
Years ago, when I first got back on Facebook, I made friends with Kit Frazier (real name Cyndee Katherine DuHadaway). She was a fellow mystery novelist who'd created Cauley MacKinnon (ironically, an obituary writer) and we took to each other immediately. We'd quickly begun DMing each other. She was out of Austin. Texas at the time then by 2018, our conversations started taking a darker turn.
According to Kit, she was getting sent by the US government to all these hotspots all over the world. Russia. Ukraine. Places like that. She wasn't just a fellow mystery novelist but a photojournalist, which was got her sent to these dangerous places. I still don't understand why the US government was sending her to these places. But, while she was close-mouthed about what and why she was actually overseas, she'd begun speaking of handlers and babysitters, people whose job it was to look out for her life. In other words, real Jason Bourne spy shit.
Kit was one of those people we meet occasionally in our lives that had an element of strangeness to it either because they solicit that strangeness, like Andrew Vachss (Probably Barbara's favorite novelist ever), or because the strangeness enveloped their lives without invitation. I still don't wholeheartedly believe that Kit was on these various missions all over the world but the fact was, she never gave me the impression she lived in a fantasy world or lied to people as a matter of course. She wasn't a cat fisher.
During our chats, which ended in 2018, we'd made loose plans we both knew we'd never realize, like my going to Austin, Texas so she could take me to a great indie bookstore in that city. I even bought one of her books, which I never had the chance to read. Then, one day in October 2018, she just blipped out and I never heard from her again.
Her birthday was two days ago and that's how I found out she'd died nearly four and a half years ago. I finally checked my Facebook notifications and noticed that Kit's birthday was two days ago. The funny thing was, I was thinking about Kit within the last week and wondered what had become of her, at what she was up to now.
So I sent a pre-written birthday wish she'd never read then went to her wall and that's when I got the news.
It started out ominously. People wrote comments on her wall over the years saying how she would've loved this and that. Another mutual friend had died. Someone wanted Kit to show her around in heaven. Oh no.
I kept scrolling down her wall and finally arrived at the announcement that she had passed away the day before, June 5, 2020, surrounded by family. I still don't know what had killed her. But whatever the circumstances, she'd left this earth way too young.
She was an unnaturally beautiful woman both inside and out, her blonde hair almost always up in a girlish, high ponytail. She loved her dogs, her kids, her friends. And, for the rest of my life, I'm going to wonder if the shit the government made her do six years ago contributed to her death. If you read our private conversations, you'd immediately see it was weird hugger-mugger shit.
This one really hurts because Kit and I liked each other so much. We saw in each other a kindred spirit, in some ineffable, indefinable way. And the world is so much poorer in the wake of her very untimely passing.

Trump and Vance: Two Sides of a Counterfeit Coin

     Trump is droning on in Butler, PA right now and I couldn't take more than 4 or 5 minutes of the live feed. It started with some opera singer serenading Corey Comperatore's helmet and empty firefighting jacket and I had to shut it off when he started ranting about the current administration. But while he was eulogizing a guy whose name he wouldn't be able to remember without a teleprompter and talking up his widow about whom he was making jokes with donors just the other day, RSBN had the colossal bad taste to put up an inset ad for Trump's latest grift, a "silver" fight coin commemorating the day Comperatore was shot and killed. Earlier, JD Vance quoted scripture and claimed that Trump had God on his side on July 13th and that it was a "miracle" he was still alive. Sure it was a miracle. That's why you're both yammering on from behind bulletproof plexiglass.

Cumming to a Swing State Near You

     Albeit with a somewhat generous perspective.

Must See TV? Hardly.

 

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

"He’s slick. Walz is folksy and relatable. In the final analysis, VP debates are interesting but irrelevant. I can’t think of one that moved the needle in a presidential race.” -Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA)

Last night's vice presidential debate could be used as an object lesson as to why VP debates ought to be eliminated and unceremoniously dumped on the ash heap of history. After all, most if not all political pundits would agree that presidential debates don't move needles or change hearts and minds. At this stage of the game, most voters have already made up their minds as to how they're going to vote. So, how efficacious can VP debates be? It's like hurling spitballs at a fast-moving train. It's the B side of a hit record that we listen to half-heartedly and out of perhaps mere misplaced loyalty to a brand.

     It's notable that the only people who think Vance won last night are right wing, hyper-partisan hacks. Trump and Vance basically told the same lies at their respective debates and the only difference was that Vance, firmly ensconced in his charming Mr. Goodbar persona, was slicker at it than Trump. And a liar cannot and should not be considered the winner of any debate.

     And that's what Vance is to those of us who can easily cut through that Yale-educated, preppy, oleaginous charm, that borderline creepy, smiling guy at the end of the bar, all too eager to exploit your lifetime of moral failings so he can indulge in his.

     The video above, to me, is the signature and singular moment of the night. Some will say, and have, that it was really when Gov. Walz put Vance's feet to the fire and asked him if he thought Trump lost the 2020 election. Vance pulled his feet back and said he wanted to focus on the future, conveniently forgetting that past is prologue and that Trump hasn't changed a bit since he was seven years-old much less in the last four years.

     But that clip above exposed Vance's peevishness and real attitude toward the two female moderators. Vance had advanced another lie, that Springfield's Haitian migrants were living there illegally. Margaret Brennan, one of the moderators, reminded Vance that the Haitians were living and working under a temporary protected status. Vance whined that the rules stipulated that CBS wasn't supposed to do any fact-checking.

     In other words, Vance counted on CBS' unofficial injunction not to fact check as part of his debate strategy. He thought CBS would let him lie unchallenged. In fact, Vance got so strident they had to cut off his microphone.

    

     This was the exact moment Vance tried to fact-check CBS' fact check. Like Mitt Romney in 2012, Vance isn't the type of alpha male who likes being interrupted by a woman. In fact, Vance looks like he's chewing his tongue off trying to resist the urge to ask Nora O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan if they have kids and own cats.

 

 So, WTF?

So, how can CBS justify taking away 88 minutes that their viewers can't get back? Not a whole helluva lot, apparently.

   This election cycle gave birth to a new word in the lexicon. It even has its own hashtag: #sanewashing. It's when the mainstream media bend over backwards trying to make a clearly insane presidential candidate sound normal by tailoring clips of a word salad so said candidate doesn't sound as if he was about to drop his drawers and pleasure himself in front of a crowd.

    What the American viewer is left with are sound bytes lasting for all of two seconds at a time and stitched together as the MSM tries mightily to extract some sense like an industrious cryptocurrency crook trying to mine bitcoins. And we know why they do this: To keep the ad buys coming in, which is good for the bottom line, which is good for the top executives, which is good for the shareholders.

     It's not, however, good for the news consumer that's falsely fed the perception that Donald Trump is a perfectly sane stable genius. The MSM want to keep the illusion of the horse race that's neck and neck. No one wants to watch much less bet on a horse race between a thoroughbred and a broken down, sway-backed nag that ought to be on its way to the glue factory.

     If you want to know how desperate Trump is for attention and was last night, take a gander of what he put out on Truth Social during last night's debate:

    

     Which shows not only a shocking lack of focus during a make-or-break presidential campaign but it also shows Trump once again advocating for a known crook who'd bet on games in which his teams were playing. But to get back to Vance...

    JD Vance is literally the first VP pick in history who called his own running mate "America's Hitler" and "cultural heroin". Therefore, his place on Trump's ticket makes him, I'd opine, the biggest, most opportunistic whore and all-around fucking scumbag in US political history, which is saying something. Early this morning on Twitter, Ana Navarro wrote,

   "JD Vance’s an able shape-shifter. He’s been a Hillbilly. A Hollywood elite. A Never-Trumper. A Trump psychophant. Demeaning of women. A bigoted liar. He’s been consistent at being slick. Yesterday, he took the shape of a cordial guy discussing policy.

     Believe him at your peril."

     Which is probably the most astute and spot-on assessment that anyone's ever ventured of Vance.

 

 So Who Won?

That's not my call but yours, assuming you watched the debate as I had. All I can do is give you my subjective opinion. As is often if not always the case, there were cringe-worthy moments and all that's left is to decide if they were forced or unforced errors.

     One of the most cringe-worthy moments of the night was when Walz tried to play up his 2nd amendment credentials and blurted out that he was friends with school shooters. Of course, that's not what Walz meant to say. He either meant that he was friends with school shooting victims or had been friends with other students who were also gun owners. Walz, admittedly, is not the most articulate guy. So chalk up that gaffe to an unforced error.

    Of course, the rabid right in its desperation immediately took to social media to lambaste him for saying he was friends with school shooters, exactly the kind of people the rabid right wing wants to do absolutely nothing about, including infringing the rights of 15 year-olds to bear arms. Another cringe-worthy unforced error was when Walz began reminiscing about his childhood in Nebraska. One almost dreaded an anecdote about him having to walk to school in blizzards, uphill, both ways.

    And then there were JD Vance's forced errors, such as refusing to admit that Trump lost in 2020, that Springfield's Haitian workers were living there legally. In fact, perhaps the biggest whopper of the night was when Vance insisted that Trump peacefully transferred power on January 20th. And, just like that, Vance blithely pretended to forget about what Trump had done two weeks earlier, which was to sic a violent mob on his own government and his last vice president. It was an insurrection that cost nine human beings their lives, four by suicide.

     Vance also forgot to mention that Trump's "peaceful transfer of power" involved childishly avoiding the inauguration ceremony, firing the White House's chief usher so there would be no one to open the doors for President Joe Biden and the First Lady. Oh, and using Air Force One one last time to ferry stolen top secret documents back to Mar a Lago.

     JD Vance gave us exactly what we expected, at least among those of us like Ana Navarro and I: Teflon-coated lies, lies that, naturally, escaped serious scrutiny. This was exemplified by the usually useless Jake Tapper of CNN, who actually said on live national television that Vance had a clear advantage over Walz in terms of public speaking experience. I don't know where Tapper got his information from but Tim Walz has been the governor of Minnesota for nearly seven years. And, for years before that, he was a congressman. Vance has been in the Senate for barely over a year and a half. So, where does Vance get this vaster debate experience? (Bonus fact: Walz is 20 years older than Vance.)

     What we didn't expect was a buttoned-down Tim Walz. For most of the night, Walz looked like a chin puppet who woke up to find himself suddenly transported to a bordello on two-for-one night. He was clearly out of his element, like a mackerel on the bottom of a fishing boat. Gone was the "folksy, relatable" Midwesterner that Gerry Connolly spoke of. This was what happened to Ned Lamont in 2006 when he beat Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary and he started listening to his focus groups.

     Vance may have won the debate on style points but that's just because he's a slicker and more accomplished liar than Tim Walz. Walz had the facts on his side but facts, as with the truth, often play the handmaiden to lies and falsehoods during an election year.

Interview With Congressman Jack Kimble (CA-54)

     For nigh unto 16 years, I've been running a byline on this liberal septic tank of a blog in a desperate attempt to inject some ideological balance and conservative common sense into it. I've posted my byline and even had written a few letters to stalwart patriots. But one thing I'd never done was interview one of those fellow Conservative-Americans. Then one day I was tooling around on Twitter, a great social media site for those of us who think the US Constitution can be a bore, inconvenience and a nuisance, when I met a true Republican superhero and his name is Jack Kimble from California's great 54th district. Jack is not only a multi-term Congressman but also a literary powerhouse in his own right and is the author of the deathless crime thriller, Detective Jesus, as well as Profiles in Courageousness for those of you who still believe in law and order as well as great Republican entertainment.

 

1) Congressman, I try to stay apprised of politics in between corporate raiding and tax evasion. But, regardless of how current the map is, I cannot find California's 54th congressional district. So what do you represent?

 

I represent the 54^th District, which is the greatest district in California and one of the greatest in the entire country but more than that I represent freedom, liberty, the downtrodden and the American people.

2) The liberal muckrakers are making hay over the fact that Tim Pool and several other conservative influencers work for a company that was given $10,000,000 at a clip of $100,000 a week to simply give their listeners a more Russian point of view. What are your views of this misunderstood and maligned act of Russian generosity?

 

This is foreign interference and I refuse to condone any sort of propaganda efforts that include bribing America’s influencers yet fails to include our hard-working legislators.

3) You came within a cat's whisker of being named Trump's running mate. Do you harbor any ill will toward the Trump campaign and what do you think the president's reasons were for passing on you and picking fellow bestselling author JD Vance?

 

I think I was let down by my supporters not buying enough copies of Detective Jesus #1: Thou Shalt Not Kill to put it on any of the best seller lists. I know it hurts, but those of you who call yourselves my supporters utterly failed me.

4)

     My baby brother Cecil, seen above, was a budding corporate titan who'd set up www.cecilsprays.com, the world's first video sex chat room. His business model was simple: My family had used their connections in the Soviet KGB to "acquire", let's say, male talent from Eastern European youth hostels and gave them economic opportunities by domiciling them in an abandoned sex doll factory in Slovenia. Then one of the ungrateful whelps sawed his foot off and escaped and that's when everything fell apart.

     So, my question to you, Congressman, is have you set up any businesses on the side during your time in Congress?

 

Not really though I am looking to sell watches now. In the brief period between when I left the Trump administration and my return to Congress, I worked at Mugs-N-Such. Mostly, I sold the such.

5) My late father, Ambrose, was a Congressman himself out of New York City and, in the first six months of 1952, served the most glorious quarter term in Congressional history. The only thing that derailed his political career was a whiny 19 year-old intern who just couldn't adjust to having my father's hand up her dress up to eight hours a day. But you've been in Congress out of CA-54 for several terms. What's the secret to your longevity?

 

I try to avoid politics like the plague. It feels like most arguments on my job start with politics. I’ve made it my business to avoid all political discussions and focus on other things like our fantasy football teams or barbecue tips.

6)

     My little girl, Bertha, departs from the family's conservative values by supporting LGBTQ+ rights. At least, she appears to as she stares down at our maid Rosie from the top of the stairs while curling 50 pound dumb bells. My good friend Donald Trump exposed a nefarious ring of predators by telling the American people that their sons are coming back home as girls because school nurses are performing illegal gender reassignment surgery in the nurse's office. What would you do in your next term to keep these deviants from doing this to our children?

 

The key is keeping the nurses out of schools and we can best do that by cutting education funding. That money could then be used to cut taxes on America’s job creators.

7) I was at the 9/11 ceremony recently and stood behind President Trump and JD Vance. It gave my heart a thrill seeing JD doing a brisk business at Ground Zero, madly making change and wearing two dozen MAGA hats on his head. How did you commemorate 9/11, Congressman?

 

I like to dial 911 and talk to whoever picks up the phone. A lot of times, they don’t see the connection between the date and their phone number. It’s always a good chance to leisurely catch up with an American citizen and remember we’re all Americans.

8) I was in Florida just today playing golf with President Trump when the latest assassination attempt happened. The Secret Service knocked me over as they all jumped on Trump like a bunch of bums on the last roast beef sandwich at a Bowery soup kitchen. Apparently, they'd seen a rifle barrel poking out of a bush and after they finally unpeeled themselves off him, the president said, "I still want to a drop a golf ball in the middle of the fairway," before raising his fist at that fairway on the 5th Hole even though there was no one on it to see his heroic gesture of defiance.

     My question, Congressmen, is what can we do to strengthen security around incredibly unpopular Republicans that even other Republicans want to kill?

 

There was a John Travolta movie in the 1970s about a boy who lived in a bubble. Surely after 50 years, we should have the technology to make one of those bubbles bullet proof.

9) Taylor Swift is obviously trying to make President Trump look bad. While Trump leaves cities and large security debts behind, Swift buys popularity by donating to food pantries and giving away vast sums of money in every city in which she performs. What conservative celebrity of Swift's stature can we find in the last 35 days before the election to endorse Trump and tip the scales back in his favor?

 

A lot of people don’t remember Scott Baio’s musical career, but he seems poised to take on Taylor Swift in a battle of the bands with the loser dropping out of the election.

10) Taylor Swift aside, other liberal musicians like Jack White and Issac Hayes' corpse have sued President Trump and preventing him from honoring their music at his rallies. Should Trump instead play music by proper conservative musicians like Ted Nugent and Kid Rock? Or should he stay with gay hookup songs by the Village People?

 

I think if Ted Nugent wrote a gay hookup song, it would be amazing. The man has that kind of talent. There’s no reason our musicians can’t create songs that people can dance to.

11) 

President Trump has been getting a lot of flak lately from the liberal media about alternative reality theorist Laura Loomer being attached to his campaign like an Alabama tick on a moose. Of course, it's just the usual liberal alarmism. Not only is Ms Loomer a brilliant citizen journalist, she also injects an element of terror that the Trump campaign doesn't have and needs. And her face alone, which makes her look like a vinyl masked bank robber, can scare voters out of voting for Harris.

     So, conveniently setting aside the fact that she's seen with the president much, much more often than his own wife, Melania, what other benefits do you see having Loomer on Trump Force One and Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Express?

 

During the campaign, I truthfully only see limited value on having her advise the President. However, after the election, I think Ms. Loomer will be able to lock America’s enemies in rooms and give them a series of painful and deadly challenges over closed circuit television monitors.

12) I'm going to close out this interview by making an observation on the unrest in Springfield, Ohio. The Haitians are obviously there to take the black jobs that were created by the Trump administration nearly four years ago. Since Hillbilly Elegy showed us what a gifted storyteller JD Vance is, should the senator continue spinning tales to add to our already rich national mythology regarding non-white workers or should we let the bomb threats run their course?

 

Haiti is a very different place from the US, but the immigrants are very hard workers. I believe JD has mentioned a plan to put them to work in the furniture industry. If they were fed in the factory, we could get them into a more American-style diet.

Pottersvile Digest

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     Well, well, look who just got disbarred in DC.

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     Go fuck yourself, you little twerp.

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     And, while I'm at it, while I appreciate his contributions to popular crime fiction, I also have to say you can go fuck yourself, my Lord. (Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC)

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     And so it begins. 38 days before the election, North Carolina just axed nearly 10% of its registered voters from the rolls.

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     Yet, McConnell himself had absolutely no problem with nuking the filibuster when it came to the nomination of federal judges. Hypocrisy much, Mitch?

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     #1, Pence looked for a way to make his boss happy on January 6th. This was why he contacted Dan Quayle and Michael Luttig. #2, as long as they keep referring to that traitor as "the president", their movement won't go anywhere. That GOP that dreams of better days is what made and empowered that monster in the first place. And as long as the GOP remains this feeble-minded and feckless, they will never evolve from where they are now. And if the Republican Party had shown us anything over the past century, it's that evolution isn't their strong suit.

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     Yesterday, the House had passed a continuing resolution (a stopgap bill) to fund the government until Dec. 20, 341-82.

     All 82 nays came from Republicans.

     I know. I was shocked, too.

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     Just five months on the job and he's already under criminal investigation. Republicans. Our babies learn so young, don't they?

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    Two things these commentators failed to mention is that women past their 40s can still have children. Women reach menopause at different ages. Plus, where does it say that women above 50 still won't be concerned about reproductive health care for their daughters, granddaughters and nieces?

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     Is violent psychopathy a prerequisite to being a Republican?

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     It's a sad day when the government can't trust its own police department to do its job.

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     No blue dot for you!

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     Yeah, this will win Pennsylvania for him.

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     "An NBC News investigation published Thursday found that the slowest mail in the country is in battleground states."

     Strictly coincidental, I'm sure. (A 2nd tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC)

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     Not exactly the Letter From Birmingham Jail, is it? And finally...

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     No doubt, Robinson will spin this, too, as a routine reorganization of personnel.

Is Racism Finally Catching Up To the GOP?

 

     It's long been a facet of conservative politics that as long as there have been conservatives, there's been racism. Whether they were southern Democrats in the 19th century or today's Republican party, racism has been a feature. Now, by that, I do not mean that all conservatives are racist. I don't believe for a minute there's a racist bone in Liz Cheney's body and the late Arizona senators Barry Goldwater and John McCain never ran on racist platforms. And the list goes on and on.

     And, yes, there have been some Democrats who'd continued espousing racist talking points, holdovers from the Dixiecrat era (I'm thinking of the late Zell Miller, who was never a real Democrat). But more often than not, much more often, when we see racism injected into the national discourse, especially during election years, they're advanced by Republicans. That's a plain fact of political life and it's not even worthy of debate.

     But we're seeing a ramping up of racist and xenophobic rhetoric coming from the top of the Republican ticket and that's obviously by design. Trump and Vance seem to think we're still the same United States that was taken in by Reagan's cynical use of Philadelphia, Mississippi to kick off his 1980 presidential campaign and his stereotypes of the welfare queen.

     And, to race baiting scumbags like Trump and Vance, there may be reasons to believe that. Many racist voters still haven't recovered from the fact that the nation was run by a black man for eight years. And those very same racist holdovers from the Obama years are just as outraged that at the top of the Democratic ticket is another Black person and a woman, at that.

     Racism, and race-based politics, for a brief, shining moment, was a third rail. And using the N word is still the unholiest of unholies. That's not to say during those few post Civil Rights years that Republicans weren't willing to step on that third rail. But since Trump came down that escalator in June 2015, racism has come back with a vengeance. 

     Trump already had a lot of racist baggage to take down with him on that golden escalator. Over 50 years ago, he and his father, Fred, were hauled into federal court by HUD over their refusal to rent apartments to Black applicants. And then there was the Central Park Five travesty in which a white woman was raped and beaten to within an inch of her life. Trump wasted no time in taking out tens of thousands of dollars of full-page ads. New York's biggest newspapers were all too glad to take Trump's money for ads that called for the death penalty even though the five minority youths hadn't been convicted.

     Years later, the real culprit confessed and the young men were released. Yet, to this day, even after DNA verification, Trump refuses to admit their innocence and that he was wrong because Trump would literally rather die than admit he was wrong about anything.

     Then there was the birtherism, in claiming Obama wasn't born in America. As much as he hated John McCain, it never would've occurred to him to make hay over the fact that McCain was born in Solo Coco, Panama Canal Zone because McCain was as white as they came.

     In 2020, he tried to scare white suburban housewives into believing that unnamed individuals would build low rent apartment buildings in their neighborhoods (which doesn't happen, ever, and one would think a real estate developer would know better. In fact, Trump was originally all for that idea).

     And yet, no matter deeply Trump slides into dementia, deep down in that reptilian brain of his, it can't ever be said that he doesn't know his base. 

     And now, he and his running mate are attacking Haitians and Venezuelans in at least three different states. In fact, during the September 10 debate with Vice President Harris, Trump said,

     "We have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums. You see what's happening with towns throughout the United States. You look at Springfield, Ohio. You look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They're taking over buildings. They're going in violently. These are the people that [Vice President Kamala Harris] and [President Joe Biden] let into our country. And they're destroying our country. They're dangerous. They're at the highest level of criminality."

     Again, this is coming from a felon convicted of 34 felony counts and counting but just to leave that aside for a moment, you don't need to be a genius to see that the common denominator is that Trump is once again punching down on people of color. George HW Bush learned that racism worked and he proved that with the Willie Horton ad. Lee Atwater shamelessly used it during the Reagan years.

     But there are signs that the tactic is backfiring.

     The MSM, to its credit, is at least pushing back on Trump's and Vance's lies. When Harris entered the race on July 21st, Black voters who'd previously given their support to Trump immediately switched to Harris. In a recent poll of over 600 Black Michigan voters, they were asked who they'd vote for and not a single one of them said Trump.

     This shows that Trump doesn't have nearly the support of Black voters as he claimed in his fact-free assertions. It shows that Black voters, who originally went with Trump in the beginning against all rhyme or reason, showed themselves to be very fickle. This shouldn't be too surprising. That's a demographic that gave him only 4% support nationally in 2016 and just 8% in 2020.

     And, again, the racist lies just aren't working this time around. Even other Republicans have been calling Trump and Vance out on their lies. Ohio's governor, Mike Dewine, no blushing liberal, flatly said that there's no truth to the lie that Haitians are eating peoples' pets or that they're living there illegally. And the Haitian Bridge Alliance recently filed criminal charges against both Trump and Vance over their incessant lies.

     In the latest national poll taken by the NY Times, all the battleground states are still competitive and very much up for grabs. The most surprising development was that Harris is only behind Trump by one point in North Carolina, which has never been seriously advanced as a swing state. And 1%, obviously, is well within the margin of error in any poll. Plus, the sinking blimp of Mark Robinson's campaign could theoretically have a deleterious effect on Trump's own race there.

     The bottom line I can infer is that racism is a nonstarter, even as much as the overturning of Roe v Wade. There are signs that the American electorate is finally getting sick and tired of the GOP's racial division. Voters on both sides of the divide are both concerned about the economy. I would think a vanishingly small minority of voters are going to be thinking about Haitians eating dogs when they go to the polls this November 5th.

One Year...

     ...and counting?

Good Times at Pottersville

The GOP is the Party of Jefferson Davis

 

     It would've been easy, very easy, to devote today's post to the CNN's KFile revelations about Mark Robinson, the lunatic who's running for governor of North Carolina. In case you haven't read them, yet (the news didn't drop until 3:30 PM EST), here are some of the lowlights:

     It seems between 2008 and 2013, Robinson put out some, questionable posts, shall we say on social media and even a porn site called "Nude Africa." The accounts were in his name, using his picture and even a private email address that he's used all over the internet.

     In his comments to the porn site, he admitted liking tranny porn, admitted to peeking at women when he was 14 while they were showering and other things too obscene for CNN to put on the air. Robinson started pushing back on CNN's report even before it came out today, even accusing AI of manufacturing it at the behest of an unnamed billionaire's son.

     He also announced on the porn site, "I'm a black NAZI!"

     But something else caught my eye because before I'd even read these revelations about Robinson, I'd also read about Mark Krikorian, a board member of Project 2025, who'd testified before Congress today and was exposed by Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) as having written nearly 15 years ago that Haitians would've been better off as slaves. This wasn't something written in some obscure corner of the internet but the National Review.

     In fact, this is what he'd written: "My guess is that Haiti’s so screwed up because it wasn’t colonized long enough. (emphasis his)" Haiti is one of the few stories of a successful slave revolt against French colonists and what this asshat had written was that Haitians should've enslaved for at least another 30 years.

     This is hardly surprising coming from one of the advisors of Project 2025, a neo Nazi blueprint that's eerily similar to Nazi Germany's Enabling Act of 1933.

     The reason this ties into Mark Robinson is because one of the comments he'd written back in the day was to support slavery. In fact, this is what he'd written:

     "Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few."

     This essentially makes Robinson at least as odious and self-loathing a figure as Stephen, Samuel L, Jackson's character in Django Unchained.

     Now, it's fallacious to assume that someone back in 2008 to 2013 manufactured these posts and comments by Robinson before 1) AI was even anywhere as sophisticated as it is now and 2) years before he'd entered the political arena. We know he wrote these things because many of his statements perfectly comport with his public comments before and after he became Lt. Governor of NC. But it's where they differ from his public statements that's the troubling thing.

     The support for slavery is one of those things.

     Hence the title, "The GOP is the Party of Jefferson Davis."

     Even factoring in the self-loathing factor of a black man advocating for the return of slavery while assuming he'd be exempt from such an unthinkable scenario (Just try getting the 13th amendment abolished in 36 states), it's breathtaking to hear someone say that "some people need to be slaves."

     Obviously, he was talking about his own people because slavery was created to exploit only black people.

     But that one singular comment that was surely written by Robinson (the same man who'd said in a church recently that "some folks need killing"), is pretty much the same exact mindset of Mark Krikorian, who'd said that Haitians need to be enslaved a few decades longer so the white French colonists could've guided them on how to run their country.

     And this nearly 15 year-old article dovetails neatly into the right wing bigotry aimed at Haitians to this very day. Just as the white residents of Tulsa a century ago couldn't stand  the idea of black people of being prosperous, they're also outraged by the idea of Haitians holding down actual jobs that pay them a fair living wage.

     And Robinson's and Krikorian's comments show their advocacy of slavery isn't completely predicated in economic gain but also subjugation of those they look upon as inferior.

     Which, while not exclusive to the Nazi Party of 30s and 40s Germany, was certainly a feature of it.

     There are very few third rails today's radical GOP won't touch but for now, slavery is one of them. But that third rail is getting more and more degraded. Pretty soon Overton's Window is going to degrade it so much that that third rail won't have any shock to it.