We present two Christmas messages, one from our current president, the other from a twice-loser of the popular vote, going for the trifecta.
"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." Orwell
"“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
Plato
"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant" Robespierre
Wednesday, December 27, 2023
You Say You Want A Resolution
Wednesday, December 20, 2023
Justified
“You can’t just say you’re innocent and not have to prove it.” So says Ralph Norman, R-SC, conjuring Salem. (Also the guy who urged Trump to declare “Marshall” law.) Does he hate America? If it’s the stupidest justification for Republicans’ impeachment “inquiry,” it’s not the most revelatory. That’d be the answer given by Troy Nehls, R-Texas, when asked what he hoped they’d get from it: “Donald J. Trump 2024, baby!”
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Poster Boy
I’ll spare readers the details, but I’m in recovery from an unpleasant illness (not Covid, per home testing). Hopefully, the worst has passed, but if this column makes more sense than usual, credit whatever pathogen took up corporeal residence.
Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General, is a heartless Christo-fascist. Under several indictments, like Trump, he’s the “Death to America” poster boy for America’s future if Trump and Republicans like him control America’s government. This is not subject to question. It’s as obvious as Trump’s escalating, dangerous rhetoric, spewing forth at rallies and from “Truth Social” like lava from Kilauea but not as awesome.
You’ve heard the story: a Texas woman, pregnant with a fetus bearing a death-dealing genetic mutation, “Trisomy 18,” was advised by her doctors to have an abortion; not only to terminate the doomed pregnancy but to protect her own health, as she’d already had three visits to emergency departments to deal with consequences of carrying this malformed tragedy. Because Texas abortion laws are red-state restrictive, she needed a judicial order. Which she got.
Immediately, Paxton threatened to jail the woman and any doctor who’d do the abortion; and punish hospitals who’d allow it in their facilities. Then, the Texas Supreme Court, a panoply of rightwing religious zealots, one of whom was arrested 37 times for (with judicial impartiality) harassing women at abortion clinics, stayed and later aborted the lower court order.
For what possible reason? To the benefit of whom? Forced to be born, the baby would either be a stillbirth or die shortly after. Carrying the baby to term in emotional misery, the mother could well lose the ability to become pregnant again.
Other than vindictive cruelty and a desire to impose a most perverse form of “Christian” theocracy on all Texan women because they can, what justification can there be to demand such an outcome? If it’s God on their “minds,” well, He sentenced the baby to death at the moment of conception. Is the God they believe in the sort to do that and then glory in the mother’s gestational suffering? That’s not one I’d want to believe in.
Nor is it a party, were I a past, present, or future mother, of which I’d want to be a part. The party that, wherever it’s in control, is passing draconian anti-abortion legislation, imposing its legislative will, born of religious extremism, on all who do or, more importantly, don’t share their radicalism. J.D. Vance, once a respected author, now Senator from Ohio and hardcore Trumpist, just said, on national TV, that he knew of no Republicans working to end access to birth control.
One-hundred-ninety-five of them, including their current Speaker, voted against a bill guaranteeing a right to contraception. The bill passed because, at the time, Democrats were in control. Outside of D.C., several state legislatures have tried to ban access. If Republicans gain all-branch power, it’s coming, sure as Santa.
It’s mystifying that a party dominated by religious extremists has also become the Party of Putin, arguably Satan on Earth. (Trump ain’t exactly the Sermon on the Mount, either.) It’s not unreasonable to wonder if some are intentionally working for Russia; but there’s no question Putin craves the re-installation of Trump, who previously gave him everything he wanted. Whatever the reason, like Trump, they’re all but kneeling before him.
And he’s not the only strongman they fluff, bringing representatives of Hungary’s Viktor Orban to discuss defunding Ukraine’s struggle against Putin’s criminality. Using our southern border as a non-sequitur excuse for not providing help in the war, Senate Republicans are validating Putin’s war crimes. How delighted he must be. In fact, Russia has heaped praise on Republicans for denying the help Ukraine needs. After all, it’s clear they prefer dictators. And support candidates who promise to become one. It’s a twofer, they’re saying in Moscow: Republicans will bring down Ukraine, and when it falls, it’ll bring down Biden and re-install our guy Trump.
Speaking of whom, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith took the bold move of appealing directly to the Supreme Court, bypassing lower courts a la the Nixon tapes precedent, for an expedited ruling on Trump’s claim that he has blanket immunity for any crimes committed while in office.
If this were like the Nixon tapes time, when Republicans and their courts included people of integrity, there’d be no question SCOTUS would reject such a ridiculous claim. But, like the Republican Party itself, times have changed since then, for the much worse. In Congress, on the right side of the aisle, integrity is a liability. Just ask Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, or Jaime Herrera Beutler.
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Clichés Are So Last Year
Much as I try to avoid clichés, it oughta be a slam dunk. A no-brainer. Go without saying. Certain to be the nominee of the party of no “law” and unrelenting dis-“order,” Trump ought to be defeated by staggering numbers. Trump and Trumpism should be shown the door, wiped off the map, sent packing. The danger he represents is enormous. Nevertheless, in exceptional America, it’ll be a squeaker, a close shave. Nip and tuck.
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
The War Of Fog
Crossing nine time zones to return home after three weeks away, arriving around midnight after twenty-four hours of sleepless travel, leaves one with a fogged brain. This one, anyway. Which explains the absence of a column last week. And, perhaps, the following fatuous, foggish frivolity, as I’m not yet ready to give up my gelato high and get serious. So:
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Notes From The Vermin
If there remain people who don’t believe the survival of democracy is on the ballot next year, either they’re unreachably Foxotrumpified or blind, deaf, and dumb (in its more common meaning). Or find it to their liking. Which describes Trump supporters and lookers the other way.
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Smarter Than Me
I discovered an impressive AI/chatbot recently, web address pi.ai. Depending on how questions are asked, it’s impressively conversational. Below is an excerpt of a longer and wider-ranging conversation. My input is italicized. And, yes, the responses are the actual AI language, not mine.
Wednesday, November 1, 2023
Michael Rode The Book Ashore
Last week I understated the radicalism and dangerous, theocratic intentions of newly-anointed Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Brought from on high from a district so gerrymandered that he’s had no opponent, never had to answer questions about his priorities, a self-proclaimed Evangelical Christian, his first words as Speaker were that God had placed him there. When news of the latest mass murder came (most killed so far, this year, but, hey, there’s still time) he said we need to pray for the end of this evil, and made a point of saying that’s all he had to say. “This isn’t the time,” he told Sean Hannity. To Republicans, the time is never.
Not a single Republican was bothered enough by Johnson’s religious-based extremism and election denialism to withhold their vote. But we can. It’s time to produce reasonable gun control, and for Americans not to vote for any legislator who declines. Doing so would place them among the eighty percent who, unlike virtually every elected Republican, demand sensible legislation. Including universal background checks and, finally, reinstituting a ban on military-style weapons for which no regular citizen has a need other than strutting around in phallocompensatory lib-sticking.
Out of step with the majority of Americans, Mike says he’s against background checks and waiting periods, too. We need more legislators like this one.
Mr. Johnson also said the way to learn how he feels about any issue is to read the Bible: “That's my worldview, that's what I believe.” Which values, one wonders; like all MAGA Republicans, his are the opposite of Jesus’. He’s all in on the lie, for example, that Democrats are for abortion right up until delivery.
Like Mike, anyone is entitled to believe Earth is six thousand years old and that dinosaurs (if their bones weren’t planted by the devil) lived alongside humans. But should such a person be the most powerful Republican in the country? One responsible for what legislation is brought to vote? One unable to grasp science or recognize the difference between fact and belief? Yeah, me neither.
Among theocracy-welcoming Republicans there is great rejoicing. But anyone who believes in separation of church and state, anyone holding beliefs other than Mike’s extreme ones, should be concerned. This, I want to believe (fact?), includes the majority of Christians, whose sensibilities Mike so thoroughly rejects. Americans who value America’s founding principles must help Democrats regain control of the House to oust Mr. Johnson; and make Trump – the farthest thing from a Christian – the farthest thing from the White House. But MJ is the closest thing to Trump. Even the Russia connection. And, as with Trump, we assume they expect to get what they paid for.
With the blessings of the current far-right, ethically-challenged Supreme Court, it’s unlikely any legislation passed by Republicans, no matter how unconstitutionally Bible-based, would be rejected. Johnson has argued for requiring the Bible to be taught in public schools. He says homosexuality will cause the end of democracy, and blames it and gun violence on banning school prayer and, entirely on brand, teaching evolution. Also feminism. He was at the forefront of efforts to overturn the election, and wants an “official impeachment” of President Biden.
Speaking of facts, Mike denies a human role in climate change (of course), wants to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (no surprise), and advocates “covenant marriage,” a far-right Christian concept that effectively disallows divorce, even from wife-beaters. While Republicans distractingly warn of “Sharia Law” coming in through the back door, people like Mike Johnson are bringing extreme Biblical law through the front. The danger to democracy is obvious. As has been said, “Beware the preacher who tells you for whom to vote, and beware the politician who tells you how to pray.”
In his first legislative act as Speaker, Mike hit the expected notes: funding for Israel is contingent on cutting an equal amount from funding the IRS. To “balance,” he lied. Every dollar spent on the IRS returns more than three to the US treasury. Cutting funds increases debt, a Republican specialty. What his plan balances is his need for support from House renegades and the demands of his party’s wealthy patrons; for it’s they who benefit from underfunding the search for tax cheats. WWJL?
Regaining control of the House and ousting Johnson as Speaker, if red state legislatures have their way, will be hard, requiring massive turnout by democracy-loving voters. Subsequently approved by their supreme court, North Carolina’s legislature just passed radically gerrymandered redistricting that could flip four districts red. It’s a state with nearly even Democratic and Republican voters, yet the legislature is 80% Republican. When you can’t win on ideas, it’s what you do. Happily, a federal judge just batted down Georgia’s attempt to do the same. It’ll end up with the Supremes, no doubt, and we can guess how that’ll go.
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Beach And Moan
Of the heads under the hats tossed into the main ring of the circus, i.e. those vying for Speakership of the House, seven of nine voted against certifying the fraud-free election of Joe Biden. All of them voted against the January 6 Commission, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, banning wage discrimination based on sex, ensuring the right to contraception, and the CHIPS and Science Act. Only one voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act; only one – a different one – voted to cap insulin costs; and only one – still another – voted for expanding healthcare to veterans exposed to toxins in the line of duty. This is what it takes to be a leader of a governance-incapable party: someone who’ll take them deeper into the wilderness.
From the nine, House Rs first selected Tom Emmert (R-Nowhere), who lasted four hours, until Trump trashed him. “I killed him,” he bloated. Finally, emerging from the swamp, fourth-choice and farthest right of the far-right, Mike Johnson (R-Anti-everything, see preceding link) won the day. A founding father of overturning the election, defender of January 6, enthusiastic promoter of impeaching President Biden, opponent of Ukraine aid, anti-LGBT warrior, a nationwide abortion-ban zealot who said if it weren’t for Roe v. Wade, we’d have millions of healthy workers paying taxes to offset top-end tax cuts, and an anti-voting rights hero, he’s a Trumpist’s Trumpist, introduced Trumpically.
Certain to continue with their new Speaker, in today’s Republican Party, manufactured outrage is broadcast in unison, like an mp3. Their latest concerto of criticism, overture of outrage, symphony of scandal, is that, after returning from Israel where he spoke forthrightly about Israel’s right to defend itself as well as the need to protect and aid Palestinian civilians, and rallied international support, President Biden took a walk on a beach.
“Americans are still being held hostage by Hamas terrorists — and Joe Biden is at the beach,” posted the RNC on Xwitter. Nearly verbatim, the expected mouths foamed it on repeat. On the Fox “news” website, a headline shouted, “Iconic rapper unleashes scathing rebuke of Biden’s beach getaway as war rages (sic) Gaza.” Earlier, it read “50 Cent” rather than “Iconic rapper,” until they realized their audience wouldn’t know who 50 Cent is; namely, someone whose political opinions are worth less than that.
To understand this next bit of spumescent tergiversation from MAGAland, an analogy helps: Consider a road through a residential neighborhood on which people dangerously break the speed limit. Say the local police have done little about it. Then imagine a new cop arrives and starts arresting speeders like never before. What if the local paper began criticizing the new guy, saying all those arrests prove the street is more unsafe than ever? See? MAGAs point to the huge increase in interdictions of people on the terrorist watchlist under President Biden as proof... (In fairness, “interdiction” is a bigger word than Trumpists are used to hearing.)
No analogy is needed for the bogosity of the latest “bombshell” from James Comer (R-Weaponization), that their Foxy “investigation” has discovered a check for $200,000 given to President Biden by his brother. (He wasn’t in office at the time.) A smoking gun? Only if repaying a loan is corrupt. What it is is another example of Joe Biden being there for his family. What it also is is the most pathetic, desperate attempt yet by Comer to smear President Biden. And laughable. Poor guy tries so hard. He has no reason to stop, though, as the Foxotrumpified will only process that there was a check, somewhere, proving... something. Because “laundering money” via personal check is how it’s done, right?
Counting on loyalists to keep defending the indefensible, Trump just promised, if elected, to keep out immigrants who don’t like “our” religion, and revealed to his rapt rally-goers that he’d discovered how “us” is spelled. On a corybantic roll, he then misidentified Republican hero autocrat, Victor Orban, as the leader of Turkey. (Imagine if President Biden had done that!) He’ll also pull “us” out of NATO (that sound you heard was cheers from the Kremlin.)
As Trump’s rally-based ramblings become increasingly incoherent, bespeaking a man losing what’s left of his mind, he manages to maintain control of a party that threw in with him in 2016, knowing he was an unfit, amoral conman. Despite his real-time unraveling, they’re in too deep to quit him. Their speakership clown-show genuflection proves it.
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
Clowns To The Right Of Us
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
The Root
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
Fraudster
Wednesday, September 27, 2023
Lawn Order
Add this to the list of differences between Democrats and Republicans: not considering it “weaponization” when Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice indicted Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), whose bill of particulars, like Trump’s, appalls. No cries of “witch hunt” or “two-tiered justice,” except Menendez himself, who Trump-eted, “Those behind this campaign simply can’t stand that a first-generation Latino-American from humble beginnings can rise to become a US Senator...”
Similarly, as to Hunter Biden, many on the left have noted that federal indictments are rare for his infractions and have questioned the insecure handling of THE LAPTOP!!!!, but none have said he did nothing wrong.
From Democrats there have been no calls for presidential pardons, none for defunding the DOJ. No liberal has characterized as gestapo tactics the FBI search of the senator’s home. Instead, one hears escalating calls for Menendez to resign or be booted (not from Republicans, though); and agreement that if Hunter Biden is found guilty, he deserves appropriate punishment. Menendez has already had to resign his powerful Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship.
Imagine that: Recognizing its indispensability, one party respects our system of justice, while another – a self-proclaimed defender of law and order -- doesn’t. Wants, rather, to stifle its independence or defund it entirely.
Unfamiliar with the concept of integrity, rightwing icons like Charlie Kirk and the usual Foxing heads want to convince their ungulate followers that the Menendez indictment was a “deep state” ploy to make it appear that the DOJ is impartial. With today’s “conservatives” and their media, you can’t win. Anything good done by President Joe Biden or his government is bad. Anything bad done or said by Trump is good. Facts that breach the bubble are fake. Trump’s crimes aren’t crimes, while Biden’s lack of crimes demands investigation.
That mentality provides excellent ratings for Fox “news” and plenty of airtime for Trumpublicans, but it’s a parody of responsible governance. (Would I credit Trump if he did something good? See below.)
Daily examples confirm Republicans’ disinterest in and inability to produce serious legislation. For a budget to pass, Gym Jordan prattled on Fox “Business,” “... no money can be used to target your political opponents, which is exactly what Jack Smith is doing to President Trump.” Then, without irony, he went on to update the audience on his made-for-Foxification targeting of Hunter Biden.
Another: Margorie Taylor Greene (R-Jezero Crater) announced she’ll vote against any budget that includes money for Ukraine because they “sex traffic” children and “harvest their organs.” Thereupon, Semispeaker Kevin McCarthy stripped funding from their proposal.
Making America great, people actually voted for that lady. Is she a liar or just surpassingly stupid? Either way, she’s angling for and may well be Trump’s VP pick. A vengeful authoritarian plus a meretricious conspiracist: Trumpism’s pinnacle and America’s agonal breath. Kari Lake? Interchangeable.
Without desperate vote suppression and unscrupulous gerrymandering, lunatic MTG, crotchety Lauren Boebert, and the rest of the Caucus of Crazy would be babbling on street corners, as passers-by hurried on, avoiding eye contact. Prone to confusion as he is, when Trump said, “They aren’t sending their best,” he might have meant Republican states, not Mexico. It’s possible, though, that those people ARE the best they have.
Definitely not our best, but reading the ketchup on the wall, Trump, who brags that, by anointing bench-legislating, billionaire-selected ideologues to SCOTUS, he deserves credit for ending reproductive choice, is suddenly simulating sensibility. Now he’s suggesting there’s middle ground, rather than, say, making felons of people who drive women to another state for a legal abortion. I’ll say it: Good for him. I’ll also say: his epiphany comes more from electoral worries than empathy derived from a rumored past.
Lest we conclude that Trump, aka inmate P01135809 out on bail, has turned toward the light, something he’s done only during a solar eclipse, he confirmed his plans for a second “presidency,” should the combination of anti-democracy voters and third-party candidates return him to the Oval Office. Implying General Mark Milley deserves death, he pretended it was because, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the general wisely reassured China of America’s stability after 9/11. In reality, he was furious over Milley’s book revealing Trump’s dangerous ignorance and incompetence.
Trump also promised government weaponization to punish “treasonous” news organizations. To His Errancy, criticism in any form is a capital crime. But P01135809 and Trumpists call Democrats fascists.
Finally, for a chuckle: Because they knew of Senator Menendez’s sleaze, Trump presumes, he demands that all Democratic senators must resign. Having covered projection last week, it should be unnecessary to identify it again. But there it is. Same with his rant about media, leaving out the real danger, Fox “news” et ilk. His just-rendered conviction for fraud isn't projection. It's a decades-long truth.
Oh, and that over-hyped poll? There’s only one that matters: “Democracy or Autocracy: choose one.”
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
Projection
Projection: attributing to others what one is, in fact, doing oneself. Everything, in other words, that Trump and his defenders accuse Democrats, especially President Joe Biden, of doing. Prime example: Trump’s relentlessly repeated phrase in reference to those pointing out and prosecuting his crimes and lies: “Fascist thugs.” This, from the guy who promises weaponized retribution, were he to become “president” again. Campaigns on it.
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