Standing On Shaky Ground

Permit-less concealed carry and “stand your ground” laws: the deadliest possible combination. Yet, cahooting with the NRA, the Republican Party is doing everything it can to exacerbate it. It’s a party gone nuts. At this point, we may as well assume that everyone we encounter is packing and pissed; and that if we do anything considered threatening, like, for example, breathing, we could be killed.

Maybe it began with the stand-your-ground, get-out-of-jail card and subsequent lionization of George Zimmerman after he killed Trayvon Martin for carrying... Skittles. If that was lionization, what’s happened to smirking, money-begging Kyle Rittenhouse, murderer of unarmed demonstrators, is deification. A frequent guest on Fox “news,” he was just featured in a personal “Trigger Time” adventure, auctioned off by the Idaho GOP.

Going even further, Texas Governor Abbott is itching to pardon the cop who, after publicizing his intent to kill BLM protestors, did so. Because he was afraid of a man who approached him after he deliberately drove into a crowd. It’s like a MAGA credo: claim fear, stand your ground, murder at will. Or try to.

An unarmed, sixteen-year-old Black kid knocks on the wrong door, gets shot in the head by the white homeowner, likely having stepped momentarily away from watching Fox “news.”* A twenty-year-old woman is killed for pulling her car into the wrong driveway. A cheerleader is shot, critically, for accidentally stepping into the wrong car in a parking lot. Could it be because right-wing leaders, their media (to get votes), and the NRA (to sell guns) are pushing fear and paranoia onto their followers like dealers selling fentanyl?

Among America’s mass murders, more in 2023 than days elapsed, one was committed by a transgendered man. Capitalizing on Trumpism’s latest ginned-up, vote-getting scapegoat for all of society’s ills, twice-impeached, two-time popular vote loser, indicted Donald Trump, promised, at the NRA convention, “Upon my inauguration, I will direct the FDA to convene an independent outside panel to investigate whether transgender hormone treatments and ideology increase the risk of extreme depression, aggression and even violence. I think most of us already know the answer.” “Ideology,” he called it. “The answer,” he said.

The smell of exploded gunpowder barely dissipated after the nearby murder of schoolchildren, and after arrogantly expelling two Black legislators demanding gun regulation, the Tennessee legislature voted down proposed red flag laws. Take that, woke liberals!

But it’s not just committers of gun violence that Republican lawmakers are grooming. It’s people like 21-year-old Jake Teixeira, who damaged our country by stealing and sharing critical military secrets. Unlike Daniel Ellsberg, who, pilfering the Pentagon Papers, intended to expose lies about the Vietnam War, that kid just wanted to impress his online gamer pals. Nevertheless, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson, among other Trumpic lovers of Putin and his criminal war, proclaimed him a hero. To MTG, it’s because he’s “white, male, christian (sic), and anti-war.” Unmentioned, but likely equally appealing, were his racist and anti-Semitic postings.

Uninformed isn’t enough, though. Because knowledge and critical thinking are MAGA’s enemies, the ultimate goal is uneducated. Not satisfied with banning books that teach empathy and history, Republican legislatures are defunding public libraries. State officials in Louisiana asked lawmakers to ban the study of racism at universities, citing “divisive, inglorious aspects of US history.” Florida just expanded bans on teaching about gender and sexuality to include high school. In several red states, laws are being passed to disallow college ID for voting registration, and to remove polling places and drop boxes from campuses.

It’s not hard to understand why. The same goes for love for Putin and his governing style. It’s MAGA Republicans’ vision of future America: Silencing dissidents and journalists, creating and lying about enemies, having a single ruling party, an above-the-law leader, tightly-censored public education, and state-run media; ensuring perpetual power. Everything they’re doing is in service to that aim. Which, in their case, includes extremist theocracy.

Speaking of MAGA love objects, a word about the Dominion v. Fox lawsuit settlement: Disappointing. Yes, Fox will give Dominion a ton of money, and similar suits are still pending. But they weren’t required to admit their lies. In fact, so far, they’ve barely mentioned the result. Tucker, Sean, Laura, Maria, and Jeanine should have been required to state, live on their shows, every day for months, that they’ve been lying for years. To the contrary, Fox’s public (not on-air) announcement included: “This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.” That their offices weren’t immediately swallowed by the earth could be seen by some as proof that God doesn’t exist. Or that he’s Rupert Murdoch.

And speaking of God, given Republicans’ continued attacks on being “woke,” we end by noting that of all historical figures, none was more so than Jesus.

_______________

* Update: I wasn't wrong 

Is The Tide Turning?

Few who know me would call me a political optimist. But it may be, might be, could possibly be within the realm of imagination, that something I’ve hoped for, written about, hallucinated, has become, to some extent, in moments unburdened by the signs and sounds of democracy’s death-knell, thinkable.

As Republicans have no positive agenda other than tax cuts, voter suppression, and vengeance, nothing to offer average Americans beyond a tsunami of lies and anger, I’ve thought it possible they’d eventually overplay their hand. They’d mistake the undying devotion of the Foxified thirty percent for a free pass. They’d loose upon us such outrageously undemocratic and repugnant behavior that reasonable people, formerly inclined in their direction, would awaken to the danger they represent to our teetering democracy. If there’s a glimmer of hope, we have the Tennessee legislature, Jim Jordan, Texas’ Federal Judge Kacsmaryk and Governor Abbott to thank. Among others.

In Tennessee, after what was then (no longer) the latest mass murder, school children and their parents marched on the capitol to demand action. From the floor of the legislature (how dare they?) three of the greatly outnumbered Democrats showed their approval, raising their fists Josh Hawley-J6-style and, worse, shouting. Given several less punitive options for reprimanding the besmirching of hallowed ground, Republicans unanimously expelled the two male Democrats whose skin color differed, darkly, from the female other and from their own.

Intra- and outré- state outrage was immediate. And, to all but those legislators, so sure of their God-given power to do whatever they wanted, predictable. Because even among today’s Republicans, there are some who favor democracy and at least minimal gun regulations. Then, improbably, their pro-gun governor announced support for background checks and red flag laws. It took the murder of a friend of his wife, but still...

No such epiphany has found Texas Governor Abbott. Almost before the courtroom was empty, he promised to pardon an off-duty cop convicted of murdering a BLM protestor. The officer’s “stand your ground” defense was considered and rejected, unanimously, by a jury. Among other things, the murderer had previously announced his intent to kill protestors and, accordingly, deliberately drove his car into a peaceful group of them.

The victim, though legally armed, had not reached for his gun. Which was unchambered. That the protestor shared melanin with the Tennessee Two goes without saying. So does the falsity of Abbott’s party’s claim to favor “law and order.” As in Tennessee, it’s blatant playing to the racism he assumes Texans share with him. Even there, it can’t stand forever.

Then there’s Trump-appointed, unqualified, rabid anti-abortion, anti-LGBT, specifically-chosen Judge Kascmaryk, who, based on unsupported and unscientific claims by a group of hand-picked “doctors” filing in just the right courtroom, ruled the FDA erred, twenty-three years ago, when it declared a medical abortion drug safe. In fact, time has shown it safer than Tylenol. Pending appeal, his ruling would make it unavailable nationwide, even in states where abortion is legal. The party which once railed against activist judges cheered their judge declaring decades of proven science invalid. His inclusion of religious language in his ruling, where it had no place, only made them happier.

In another example of religious-based rejection of science and appealing to the ignorance and fears of their base, Republican-led legislatures are criminalizing gender-affirming care for trans people; in most, but not all cases, for minors. Taking difficult family decisions away from parents and doctors, it’s the biggest of big-government interference, about which that party hypocricizes continually. Parents, they say, should be in charge of what their children learn about America and gender, but not, evidently, of what is among the most difficult parenting issues, ever.

As repellent as are the preceding examples, there’s no comparison, in terms of displaying contempt for norms, for his presumed supporters and for the Constitution, to Jim Jordan’s weaponization of government disguised as an investigation into weaponization of government. Or his making of Congress into a dedicated law firm for twice-impeached, twice-popular-vote-losing, indicted defendant Donald Trump. Demanding, from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, information to which he’s not entitled, blatantly interfering with a state’s lawful pursuit of presumed criminal activity, he’ll marsupialize hearings in NYC on “rampant crime” which he blames on Mr. Bragg. Surely he knows that NYC is safer than many red state cities, and that crime there has been steadily decreasing. Facts, though, are never his point.  

Limited space requires ignoring Governor DeSantis and his “surgeon general” faking statistics to malign covid vaccines. And the cancel-culture hilarity of transphobic Trumpists blowing up cans of Bud Light (which is to beer as pea-shooters are to bazookas.)

There is space, however, to note that apples can, indeed, fall far from trees: cf. Robert Kennedy, Jr.

Running On Emptiness

 

So Trump was indicted (or, as he spelled it, “indicated”) and now we know the particulars. And we know that he reveled in it, was fundraising over it; even, having been deprived of an official mugshot, created one printed on a t-shirt he’ll send you “free of charge” with a minimum $47 donation. Preferring the spectacle, he declined the opportunity to do it remotely. To his idolaters, he’s more heroic than ever.

The facts are undisputed, which explains the rightwing response. From the outset, they’ve attacked Alvin Bragg, President Biden, George Soros, and the commies behind the prosecution. Filling the air are claims that “This isn’t America anymore,” “We’ve become a banana republic,” “It’s communism.”

In fact, it’s what separates America from dictatorships: Potential crimes were investigated, evidence was presented to twenty-three members of a grand jury, which recommended indictment. The accused was presented with the charges, a generous amount of time was granted before the next court appearance (eight months), and, eventually, in a court of law, appearing before a jury of fellow citizens, he’ll have the opportunity to defend himself; after which he’ll be acquitted or found guilty.

In countries to which Trump et cultum are comparing the process, he’d have been arrested and imprisoned on the spot. Or executed. Our system is one of many things that MAGAlready. It’s “political” or “election interference” only to the extent that he chose to run, hoping to avoid indictments. Too bad Al Capone didn’t think of it.

In other news...

There’s been another demonstration interrupted by rioting, overturned vehicles, broken windows, arson, and multiple injuries. Again, BLM and Antifa... weren’t involved. It was mainly white college kids, celebrating winning the NCAA b-ball championship, to do with which they had nothing. Shall Congress investigate?

Speaking of weaponizing government, following the indictment, Representative Jim “Gym” Jordan (R-OH) of the Weaponization of Government subcommittee, is calling for defunding the FBI and DOJ. He’s forgotten, evidently, how he and all Republicans campaigned on the (very few, not leaders) Democrats who called for defunding the police after the murder of George Floyd. Back home at Mar-a-Lago, Trump called, amongst the usual lies, for the same.

Days after the latest massacre of school children with legally-obtained AR 15s, Ron DeSantis signed a permitless-carry law in Florida. The event was atypically closed to the public and press. Present were legislators who wrote the bill and – get this! – representatives of the NRA. Well, at least Running Ron doesn’t hide to whom he’s beholden and to whose concerns he listens.

Regarding that mass murder in Tennessee, about which the US Representative from the district where it occurred said there was nothing to be done about it, masses of school children and their parents – more than showed up supporting Trump in NYC -- protested at the state capitol, demanding that the overwhelmingly Republican House of Representatives take action on guns. Three Democratic representatives joined the crowd. Comparing the noisy but nonviolent demonstration to January 6, Republicans proceeded to remove those Democrats from committees, deactivate their access cards, and are in the process of expelling them entirely. Such is their love of democracy and free speech. Such is their characteristic abuse of power.

Putting into words the symbolism of DeSantis’ NRA-honoring signing ceremony, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) said “We’ve done about as much as we can” about gun control. Left unsaid was the implicit end of the sentence: “... and still collect bribes from the NRA and votes from our gunly-paranoid base.”

In heavily-gerrymandered Wisconsin, where, as in Tennessee, Republicans disproportionately outnumber Democrats in their legislature, a liberal judge just won election to their Supreme Court, decisively, giving it a liberal majority. This will have enormous impact on abortion rights, gun control, and election fairness, as well as national Electoral College prospects.

Gerrymandering doesn’t work for elections in which state-level candidates are selected by all voters. Which is why Democrats still hold the US Senate. But not Wisconsin’s.

Asa Hutchinson, former Republican Governor and Representative from Arkansas, manager of the Clinton impeachment, announced he’s running for president. He’ll lose of course, and not just because he’s the only Republican who dared to defend the process by which Trump was indicted, urging people to wait and see. A definitional conservative, he’s a throwback outlier in today’s Republican party.

Running through it all is a common theme: Trumpism. It’s been systematically tearing down the Constitutional foundations of America, infecting every state, but especially the red ones. Maybe DeSantis’ wildly unpopular permitless carry law and Tennessee’s fascistic, undemocratic legislative bullying will become a bridge for Republicans to cross the Rubicon back in this direction, back to rationality, rejoining the democracy they claim to love, instead of destroying it step by step.

Right. And Trump will stop lying.

Let's Be Immoderate

In response to anger over his abolitionist advocacy, William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator, wrote this, in 1831: “I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm ... but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I will not equivocate ... AND I WILL BE HEARD.”

Everyone, not just columnists, can be heard. By friends, family. By their conscience. If Trump’s and his Congressional conspirators’ recent behavior doesn’t end their political careers, and if you’ve not said something, anything, to anyone, you’re with them.

After Trump made undeniable his intent to subvert America to save himself, no Republican leader has had the guts to place country above power and party. Witnessing his hate for everything that our country stands for and by which it has survived as the world’s most durable democracy, their craven, cowardly silence is an indictment more powerful than any heading Trump’s way.

Fully aware of how his cultists respond to his unsubtle calls for violence, Trump posted a picture of himself wielding a baseball bat next to a picture of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s head. Predictable as lies at his rallies, death threats ensued. On his Truthless Social platform, he ranted like a street-corner doomsayer: "What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States ... and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known ... that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?" Death and destruction. Subtle. 

“Bragg,” he on-rambled, “ ... is a Soros backed animal who just doesn’t care about right or wrong no matter how many people are hurt [projection much?]... this is Russia and China [whose leaders he later praised as “very smart people”], but worse. Disgraceful! ... He is just carrying out the plans of the radical left lunatics. Our country is being destroyed, as they tell us to be peaceful!” An animal! Backed by a Jew! Radical left! Don’t be peaceful! Grab a bat and follow me. I’ll be right behind you.

There’s been no condemnation from elected Republicans. To the contrary, offering a free pass for all crimes Trump has committed or has yet to, House Republicans floated a law preventing state or local prosecution of any ex-president. Insurrection-lauding Marjorie Taylor Greene led a flagrant flock of fellow felon-fluffers to visit and glorify incarcerated January 6 rioters, calling them “political prisoners.” Later, she demanded defunding “the justice system.” Which, because it’s America, had given them fair trials and found them guilty. 

At last weekend’s Wacko rally, miming allegiance to justice, Trump stood hand-hearted, as a sappy recording blared his voice and those of convicted January Six felons singing our national anthem. While video of their seditious attack on the Capitol played, reverentially, like a hymn.

Trump and MAGA Republicans are all in on insurrection. Without irony and to cheers of his unpatriots, he eructed his usual election lies, poor-me-isms, and a promise that, if elected, “The thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited, and totally disgraced.” We can hope.

It’s not those who’d apply the law to Trump who threaten our country; it’s those who wouldn’t. Until Republican leaders renounce him and his poisonous anti-Americanism, voting for any of them is nearly treasonous. So says respected conservative, retired Federal Judge, Michael Luttig: “The Republican Party has made its decision that the war against America’s Democracy and the Rule of Law it instigated on January 6 will go on, prosecuted to its catastrophic end.” 

People like those who attend Trump’s rallies to have their hatreds and grievances validated by a lying sociopath will never forswear him. But for Congresspeople sworn to defend our Constitution, and anyone who believes in America, there’s no longer any excuse to excuse Trump. There never was.

“If they can come for Trump, they can come for you,” say his mouthpieces. But it’s the reverse: if they can come for you for committing crimes, they MUST come for him, too. Conservatism can survive another four years of job and economic growth, protecting public education, rebuilding infrastructure, addressing climate change, protecting voting and civil rights, women’s and LGBT rights; providing for people in need, strengthening NATO, and more. It cannot endure another four years of Trumpism, though, and neither can America. Aiming to destroy the Republic to escape justice, Trump endangers us all. Silence is complicity.

And William Lloyd Garrison was a Republican.

Lawnorder

 

Editorial demands being what they are, at the time of sending in this column it was unknown whether Trump had been/will be indicted for, as Trey “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi” Gowdy put it, “paying for sex.” So far, the only announcement has been from lifelong liar Trump, himself, who then proceeded to denounce “leaks.”

It’s all but certain that indictments are coming, and that Stormy Daniels is merely the appetizer on a comprehensive menu of indelicacies. But we don’t need an indictment to know how Republican leaders and media will respond. They’ve been embarrassing themselves and our country since Trump unbarned the horse.

Certifying his unfitness for the job he bought with what remained of his soul, “Speaker” Kevin McCarthy answered “No one is above the law,” when asked if Trump is. “But no one is under it, either,” he added, signifying nothing.

If the most stupid, that was the least deplorable of his utterances. He made clear what’s been obvious since his party elected a prolific liar, scammer, law-suit-laden, proud tax-evader, suspected launderer of Mafia money, serial adulterer. Namely, that the “party of law and order” cares for neither. Having no idea what, if any, the charges are, or what evidence was presented to the Grand Jury, he nevertheless opined, “Here we go again. An outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump.” 

“Vengeance.” A District Attorney looking into possible criminal activity. Doing his job. The way it works. If indicted after Grand Jury consideration, a person is entitled to a trial in which evidence is presented and defense is mounted. He’s convicted or exonerated. It’s the American way, as opposed to how Mussolini’s career ended. For example.

McCarthy wasn’t done. “I’m directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.” He said, interfering with a state’s constitutional judicial process. What better example of “weaponizing government” is there than that? Other than Jim Jordan’s committee looking into weaponization of government. Or the endless investigations of Hillary Clinton, which Kevin McCarthy admitted at the time were about ending her political career. Maybe he forgot. Let us not. 

There’s an even better example; namely, the letter sent to NYC District Attorney Alvin Bragg, signed by three of McCarthyism’s committee chairmen: “You are reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former President of the United States and current declared candidate for that office,” they fulminated, demanding his presence before them. Having no authority to require it.

Well, of course it’s unprecedented. Until Trump, America had never Electoral-Colleged a “president” whose pre-, intra-, and post-“presidential” activities were so deserving of criminal investigation. Clearly, they consider Trump above the law. And, we must infer, no crime or suspected crime, no matter how egregious, by any former president, and no one running for that office, may be prosecuted, or even investigated. (Presumably, there’s an expiration date on that proposition. Instantly, when President Biden is out of office.)

Similar to McCarthy’s rejection of American jurisprudence and due process, Rand Paul offered these self-canceling words: "A Trump indictment would be a disgusting abuse of power. The DA should be put in jail." Evidently convinced he has a shot at Trump’s old job, not-hung Mike Pence chimed in: "... when there's a crime wave in New York City, the fact that the Manhattan DA thinks that indicting President Trump is his top priority I think just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left." Right. Buttons pushed: the radical left; crime waves. Plus, evidently, Pence believes a DA’s office can do only one thing at a time.

From there, it gets laughable. James Comer, one of the signers of that letter to DA Bragg, said an indictment would be intended to distract from Hunter Biden’s laptop. Makes perfect sense. Possible “presidential” criminality is way below what’s on the unsecured hard drive of a private citizen.

Then Tucker Carlson, causing "irony" to disappear from all dictionaries, said, “You don’t fantasize about your political opponents going to jail.” Really? Has there ever been a rally when Trump didn’t lead cheers of “Lock her up”? Does Tucker not recall when Trump called on Attorney General Bill Barr to lock up Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton? 

Trump and MAGA Republicans will see his indictments as proof of his perfection. Before Reagan and Gingrich, Republicans’ cowardly desperation to protect someone like Trump was unimaginable. Stormy Daniels is prologue. Their reaction to Georgia’s Fani Willis, DOJ’s Jack Smith, and New York’s Letitia James will reveal everything about Republicans’ respect for Constitutional order and their place in America’s future. Not that we don’t already know.

Blood 'n Stuff

 

For reasons I’ll explain further down the page, blood has been on my mind. My career involved a lot of it, leaking out, pouring in. Surgical residency produced lots of memories; many colored red. On the heart surgery service, an abundant source of excellent stories, the chief resident once scrubbed out of a case to donate his own blood to the patient on whom he was operating, who wouldn’t stop bleeding after finishing the pump run. Fresh blood – his was a match, of course – has magical powers, in some circumstances, to stop bleeding. It worked. Joe scrubbed back in and finished the case.

Another time, when another patient wasn’t responding to routine post-pump coagulants, the attending cardiologist left the room, returned wearing a feathered headdress and carrying a ceremonial rattle, which he shook, chanting, over the patient. The bleeding stopped.

Before moving here, forty-plus years ago, I began my surgical practice in Salem, Oregon. Not long after setting up shop, I was called to the ICU to see a woman in her early forties, bleeding relentlessly from a duodenal ulcer. Other surgeons had been consulted before me, the last-choice new guy of whom few had heard. They had all declined to operate, despite her obvious need for life-saving surgery. The reason: A devout Jehovah’s Witness, she refused to receive blood. Her husband was equally adamant. Those surgeons wouldn’t agree not to use blood, or to face a potential lawsuit for “wrongful life” if they did. Already a tough situation, that makes it tougher.

But I didn’t hesitate to operate on the exsanguinating young woman; she’d die if I didn’t try. She needed me and I was there. I did, however, make clear to her husband (she was no longer able to concur) that it was possible she wouldn’t survive the surgery if I was prohibited from giving her blood. He understood. Still, I told him, if we’re at that point, I’m going to come to the waiting room to ask one more time if you’re willing to have her die. So don’t go away. He nodded.

Disaster avoided, I was able rapidly to control the bleeding and do a couple of things to minimize the chance of it happening again. I don’t know what I’d have done, had it come to “do or die.” Amusingly, after word got around the community that I was a surgeon willing to operate on Witnesses, I saw many more in my practice. Continued to do so, here, too. (Side note: in training and for a while after, I operated on many emergency ulcer patients. They’re uncommon nowadays, as new understanding of the origins of peptic ulcer and better prevention have made such operations much less frequent.)

So, why have these patients been on my mind? Imagine if our government was fully controlled by people whose particular interpretation of the Bible demanded refusing blood transfusions? What if they made giving and receiving it illegal? What if state legislators passed laws to imprison doctors who gave transfusions and their patients? What if citizens were rewarded for reporting people who received blood? What if a single federal judge, appointed by a “president” who lost the popular vote by millions, narrowly confirmed by a Senate majority representing forty-million fewer Americans than those who voted against him, single-handedly made transfusions illegal in all states under all circumstances, for all people, of all or no religions, no matter their personal beliefs, or the fact that it had been legal for decades?

What if “the system” allowed zealously pro-life-without-transfusions people to sue in a state where it’s possible to hand-pick the court and the judge who’d hear the case? What if that judge had had no judicial experience prior to his appointment to the Federal bench, but was chosen for his extreme, anti-blood religious views? Added together, would those what-ifs be more consistent with properly functioning democracy or theocratic oligarchy?

It’s unlikely to happen with blood transfusions. For one thing, judges might need one someday. But it’s exactly what may happen regarding medical abortion pills (effective only prior to ten weeks, by the way), even in states where it’s been legal for decades, which is most of them. The case will be decided in Texas, where nearly all those what-ifs apply. In Amarillo, you’re practically guaranteed to get the “right” guy (which they did), who, in addition to rabid anti-choice views, is known for his vehement anti-LGBT rhetoric. 

Remember when warnings of President Obama establishing “Sharia Law” were sliming their way through right-wing media? How crazy it was to think that one set of extreme religious views could be imposed on us all, here in the US. Oh, how innocent we were.

Also: “Woke” doesn’t break banks. Deregulation does. 

Insanity Rules

The gods of stupefaction have gifted us again with the spectacle of speciousness known as CPAC. Poorly attended, it featured, except for Nikki Haley, only MAGA Republicans and Trump, whose lie-filled conflagration of a speech is encapsulated in this loathsome utterance: “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

Say it out loud. Play this in the background. It's sinister; antithetical to our Constitution, repulsive to any democracy-loving American; projections of a disturbed man, his pathologically bloated view of himself, his malicious manipulation of those who cheered. Consider whether the words belong to a “leader” of a democracy, Deuteronomy 32:35, or Batman. 

But it perfectly exemplifies MAGA Republicanism: creating and flogging self-pitying resentment. Promising vengeance for manufactured grievance, and, echoing the 1930s, societal purification. Speaking about transgender people, whose status is scientifically confirmed, treatment for which is medically supported, and who represent about one-half of one percent of Americans but seventy-five-percent of rightwing mongering, Michael Knowles, of The Daily Wire, tip-toed around the edge of genocide: “The problem with transgenderism is that it isn’t true. ... If [transgenderism] is false, then for the good of society... transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.” Probably figuring it’s a couple of years too soon, Trumpofoxification as yet incomplete, he stopped short of death camps. Like Trump’s, his malign screed was cheered enthusiastically.

If anyone spoke about economic policy, climate change, inflation, or, other than demagoguing it, immigration, we missed it. But we heard plenty about “woke.” If undefined, we learned it’s worse than floods, famine, drought, and pandemics. In fact, according to Nikki Haley, seen by some as a “normal” conservative alternative to Trump, wokeness is “a virus more dangerous than any pandemic, hands down.” Normal? Well, yes: shedding principle for votes is the new “conservative” normal. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) referred to “deeply weird, nauseously woke people who hate George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Seuss, and Mr. Potato Head.” Ron DeSantis, absent from CPAC, previously declared Florida is where “woke” goes to die. He’ll be giving it CPR throughout his campaign.

“Woke” is the beast on whose single back Republicans fancy themselves riding into 2024 as winners, freed from the need for substance. As a rallying cry to the Foxified, it works best by remaining undefined. Nevertheless, a few TrumPAC goers gave it a shot. “It’s anything for me that’s anti-American, anti-common sense, anti-really in the sense of education, what education was meant to do,” said one. “Woke is more of the sense of like, if you feel a certain way, then you must be true... Woke communism, where they're trying to take over based on people's feelings rather than actual factual evidence,” offered another. One more: “It covers so many things. It incorporated all the stupidity that is going on with the country.” 

In other words, to them, it's stuff they don’t like, stuff they find threatening, stuff they accuse “them” of doing while they’re the ones doing it. Here’s a better definition: "[T]he belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.” Who said it? Ron DeSantis’ chief counsel, in a trial, asked by the judge to define woke.

What it means, then, is being historically accurate. Concerned for the poor, the disenfranchised, the marginalized, the slandered. Caring about America beyond only self-interest. Empathy. Christlike, if meaning Biblical Jesus rather than the one claimed by multimillionaire, megachurch preachers and fake Christians in Congress and, last term, in the White House.

Who’s hurt by corporate decisions of M&Ms and Legos? Has any child in a bathroom been harmed by a transgender student? Do civil rights extend to all? Should minority citizens have equal access to voting? Careful: your answers could mean you’re woke.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” (Ironically, it applies to repeatedly attributing the quotation to him, but that’s not important right now.)

The point is that it’s insane to expect respect for democracy, protection of voting rights, or anything but top-heavy tax cuts and dangerous deregulation from another Republican president. Trump or DeSantis, both sides of the same authoritarian coin. Heads, we lose.

The party of limited government will select a monumental liar whose poisonous rhetoric mirrors history’s fascist dictators, or one who glories in dictating morality, education, speech, pronouns, clothes, reading material for citizens, schools, and corporations. Who punishes those who object. And whose legislature is abetting his every autocratic outrage. 

And now, some late-breaking news: Tucker Carlson has released footage of Mount St. Helens in 1979, not exploding, completely demolishing eruption lies. Congressional Republicans are demanding the release of Harry Truman from where he’s buried.

The Null Set

Two recent quotes confirm everything in last week’s column; namely, the dangers of Fox “news” spreading lies for profit, while viewers respond by electing people based on those lies. It’s a positive feedback loop, making lies central to what MAGA voters want and what their electeds happily provide.

Here’s Tucker Carlson: “It is galling to be lectured about democracy by a man who took power in an election so sketchy that many Americans don't believe it was real. Biden is far less popular in the US than Putin is in Russia... And it says everything about Joe Biden's tenuous legitimacy.” And that says everything about who Carlson is: an unrepentant pusher of lies and a fawning admirer of despotic war criminal Vladimir Putin.

His lies are central to everything repeated constantly by the gang of Trumpic legislators featured regularly on his show. He shovels it out, viewers shovel it in, their electeds shovel it again, digging democracy ever deeper into an inescapable hole.

Next are the words of House Republican Deputy Whip Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) who wrote, straight-fingered, “House Republicans are delivering in two months what Washington Democrats failed to provide for two years: an economy that’s strong, a nation that’s safe, a future that’s built on freedom, and a government that’s accountable.”

In case it’s escaped notice, House Republicans have, in those two months of vaporous power, passed zero legislation relevant to our economy, security, freedom, or accountability. None. They’ve passed some base-pleasing but meaningless resolutions, plus two theatrical bills, aimed at those imaginary 87,000 IRS agents, which died in the Senate. And their “accountability” committees have, so far, produced only embarrassment. 

It’d be laughable if it weren’t so hilarious. Surely even the most hermetically Foxified can see through such obvious bovine excreta.

Republican Senators aren’t above the patties, either. Here’s Marsha Blackburn (R-Opposite Day): “Under Biden's lawless border policy, fentanyl seizures increased by 241% between the months of October and December.” Makes perfect sense, to the MAGA-minded. But they were elected, probably not in spite of but because of such brazen gaslighting.

So was Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose altiloquent plan for “national divorce” would bankrupt red states, reliant as they are on blue-state tax dollars. So, rather than secession, she now proposes that red states simply ignore federal law. Plus, any Democrat who moved to one of those no-rules, permitless-gun-totin’, pollution-breathing, biblical-educated, book-banning, science-denying, melanophobic states couldn’t vote for five years. Presumably, that’s how long she thinks it takes DeSantisoid education and Foxian propaganda to turn functioning brains into rubricated mush.

“If Democrat voters choose to flee these blue states where they cannot tolerate the living conditions, they don't want their children taught these horrible things, and they really change their mind on the types of policies that they support, well once they move to a red state, guess what, maybe you don't get to vote for five years," is how she pronoun-confusedly put it. Watch for a stampede.

Her proposal has a historical name: nullification. And don’t think it can’t happen. Just last week, the Supreme Court narrowly decided against allowing exactly that, in a case about a man wrongly sentenced to death based on an Arizona (of course) judge’s law-ignoring instructions to the jury. The appeal was rejected by the state’s courts who, yet again, chose to ignore federal law. Four of the nine justices hearing the current case were fine with a state rejecting the law of the land if it so chose.

The road to nullification remained closed only because Justices Roberts (unsurprising) and Kavanaugh (surprising) sided with the Court’s liberals; or, as Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson should be known, the constitution-respecting, democracy-preserving ones. That’s how close we came to defacto shredding of the founding document. It’ll take only one of the three replaced by a MAGA-chosen “president.” 

But there’s good nullification, too: After that toxic train disaster in Ohio, some Rs are nullifying their lust for deregulation. Suddenly, it seems, there’s a case to be made for not letting dangerous polluters write regulations for their industries. Will Rs stay woke when the cameras are off? Will they rethink the other polluters Trump deregulated? 

We can’t end without mentioning Barry Moore (R-AL), another MAGAfoxed Congressperson, who just introduced a bill, co-sponsored by Santos (R-Fiction) and Boebert (N-RA), among others, making the AR-15 “America’s National Gun.” Arising from the cesspool of cruelty within the Foxian mindset, where “sticking it to the libs,” no matter how hurtful, in this case, to families of those killed by mass murderers, this putrescence holds primacy over basic decency and human kindness.

It’s where MTG would have us all live and where most people who think like that already do. No, thanks. I’ll stay here and vote.

Texting, Texting, One Two Three

So Fox “News” knew it was lying about Trump’s election lies. It’s an important insight into today’s eroding political landscape, raising questions for which there may not be time to answer, much less rectify, before democracy dies, beginning in homes where Fox blares nonstop and unquestioned.

It’s not the revelation itself that’s significant; after all, people having observational abilities within two standard deviations of the median reckoned the network’s mendacity ever since “Fair and Balanced.” Fox is to news what prison food is to fine dining. It's why I’ve never written Fox “news” without quotation marks.  

Dragged from the darkness by the $1.6B Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against Fox, texts between Carlson, Hannity, and Ingraham expose their unalloyed derision of guests pushing Trump’s claims of fraud. Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and others; even Trump himself. 

Worse, though, was their justification for continuing to lie, as seen in Tucker’s reaction to Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich, who dared to fact-check Trump’s claim of destroyed ballots. After the Foxified audience flooded their website with vitriol toward the truth-teller, Tucker texted to his co-conspirators, “Please get her fired. Seriously... what the f...? It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down.” There aren’t words strong enough for how shameful that is. Riches above all, democracy be damned. 

There are dire implications: Numerous studies have shown neurophysiological differences between the brains of liberals and conservatives. Different areas light up on scans when shown frightening or disgusting images, for example. The backfire effect, wherein beliefs are hardened after being presented with facts that disprove them, is more common in conservatives. Differences have been shown in empathy, openness to change, and more.  

Thoughts form within billions of neurons. Different thoughts could be expected to arise from separate areas. The question, then, is whether the divergent pathways are acquired, or inborn. As opposed to the so-called “Twitter files,” debunked laughably by self-inflicted wounds delivered from Gymnasium Jordan’s own subcommittee, the Fox files raise meaningful questions: Are Fox and similarly amoral media playing to a preborn audience, or creating one? Does the brain choose its source, or does the source produce the brain?

It’d be interesting to investigate. Babies aren’t born racist or homophobic or hateful of others, for instance. Those attitudes must be taught. What might we learn from studies done on people having “neutral” scans, if such exist? What if they were randomly divided into groups, one of which was constantly exposed only to right-wing media; the other only to, let’s call them, “honest” ones? If scanned again, sometime later, would those liberal/conservative neurophysiological differences have appeared? Would both brains have changed, or is “liberal” the baseline? Would changes be permanent? Would permanence depend on length of exposure? 

Given the plasticity of the human brain, its ability to repurpose remaining parts after a stroke, it’s likely the answers would be yes. If so, lying media, intentionally appealing to viewers’ worst instincts, keeping them constantly enraged, are causing irreversible damage in brains and, in turn, to America. Deliberately. For stock prices. 

The revealed texts won’t penetrate those brains. Fox knows it, and won’t stop. There’s big money in it. Consider the toxic train tragedy in Palestine, Ohio: Foxians immediately criticized Transportation Secretary Buttigieg’s and President Biden’s response, even though Governor DeWine acknowledged Biden offered help immediately, which he rejected. Tucker is mongering that it’s a result of anti-white, liberal racism. Nor have he or his accomplices mentioned Trump’s pigheaded killing of President Obama’s regulations intended to prevent exactly that kind of disaster. Did Trump, on his photo-op there? 

The harm caused by electing the Foxified is only increasing. Michigan’s GOP just chose as its president a rabidly election-denying anti-vaxxer, who calls evolution “one of the biggest frauds ever perpetuated on society.” Idaho’s elected a similar. Presidential candidate Nikki Haley had as her campaign-kickoff prayer-giver “Pastor” John Hagee, who blames natural disasters on gays; and she enthusiastically accepted the endorsement of rabid election-denier, General Don Bolduc, who considers vaccines delivery devices for Bill Gates’ microchips.

Idaho’s GOP legislators want to criminalize providing vaccines. Arizona’s then-Attorney General had documents proving no election fraud and kept them hidden. MTG is babbling secession. Hannity likes it. Kevin McCarthy gave exclusive access to video of the insurrection to Russian propagandist and inveterate liar Tucker Carlson, who’ll now know the location of every security camera and safe room in the Capitol, while he creates out-of-context, edited compilations. Top to bottom, it’s dishonesty as policy.

Those inculpating texts won’t restore Foxed-up politicians and their voters to sanity. The slimmest of hope for democracy is Fox being sued into extinction or, improbably, rejoining America as a partner. Then, upcoming generations might rise above lesser forms of brainwashing, compared to the lies of Fox “news,” in whose victims truth-rejecting brain modification appears eternal.

I'm Not Crazy. You're Crazy!

 

I’ve said it before, and will again: our democracy works best with two viable, opposing parties, assuming both are committed to problem-solving, understand cooperation, accept democracy in the form of election results even when they lose, are favorably inclined toward reality, place a modicum of value on truth-telling, and are disinclined to elect and cover for rude, brazen liars.

Until a few years ago, I included most Republican politicians in that description. At this point, though, I can’t understand how anyone – and not just politicians -- who considers themself conservative can continue to support Trump and Trumpism. If “MAGA Republican” isn’t an oxymoron, “MAGA conservative” most certainly is.

In the latest of many examples, we’ve learned that after the 2020 election but before January 6, Trump engaged The Berkeley Research Group, an atypically (for him) reputable firm, to investigate his theories of how the election was stolen from him: fraud, dead people voting, two thousand mules, hacked voting machines, suitcases, etc.: the Trumpian disloyal flush. After characteristically thorough work, BRG found nothing of significance. Some discrepancies, in fact, favored Trump. So he buried the report and continued to lie, planning ways to overthrow the election and encouraging an insurrection.

He knew he was lying; but, because he’s a damaged person who probably initially believed if he lost it had to be fraudulent because he’s Donald Trump, he kept on doing it. Loved watching deluded followers ransacking our Capitol at his behest. Even now, he insists he won by “a landslide.” How can anyone who loves America not be outraged? How can they not comprehend his dangerous unfitness?

And what to make of the latest information about the depth of collusion with Saudi Arabia, resulting in personal riches for him and Jared Kushner? Billions for Jared; millions for himself. The money rolled in after, as Trump put it to Bob Woodward, referring to Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman, "I saved his ass.” Meaning supporting his regional corruption and letting him off the hook for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. "Tell Mohammed he owes us," he told his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. Evidently, he got the message.

As House Republicans prioritize Hunter Biden’s laptop and pursue the prurient pixels of pudenda planted therein, will also they investigate Trump’s obvious jobbery? Is a polar bear black?

Now seems a good time to mention Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ “response” to President Biden’s State of the Union address. After admitting, last week, that I didn’t watch, I’ve since looked into it. Has anyone uttered more ironic, clueless, un-self-aware words, in the history of politics starting in ancient Athens, than “The choice is between normal and crazy”? Timed to perfection following Marjorie Taylor Greene behaving like a third-grader, and all of her party pretending that Biden lied when saying, truthfully, that some Republicans would cut Medicare and Social Security. It’s on tape, people. Rick “sunset” Scott, Ron “reauthorize yearly” Johnson, Mike “pull it out by its roots” Lee, and more.

And, oh, the ballooning hot-air conspiracies: aliens; false flag precursor to martial law; bowing to China... Such is the the party of Trump. And Tucker. Gosar. Boebert. Cruz. Gaetz. Normal? Ron DeSantis turning Florida into an education-killing, book-burning, Disney-ruling autocracy. CPAC honoring Kari Lake for “exposing” widespread voter fraud, if “exposing” means “insisting despite proof of the opposite.” Normal or crazy?

Ms. Sanders was right. Just got the parties backward. Avoiding meaningful policy like Alex Jones and vaccines, she railed mostly about “woke” without defining it, confirming that her party has nothing to offer except to embittered distractibles. When she bragged about killing CRT in her state without saying what the initials stand for, observers may be excused for assuming she meant “Clear Rational Thought.”

Normal versus crazy. When I heard of bumper stickers and T-shirts saying “Make America Florida,” I figured it was a joke. It’s not. There’s no doubt that there are plenty who love the idea; especially those who believe the election was stolen, that liberals groom children to become gay, trans, or mealtime blood donors, that teaching Black history harms white kids, and that education is elitist. People who couldn’t define communism or socialism or capitalism or liberalism (or conservatism) if you handed them a dictionary in a wet paper bag. Parents grateful to have their children grow up in a state where teachers are required to remove all books from classrooms, including one about baseball hero and devoted humanitarian Roberto Clemente because he wasn’t, you know, white. So the book might offend DeSantisoid sensibilities.

Florida: where an out-Trumping-Trump, autocratic governor threatens to end all AP courses and sex education, along with press freedom. Who hired as the state’s surgeon general a “doctor” who mysteriously made it through medical school without a kindergarten-level understanding of science. A snide, angry, bullying, self-important governor who was reelected in Florida by a landslide, which proves the point.

“Make America Florida” means electing a dictator, not a president, who’ll make sure citizens remain ignorant enough to keep voting for people like him. Unless he gets rid of voting altogether. MAGA: Make America Go Authoritarian. By all evidence, that’s what they want. And, unless unwoke citizens wake up and stop it, it’s exactly what they, and we, will get.

Pop Goes The Country

 

I didn’t watch President Biden’s State of the Union Speech. Unlike the majority of Americans who, according to a recent poll, think he hasn’t accomplished much, I’m aware of his many and impressive achievements, which have had an enormous, positive effect on economic growth, job creation, and the future of infrastructure and energy. I’m also aware of how Foxotrumpification infiltrates Foxified brains with falsehoods, removing truth-seeking neurons like brain-eating amoebae. 

I don’t miss seeing standing Os on the left and hand-sitting and the now-normal rude heckling on the right. I’ve read about disgusting rudeness from MTG and other believers, though; loved, no doubt, by MAGAs. I didn’t watch Sarah Huckabee’s response, either; but, as she tops the list of her party’s most shameless and facile liars --a very high bar – I admire the choice.

Speaking of lies: the balloon. We can speculate what China gleaned from hovering one over sealed missile silos for a few hours, but we know for sure what they did learn. They learned how easy it is to poke the eye of our already-blind partisan politics. They know the R party will embrace any opportunity to charge our president with treason. (At the last minute, they canceled plans to censure Joe for his handling of the incident. Are they eschewing looking ridiculous? Why now? It works so well for them.)

Chinese leaders learned which members of that party they can rely on to fan the flames of division. And they know if there’s ever another R president, they have a decent chance of killing American civilians by floating a few more, to be shot down with tough-guy immediacy over whatever land they may be hovering. The rest of it – several balloons unnoticed by the Trump administration, improved surveillance in Biden’s, the jamming of the balloon’s communications rendering it impotent till it became a safe and recoverable target, the potential information gained by finding it in one piece – that’s all been said.

So we float on. Beginning with the R House-members wearing AR15 lapel pins. Nothing more needs saying. It speaks for its disgusting self; who and where they are. Like MTG accompanying a balloon on her way to the SOTU. 

Speaking of disgusting, it’s now undeniable how dangerously regressive Trump’s federal judges are: specifically, the Trump-stuffed Fifth Circuit’s overturning of a law preventing convicted wife-beaters from purchasing guns. Since most people aren’t standing while reading, it’s probably safe to present their reasoning: Because women were essentially chattel in 1789, and since there were no laws against wife-beating, the court ruled based on the so-called Bruen test (gun laws must reflect regulations in place at the time of the Constitution’s framing). “Through that lens, we conclude that (the law’s) ban on possession of firearms is an ‘outlier’ that our ancestors would never have accepted.” Trumpic jurisprudence. Amazing.

Fully depleted of smackable gobs, we can only wish they’d follow their logic to view gun regulations as applying only to muskets. Be unsurprised when SCOTUS upholds the ruling, or when they decide that nothing, not just weapons, can be regulated if it didn’t exist when the Founders strode Philadelphia’s horse paths.

Another fibment fed by rightwing screamers: they’re coming for your gas stoves! Here’s what’s true: emissions from gas stoves can be harmful to some people with some pulmonary diseases, and precautions should be considered. And here’s what’s not true: plans to outlaw them. What’s also true: being untrue is a requisite for the screams of right-wing screamers. What’s also not true: it’ll stop anytime soon. Truthless Ted Cruz has promised to create the ”Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act.” If shortened to the “Free Range Act,” though, some liberals might get on board.

For performative Republican legislation, nothing beats the Republicans’ Condemnation of the Horrors of Socialism Act. Passed with the help of several weak-kneed Democrats, it was a cynical circus, an attempt to “gotcha” Democrats who refused to fall for it. A brave few stood up to say no one is advocating for pure socialism in the US, asking if they plan to defund America’s socialist programs, such as police, military, highways, dams, schools, the postal service, help for the needy. Rick Scott would add Medicare and Social Security.

It’s like Jim Jordan's show of requiring the Pledge of Allegiance to open his committee meetings. In a just world, he and his colleagues who voted to overturn the election and who still consider the insurrectionists patriots would be struck dumb as they pledged, heart-handed. (Of course, the dumb has already happened.) 

We can’t finish without noting Trump’s announcement that he could end Russia’s criminal war against Ukraine in twenty-four hours. Totally believable. Being a self-serving scammer, uninterested in saving lives now, he’s not sharing his plan. Totally on-brand.

So let’s urge President Biden to send him as a special envoy, on a twenty-four-hour trip (not counting travel time) to Kyiv or Moscow or wherever, promising fulsome praise, cash (his lifelong raison d’etre), and a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize if he pulls it off; boosting his presidential campaign, even if he’s running it from prison. If Joe does and Trump does, I’ll never write another bad word about him. That’s a promise. 

Joe Calling

President Biden hasn’t called me lately, but when he does, this is what I’ll tell him: DON’T.

Don’t yield to Republicans’ demand for drastic budget cuts while insisting that you do the math. It’s their politispeak, not yours. Their performance art and pretense. Don’t play their cynical game. They campaign-promised it, so make THEM tell voters what THEY want cut. They want you to negotiate? Fine. Tell them to open the bidding. So far, they’re dodging specifics like batters facing Randy Johnson’s 90 mph slider (those were the days!)

The closest anyone has come is Trump-fluffer, Santos-excusing, Congress-diminishing Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who’d cut “woke” Defense Department programs. She wasn’t asked to specify examples, of course (it was on Fox “news”), nor did she suggest how much would be saved. But that’s easy: Compared to the total budget, it’d round off to zero. 

Darn it, there I go again. I shouldn’t be so divisive, some readers tell me. We need healing. Stop driving wedges, they urge; speaking, most likely, from among the 48% of Republicans who inexplicably prefer Trump, winner of “America’s Most Indictable,” as their 2024 nominee. The non-divisive healer who just assured us, in what passed for a campaign speech: “We will stop the left-wing radical racists and perverts who are trying to indoctrinate our youth and we’re going to get their Marxist hands off our children.” That’s what he’ll run on. Wedgies? Sounds like he’s got them. When he’s not taking the Fifth.

If Republicans can’t end public education outright, they’d make it into a safe space to send kids of parents who’d prefer to keep them ignorant of everything but arithmetic and third-grade-level reading. Turning school board meetings into combat zones, they aim to populate those institutions with a blizzard of Foxotrumpists, the real snowflakes, more afraid of knowledge than Tucker Carlson is of M&Ms with feet.

And if they don’t succeed in reinventing public schools as groomatoriums for childhood ignorance, there’s always the Nazi-school option. And now they can buy their children the groomtastic JR-15, a kid-size AR-15. It’s America!!

Trump’s only the first to toss his scat into the ring. In MAGA world, no political hopeful can get far without plucking the same strings, repeating tried and true lies, proven to rile the rock-bottom remainders.

But Trump didn’t omit the other Fox-button issues. His “education” plan would cut funds for school programs that include “critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children.” As emperor, inappropriateness will be his to define, presumably.

And he’d have school principals elected by parents. Plus, lest he’d miss a favorite MAGA target, he attacked transgender youth. Because of course he did.

Any red-hat-tossing candidate will be expected to echo – amplify, more likely – the same. Nor could any of them hope to prevail without pushing the election Big Lie; now, per RNC Chair McDaniel, an explicit priority.

How stone-carved are Trumpists’ tendentious talking points? Has anyone apologized for their disgusting, conspiratorial lies about the attack on Paul Pelosi, now that video is available debunking them all? The opposite, in fact. Shown footage of the attacker using his hammer to break in, a Fox guest famous for claiming he was let in by Mr. Pelosi because something-something gay, still insisted his entry should be investigated. Nor has it made an impression that the attacker said he wished he’d been better armed in order to hurt more liberals.

Foxotrumpism is not only about ignoring facts: it’s about actively rejecting truth as if it doesn’t exist. Fox and Trump: hardening hearts against it like two-syringe epoxy. Which applies to investigatory R Congressfolk like Gym Jordan, as well.

If lies are the point, so is corruption. As Kevin McCarthy’s controllers ready their investigations into “weaponizing the government,” we’re learning more and more about Trump’s willingly weaponized Attorney General, William Barr. Those “investigations” will conveniently divert attention from how Barr (and, later, his hired hitman, John Durham) ended or muzzled investigations into Trump’s many crimes. Buried evidence, too. 

Newly unwedged, though, I won’t mention how MAGAgonists blame President Biden for fuel prices and lay egg costs on him, ignoring the massive 2022 profits just reported by both industries. Failings of liberalism or price-gouging? I hold my tongue.

Applying to real life the admonishments I’ve received, if I ever see someone setting a house on fire, rather than trying to arouse the people he put in danger, I shall point out that harnessing fire was a major step forward for prehistoric humankind; and that we must excuse the arsonist as we do Trump, because he was, in effect, just saying what was on his mind.