Bribocracy

 

                           ChatGPT

“Shall I compare thee to a President’s Day? Washington’s selfless leadership, Lincoln’s timeless eloquence? Thou art less lofty and more intemperate.” (Author unknown.)

America’s political divide is wider than at any time since the Civil War, but there’s one issue on which everyone should agree: Trump’s is the most corrupt and dishonest administration in our history. Rather than hiding it, they wave it like that huge American flag on I-5 north of Mount Vernon. Trump has openly regretted not enriching himself more in his first term. Unable to deny, MAGA's only options are to ignore or embrace. We see both. “At least he’s honest about his dishonesty,” they say, admiringly. Or, “ Everybody cheats.”

It’s not merely embarrassing that our great-until-Trump country twice elected an unscrupulous, bribofacient, self-promoting fraudster; the damage at home and abroad is incalculable. Perhaps MAGA-threatened future historians will elaborate. For now, all we can do is enumerate.

Following FIFA’s pandering “peace prize," Trump’s next briblical acceptance was the Washington Coal Club’s “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal” prize. It’d be hilarious, had he not, a day later ended our government’s ability to regulate climate change emissions, to which coal is the greatest lump-for-lump contributor.

As literate Americans know, “clean coal” isn’t a thing, whereas climate change most definitely is. From his kingly throne, Trump is doing everything possible to boost fossil fuels and impede sustainable, actually clean energy. The money he gets from oil tycoons confirms his bribocratic corruption. With the fingers of others filling his pockets, he raises a middle one to us.

Bribery isn’t Trumpism’s only corruption. There’s cry-wolfery, gaslighting, and “accusation is admission.” Working to rig elections, for example, while lying that every election Trump or MAGAs lost was rigged. It’s as much a part of today’s Republican agenda as climate change denial, pardoning criminals, rewriting history, and lying to our faces. “Democrats rig elections,” they cry, against all evidence, while doing it. MAGAs wolf it down.

Here’s Homeland Insecurity’s Kristi Noem, promoting the restrictive voter ID requirements in the SAVE act, bragging, “ ... when it gets to Election Day ... we've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country.” Confirming the anti-democracy and anti-Democrats purposes of voter ID, Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger (R-Texas) added, “The American people did not give Republicans a mandate to make excuses. They gave us one to deliver wins, and the SAVE America Act is exactly that.” (Italics mine.) Okay, well, they’re not lying about that. Ms. Noem did lie about another ICE shooting, though.

 

If states requiring it made voter ID equally accessible across all demographics, it’d be okay. In red states, it’s the opposite. They just said so. And who trusts Trump’s DOJ to protect the Georgia ballots they commandeered with no legal justification? His desire to “nationalize” elections is, of course, unconstitutional. Would it matter to his agreeable Supreme Court?

Noem. Bondi. Who can say who’s worse? In a tight race, impudent, arrogant, toadying Pam pulled ahead last week, when she broadcast her and her boss’s contempt for the Constitution; yelling, deflecting, insulting, refusing to answer legitimate, Constitutionally required oversight of her handling of the Epstein files. Why are you asking about that when the DOW is over fifty thousand, she sneered, non-sequiturally. While she scanned her staff-prepared, scripted whataboutisms to gotchify Democrats, Republicans on the Committee, living and dead, like every MAGA, couldn’t hide their glee. In a Congress containing Republicans of old, as in the Nixon era, the hearing would have adjourned immediately, to begin impeachment proceedings. But that party is as dead as climate regulation.

There are rumblings. In deep red South Texas last week, in a district Trump won by seventeen points, a Democrat soundly beat a Republican for state senate despite being outspent by millions of dollars. The same happened in very red Louisiana. Texas Republicans’ unprecedented and cynical mid-cycle gerrymandering, along with growing revulsion at Trump’s ICE brutality and, maybe, his transparent lying, have created unanticipated blue districts, while spurring blue states like California, after Trump’s Constitution-rewriting SCOTUS greenlit Texas, to do the same.

Clear-eyed voters know to assume every word uttered by Trump and his collection of collaborators is a lie; that every action is to their benefit, not ours. As scales drop from pinkish eyes, there might still be hope. But November is far enough away for plenty of Republican meddling.

Now, a mea kinda culpa. Last week, I praised the “unmitigated joy” of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance. Since then, enthusiastic critics have sent translations which, if accurately rendered, were vulgar. I was disappointed and promised to address it. Since then, though, I’ve seen sources indicating the crudités had been edited in compliance with broadcast standards.

Few words, if any, have single comparables between languages; by definition, translations are subjective. Unless those taking offense are fluent Spanish speakers and heard it directly, I’ll stick with joyful.

Good Bunny

 

Without outrage, MAGAs have nothing. Without being offended, they’d be nothing. If it wasn’t unmistakable before, the Super Bowl (went Seahawks!) removed any doubt. Trump’s and MAGA’s anger over Bad Bunny’s halftime performance began long before it happened. Nothing, it seems, makes that crowd so infuriated as seeing people – especially those of darker hues – having fun. Exuberant fun. Occasionally sexy? For sure. But, even with some soft-boiled political Easter eggs, always celebratory. At the end, naming all countries in the Americas, as if we’re part of a whole, together. The actual not-fake wedding was sweet and hopeful. As was the omnipresent visual message, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” Only in Trump’s America could that be considered a subversive provocation.

So offended were MAGAs that they hied to a YouTube-only counterprogram featuring a badly lip-syncing, white-man-jumping, over-hilled Kid Rock, who’d once sung his way to fame lauding statutory rape. Maybe that explains his connection with Trump. There was also some guy who sang an anti-woke song. Good times. Wish I’d been there.

Sure, it’d have been nice to have had subtitles for Mr. Bunny, but it was about vibe, not vocabulary. Besides, what language is required to recognize pure joy? Not the one MAGA speaks, evidently. It was a celebration of America’s unique melting pot that accounts for so much of its greatness. Which explains the freakout of Make America Ghastly Again. Having once designated liberals as “snowflakes,” under Trump they’ve taken ownership of the term. They NEED to be angry at not-like-thems. If it weren’t so pitiful and, for that matter, anti-America, it’d be hilarious.

But, mostly, it’s just sad. Unlike Bad Bunny, MAGAs are unhappy people, preferring an even unhappier leader. Because it’s all they know how to do, if poorly, House Republicans are calling for an investigation.

Their reaction to the halftime show was a MAGA microcosm. The response to Trump posting an image of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes is as macro as it gets. Within seconds of the revulsion expressed by decent people, Pressed Secretary Leavitt referred to it as fake outrage. “Report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” she demanded, dootifully. Because having America represented by the most overtly racist “president” in our history shouldn’t bother anyone. Rather, for MAGA, it’s celebrated.

The rush to defend Trump’s awfulness, as always, was a stampede. Came the predictable blaming of an unnamed staffer. Trump hadn’t seen it, or didn’t watch to the end. Then, acknowledging it was he who posted it, Trump refused to apologize. Of course not. It’d be like 7-Up apologizing for selling soft drinks.

When it’s not outrage, it’s cruelty, as from organizations whose inhumanity MAGA will defend to the death. Literally. ICE, for one. I hadn’t known this while I served there, but in Vietnam, some GIs left ace of spades playing cards on the bodies of Vietnamese they’d killed. Sometimes in their mouths. Now we learn that ICE is doing the same, placing similar cards, professionally produced, in the vehicles they’ve broken into and dragged out the occupants. It clarifies the kinds of people ICE is hiring, and those who stay silent. Make America Ghoulish Again.

Like cutting USAID, ostensibly to save money, leading to tens of thousands of deaths and disease in Africa and elsewhere, particularly among children; and then spending taxpayer money to fund “MAGA-aligned” organizations in Europe. Why aren’t Trump supporters appalled? Jesus would be.

Some might say I’m being hypocritical when deploring MAGA outrage, for what are my columns if not that? Maybe so, but there’s a fundamental difference. My words, and those of No Kings protestors, anti-ICE demonstrations, and the tens of Antifa activists, are aimed at protecting and preserving the values of our republic: fairness, equality of rights and voting, healthcare, and help for those in need. It’s outrage at our government for eliminating those most basic tenets of a functioning democracy. Following Trump’s directions, MAGA is against all of that. If indignation can be righteous, this is it.

Like outrage, for another example, at the Pentagon for making the largest ever purchase of munitions from Israel, for internationally banned anti-personnel cluster bombs. Tough guy, that Hegseth, who also threatened Scouting for allowing girls and not being God-promoting enough, because he’s nothing if not the embodiment of godliness.

Or at Trump’s DOJ for shutting down Minnesota prosecutors’ investigations of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Or having a “president” who’s such a petty, needy, and insecure bully that he withholds funds for New York unless it renames Dulles Airport and Penn Station after him. And, in one of his more insane rants, threatens to prevent opening the Gordie Howe Bridge between the US and Canada.

This is what MAGA and the not-so GOP defend. While condemning Bad Bunny. Can they go lower? In preparation for November, they already are.

McBillions

 

               Image created using ChatGPT

The lowball estimate of how much personal money Trump has grifted during the first year of his second “presidency” is around $1.2 billion. This is not counting the billions made by his spawn during this time, or the $10 billion he stands to make from suing himself, which is to say his IRS, run by his appointees, because his tax returns were leaked. After, truth-teller that he is, he’d been promising to release them himself for ten years.

This must be challenging for his MAGA idolators who, with tears in their eyes, continue to praise his selflessness in refusing his presidential salary (is he still?) because he loves and has sacrificed everything for us. In total, his Ovaltine haul is at least $4 billion. 

One might wonder how he came up with ten billion to compensate whatever trauma he suffered from the release of those returns, especially since it didn’t impair his reelection. The reelection that’s providing him with the aforementioned loot. Doesn’t matter. Because all of his appointees, from heads of the definitely not weaponized DOJ and FBI, to the Departments of Interior, Education, Commerce, and more, cater slavishly to his regal demands, it seems assured the IRS, after due consideration of the ethics and legalities, doubtless after in-depth consultation with ethical and legal icon Pam Bondi, will cough up the money. Maybe with interest. Bondi’s compliant DOJ would be charged with defending the IRS, too. Convenient. Whatever the amount, it’ll be our tax money, going directly to him.

He said he’d donate to charities, though. Presumably not like the one the courts shut down because he was stealing from it. What’s the over/under on how much he gets and how much he’ll keep?

Has there ever been a “presidency” from which more lawsuits have emerged or toward which they’ve been aimed? Lawsuits are as much a part of Trump as bone spurs aren’t. He sues. Always has. Especially people, like contractors he hires, lacking time or money to fight, who’ll pay him off. It’s how he ran his businesses, and how he’s “running” the country.

Cruel fate (ours) has inpocketed him our entire system of justice, through which, filled with people chosen for their pliability and disregard for our Constitution, he charges anyone he chooses with made-up crimes. Or sues. If only he could clone Judge Aileen Cannon, whose delay tactics and confounding rulings on indictments for his many crimes allowed him to go (for now) scot free (it doesn’t mean what you think). If every courtroom had her cloneliness in charge, lawsuits against him would be thrown out in a minute, and the people he’s had indicted would be convicted before they sat down.

Speaking of not sitting down, I don’t intend to see the Melania movie. Reviews are predictably split along party lines; if you bought Trump sneakers, you’ll love it. The significance, though, is Bezos’s bribery and Melania’s grift, as she stands to make millions off it. But MAGAs love the movie like they love life and hate immigrants, Melania excepted. Money for nothin’ and chicks for fee.

My intention this week was to back off, if slightly, from the democracy-damaging aspects of Trump and his klatch. Focus on stuff that’s only irritating and, based on decades of revelations of Trump’s ethos, predictable and almost amusing. But then came this from President-in-Fact and truly horrible person Stephen Miller: “Plenty of countries in history have experimented with importing a foreign labor class. The West is the first and only civilization to import a foreign labor class that is granted full political rights, including welfare & the right to vote... In America, for generations now, the policy has been that anyone who would economically benefit from moving to the US can do so, exercise the franchise in the US and their children, the moment they are born, will be full American citizens with all the rights and benefits therein.” He wasn’t suggesting it’s a positive.

In other words, per Herr Miller, the US should have a “labor class” that does our dirty work but receives no benefits, like citizenship. Or healthcare. There’s a word for that. To Übermensch Miller’s obvious disappointment, that side lost the Civil War. This link draws the appropriate historical comparison. He’s the one calling the shots (literally) for ICE and CBP. With Trump’s decline, his is the disordered mind behind it all. It’s what American values are up against, and it suffuses all of Trumpism.

As relentlessly depressing as is everything Trump, last week wasn’t all bad. A judge ordered the release of five-year-old Liam Ramos from ICE custody, and, in doing so, said the obvious: “Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency...” 

Also, in Texas, the yellow rose showed a blue tinge. First a district, then the state?

A guy can dream.

Multiple Minneapolis Murders

 

Outrage makes coherent writing a challenge. I’ll try.

Hell-bent on defending ICE when Renee Good was murdered, Trump and MAGA could claim her killer feared for his life because, for an instant, he was stupidly in front of her car. They could pretend that when he shot her to death, standing to the side, he was still endangered, because... I don’t know. Something.

But the latest Minneapolis murder, by Border Patrol agents (why are they there?) led by Nazi cosplayer Greg Bovino, affords no such rationale. The first shot into Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who cared for critically ill veterans, came from behind, after another attacker had removed his licensed and holstered gun, which, unlike the lies told by Trump, Miller, Vance, Noem, Bovino, and more, he had pointed at no one, nor even touched. As he was executed, Alex Pretti was held down by several so-called officers, subdued, blinded by pepper spray.

We know the videos. Alex Pretti was holding a camera, not a weapon. When a non-violent woman was pushed to the ground by Trump’s thugs, he went to help her, and was taken down by several what-to-call-thems. He threatened no one. The gunmen who pumped eleven bullets into him, the kind Trump hires, might be professional killers, but they’re the opposite of professional law enforcement. Many are actual criminals. Others are just horrible humans. 

It’s so egregious, one might wonder if the assassination was intentional, because Trump and his Svengali, Stephen Miller, wanted to incite violence, enough to rationalize Trump’s dream of mowing down people who dare oppose him. I’m no conspiracist, but this was so out of bounds that who knows? Admirably, Minnesotans have refused the bait.

Everything Trump and his mouthpieces have said, even as multiple videos showed the truth, have been outrageous lies, told by people who know they’re lying but do it anyway. The lies and smears came so fast it was as if a script was pre-prepared. He was there “to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” He was “a domestic terrorist and an assassin.” No one should believe a single word coming from any of them. Ever again.

Republicans defend the right of all Americans to be armed with all weapons at all times in all places under all circumstances. Wasn’t there a time when self-described patriots were buying up military-style weapons and so much ammo that there were nationwide shortages? Wasn’t it to protect themselves from a repressive government bent on rounding up and killing Americans? In fairness, that was when our president was a black man. But, unless memory fails, unlike Trump, President Barack Obama never called for the death of his political opponents or hired death squads. Now that America is living their fever dream, where are those brave men?

If Alex Pretti having a gun meant, ipso facto, as stated by Trump’s hench, that he intended mayhem, would I be a hero, encountering one of those compensatory microphallics in Walmart, slung with an AR-15 and bandoleers containing enough rounds to erase everyone in the store, if I killed him?

Like fiscal responsibility, law and order, and free speech, the right to bear arms turns out to be just another cynical Republican talking point. Bovino tried to legitimize the murder because Alex Pretti “possessed” a weapon. Possessed! He even showed a picture of it. Will independent investigators be allowed to check the registration?

The implication: anyone legally carrying is a deserving target. It’s a bit of a departure from Republican doctrine, but there’s nothing about Trumpism that conforms to long-gone conservatism. Trumpism has devolved into fascism. 

So committed was Trump to moral leadership that he spent the next days touting his monstrosity of a ballroom and hosting billionaire suck-ups for a private screening of a fawning movie about his third wife.

After the execution of Alex Pretti, not even the most Trumpofoxified can deny that Trump and his chosen atrocities lied about what we all saw. They consider their supporters submissive idiots and figure they can dilute votes from those who aren’t. In Trump’s America, citizens are murdered without cause or consequence. Constitutionally protected protest is domestic terrorism. Like the First, the Second Amendment is situational, applying only to his followers. Like Kyle Rittenhouse.

Until Trump is gone, voting for any Republican signifies approval of the brutality behind the murders in Minneapolis and of the mendacious people he hired to oversee it. No matter one’s political leanings, this cruel lawlessness must be stopped. No exaggeration: The times demand choosing between standing with or against America. Assuming it’ll still be allowed, only massive voting can end Trumpic tyranny. Despite a few words of “concern,” Congressional Republicans won’t.

The murders in Minneapolis should fill the hearts of every American with outrage, dialed to 11/3/2026. If so, Republicans would lose both Houses in a tsunami of repudiation.

Meanwhile, don’t leave home without a camera phone.

Yeah, I guess the outrage got to me.

Blinded By The Right

 

Calling elected Republicans cowards gives them undeserved credit. It implies that, seeing what Trump and his brutality-loving private army known as ICE are doing, plus his lawlessness and egotistical imperialism, they know it’s wrong but are afraid to say so.

No.

By now, their silence and that of the misinformed people who elected them shows they love what they’re seeing. They’re not cowards. They’re collaborators. They’re participating in the undoing of America, furthering a totalitarian, white supremacist theocracy, a blitzkrieg against democracy begun well before Trump descended upon us. And, as Europe no longer trusts the US, the ceding of world economic and political power to China.

The votes are there. We shouldn’t have to wait till the November election. By voting to defund it, Congress could stop the excesses of ICE in a minute. It could reclaim its war powers and redirect its investigative ones. It could recall its Constitutional role in levying tariffs. All it would take is a handful of Republicans to rediscover their humanity and duty to the law, assuming they once existed. Except for chameleons like J.D. Vance and Lindsey Graham, people don’t change so completely, so fast. Amorality and disregard for the Constitution must have defined them from the beginning.

Surely they’ve seen what President de facto Stephen Miller told ICE agents after the murder in Minneapolis: “You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one – no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist – can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties... [I]f officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States or against ICE officers, then they will face justice.” Translation: “Ignore local laws and officials. You won’t be prosecuted. The prosecuted will be anyone who tries to make you follow American law. I am the law. Trump (to a lesser extent) is the law. Not the courts, not a moldering piece of parchment.”

Unable to imagine the breadth and depth of the corruption and cravenness of Trumpism, the Founders failed us. A system that allows a single, psychically broken, self-deluding man-child to have his way, punishing those who don’t submit, including long-standing allies; a toddler having a tantrum over refused candy – that system is inadequate to the times.

So confident are they in unfailing support that Trump and his mobsters aren’t hiding their White Nationalist agenda. Trump’s Department of inJustice just rehired James Rodden, previously removed when his online posts were earthed, saying such thing as “America is a White nation,” “Migrants are all criminals,” and “All blacks are foreign to my people.” Welcome back, Jim.

The Department of Homeland inSecurity posted an ad seeking ICE applicants, featuring a cowboy under a stealth bomber in the sky. Its text reads, “We’ll have our home again,” from a WWII Nazi anthem loved by American white supremacists. 

Ubermenschette Kristi Noem gave a speech from a podium bearing the motto, “One of ours, all of yours.” Meaning: Kill one of us, we’ll kill all of you. In various forms, it’s been used by the world’s worst authoritarians. Nor is it accidental that Greg Bovino, Trump’s preening border security chief, dresses like an Obergruppenführer. At one time, they didn’t like being called neo-Nazis or white supremacists. Now, they’re broadcasting it, while MAGA and their Congressional representatives celebrate.

The story of America’s collapse, written by non-American journalists and historians, as ours will have been eliminated, will be one of willing acquiescence; of how, while there was still a chance to have prevented it, so-called conservatives, universities, bar associations, and not-yet sold-out media cowered, while elected Republicans and their MAGA horde welcomed it like the Second Coming. Preferring democracy, Congressional Democrats resisted, but weren’t in charge. The opportunity to protect it slipped away.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to ignore courts, refusing to release most of the Epstein files. But we don’t need to see them to know how damning they are to Trump. No criminal tries that hard to hide information that exonerates him. It’s a truism not even MAGA can deny.

Also, only a power-crazed, malignant narcissist would want to invade another country because he didn’t get a Nobel Prize. And ADMIT it! Trying to sound less insane at the World Economic Council, Trump, who lies, minimized the invasion part.

Finally, this: To many readers, the sarcasm of my previous column, which I assumed would be recognized three sentences in and in every succeeding paragraph, wasn’t. I heard from several, livid that I’d gone to the dark side. Even after reading, with reference to my blog, “keep these words in mind as your eyes deceive you,” or “’I’m not mad at you’ is classic professional agitation,” or “shame on anyone who reprints [Michele Goldberg’s comment]” after I’d reprinted it.

I meant to demonstrate, by parody, the gaslit, shameless lies issued daily by Trump and his coven. Evidently it was too cute. Apologies. It won’t happen again.

But, seriously, who doesn’t love Trump?

The Truth Is Out

 

Readers know I've never criticized Trump. I praise him. Always. Never have I mentioned him without placing the word "President" before his name, including now, because, as an American, I'm proud to call him that. This can be confirmed by scrolling through my blog, where I also publish my columns. If you do, keep these words in mind as your eyes deceive you. Trump is my hero. Nothing could be clearer.

What happened in Minneapolis is also clear, which is why Trump and his patriotic selectees have committed to recounting the facts, daily. The words of our Vice President, whose core values are solid as Gibraltar, are as true as mine: "This was an attack on law and order. This was an attack on the American people. The way that the media, by and large, has reported this story has been an absolute disgrace, and it puts our law enforcement officers at risk every single day." God bless him for saying it.

Kristi Noem got it right, too. In an act of shocking domestic terrorism, Renee Good accelerated her foreign-made SUV into a group of ICE agents. By definition, any movement from stationary is acceleration. It's factual. Disingenuously, Ms. Good turned her wheels away from the officers, confirming intent to deceive them. She possibly grazed the one who, as any of us would, then fired three shots into her head. It's training.

Although none of the available videos have shown it, we can be confident, because both Ms. Noem and Trump have repeatedly attested, that Renee Good drove right over one officer, sending him to the hospital where, for all we know, he's still recovering. Video of him walking away, rejoining the others, smiling, is fake. Who can doubt Trump's assurance that Renee was a professional agitator? "I'm not mad at you" is classic professional agitation. Plus, Trump never lies. There's plentiful online video of supporters attesting to that when asked.

The true facts surrounding the unprovoked, vicious attack on ICE agents, an attack on you and me, are important enough that Trump and Noem and Vance and Jesse Waters and definitely-not-closeted Lindsey Graham are obligated to continue repeating them until the significance of what they're saying is understood by everyone. The idea that we'd learn more from an investigation conducted by Minnesota authorities, who, Trump promises, are dishonest and untrustworthy, than from one done by the FBI under honest, trustworthy Kash Patel, is ludicrous. By handing responsibility to his fully independent Justice Department, Trump isn't suppressing evidence. He's seeking it in the best possible way.

Radical left lunatics lie that presidents are bound by laws, some of which, if you can believe it, are 250 years old. Laws that Trump acolyte Matt Walsh rightly called "fake," totally justifying Trump's response, asked in a New York Times interview if there are limits to his power: "Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me." What real American doesn't admire that? It's not "malignant narcissism." It's Constitutional.

Trump's consistent morality and remarkable mind are seen in every decade of his life, as a student, a soldier, a businessman, and in his prizeworthy peace-seeking. For their selfless sacrifices, he and his family deserve even more than the billions they're making in the White House from investments. There's none more able to judge a man than the man himself. Like that impossibly arduous cognitive one, Trump passes the test. He's as honest a man as domestic terrorist Renee Good was a domestic terrorist woman.

Here's another outdated shibboleth: free speech is essential to democracy. Stephen Miller dragged that lefty falsehood into the light, crafting presidential orders refocusing federal law enforcement away from foreign terrorist threats and onto Americans who hold "anti-fascist ideas," like "extremism on migration, race, and gender" and "hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality." He added a well-deserved warning: "You will live in exile, because the power of law enforcement under President Trump's leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and, if you have broken the law, to take away your freedom." I'm glad those consequences don't all hinge on breaking the law. Trump, almost certainly having read the orders, signed them. Then, who better to enforce them than our highly-trained, respectful, disciplined ICE agents?

On notice now are insolent columnists like Michele Goldberg, who wrote in the failing New York Times after justice was brought to ICE-described "fking b*tch" Ms. Good, who, as Fox stars pointed out, was lesbian and used pronouns:

"All of us, citizens and immigrants alike, are being ruled by people who think life is a privilege bestowed by authority, and death is a fair penalty for disobedience."

Shame on her for publishing that. And shame on anyone who reprints it.

The Police State Comes To Minneapolis

              

            Made in the USSA - by Mr. Fish

The murder of Renee Good, that young mother in Minneapolis – and it WAS murder – ought to be the final awakening for even the most MAGAfied, the most propaganda-blinded Trump worshippers. Especially those who consider themselves patriots. Or Christian. Not just because of the horror of it, per se, or what is says about the thugs Trump – and it IS on Trump – is hiring to carry out his plan of intimidation and forced submission. As sad as it is to think of her young child now motherless, what’s even more portentous for the county Trump has made no longer great, are the government-sponsored lies that followed.

When Kristi Noem lied so brazenly about it, calling the woman a “domestic terrorist” who ran over the officer, which she clearly didn’t, even saying the murderous agent was hospitalized for injuries (Trump did, too), it doesn’t matter if she knew there was video of the assassination. If she did, she wouldn’t have cared. Like Trump, and Vance, and Bondi, and Patel, and Miller, and Bannon, and Fox “news,” and Newsmax, and Karoline Leavitt, and professional liars like Ted Cruz and most Congressional Republicans, she knows that decades of relentless indoctrination have, as intended, created millions of endumbed worshippers who permit getting away with whatever anti-democracy actions and lies they choose.

When reporters showed Trump the video that made a liar out of him, he retracted nothing. (tinyurl.com/sawtruth)

What American with even an ounce of decency could see what happened and not feel sick? Who could fail to acknowledge, finally, that what Trump and his rudderless political party are creating is a police state, modeled after every despotic government the world has seen. That’s NOT unwarranted hyperbole. It’s as clear as climate change and the Trump-enabled measles epidemic working its way through our county.

Trump just told the New York Times that the only thing restraining him is his “own morality,” not any law or body. This, from the most amoral man ever to occupy the White House.  

That submission to tyranny has characterized so much of human history is something to ponder and to fear. Why do so many of our species so readily submit to domination, happy to be released from responsibility? Whatever the explanation, it’s about to eliminate 250 years of democratic governance here.

There was a time when we could look at the rise of Hitler in Germany, for one example, and think we’re immune to it. That the greatness of America makes her better. That, unlike us, those Germans were uniquely prone to following dictatorial orders, willing to brutalize fellow humans, or, at least, to say nothing. If the Minnesota murder and our government’s response don’t put the lie to that myth and convince a majority of remaining Trump supporters of what’s happening, history’s repeat will become permanent.

The murder in Minnesota and brutalization by ICE and Trump’s weaponized National Guard in his hated Democrat-run cities everywhere, rounding up citizens and non-citizens alike, holding them in inhumane “detention” facilities or deporting them, in some cases to brutal gulags – these are only the most obvious examples of Trumpic totalitarianism. As is the acceptance of them by so-called conservatives.

Consider the takeover of news media by Trump’s billionaire pals, installing stooges to manage and control what we hear and read. Banning the teaching of history, censoring the words of history’s great thinkers. Even Plato. This is what governmental suppression looks like, the hallmarks of despotic autocracy, population control by thought police. Already enthralled, half the country doesn’t seem to care.

Like history’s worst dictators, Trump is creating and MAGA is rejoicing in a cult of personality. His visage hanging from the windows of government buildings, his name plastered above John F. Kennedy’s in the center for the arts about which Trump couldn’t care less. That awful, grandiose ballroomic paean to narcissism, the announced triumphal arch, which, if it gets built, will surely have his name on it, too.

Such self-created idolatry is typical of North Korea and Russia. In Italy, the architectural vestiges of Mussolini’s rule are everywhere, even including engraved years beginning at Day One of his takeover. I don’t wish il Duce’s fate on Trump, though. I want to see him live long enough to watch his self-adoring monuments torn down. If reason returns.

After Minneapolis, everyone can see we’re being lied to every day by Trump and the people he hired for their willingness to do it. Excuse my righteous indignation, but the death of that mother and the disgusting lies that have followed, the silence among so many Congressional Republicans, the acquiescence of MAGA, and the defense of it from what amounts to state media are too much to bear. If 2026 isn’t the year in which Trump’s and his collaborators’ attacks on American values are rejected by Republicans and MAGA, it’ll be beyond recovery.

El Jefe

 

On “Taxi,” the TV comedy starring Danny Devito, among others, and Christopher Lloyd, who played the brain-burned character Jim, there was an episode showing Jim as a brilliant student at Harvard, cajoled into trying a “special” brownie. One bite, and he morphed into the skew-faced idiot he was on the show.

For some reason, I thought of that after Trump announced his invasion of Venezuela. A taste of power, and he went mad. Because Trump was never a brilliant student anywhere, the analogy fails. Still, in his second term as “president,” he’s been nibbling power bit by bit, and finally swallowed it whole. Also, one who’s already mad can’t “go” mad. The analogy fails there, too. So never mind. Clearly, though, Trump is deliriously stoned on power.

The military operation was well-planned and brilliantly executed. How well thought out were the consequences and follow-up is suggested by the shallowness of Pete Hegseth resurrecting his Fox “news” and only qualification roots, crowing, “They effed around and found out.” The preening, testosteronical emanations that dominated the news conference all but made light of the seriousness of what happened. It confirmed, however, that it was never about drugs, obvious from the persisting lies that boats blown up and people killed by Trump were heading to the US bearing fentanyl.

Still more revelatory about the lack of long-term planning are contradictory statements, mostly from Trump and Secretary of State/National Security Advisor/Viceroy of Venezuela Marco Rubio. “We’re running the country,” quoth the Ravin’. “We’re working with their government,” says Marco. Which raises the question: what does it mean to “run” a country, a phrase Trump loves to spout referring to what he does to the US, and believes he’ll be doing to Venezuela. Here’s an experienced general, describing how failure derives from such chaos.

Running a country requires having people downstream to carry out plans. And more people, further downstream, willing and able to do the actual work. By firing competent people and hiring sycophantic yes-ones, Trump made inroads (but not roads) here at home. Stephen Miller and Russell Vought tell him what to do, he orders morally bereft lackeys, like Bondi, Patel, Hegseth, Noem, et nauseati, to carry it out. Trump’s monarchy has eliminated and/or ignored Constitutional checks, so it’s been working very well. Not for you and me, of course. But, for him and his spawn’s and cronies’ bank accounts, it’s been magical.

Neither Trump, who, between golfing and posting social-media jeremiads, hasn’t the time, nor Rubio, who hasn’t the downstream cooperants, can “run” Venezuela. Trump could have turned to opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, but, too bad for her, she won “his” Nobel Peace Prize. Vice-President Delcy Rodriquez, a Maduro acolyte, initially responded to the kidnapping by demanding Maduro’s return and promising that no one would be allowed to steal their resources. To which Trump replied, aping Al Capone, “If she doesn't do what's right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” As this was never about drugs, neither was it about creating democracy. Was Tucker Carlson wrong, too? 

The “peace president” has become the bully of the Western Hemisphere, threatening whomever and taking whatever he wants. Some see this as dangerous dereliction; others – MAGA and Foxoid media, predictably – see it as USA! chant-worthy. I’m among the former, given the license this has provided our adversaries to do the same, one of which already has. Which might explain Trump’s antecedent defense of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine: tilling his own soilage.

If the outcomes of Trump’s adventurism are unknowable (recall Bush’s Iraq invasion, about which V.P Cheney promised we’d be greeted as liberators and SecDef Rumsfeld said it’d be over in days), some are predictable. First, Trump’s dismissal of alternative energy in deference to fossil fuelers will continue, accelerating climate change, probably irreversibly; and, second, if American oil companies do return to Venezuela, rebuild its oil infrastructure, and resume pumping and selling the oil, Trump will cash in with a pre-arranged personal cut of the profits. It’s the only consistent aspect of his foreign policy. He admitted to working with oil companies, but not Congress, in advance of the invasion. 

How on board they are with the risk and expense is unclear, but Trump offered up US taxpayers to foot the costs.

Trump considers the oil underneath Venezuela “ours.” By any law, it never was; but it’s true that American oil companies once harvested it as if it were, taking from Venezuela billions in profits, making it unsurprising that the country would eventually take back control. Or, as Trump says, steal it. To evaluate that characterization, it’s worth knowing the history. Here’s one source. And another.

Maduro is a bad guy. Considering what Trump has done, and if he follows through on his threats to other sovereign countries, how does Trump compare? Opinions will vary.

Good Cop

         (This column is only relevant locally)

Everett’s Chief of Police, John DeRousse, has retired, effective by the time you read this. He’ll be missed, but the newly-chosen chief, Robert Goetz is a good guy, too. Happily, John will remain in Everett, because his new job, with Providence Health Systems, means he won’t be moving away. I say “happily” because, ever since he arrived on the scene, as a K-9 cop Sergeant, he’s been a neighbor and a friend. I know Chief Goetz will carry on John’s high standard, because I’ve spent time with him, too. But John (he’ll hate reading this) is extraordinary.

Recently, he talked me into becoming a member of the Chief’s Advisory Board. Even before that, because he is who he is, I’d thought Everett has an excellent Police Department, due to his leadership as Chief, Dan Templeman’s before him, and like Robert Goetz will provide in the future. The department has been imbued with the ethic that its role is to serve its citizens, inclusive and respectful, not power-mad. It shows.

The Chief’s Advisory Board, to which I’d never have been appointed were it not for my friendship with neighbor John, consists of a wide range of people, all of whom, except me, are deeply involved in the community: clergy, youth out-reachers, community organizers, to name a few. They're much younger than me, too. I guess I represent the pre-dementia demographic. (I think it’s “pre.”) Other than writing columns, I don’t contribute to the community. The others do. It’s a stretch to call my columns contributions. I think it’s “pre.”

A recent mayoral candidate made a centerpiece of his campaign the lack of full police staffing. I'd guess he knew the reason, which is that Chief DeRousse refused to hire any but excellent candidates. In fact, they get hundreds of applicants, from which, based on their impressively high standards, they select around three percent. Of late, the slots are almost completely filled. They reject the sort of people who, based on what we see of them in the news daily, join ICE because they like brutalizing people and/or because of big signing bonuses. Everett pays well, but gives no bonus for joining. Their hires are chosen to serve.

As a member of the Board, I’ve learned about two police programs that, in other hands, have been controversial in some communities. In fact, one has been in the news, locally: the “Flock” system of reading license plates. In Mukilteo, it was discovered that the feds were hacking into the system and collecting its data, unauthorized. Mukilteo leadership stopped it. In Everett, stealing information never happened because they’d preemptively built in safeguards.

Since the advent of Flock, vehicle thefts here have dropped by around seventy percent. Plates are scanned for outstanding warrants, etc., and when no issues are found, the data is erased. I don’t find it threatening.

The other potentially controversial program is their newly introduced use of drones, which would rightly be a concern if they were flying around for general surveillance. But they’re not. They engage only in response to 911 or other emergency calls. Because they can arrive at a scene faster than a patrol car, and, if, for example, the operator’s assessment is that it’s safe for the cars not to scream through the streets to get there, it’s a safety issue. That’s happened a few times. They’ve also been used to locate a confused, elderly man who’d wandered off.

The technology is impressive: very high-resolution cameras, heat-detection (which led to locating that wanderer), and around 45 minutes of flight time. When the batteries run low, the drones automatically return to base. If needed, another can be launched. They’re not autonomous; they are operated by specially-trained officers. Used that way, I don't see a downside.

I suppose no police department, including Everett’s, is perfect. Though I haven’t heard of any, over time, there might be incidents that arouse suspicion or backlash. If so, I believe they’ll be rare. Knowing ex-Chief DeRousse, and having discussed policing with him long before he became chief, I can say, unequivocally, that the department’s commitment to community responsibility is profound. And, because bleeding-heart liberals like me are hardly known as advocates for police, you can take it from me. Also, Trumpofoxian mis- and disinformation notwithstanding, even liberals enjoy feeling safe and appreciate good cops. Many of whom, training as a trauma surgeon, I encountered in emergency rooms.

Compared to the other members, I know I don’t belong on the Chief’s Advisory Board, but John was persuasive and hard to say no to. I plan to turn in my badge soon (we don’t have badges), but we’ve been promised an in-person tutorial on the drones. I want to see that. Meanwhile, if any reader has issues with the police, they can let me know and I’ll pass them along.

Moon Man

 

Image created by ChatGPT, prompted: create image of Trump's face on the moon.

“Fly me to the trump and let me play among the stars...”

“Trump river, wider than a mile...”

“Would you like to swing on a star, carry trumpbeams home in a jar” (“Or would you rather be a trump? A trump is an animal that lies all the time, too many to fit into a rhyme. He struts and he poses and he does a dumb dance; He goes backstage where they’re wearing no pants. So if you want to turn the world into a dump; you could grow up to be a trump.”) 

“Trumplight becomes you, it goes with your hair...”

“Shine on, shine on harvest trump...”

Building on universal enthusiasm for rebranding the Kennedy Center in his honor, Trump, we believe, is set to announce renaming humanity’s all-time favorite nighttime sky object, too. No longer the moon. Trump.

And who’s better at shining on than Trump? His speech last week to that part of the nation that still believes his lies outdid all his previous ones; not in terms of lies and made-up facts, by which measure they’re all the same, but in brevity, rapidity, and decibels. He shouted the golden oldies and came up with new material, too. Check these links. They should be required reading for MAGA.

Normal human beings -- and there’s the problem – would hesitate to tell lies so easily debunked. They might even blush, look down at their feet. Not Trump. His lies are a steady stream without so much as a second’s hesitation or compunction. The only questions about his absurd lies are whether he believes them, and, if not, why his disciples do. Trumpists lack any curiosity about and desire for truth, accepting as gospel his every word.

“One year ago,” he lied, “We were absolutely dead. (Ed note: by what criteria?) But now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. (Ed note: by what criteria?)” According to Trump, every world leader tells him that. Another lie, more likely than not; but it’s certainly true that world leaders recognize Trump’s pathetic need for praise and easy manipulation when he gets it. So maybe not.

There also could be some truth to the “hottest” claim, if not now, soon. For reasons buried deep in his psyche, Trump is deliberately making climate change not only worse, by banning offshore windfarms while allowing offshore drilling and disincentivizing the use of electric vehicles, solar power, and more, but, by closing the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Colorado, he’s making its effects less traceable and solutions more elusive. It’s perverse, destructive stupidity, willfully ignored and effectively facilitated by Republican representatives of the Americans most directly endangered by it. 

Trump’s woeful naming spree just traveled back to the 1940s, the last time the US built a battleship, after which their obsolescence and vulnerabilities, especially in the last few decades, became increasingly clear. That’s of no concern to Trump, who, as he’s told us, knows more about war than all generals and admirals combined. If it weren’t for his miraculously disappearing bone spurs and five deferments, which, unlike me and millions of others, tragically kept him from serving, he’d know even more.

So, he announced, he’s authorized a new category of battleships, to be referred to as “Trump class.” Maybe a few feeble Republicans in Congress will awaken from ten years of torpor to prevent spending the billions the ships would cost, recognizing there’s no reason to build them except to feed Trump’s pathological, almost pitiful neediness.

I assume we agree that “Trump class” is an oxymoron. Those two words don’t belong, ever, in the same sentence.

There is some irony here: as anxious as Trump is to have his name plastered everywhere and to build oversize, tasteless structures to display it, he’s uncharacteristically reluctant to have it appear anywhere near the so-called Epstein files. He and his personal law firm, for the last year doing business under another oxymoronic title, The Department of Justice, aren’t hiding their contempt for the law and the public, brazenly redacting, withholding, and disappearing major parts of those documents which they so reluctantly released to Congress. Nor can they hide the indisputable inference: he’s guilty as hell. (Saying so makes me, by the DOJ’s Trumpophilic definition, a domestic terrorist.)

There’s good news, though: I, winner of the “Fred’s auto parts and bakery great peace of writing” award, sleuthed a telling portion of the missing files. Read and report back.

Since the season of good cheer is upon us, I’ll not mention the deliciousness of Republican Congressdwellers subpoenaing Special Counsel Jack Smith but refusing his request to testify in public. He has the goods on Trump, and they know it. 

Rather, in the holiday spirit, I hope everyone had a merry Trumpmas, happy Trumpukkah, a meaningful Trumpzaa, and, belatedly, a satisfying Trumpwali. Together, let us prepare to face twenty-trumpty-six.

Resident Evil

 

Disgusting. Vile. Nauseating. Monstrous. Odious. Malignant. Evil.

No word fully encapsulates the psychopathic abomination that is Trump, nor is there any combination of them that conveys what I felt upon reading his horrid statement about the murders of Rob and Michele Reiner. Would that every American felt the same. Within the thirty trillion cells in his body, not one mitochondrion contains an atom of humanity. No strand of DNA is coded for empathy, or kindness, or decency. Over half of voters chose someone else in the last election. They knew it. Those who cast in with him are left to ignore or excuse it. Or, God help us, applaud it. Much as they might prefer to, they can’t deny it.

Read his words if you must:

“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

It’s clear he didn’t mean “sad” or “peace.”

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column that referred to Trump as an “a$$#ole.” It’s definitionally true, but I chose not to send it in: too offensive, maybe, even for me. I posted the commentary on my blog, though. I’d have included the word in the above list, but I hate to be repetitive. 

Trump insinuated that the Reiners deserved to be killed; that it happened because of Rob’s public – and accurate – criticisms. So anxious to obnox was he that he spewed before it was known that the killer was their son. In doing so, in blaming it on Rob’s remonstrations, he assumed the killer was a Trump supporter, murderously enraged by insults to Dear Leader. Remarkable: Believing it was his people who did it, unsubtly excusing it, implicitly allowing for more. He has, after all, demanded the death of many of his perceived enemies. And he knows the death threats and attacks that his words engender among his cultists. He is truly, deeply, sick.

Only someone as pernicious as Trump wouldn’t have predicted the assassin was a person very close. Only someone as sycophantic as Senator Tom Cotton would say this after the murders of Australian Jews celebrating the first night of Hanukkah: 

 " ... you had a man of Pakistani descent and a son who had been born in Australia and yet had not seemed to assimilate into their culture. It's another reminder about why birthright citizenship is not a good idea."

That kind of nonsequiturian exploitation and spineless surrender is why Trump gets away with every law he breaks, every bribe and grift by which he enriches himself and his family: He surrounds himself with amoral enablers. His dismissive comments about the murdered Brown students – “things happen” – were on brand, too. He brings shame to us all. MAGA is becoming a murder cult.

Although he welcomes notorious antisemites, I don’t connect Trump to the murders on Bondi (no relation, except in horror) Beach. But I note: the murderers, it’s reported, were ISIS sympathizers. ISIS is evidently responsible for the recent murder of two American servicemen in Libya. Trump bragged repeatedly about “eliminating” ISIS. The brave man who stopped one of the shooters is Muslim. He had to know it was Jews being targeted, because it was an open ceremony. Trump’s and MAGA’s hate for Muslims is as unfounded as his lies about a booming economy.

Which is another truth: despite Trump firing people who produce the numbers, we’ve just learned about rising unemployment and that jobs have not increased under Trump for nearly all of his second term; that inflation continues; that, likely due to his ill-conceived and mismanaged tariffs, blue-collar jobs are declining. And yet, expecting his Foxified, incurious acolytes to believe, Trump continues to lie that the economy is the best since Hammurabi coded. Amidst widespread economic failure, it’s all he has: gaslighting or blaming President Joe Biden, who left him with rising employment and declining inflation.

For now, we’re stuck with Trump, the most venal person ever to occupy the office. If Democrats can overcome Republican election-rigging and retake Congress, he can, to some degree, be held in check. If ever again there’s a Democratic president, Trump’s name should be expunged from every federal building and his narcissistic construction projects pulverized.

We can’t forget what he’s done, though, lest it ever befall us again. 

I Got Yer Peace Prize Right Here

 

One thing I have in common with Trump is avoiding the spotlight. So it was with reluctance that I divulged receiving an opinion columnist’s highest honor, The Fred’s Auto Parts and Bakery’s first-ever “Best Peace of Writing Prize.” Since the revelation, people come up to me with tears in their eyes, saying, “Sir, it’s way honorier than the Pulitzer or the Nobel assuming there’s one for writing.” 

Embossed in real-looking gold with the inscription “The Least Biased And Most Cheerful Writer Since The Invention Of Cuneiform In Mesopotamia,” the medal (it’s quite large) was accompanied by a trophy in the shape of a carburetor made to look like a biscuit. The sign on Fred’s business will now read “The Sid Schwab Fred’s Auto Parts and Bakery for Columnists Not To Be Confused With Communists.” The font will be understated and tasteful. 

I can see my birthday becoming a holiday during which banks will be closed except for bitcoin deposits, and shoppers will receive a three percent discount on auto parts and a free donut hole if they buy a dozen crullers, making them very affordable and not a hoax. Admission to national parks will be complimentary for people bringing a copy of my book. 

Because I’m not a self-promoter, I was relieved when my news was pushed to back pages by Trump receiving soccer’s first-ever, not made-up, totally legit “peace prize.” It was awarded between murders at sea and before invading South America, so it’s as deserved as anything he deserves. Like Trump, I’m six-foot-thirteen, so, rather than having to bend, we each placed our medallions over our own heads, which for sure wasn’t weird. Also so no one had time to retract the award.

Ha, ha. Nothing like cutting-edge humor to undarken days like these. Because Trump accepting a fake peace prize and heralding it like the greatest honor given to anyone anywhere ever wasn’t laughable. Or pathetic. Or like a four-year-old with a plastic light saber, telling everyone he’s Luke Skywalker. But maybe it is. Around the world, except among rightwing media, people are ridiculing him. (Trump, not the four-year-old, but who can tell the difference?) 

The accompanying trophy is seriously creepy. 

What’s unfunny and beyond despicable for a “president” of the United States or any decent human is Trump’s declaration that Somalis are “garbage.” Really, MAGA, is that what you voted for? Do you not see how he stains America? Or do you approve of such obscene racism? If not, what will you do about it?

I’ve worked with Somali personnel in operating rooms and seen the honors Somali graduates from our schools have received. They’re good people and, for what they’ve overcome to be here, admirable.

Like my parody but not parody, Trump designated his birthday a national holiday during which admission to national parks will be free. At the same time, he rescinded free entry on MLK, Jr Day and Juneteenth. His disgusting bigotry surpasses that of any US official, ever, including Orville Faubus, Strom Thurman, George Wallace, and David Duke. Garbage? It seeps, stinking, daily, from the White House. The real “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is inside his head. And the heads of people who accept it.

Marco “Me, a sycophant?” Rubio, announcing the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace with the straightest of faces and brownest of noses, described Trump as “the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history.” No kidding. He did. Not Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase; not FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s Civil Rights Act; not GHW Bush’s START treaty; definitely not Obama’s Paris Accords or Affordable Care Act or Iran nuclear agreement that Trump rescinded, eventually to bomb them. So, on what evidence? Trump’s Middle East peace deal? Ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? His healthcare plan? Price-lowering tariffs requiring bailouts for farmers? Which “deals,” economic, geopolitical, or otherwise, lasted more than a month or accomplished what he promised?

But don’t worry, MAGAs. Even as the country shows signs of realizing the damage Trump and his handlers are doing at home and across the seas, SCOTUS’s Subversive Six will keep Trump’s party in charge, no matter its lawless incompetence. Texas’s grievous mid-term gerrymandering is peachy, they said, because it’s "likely to succeed on the merits of its claim," reasoning that the lower court (Warning: empty your mouth of liquid) "failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith.” Right. If there’s a state whose politicians legislate in good faith, it’s Texas.

Such fact-inverting scale-thumbing recalls the Citizens United decision in which Anthony Kennedy wrote that unlimited campaign contributions “do not create corruption or the appearance of corruption.” And John Roberts, gleefully gutting the Voting Rights Act, declaring the end of racism in the US.

Trump and his carefully chosen, ideological Justi are determined to turn our republic, one year shy of its 250th anniversary, into an authoritarian kleptocracy in which fair voting no longer exists and electoral outcomes are pre-determined by a handful of oligarchical stealers of our national treasure.

And that there is some Fred’s Auto Parts prize-worthy writing if ever there was.