Dateline March 18, 2024

GRIFTING ALONG TOWARD TAKING THE LONG VIEW

ATTENTION, ATTENTION…cleanup needed on the fifty-yard line! Robert Harrington writes that RFK, Jr.’s consideration of Jets football quarterback Aaron Rodgers (jersey number 12) for his VP selection has prompted a sudden outpouring of denials regarding Rodgers being an outspoken, rightwing anti-vaxxer, a conspiracy theorist who lied about his own COVID-19 vaccine status in order to stay on the playing field. Harrington calls the former Green Bay Packers player “the poster boy for ignorance, routinely playing the victim in the vaccine debate for the losing and loser side. What’s more and worst of all, it was recently revealed that Aaron Rodgers was and might still be a supporter of one of the vilest, most disgusting and – above all – most inhumane conspiracy theories yet devised by the perverted mind of wretched fools. Rodgers was, and might be, a Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting denier.” While he denies being a proponent of the Alex Jones promoted belief, CNN reporter Pamela Brown reveals that Rodgers accosted her in 2013, verbally attacking her and the network for supporting the “Sandy Hook lie.” Harrington believes the Jets missed a bet by not retiring jersey number 12 after quarterback Joe ‘Broadway Joe’ Namath left the team, and being worn today by one who wears it in “ignominy, in disgrace, and without distinction.”  Kennedy says he will announce his running-mate candidate’s name on March 26…the other name in the hopper being that of former wrestler, and  Reform Party governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003, Jesse Ventura. What excitement…get your popcorn and a beverage of your choice ready to go! Don’t forget the sponges and towels for cleanup!

Donald Trump is still grifting along, his latest endeavor being the takeover of the Republican National Committee by handpicking the new co-chairs, daughter-in-law Lara Trump, and attorney Michael Whatley, former chair of the North Carolina GOP. After the takeover, about sixty staffers were terminated, as new appointees began to fill the vacant positions, one of whom was Trump attorney, election denier, and classified documents concealer, Christina Bobb. Newly-hired attorneys will focus on “election-related reports,” code words for conspiracy theories. This signals that Palm Beach, Florida is the new location for the GOP’s finance and digital teams which will be “functionally fused into” Trump’s own campaign. Tellingly, Lara has pledged “every single penny” of the Committee’s cash will now be spent on Trump alone, no other Republican candidate should seek funds, so suck it up GOPers! A Mike Luckovich cartoon accurately portrays Lara Trump welcoming donors to contribute to buckets of cash labeled ‘Campaign to Pay Trump’s Legal Bills,’ ‘Campaign to Pay Trump’s Living Expenses,’ ‘Campaign to Pay Trump’s Financial Judgements,’ and ‘Campaign to Pay Trump Family Expenses.’ At least a half billion dollars should be an easy take, you think?

The former president has taken over an organization that is close to being broke, with only $8 million cash on hand after raising $87 million in 2023, but maybe his army of attorneys will now get paid to save his criminal empire from ruin. Rudy G., are you paying attention? Hunter writes on Daily Kos, “Trump isn’t just a grifter. He is a vampire. He spends his life attempting to squeeze people for whatever dimes he can, whether it be through sales of mail-order meat or bottled water, or the right to live in large buildings with his name plastered across them in the largest possible letters. It’s not enough for the RNC to function as his personal campaign arm. He wants all the money he can get, and installing Lara is the best way to ensure the RNC won’t think twice about forking over even more cash for his bills. And Republican voters? They seem just fine with it. They couldn’t be a more willing group of suckers.” Of course, this points to what we might expect from a Trump presidency…absolute control, quick and callous ruthlessness, and heartless retribution for those who are “disloyal.” We will be able to vote in his fake democracy, but the election will be predetermined just like Putin’s weekend victory in Russia, gleaning 88% of the ‘vote.’

On the Late Show, Stephen Colbert’s assessment of Lara Trump’s selection as a co-chair aimed at her lack of ‘credentials‘ to run a major party organization. He commented on RNC member Beth Bloch’s proclamation, “God does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called,” by saying, “Sure, Lara Trump may not be qualified, she may not have experience doing things, but she has done what no one thought possible: she married Eric Trump.”Late Night’s Seth Meyers jumped on Donald Trump’s reference to himself as “Honest Don,” as opposed to “Crooked Joe Biden,” saying, “At this point, I gotta believe even he’s being sarcastic. Nobody puts ‘honest’ in front of their name. If there’s a place called ‘Honest Don’s’ in your hometown, it’s either a used car dealership or a pawn shop. Maybe a pizza place…but not the good one.”

Aldous J. Pennyfarthing asks, “Hey, wanna join an exclusive secret club? First, you’ll have to answer a few questions: Are you a woman? Are you LGBTQ+? Are you something other than a ‘real’ Christian (i.e., Mormon, Christian Scientist, Jehovah’s Witness, or White, Hetero, Gun-Totin,’ Prosperity-Gospelin,’ God forbid – Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or atheist? Do you hyphenate your heritage? Do you lack the wealth and/or clout to usher in a ‘US Constitutional order brought much closer to its origins after about a century of…corruption and undermining by progressivism?” Just move along if any of those questions brought a ‘yes’ answer. Aldous suggests you start your own club, but don’t call it the Society for American Civic Renewal…that name is taken, chump! A suggested name is the ‘Naive Liberal Simps Soon to Be Crushed Beneath the Blood-soaked Truck Treads of American Civic Renewal.’  Talking Points Media reporter, Josh Kovensky, examined the SACR’s truly bizarre membership criteria  and the group’s vision for the country: “The group…tries to downplay its controversial views, saying it is merely another in a long line of fraternal organizations attempting to foster civic engagement.”

The man who incorporated the national umbrella group is an Indiana shampoo tycoon, Charles Haywood, who refers to himself as ‘maximum leader,’ blogging about Rhodesian anti-guerilla tactics and how the dystopian fiction novel, The Camp of the Saints, is a must-read, and is a vision of America’s present as a latter-day ancient Rome. This crumbling, decadent empire that could soon be replaced by a Christian theocracy, a group that demands faithfulness, virtue, and ‘alignment,’ which it describes as ‘deference to and acceptance of the wisdom of our American and European Christian forbears in the political realm, a traditional understanding of patriarchal leadership in the household, and acceptance of traditional Natural Law in ethics more broadly.’ More practically, members must be able to contribute either influence, capability, or wealth in helping further its goals. Further, one must answer questions regarding politics, religion, a Trump presidency, household dynamics, and involvement in church community.

SACR’s core mission is revealed as wishing to create a mini-state within a state, composed entirely of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Christian men, explicitly patriarchal, and celebrating the use of force and existence of authority. In referencing the founding fathers, America’s first principles, and patriotism, democracy is hardly mentioned. Pennyfarthing refers to a podcast in which Haywood discusses ‘caesarism’ and the idea of an American strongman to get the country back on track, while “wholeheartedly” calling for a national divorce. Haywood wrote on his blog, “The goal of the Left was always total expropriation of White people and then, if at all possible, their extermination, a goal made explicit by many powerful people in 2020. How, given this history, should White Americans respond? Facing possibilities involving violence would include more-or-less open warfare with the federal government, or some subset or remnant of it. At this moment I preside over what amounts to a extended, quite sizable, compound, which when complete will be impervious to anything but direct organized military attack. It requires a group of men to make it work…what I call ‘shooters’” Pennyfarthing concludes, “So there you go. Yet another kooky fringe group hopes to turn the calendar back to the days when women couldn’t vote, or decide for themselves whether to give birth, or avoid being ruled over by wealthy Christian warlords.” Upon reading a right-wing Christian’s protest sign, “If you don’t teach your child to obey Jesus, the devil will teach them evolution, sexuality, psychology, and witchcraft,” that awkward moment makes Satan the reasonable choice.

From Arundhati Roy’s novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, The Landlord chapter: “Normality in our part of the world is a bit like a boiled egg: its humdrum surface conceals at its heart a yolk of egregious violence. It is our constant anxiety about that violence, our memory of its past labours and our dread of its future manifestations, that lays down the rules for how a people as complex and diverse as we are continue to coexist – continue to live together, tolerate each other, and from time to time, murder one another. As long as the centre holds, as long as the yolk doesn’t run, we’ll be fine. In moments of crisis, it helps to take the long view.”  Does America need to take the long view? Only time will tell.

Dateline March 13, 2024

FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT CAELUM VS. MOM ON THE BRINK

Last week was quite notable with Biden’s State of the Union speech to Congress, with a followup cooking show immediately following, by the junior Republican senator from Alabama, Katie Britt. In what was supposed to be a rebuttal to Biden’s address, Katie proceeded to give a breathless, whispery message in which food recipes were evidently revealed in coded speech, reminiscent of Donald Trump’s recent insistence that “languages are coming into this country” that no one speaks. As ‘The Daily Show‘ revealed, “As a way to familiarize himself with these new languages, Trump is working some of the new words into his everyday vocabulary. Linguists say it’s only a matter of time before Trump becomes fluent so that he can dehumanize these new populations in a language they can understand.” So we can only assume that Senator Britt has taken up the mantle of the presumptive GOP nominee’s ‘Rosetta Stone‘-like instructor, or that of a ‘Babbel‘ tutor. The Alabama senator claims she was speaking from her immaculate kitchen, in her infomercial-like address, like any decent, God-fearing Republican woman would do, as she fought off flop-sweat, nervousness, and stretching the truth, i.e., lying. Her theatrical, creepy, campy speech was compared by many observers as a reading for a ‘Mom On The Brink‘ tryout, with some appealing for donations to their local arts programs in light of her wretched acting.

Katie was hard to track for some, as she shifted from happy to laughing, from tearful to angry, out-Struthering Sally Struthers who we remember from her TV appeals for donations a few years ago to help starving African kids. Longtime GOP operatives, right-leaning pollsters, conservative Capitol Hill staffers, MAGA attorneys, and even some members of Trump’s campaign torched Britt’s absurdly over-dramatic rebuttal. A GOP consultant rated Biden’s speech over Katie’s, and a House congressional aide termed her remarks “cringeworthy” and predicted correctly that it would be a ‘Saturday Night Live‘ skit. Charlie Kirk wrote on Xwitter, “I’m sure Katie Britt is a sweet mom and person, but this speech is not what we need. Joe Biden just declared war on the American right and Katie Britt is talking likes she’s hosting a cooking show whispering about how Democrats ‘don’t get it.'” Radio host Jesse Kelly wrote that Britt’s rebuttal was not what he’d “prefer out of the GOP response, but there’s no question Katie Britt has mastered the ultimate weapon…the fake cry. That’s a seasoned pro right there.” Business Insider interviews a Republican staffer who compared it to a high school freshman speech. “She thinks she’s really killing it. But it’s comical, like ‘Saturday Night Live’ quality,” he offered. “Everyone’s losing it. It’s one of our biggest disasters ever,” another said. Alyssa Farah Griffin, a Trump White House advisor, posted on Xwitter, “I do not understand the decision to put her in a KITCHEN for one of the most important speeches she’s ever given…bizarre. Women can be both wives and mothers and also stateswomen. So to put her in a kitchen, not in front of a podium or in the Senate chamber…fell very flat and was confusing to some women.” Luke Russert on MSNBC posted, “Looks like it’s written to be chopped up into 100 different social media quips.” Steve Schmidt, on The Warning, shared that the rebuttal was “historic for its strange and astonishing tone, filled with crocodile tears and fear-mongering.” Bill Palmer on The Palmer Report posted, “These days there simply are no rising stars within the Republican Party, only creepy weirdos and Trump loyalists and extremists, and well, morons like Katie Britt.”

Daily Beast columnist, David Rothkopf, wrote, “This is ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ coming to life,” referencing Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel. During Britt’s speech, someone edited her Wikipedia page, saying she is “a member of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ and not one of the good ones.” New York Magazine’s Ed Kilgore noted, the substance of Britt’s speech “was right out of the Donald Trump American Carnage repertoire, treating the condition of the country as a vast hells cape of rampaging immigrants, blighted commutes, and terrified, impoverished families.” For this we can thank Stephen Miller for his contribution as a Trump speech writer, as they fight for environmental degradation, privatized healthcare, and education/Social Security cuts and draconian rollbacks of fundamental freedoms. Britt said in her rebuttal that sexual assault is the worst thing that can happen to a woman as she encourages American women to vote for a convicted sexual predator. She misrepresented the truth about sex trafficking by Mexican cartels, attributing one incident to Biden’s presidency, though it occurred during George W. Bush’s tenure, and in Guadalajara, not in the US.

‘Saturday Night Live‘ chose Scarlett Johansson to mock Katie Britt in their cold opening, and from a spotless kitchen set, she told us, “Good evening America, my name is Katie Britt, and I have the honor of serving the people of the great state of Alabama. But tonight, I’ll be auditioning for the part of ‘scary mom.’ I’ll be performing an original monologue called ‘This Country is Hell.’ You see, I’m not just a senator. I’m a wife, a mother, and the craziest bitch in the Target parking lot. First and foremost, I’m a mom, and like any mom, I’m going to do a pivot out of nowhere into a shockingly violent story about sex trafficking. Rest assured, every detail about it is real except the year, where it took place, and who was president when it happened.” Johansson started hawking a bejeweled cross necklace, a la the QVC channel, that “goes with anything, and you can wear it from da’ church to da’ club.” Continuing, she says, “You know, my husband Wesley and I spend a lot of time in this kitchen – worrying. Kitchens are where families have the hard conversations like the one we’ll have now about how mommy freaked out the entire country. It’s like I tell my kids every night: We are steeped in the blood of patriots in a castle made of bones. Goodnight kids!” Johansson concluded with mimicking Senator Britt’s words, “The American people who are struggling right now, know this: We hear you. We see you. We smell you. We’re inside your kitchen right now looking through your fridge. And what’s this on the top shelf? Migrants!”

While Donald Trump may be considering adding Katie Britt to his list of possible running mates, HBO’s Bill Maher recently earned some ridicule from the former president on his Truth Social media platform, being unhappy with quips regarding the “Supreme Court’s delay” of Trump’s trials. “Bill Maher is the worst! He never got it, and never will. Bad ratings, a big fail on CNN shot, major case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” Maher’s “failure” of a show is now in its 22nd season. Trump says, “Not worth the watch!” but he seems to be checking it out himself. Maher’s monologue mentioned the numerous trials facing Trump, noting that some polls show him losing the election if convicted in any of the cases, adding that his defense lawyers are doing all they can to delay the proceedings. “And when I say ‘his defense lawyers,’ I mean the Supreme Court,” Maher explained, calling the claim that former presidents are immune from prosecution “ridiculous.” “They’re just trying to run out the clock. This is so typical of that court: always protecting the baby,” Maher said of Trump’s immaturity. Maher also joked that Trump wouldn’t acknowledge Leap Day, surmising that it’s only a ‘woke plot‘ to make Black History Month a day longer.

Attorney George Conway writes that the US Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v Anderson, which unanimously reversed the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision barring Trump from being on the state’s presidential-primary ballot, wasn’t decided on its merits, resulting in an utterly flimsy legal argument. He says, “Law is never perfect, and never will be. Trump’s brazen example to end constitutional democracy in America should have been the textbook example of the sort of behavior that would lead to someone being barred from holding public office under the Fourteenth Amendment. But it was not to be, and never was to be.” Conway believed the Colorado decision was unimpeachably correct, but did not imagine that the high court was likely to agree, nor could he find a single person willing to wager the Supremes would uphold the ruling. The pessimism arose not from legal reasoning, but understanding that it was too much to expect in this political context, by applying the Constitution in the manner the Court normally should: by impartially examining the text, historical contexts, and letting the chips fall. He says it may be noble-minded of him, sitting in the cheap seats, to offer his favorite Latin legal maxim, Fiat justitia ruat caelum – “Let justice be done though the heavens may fall.” The decisions of the justices are obviously affected by their perception of what public reaction may be. He concedes that he gave the Court more credit than was warranted, having previously written, “…the people who think the Court is going to reverse no matter what…may well be right.” However, he had convinced himself that if the decision was reversed, the High Court would come up with a stronger opinion than was forthcoming. And the fact that the unsigned per curiam opinion, signifying there was not a stronger opinion to provide, makes it painfully, embarrassingly clear that no justice wanted to put their names to it. Conway feels that the justices made up a holding that “utterly unmoored from the text or history of the provision it was interpreting, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. That bottom-line holding: ‘States have no power to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency.’ The Court’s four women justices who wrote separate concurrences seemed to agree with at least this statement of the holding, as far as the presidency is concerned.”

Conway explains further, “But here’s the problem. The Fourteenth Amendment does not say that. It could have, but it doesn’t. It says, in Section 5, ‘Congress shall have the power, to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article,’ meaning all of the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. But just because Congress has the power to enact legislation to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment’s various provisions – which include, most notably, the guarantee of ‘the equal protection of the laws’ in Section 1 – doesn’t mean that state officials, of federal or state judiciaries, are disempowered to apply the Fourteenth Amendment. To the contrary, because the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, they have a duty to do that. State officials and state courts have an obligation not to ‘deny to any person within [the state’s] jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,’ regardless of what Congress does or doesn’t do.” In Conway’s estimation, Section 3 may require some congressional action to be enforced, in some circumstances, but in the end they carved out Section 3, without any textual or clear historical basis to do so. His article is worth reading in its entirety, and is searchable. Who do we appeal to after a High Court decision? The voters need to get involved!

Despite the profusion of whining from the throat of Citizen Trump, Charles Sykes in the Washington Post writes, “A federal judge has declared him liable for rape. He faces paying a half-billion dollars in legal judgements for fraud and defamation. Twice impeached, then defeated for reelection, he has been charged with 91 felonies. He has been arrested and his mug shot published; he will spend much of the year in and out of courtrooms. On the campaign trail, his rambling speeches are gaffe-ridden and prone to malapropisms and meltdowns. In a normal universe, this would not be the description of a fortunate man. But we do not live in that universe, and we must consider the very real – and infuriating – possibility that Donald J. Trump is the single luckiest politician who ever lived.” Sykes says we have watched for almost ten years as Trump trips, dodges, totters, oversteps traps, all the while thinking: finally! THIS is it! Only to watch him escape again, and again. After recounting his list ofTrump’s close calls, Sykes continues, “It must feel almost providential to Trump that his rise to power has also coincided with the downfall of much of the traditional fact-based media, as well as the emergence of just the sort of alternative-reality information silos that he needed to shape his narrative and platform his bluster, bombast and fakery…has anyone ever been so lucky?”

Rex Huppke posted in USA Today, “The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Donald Trump on Monday, affirming what those of us who’ve studied the Constitution already knew: each president is entitled to one free insurrection.” Colorado sued to remove him from the state’s primary ballot, claiming that the former president and current criminal defendant had engaged in insurrection, something he quite clearly did, and, by his ongoing denial of the 2020 presidential election results, continues to do to this day. He has been nothing if not insurrection-y.” Rex believes the Supremes must have viewed the Constitution and spotted a hard-to-read footnote, smudged by aging parchment or whatnot, clearly stating: “Each president shall be granted one insurrection free of consequences on a case-by-case basis. Upon the fomenting of a sixth insurrection, the president shall be awarded one foot-long turkey and Virginia ham sandwich.” Sure, the “Constitution doesn’t say WHO should enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, so the Court decided that it ‘rests with Congress and not the States,’ which is sort of the opposite direction took with abortion rights, saying that issue is up to the states and the federal government can pound sand.” We can agree with Huppke’s statement, “Those justices sure do keep us on our toes! I’m sure the nation’s highest court will be much harder on him after the second insurrection, but this one’s a freebie. Rules are rules. Sort of.”

Speaking of Sykes‘ mention of the downfall of the traditional fact-based media, Andrea Junker posted, “The fact that we know more about Fani Willis’ and Nathan Wade’s relationship than about the crimes committed by Ginni and Clarence Thomas shows exactly what is terribly wrong in today’s political mainstream media.”

Dateline March 4, 2024

SUCKING UP A FAIT ACCOMPLI FOR SELF-PRESERVATION 

Kerry Eleveld in a Daily Kos post says Mitch McConnell’s announcement that he will step away from his Senate leadership position in November, “…may seem like a passing of the baton by a physically frail 82-year-old man, but is in truth, a death rattle of the so-called establishment wing of the Republican Party.” McConnell has had several public health occurrences since the concussion suffered in a fall back in 2023, and his stepping down is not totally unexpected, though long overdue. Upon Donald Trump’s winning the presidency, Mitch thought he could control The Don, using him as a tool to pack the Supreme Court with conservative extremists, and pass the 2017 tax cuts to boost the fortunes of America’s wealthiest. Joyfully, the Speaker checked off those goals on his list, but he failed to notice his party was being stolen from him by the MAGA horde, and by 2020 he fully realized that his GOP majority in the Senate needed help from the MAGA base to hold power…to no avail in the end thanks to the Georgia election results. Eleveld believes Mitch misread the tea leaves, convinced that Trump would fade after the January 6 riot, with agreement from Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their book, ‘Peril.’ Sensing a trend to a party no longer dominated by Trump, McConnell said, “Sucking up to Donald Trump is not a strategy that works.”

Whoops! And who turned out to be one of the biggest sucker-uppers? Why, Moscow Mitch, of course. House Democrats impeached Trump with only seven days left in his term, so Mitch jumps on the bandwagon by delaying the Senate impeachment phase until AFTER January 20, 2021, only to have the White House and Senate then controlled by Democrats, with VP Kamala Harris holding the tie breaker voting cudgel. He never lent a hand to get the country through the Trump nightmare, assuming that semi-sane Republicans would follow the Democratic lead, and as Mitch said to two Kentucky confidants, “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us.” He was quoted in saying that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the J6 Insurrection, but never used his influence to convict Trump, and as we know, ended up voting for acquittal. Moving his attention to the 2022 midterm election, the GOP had several opportunities to land seats, with history suggesting that Democrats were doomed to failure. “The only place I can see Trump and me actually at loggerheads would be if he gets behind some clown who clearly can’t win. To have a chance of getting the Senate back, you have to have the most electable candidates possible,” he cautioned. But October 2021 sees Mitch endorsing Georgia’s Herschel Walker, football star, as “the only one who can unite the party, defeat Senator Warnock, and help us take back the Senate,” even after encouraging Walker to take his ball and go home. That election effort ended in a losing GOP campaign alongside other Trump endorsees, picking up not a single seat in the so-called ‘red wave‘ while also losing the open seat effort in Pennsylvania.

So, Trump’s fait accompli in the MAGA takeover of the GOP is nearly done, with his march to the Republican presidential nomination all but sewn up. His ownership of the RNC, ousting Ronna McDaniel, and fighting hard to see his daughter-in-law move into her position eminent. The less Mitch McConnell has led, his followers became less capable of being led; consequently, they are embracing MAGA policy tenets, adopting MAGA tactics, leaving the caucus more ungovernable. Eleveld sums it up with, “When McConnell steps aside later this year, he will leave behind a conference, an institution, and a party in disarray – and he will be complicit in having either actively or passively gutted the integrity of all three.”

Alexander Bolton writes in The Hill, “The race to replace Senate Republican Leader McConnell is laying bare the power struggle between pro-Trump and anti-Trump Republicans in the Senate. GOP lawmakers aligned closely with the former president are urging any candidate to succeed McConnell to embrace Trump. Other Republican senators want McConnell’s successor to keep a healthy distance from the controversial former president.” After the 2020 election, the bitter fallout between Mitch and Donny left the party in an awkward position with tensions between the two still a nagging problem. Trumper Tommy Tuberville, senator of Alabama, wants to elect a vocal Trump supporter, while others see Trump’s 2020 loss being impacted by his inability to get behind strong candidates in the last midterm voting. Senator Mitt Romney sees Trump’s Senate endorsers acting out of fear, or political “self-preservation.” The two leading prospects for Mitch’s replacement, John Thune of South Dakota, and John Cornyn of Texas, have had changeable relationships with Trump over the years, both designated as ‘RINOs‘ by the former president. Cornyn questions Trump’s strength in beating Biden, telling the press, “I think President Trump’s time has passed him by. I don’t think Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.”

Robert Reich writes, “He (McConnell) will be remembered as one of the most dangerous politicians in living memory. He helped transform the Republican Party into a cult, worshipping at the altar of authoritarianism. He’s damaged our country in ways that may take a generation to undo. Like Trump, McConnell hasn’t been just a garden-variety bad public official. He’s been a truly awful public official. McConnell has always put party above America. Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president? The fact he hasn’t always kissed Trump’s backside has infuriated the former furor-in-chief. So who’s worse? It’s a tough call. Trump defaced and defiled the presidency, but no person has done more in recent years to undermine the functioning of the US government than McConnell.” Reich enumerates the ways in which he sees McConnell’s desecrations: 1) Refusal to consider Obama’s Supreme Court choice, Merrick Garland; 2) Rammed through confirmation of Trump’s court choices; 3) Tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, raising government debt; 4) Doing almost everything Vladimir Putin and Trump wanted him to do – hence, ‘Moscow Mitch‘ was born; 5) Blocked bi-partisan background checks for gun sales; 6) Secured a right-wing takeover of the US federal court system, empowering conservatives to shape laws on climate, reproductive rights, voting rights, and other issues affecting millions of citizens. Mitch’s consistent ratings from Kentuckians are low, for sacrificing the state to the GOP agenda. Money for school construction was shifted to emergency funding for Trump’s border wall, and funding for black lung disease to affected coal miners, who after a bus trip to DC to plead for restoration of funds were turned away after sixty-seconds, with his refusal to help. Reich speculates that Ohio Senator and LapDog J.D. Vance will fit the bill to fit into Mitch’s shoes, “being sufficiently young and telegenic enough to hawk authoritarianism to the gullible public, and being so unprincipled and ambitious that he’ll flush democracy down the toilet to promote Trump and himself.”

Florida’s Senator Rick Scott has made no announcement to seek the Senate GOP leadership role, likely remembering his poor showing in a previous attempt to oust McConnell, who gave him a 27-vote-margin trouncing. But Aldous J. Pennyfarthing has made some observations on the Medicare fraudster, and his support for criminal officeholders. “Medicare fraudster and US Senator Rick Scott is doing his bit for the destruction of liberal democracy, claiming that he’d vote insurrectionist, self-described crotch-grabber and judge-described sexual assaulter, business fraud (alleged!), top secret documents thief, and semi-ambulant absurdity Donald Trump – even if Trump is convicted of a crime. Because the only way to halt the raging national crime wave that exists entirely in Republicans’ minds is to elect a criminal to the highest office in the land. The Republican Party, which once swaddled itself in principled opposition to Soviet aggression, has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Vladimir Putin’s vodka- and evil-marinated brain, and all Putin had to do was compromise one debauched reality TV star. Normally, you have to buy a $325 cameo to get Rudy Giuliani to do embarrassing tricks for you, but Putin got his services for free. Watching old-guard Republicans morph into humiliated wads of protoplasm in utter thrall to a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto Demon would be really offing funny if the stakes for Western democracy weren’t so high. In an impromptu interview with CNN’s Manu Raju, Scott said he’d absolutely support Trump as the party’s nominee, even if he’s convicted in one or more of the four felony cases he currently faces. And Scott – who, again, was responsible for one of the worst Medicare frauds in history – is standing by his answer. After all, even if the GOP nominated Nikki Haley, surely Democrats would dredge up something on her that’s equally as picayune as Trump’s deadly attempted coup, 91 felony charges, colossal business fraud judgement, massive defamation/sexual abuse judgement, wholesale betrayal of a domestic ally, and weird series of speeches that sound increasingly like Hitler screaming lunch orders through a glitchy Arby’s drive-thru intercom. ‘I think any of our nominees, they’re going to try to go after for something, so I support Trump,’ Scott bravely intoned. Really? Haley’s pretty awful, but mostly in ways Republicans love. Unless she’s vowing to crack down on rampant Medicare fraud, it’s hard to imagine why Scott would prefer Trump over her. Unless he’s a soulless, craven Jell-O salad, that is.”

Two prominences showed up at the Texas-Mexico border recently, one a concerned and compassionate individual who happens to be the current President of the US, the other a man-child, spouting bizarre rants about migrants in his speech in Eagle Pass, Texas. The blustering former president, Donald Trump, fumed away, saying, “Nobody can explain to me how allowing millions of people from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don’t speak languages. We have languages coming into our country. We have nobody that even speaks those languages. They’re truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them, and they are pouring into our country, and they’re bringing with them tremendous problems, including medical problems, as you know.” Wow! Let’s put that indecipherable fulmination to rest and divert our attention to a phrase in Amanda Gorman’s poem, ‘What We Carry‘: “Language is a life craft. Yes, language is a life raft,” recently recited on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,’ with instrumental accompaniment by world-renowned cellist Jan Vogler. Writer and newsman, Dan Rather, was so taken by the performance he wants the words on his t-shirt. The poem appears in Gorman’s book of poems, ‘Call Us What We Carry‘ as she explores the “we” further in her writing, which she calls an “occasional book.” In her poem, ‘Call Us,’ she writes: “We are not me – we are we. Call us what we carry,” from which the book title is derived. Her now well-known poem read at President Biden’s inauguration, ‘The Hill We Climb,’ is the final poem in her printed collection. Kevin Young, in the The New Yorker magazine, writes, “Good poems capture a moment and sustain it. In an era as urgent as ours, many poems strive for timelessness precisely by being timely. Poetry can preserve the fleeting present, encircle the past, and help envision alternative futures. When Amanda Gorman read her poem at the 2021 Inaugural, she became both the inheritor of a long tradition and a herald of something new…As Gorman acknowledged this country’s contested history, and its contemporary tumult, her invocation of the plural pronoun “we” reminded us that, for good or literal ill, our lives are connected. Hers was an invitation to move forward together.”  Can ‘we’ do it? ‘We’ have to give it a shot!

Dateline February 26

GRAB ‘EM BY THE PROPERTY!

The Democrats, and President Biden, are growing increasingly frustrated with his portrayal in the media with their concerns about the 81-year-old’s age and his ability to execute another four years in the Oval Office. During the 2020 presidential election run-up, Donald Trump was unrelenting in his criticism that Biden was “too old” yet is unconcerned that he himself has reached that same “old” age. Reporters are quick to fixate on Biden’s verbal slips, while soft-pedaling Trump’s slips, outright lies, and non-sensical ramblings, while waiting for the rabbit to pop out of a hat. It’s show-time! Democratic strategist, Jon Reinish, says, “The more this campaign and the more this White House takes the gloves off and gets aggressive, the better off they are. There have been many instances on many tough issues where they’ve been behind the ball and have not been nearly as sharp, nearly as persuasive or nearly as aggressive as they could have been.” In light of Biden’s poor approval ratings and concerns about his ability to serve, a dramatic pushback from the president’s team against the negativity might help build up a sense of Biden’s strength, Reinish said, adding that he hopes “it’s not too late” to start such maneuvers.

In the DOJ’s investigation of Biden’s purloined classified documents case, Special Counsel Robert Hur released a tedious and lengthy summation that concluded the President would face no charges for the mishandled items from his senatorial and vice-presidential years. But Hur felt that he had to color outside the lines, devoting what he thought important by covering Biden’s struggle to remember during his questioning, which the White House immediately took issue with, especially since there were no charges. Senior adviser for the Biden campaign, TJ Ducklo, criticized the media for “gratuitous and sensationalist attacks on the President’s age” after Trump suggested he’d be fine with Russian invasions of NATO countries who failed to contribute their share to cover defense obligations. Americans deserve “a press corps who cover his candidacy, his comments, and his policy positions with the seriousness and ferocity this moment requires,” Ducklo responded.

The President held a press conference following Robert Hur’s stinging judgement that Biden was a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” to defend his age and ability at recall. He fired back with, “I’m well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man, and I know what the hell I’m doing.” But he then went on to confuse the Egyptian President as the “president of Mexico,” which let some air out of his balloon, with the verbal slip drawing even more scrutiny. Todd Belt, director of George Washington University’s graduate political management program says, “I think the president overestimates his ability to handle the press at times.” Biden’s news conferences stand at an average of 11 per year, while Trump’s averaged 22, during which he confronted and harangued reporters about releasing “fake news.” The current administration has attempted to build a press relationship, avoiding aggressive criticism of the coverage. As a side note, President Obama averaged about 20 press outings per year during his terms in office.

Esquire’s Charlie Pierce confesses that he has been willing to grant Attorney General Merrick Garland a bit of latitude, but the Robert Hur hatchet job on the president was the final straw, and he must go, he concludes. Talk radio, Fox News, and any MAGA monster will rant about Biden’s politicization of the Department of Justice, how it’s prosecuting/persecuting honest, God-fearing citizens, and making a complete mockery of the Constitution; but, the AG in his timidity and determination to be “apolitical” has failed to do the very thing he was appointed to do – pursue justice and accountability charges The Nation magazine. The former president should have been prosecuted years ago, right out of the gate following the swearing-in ceremonies in 2021, but hesitation has brought us to the current dilemmas.

Pierce believes Special Counsel Jack Smith shouldn’t have been a solution, that the Attorney General and the FBI should have been on the case the minute Garland walked into his office…a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Pierce asks us to imagine quick actions and investigations which would have found many in DC the objects of 14th Amendment prosecution. He compares this laxity to the rapid response of the Republican administration after 9/11 to absolve George W. Bush and his lackeys of blame for ignoring the attack warnings they had received, blindly forcing the country to get behind the war footing because ‘terrorists‘ were on the loose. Charlie calls out Democrats for being “the adults in the room” while allowing Republicans to act like privileged children. “They need to express genuine outrage when the situation merits it, in contrast to the staged hissy fits Republicans do by reflex,” he contends. Further, he thinks, “It is long past time to stop giving the GOP the benefit of the doubt on anything. Don’t appeal to their better nature – they may not have one.”

As for Garland, if he steps down now, imagine the circus that would be initiated in the halls of government, with Republicans shouting “lawfare!” to amplify accusations of weaponization of the DOJ, their term for warring against political opponents using the law. Of course, the GOP would launch their own campaign to preemptively neutralize any nominee, with the press corps meekly calling any move to hold Republicans to account as ‘divisive.’ Pierce goes on, “Bending over backwards to be seen as reasonable when dealing with unreasonable people is not an effective strategy. We need to do better. A DEMOCRATIC attorney general prepared to take some heat from the press at the risk of being seen as partisan would be a nice change – and can we find someone besides a Republican to head up the FBI while we are at it?”

Marjorie Taylor Greene would gladly head up any ‘neutralization campaign,’ which she would designate as ‘eradication’ no doubt. Steve Schmidt on his ‘The Warning’ blog calls her out for using the term in her menacing statement about candidate Nikki Haley, “Not only do [Republicans] support President Trump, we support his policies. And any Republican that isn’t willing to adapt these policies, we’re completely eradicating from the party. So, it’s up to Nikki Haley what she does.” Steve says, “Eradication is a word typically applied to vermin, like rats or an infestation of termites or bedbugs. Certainly, it doesn’t seem particularly tolerant of different points of view. Does it seem strange that Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to shrink the party into a smaller, purer instrument of loyalty to Donald Trump for Trump in the name of Trump? Shouldn’t there be a question asked about intention to the people who have become completely hostile to freedom of conscience, speech and expression what they might do with power? Might they seek to stifle speech and intimidate? Might they threaten retribution? Might they act in the threat? How would they act? These question is matter a great deal in this moment. Americans have a great deal of time to ponder our way of life, which is deeply attached to several core precepts. Among them, that ‘we the people’ pick our leaders, and not the other way around. Eradication. It’s an unusual choice. It seems ominous.” A quote from H.L. Mencken is certainly ominous – “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

Jimmy Kimmel, on one of his shows last fall says of Trump and his gang, “The Chicken McNuggets are coming home to roost, aren’t they? The rats are jumping off the Spray-tanic. The big beautiful walls are closing in – somewhere up there, I have to believe John McCain is smiling. You know. he likes people who don’t get caught.” Kimmel couldn’t hold back after Trump’s recent $355M civil fraud ruling, saying, “It will be a refreshing to see a woman grabbing his assets for a change. I’ll tell you something. When you’re attorney general they let you do it. You don’t even ask. You just seize. You grab ’em by the property.” Immediately, Trump having nothing better to do, attacked Kimmel as a “loser.” On Truth Social he posted, “They could get a far more talented person, who would also get better ratings, for 5% of what they are paying this Loser.” Kimmel then expressed his delight that he had “caught the attention of America’s most famous tangerine. I got to say that is a hell of a way to find out you’re not going to be somebody’s running mate. He has no idea how delighted I am by something like this. I’m going to try to enjoy it, because he probably won’t be able to do this when they take away his phone in prison, so I’m going to really, like, soak it in.”

Trump and his two fraud-prince sons are appealing Judge Arthur Engoron’s decision in the New York civil fraud case, which fined the three heavily and barred them from leadership roles, with independent officials monitoring their companies. Alina Habba, the Trump attorney in the case, issued a statement, “We trust that the Appellate Division will overturn this egregious fine and take the necessary steps to restore the public faith in New York’s legal system.” The appeal is headed for the First Judicial Department Appellate Division, where the Trump Crime Family hopes to see their sins justified, after Judge Engoron declined to delay enforcement of his decision. “You have failed to explain, much less justify, any basis for a stay. I am confident that the Appellate Division will protect your appellate rights,” Engoron responded. The Don is responsible for paying additional interest on the fine if it is upheld, and New York attorney, Letitia James, updates the amount each day on Xwitter. Ka-ching, ka-ching!

Bad news from Trump’s hometown newspaper, The Palm Beach Post…they endorsed Joe Biden in a recent editorial. They expressed to readers their grave concern about the prospect of a second Trump term, asserting that the “nation would have much to fear,” urging undecided voters to reassess events involving Trump with a fresh perspective, as they cited Newsweek’s reporting on Friday, February 23. Highlighted were the two New York cases: the civil fraud suit, and the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. The P.B. Post’s Biden endorsement brings to the fore, the extent to which the ex-president’s standing has eroded in his own Mar–a-Lago neighborhood…time to vacate for E. Jean Carroll’s occupancy?

Jackie Calmes in her LA Times column, pinpoints her observations of changes in Trump’s rallies, where once they consisted of “brash rowdiness” but have now dissolved into self-pity. “These aren’t rallies anymore. They’re pity-parties.” she maintains. Poor, poor, pitiful Trump. Lord, have mercy! Calmes says where once spectators showed up to hear about “a better future,” now there’s only a gaggle of Trumpers who emit “constant catcalls, boos, and their own favorite profanities.” Trump is trolling for pity, and dollars, as he spreads his gloom and doom, as he “saps the crowd’s energy.” His ramblings and verbal garbage are hard to follow, and he has become a constant embarrassment to the larger audiences he once attracted, yet the GOP holds his banner high! Pity!

If you vote for a man who said windmills cause cancer, used a Sharpie to change the track of a hurricane, asked to nuke hurricanes, autographed Bibles, saluted a North Korean general, stared at the sun twice, believed there were airplanes in the Revolutionary War, and suggested that bleach was a COVID cure, your opinion of Joe Biden’s sanity is laughably irrelevant. And remember, the same people who think Obama is a Muslim, think Trump is a Christian!

Dateline February 19

SNITCHING SWIFTIES SELLOUT SNEAKERS

The Washington Post’s Rick Reilly writes, “Are you bummed you weren’t around when the Stasi ruled? Do you wish you could’ve been one of Mao Zedong’s millions of neighborhood snitches? Maybe watch the Red Guards drag off your least favorite aunt? Not to worry, the bad old days are back – thanks to Nextdoor.com.” Rick says all you gotta do is sign up, log in and start profiling everyone on your block…Black guy on the corner with a backpack…call the cops! Girl going door-to-door selling cookies to raise money for a high school trip? Alert the snitches! Fiftyish White man driving a luxury car, doesn’t go to work? Call the IRS…and stay vigilant! Trifling Halloween candy hand-outs? Alert, alert, alert! Rick reports reading of a vegan couple complaining about the smell of their neighbor’s barbecue invading their “meat-free radius,” and asks, “Is there a kale-free radius?” He says there’s no butting-out, only butting-in, as he tells of a post about a “slow moving vehicle following the school bus every morning.” Only a newspaper carrier following the same route…can never be certain that the carrier won’t bounce the daily off of some kid’s head, but with sparsity of pages in today’s tabloids who would notice? Rick concludes that entertainment ends and lunacy begins if we don’t take notice that we live in a country with more guns than people, and pulling into the wrong driveway can put a bullet through a windshield, and the person to fear is not the guy in the hoodie but the person behind the keyboard of a computer or tablet. Douglas Adams wrote in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,’ “In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” Now is the time to cheer up those individuals!

“Your Honor, in an effort to insure a fair trial, we move for a change of venue to the defendant’s imagination,” said Trump’s attorneys and most of the GOP. Needless to say, that hasn’t worked in any of the former president’s cases, so last week he got another shot across the bow in Judge Arthur Engoron’s 92-page decision dealing a blow to the Trump Crime Family’s business operation. New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the suit against Trump in 2022 for falsely altering his net worth on key financial statements for tax and insurance advantages. The fraudulent documents were used in securing loans and making deals, and the final decision was Engoron’s since there was no jury involved. The $354M in penalties was below what the AG had initially sought, but both Trump sons were also fined over $4M each, and former CFO Allen Weisellberg was dinged for a mil. Donald Trump will owe over a half-billion big ones with interest added to the fine, and the meter is still running at the rate of one million per week…try to change venue on that one, Donny-boy! The meter is still running on the E. Jean Carroll case with no appeal being filed, so somebody needs to start making some decisions on disposition of properties on this runaway train.

Stories abound of the cavalry coming to the rescue with a crowdfunding setup, but the reality is that Trump’s MAGA base throughout the election cycle has not pitched in an amount that would pay off more than just a fraction of these gigantic court penalties, just barely staying above the bills for payouts to those legal teams who are getting some payment. Liar Trump, being deeply in debt, likely never had the $400M in cash that he once claimed, at least for any length of time, since the money comes in and goes right out the door at month’s end. Some have speculated that he might borrow against his properties to avoid asset forfeiture, but he has no equity in them, so what bank is going to sink more money into Trump’s empire, especially in light of his current status? With no money, he can’t write checks to cover his debts; consequently, he won’t be able to put money in escrow accounts to appeal the court decisions, so seizure of assets seems to be on the table. Besides, meals in prison are pretty inexpensive, along with the free room. After the fraud verdict was out, the MAGA base actually started a GoFundMe account to bail their Golden Boy out of trouble, which led to questions of whether the GFM terms of service would permit such an endeavor. Putting that concern aside, the loyalists managed to raise $84K within 24 hours…about .01% of Trump’s court debts to date, and only 6,547+ more days to make it all go away.

But, wait! Trump probably thinks he has an ace in the hole with this one…becoming a Sneakerhead! He showed up at Philadelphia’s Sneaker Con to hawk a pair of gold, custom, Trump-branded, limited edition high-top sneakers for only $399 a pair, and it’s reported that an autographed pair went to a winning bidder for only $9000. The high-top, branded as the “Never Surrender High Top Sneaker” is part of the line which includes the white and gold athletic fit, “POTUS 45” for $199, and the red athletic “T-Red Wave,” also for $199. The Gettrumpsneakers.com website announced early on that the 1,000 pairs of “Never Surrender” kicks were sold out, with “at least 10” bearing the former prez’s autograph. A licensing agreement with 45Footwear/CIC Ventures gives the company the right to use his name, image, and likeness, with no money going to his presidential campaign. Alas, we’re probably too late to own a pair since the site claimed they were to be available for only three days with a limit to buyers of three pairs. But, they may still have 45Footwear’s Trump branded fragrances – ‘Victory 47 Cologne’ and ‘Victory 47 Perfume’, with a price tag of $99.

Trump was mostly oblivious to the boos amid the mixed and emotional reactions from the attendees when he came on stage, saying, “Wow, lot of emotion. There’s a lot of emotion in this room.” Speaking for about ten minutes, he said, “They have lines going all around the block. They’ve never seen anything like this one.” Yeah, probably in the entire history of the planet…you could check Wikipedia! Chants of “USA, USA, USA” could be heard by a small group, and Sneaker Con later faced a lot of backlash for giving the candidate a venue for his remarks. The organization addressed the controversy with a post on social media saying, “Sneaker Con’s mission is to support and promote sneaker culture through our worldwide live events and digital platforms. We are thankful and appreciative of the sneaker community, and recognize individuals who generate awareness and authentic sneaker related engagement toward our community.” And they will never find a sneakier sneakerhead than Donald J. Trump. It should be noted that CIC Ventures is the same company that made the Trump NFT trading cards, but we all know with certainty that his only successful business is selling hats to morons.

Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, raises a red flag in light of his former boss’ growing debts, saying he’s “for sale,” in his need to raise loads of cash over a short period of time. The cash-strapped ex-president would be willing to sell sensitive government information to which he had access, both before and after his term was over, according to Cohen. “He doesn’t care about America, and I say this not to be hyperbolic. I say this as fact, knowing him for as long as I’ve known him. He will sell that information to anyone, because he doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than himself,” Cohen explains. Trump’s onetime national security advisor, John Bolton, believes foreign autocrats could take advantage of him in this situation, which demonstrates “why he is not fit for office.”

Trucker, Chicago Ray, is organizing his fellow-trucking buddies to start refusing loads destined for New York City in a protest over the court’s ruling handed down last week in Trump’s fraud case. He claims to have “at least” ten drivers who will join him in this action, and Trump is raising a fist toward their efforts. “Such an honor to have so many Great Patriots on the side of FREEDOM!” was posted to Truth Social media platform, along with Trump’s whine, “Joe Biden’s Unfair and Dangerous Weaponization of Law Enforcement is a serious threat to Democracy. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Canadian truckers in 2022 organized a “People’s Convoy” when they converged on Washington, DC to voice opposition to COVID-19 mandates, but that turned out to be a bust. Early in February, “God’s Army Truck Convoy/The Take Our Border Back Convoy,” began its drive though the southern states to rally in several border cities, but it was a slow starter, failing to pick up any significant numbers on the journey. The organizers claimed at least 700,000 people would attend, after the publicity on Tucker Carlson’s podcast and Alex Jone’s InfoWars, however, it was reported only about fifty cars, trucks, and RVs arrived at destination Dripping Springs, Texas. The group did manage to raise $157,000 online, with no explanation or plan for distribution. The orange-hued blonde in the back is waving his hand energetically, if you hadn’t noticed!

Trump attorney, Alina Habba, is no longer involved in the E. Jean Carroll case, having been a total disaster for her client who will bring on a new legal team to appeal his $83.3M defeat. Morning Joe Scarborough and co-host, Mika Brzesinski, discussed this change on their show, with Joe in quasi-seriousness asking, “Wonder why?” which brought forth laughter from Mika and the crew. Mika cautioned, “Try to keep a straight face,” with Joe’s counter, “No, I mean, she’s very angry. They took away her coloring books! There was a color-by-number thing on how to be a lawyer when you grow up, and the judge took them away!” The panel wondered why she was ever on the case, since Trump historically had bad lawyers who at least knew their way around a courtroom; ironically, she is still in the employ of Trump, being a voice for his reelection. She was simply a cut-out in the courtroom where The Donald basically was his own defense, proving the old adage that one who represents himself has a fool for a client.

Aldous J. Pennyfarthing says, “If you ever find yourself in legal peril, you might want to consider hiring Alina Habba as your attorney, but only if you’re on trial for dropping a house on a witch, otherwise you will be in for a rude awakening. With Trump facing loads of legal peril, Habba’s job was to go on TV to convince millions of people who are already sure he’s innocent, and the heap of criminal and civil accusations against him were all meticulously curated by a sitting president who’s nothing but a listless amalgam of advanced dementia symptoms. If somehow she had managed to score him a hard-bristled toothbrush for his weekly prison urinal cleanings, that would have been gravy.” Aldous J. adds, “Trump has exhausted every listing in the ‘law’ section of the Yellow Pages and was forced to move on to the ‘lawn and garden’ section. Hey, if anyone still uses the Yellow Pages, it’s Trump.”

On HBO’s ‘Real Time,’ host Bill Maher joked, “Taylor Swift won the Super Bowl. Swift drives MAGA Nation crazy because one thing they cannot stand is a blonde billionaire with a cult following. Trump is running around the country trying to balance his busy schedule with all the primaries and four trials going…today he had to do his makeup in the car.” Referencing the upcoming trial involving hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, Maher quipped, “Only Trump could pay hush money to someone who was too embarrassed to talk about it to begin with.” The Don’s efforts to stall and delay his court appearances, according to Maher, is the same tactic Melania uses in the bedroom, and he criticizes Trump for sending her a valentine message in a fundraising letter to his supporters. Maher deplores this election cycle with, “This is going to be a long and grueling and mostly pointless campaign since everyone knows which of the two elderly candidates they prefer to barely tolerate…the one who can’t walk upstairs, or the one who can’t walk down ramps. That’s where we are. Can we please not make it even more tedious than it already is? I don’t want to hear any more about how somehow Joe Biden has the energy to completely destroy America, even though the can’t open a package of nuts with his teeth.”

FAKE ELECTORS DIGGING INTO THE LOOPHOLES OF DEMOCRACY

Robert Harrington, like many of us, is making a shaky effort to keep all of Trump’s criminal charges in the four jurisdictions straight in his head…91 criminal charges in all, with a constantly shifting on-again-off-again scheduler’s nightmare. He has devised for himself, a mnemonic to provide some order, though Trump’s defense continues to make it all topsy-turvy to keep everyone off-balance. His memory aid is the acronym, DIGS, to represent Trump’s Documents (stolen classifieds), Insurrection (January 6, 2021), Georgia (election interference), and Stormy (hush money) cases, and as he conjectures, “As in, Donald Trump DIGS his own grave.”

Harrington believes if Trump had put his ego aside and accepted his election defeat, and moved on to Mar-a-Lago minus the boxes of loot, the Stormy Daniels case would have blown over, and he would now be free of all his headaches…though E. Jean Carroll was waiting in the wings with a competent legal team to bash him in dramatic fashion. Harrington believes the COVID contagion could have been a gift to Trump had he handled it properly, but the “stupidity of this stable genius” failed to recognize and evaluate it to his advantage. “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV” cognition didn’t come to his rescue, so he got “Documents, Insurrection, Georgia, Stormy.” Robert ends his piece with, “Donald Trump DIGS graves like nobody else, and he’s going to keep doing it until that blessed day when he finally DIGS his own grave, and lies in it. And nobody lies like Donald Trump.”

The new book released this past week, ‘How to Steal a Presidential Election’ by Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig and Matthew Seligman of the constitutional law center at Stanford, states that, “We are in a profoundly dangerous moment. This is a catastrophic year, and the odds are not in our favor.” Tracing Donald Trump’s assault on democracy with the Big Lie, which was frightful enough, but what lies ahead, the two authors say, is even more troubling. Lessig’s reputation as a leading thinker on possibilities of corruption in public institutions is one of respect, and his probing into the vulnerabilities leaving our democracy open to attack by authoritarians is a blunt warning that, “We are convinced that an informed and intelligent effort to undermine the results of a close, free and fair election could work in America – if the rules governing our presidential elections are not changed.”

Prior to Trump’s stolen-election lies, both Lessig and Seligman concocted a class at Harvard law school designated as ‘Wargaming 2020,’ where they examined the possibility of hacking a presidential election to send a losing candidate to the Oval Office – after which their conclusion is that the US had dodged a bullet. “We discovered that Trump didn’t really understand what he could have done. There were obvious moves he and his team could have made, but they didn’t take them. Overturning an election by insurrection was the dumbest thing they could have possibly done. No court would ever allow the election to be decided by force of bayonets,” Lessig says. After repeating the wargaming exercise for their new book, Lessig has less confidence that another insurrection-type assault would end well. With Trump doing well in primaries to this point, he is certain that the former prez is willing to do much more than we saw through his term, and 2021’s riot, having had four years to conduct their own war-games, with more sophistication. Lessing believes, “Trump didn’t understand how to undo governmental structures. Now he’s well-trained, he knows exactly what he needs to do.”

The three Lessig/Seligman war-games situations are characterized by, 1) the ‘faithless electors,’ delegates chosen by parties to fairly represent the winning candidate in each state under terms of the electoral college – who then renounce their pledges and back the losing candidate; 2) the ‘rogue governor’ of a state who decides to flip the results of the election, which Lessig believes is the greatest long-term threat; and 3) which causes sleepless nights for Lessig, the ‘rogue legislature.’ He is not optimistic that Congress will be able to do anything in time, and can only hope that the infrastructure holds up as it did in the last election. The book offers a host of proposed changes to both federal and state laws for the purpose of closing loopholes, which are not intended to be partisan.

Lessig says of himself and his co-author, “Neither of us have anything against the conservative movement in the US, as expressed in the traditional Republican party,” but the “disengagement from the basic premise of democratic politics – if you win, you win, if you lose, you go home,” is not observed by a number of Americans who still believe the 2020 election was stolen, against all evidence, and that is frightening. “Many Trump supporters have the sense that anything is justified, and that’s terrifying. Trump is denying every single core democratic norm, and yet his support continues to grow. That too is astonishing and terrifying.”

The Supreme Court case, Chiafolo vs Washington, decided in 2020, says that states have the ability to enforce an elector’s pledge in presidential elections, whereby electors were fined $1,000 for not voting for the nominees of their party in the state of Washington, casting their votes for Colin Powell instead of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine. A MAGA-dominated legislature could wreak havoc by going rogue, prompting Lessig to warn, “That’s a kind of opened hole that is going to be very hard to close in time.” A case in point lies in Arizona, where a lawmaker who signed on to be a ‘fake elector‘ for Trump, has introduced a bill that would allow members of the statehouse to overturn future election results that they don’t like. The bill sponsored by state Senator Anthony Kern (Senate Concurrent Resolution 1014) seeks to bypass wholly the popular vote, giving the legislature absolute power to control Arizona’s electoral college votes, disenfranchising millions of the state’s voters. The bill reads, “It is the responsibility of the Arizona Secretary of State to certify elections, including elections for President of the United States, but the sole authority to appoint presidential electors is granted to the Legislature,” concluding, “The Legislature, and no other official, shall appoint presidential electors in accordance with the United States Constitution.”

Sam Paisley, national press secretary for the Democratic Legislative Committee, said, “This is a full sound-the-alarm moment for American democracy. Arizona Republicans are attacking the most essential tenet of our elections: that the people decide their representatives…this latest attempt to remove the will of the people from the presidential selection process is one of the gravest threats to democracy we’ve seen yet.” Senator Kern failed to respond to requests for comments, but has said he was unable to serve in the military during Desert Storm, having two sons to raise as a single dad; he has a degree in business administration, is self-employed and owns a private investigation business; he has been involved in the Block Watch Program, and started the City of Phoenix Employees for Christ organization in 1995. As a former code enforcement officer in the City of El Mirage, he was fired for lying to a supervisor about a lost tablet computer. His name appears on the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office ‘Brady List,’ which is a database of police employees known for credibility issues. Sam Paisley describes Arizona’s Republican caucus as “a hotbed of MAGA extremism,” and Kern makes no secret of his affinity for that cause, having attended the January 6, 2021 rally, using campaign cash to pay airfare and hotel accommodations.

On his TV show, Jimmy Kimmel brought up former Fox News host, Tucker (Useful Idiot) Carlson and his visit to Russia to conduct an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Though Tuck has his own streaming platform, Tucker Carlson Network, Kimmel notes that, “Tucker Carlson still doesn’t have a job. He’s in Moscow. House-hunting, I hope.” An unimpressed Kimmel said of Putin,“He’s a murderer, he’s a war criminal, he hates America, he hates everything America stands for, he’s a liar and a propagandist, but Tuck thinks we need to hear him out.” Playing a clip of Carlson claiming he wants to get Putin’s view since he’s “involved in this conflict with Ukraine,” Kimmel blasted, “I love ‘involved in this conflict’…it’s like saying that in ‘Jaws,’ the great white shark was ‘involved in biting.’ It takes two to be eaten, you know.”

CNN’s Oiver Darcy called the interview “propaganda victory for Putin,” with a silent Carlson giving the president free-rein to manipulate his deceptive version of the history between the two countries. Carlson has ‘erroneously‘ stated that US media haven’t attempted to interview Putin, but many journalists have revealed that repeated requests to do so have been denied by Putin. Clarissa Ward, chief international correspondent for CNN explained, “What you see from watching the first 45 minutes of this, is that it was clear from the very beginning that Carlson did not have control,” being unable to hold a credible dialog with the strongman. Conditions laid down at the outset placed editorial control with the Russian government, alongside Carlson’s agreement he would broadcast the interview in its entirety. In the end, the interview was released to Tuck only after the Kremlin censored many of the questions, and any comment made by Carlson not appreciated by Putin. Though Carlson and Putin have differing reasons for hating America, Tuck fills the role of ‘useful idiot’ for the Russians, earning many kudos on Russian state TV directed at the populace. We can bet that Mr. Trump is eyeing this ‘useful idiot’ with interest after his sojourn in Moscow, so don’t be surprised when VP selection time arrives and we see Tucker Carlson’s name listed in the ‘select few’ for consideration.

It’s a good bet that Mike ‘My Pillow’ Lindell won’t be on any MAGA lists ever again since he’s been crashing and burning, lost in his conspiracy fantasies and The Big Lie of 2020. He always seems to be ‘just a couple of weeks’ away from delivering his proof of the victory that Trump lost to the deep state, but still has nothing to show for it after three years. Friends claim that he’s broke, having lost his focus on his pillow business, and is now hawking socks, bottle cleaners, and a lion painting! With the Feds seizure of his phone with a search warrant several weeks ago, it appears that he is party to a federal criminal investigation. So, as Bill Palmer’s blog predicts, Lindell will soon be hauled away in either handcuffs or a straitjacket…sleep well, Mikey!

Rudy Giuliani disclosed in bankruptcy court that Trump’s 2020 campaign and the Republican National Committee are on the hook to him for $2M in unpaid legal fees, NOT Trump himself…that’s right Rudy – keep that door open just a bit in case your SOS reaches Toupee Orange in a weak moment! Rudy maintains he was paid in part for expenses, but not for his sterling legal work, and is now facing “a major financial hit,” with his law license in suspension. Ted Goodman, an adviser for the disgraced NYC mayor, wrote that poor Rudy has “earned everything he has in life through honest, hard work. The American people are waking up to the abhorrent weaponization of our justice system for partisan political gain, and the fact that we are here today is just another example of this great injustice.” Might we suggest that Mr. G. rescue himself with some honest, hard work by selling socks and bottle cleaners?

The Washington Post has revealed that Trump is ‘absolutely livid and deeply worried’ that Attorney General Letitia James is destroying his ‘family’s brand and inheritance’ earmarked for his children, in the ongoing New York fraud case. To make matters worse for dear ol’ Dad, Ivanka has made her choice to ‘step away’ from defending her father due to the ‘stinging scrutiny’ that his jump into politics has brought to their criminal family operation. A Trump insider told the Post that “Everything about the case makes him angry – including that it’s hurting the children, striking at his identity and the family and what he’s been able to build over years and years and years.” The report reveals that “Trump’s children have not been involved in his current bid for the presidency” because they are attempting to “cool off” and distance themselves from all the criminal trials. And because the presidency proved to be so painful for the family with endless subpoenas, legal bills, investigations, testimonies, bad press, and being in the limelight constantly, they are now wary of lurking enemies, becoming paranoid that accountability is at hand. Socks, bottle cleaners, and Daddy’s leftover non-fungible trading cards, that’s the ticket…got it kids?

The Las Vegas Super Bowl’s Sunday telecast raised the hackles of another family…the Kennedy clan. American Values 2024, a super PAC backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential run, produced a campaign spot which mimicked an ad for John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential effort, using the same jingle and a black and white, small screen TV moodiness. While RFK Jr. also posted the ad on Xwitter, he later posted an apology after cousin Bobby Shriver forcefully criticized the presentation, saying that his mother and the late president’s sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, “would be appalled in light of his health care views.” Junior said, “I’m so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain. The ad was created and aired by the American Values Super PAC without any involvement or approval from my campaign. FEC rules prohibit Super PACs from consulting with me or my staff. I love you all. God bless you.” His anti-vax philosophy grates on many observers, and especially his family which has been at odds with him for years.

Press secretary Stefanie Spear had a different take on the $7M ad, telling CBS News, “We are pleasantly surprised and grateful to the American Values PAC for running the ad where more than 100 million Americans got to see that RFK Jr. is running as an independent candidate for president of the US.” Speechwriter for the late Senator Ted Kennedy, Robert Shrum, posted his statement that the ad was “plagiarism,” adding, “Bobby, you’re no John Kennedy. Instead you are a Trump ally.” It’s telling that the ad remained at the top of Jr.’s website on Monday morning.

Another dominant advertiser on CBS’s Super Bowl presentation was Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light, trying to regain a foothold after getting involved in the culture war by brief sponsorship of Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman, which resulted in a heavy backlash from its legion of customers. Last October the Ultimate Fighting Championship organization faced its own backlash after signing a $100M+ six-year contract with Bud Light. So how did UFC President Dana White attempt to solve this dilemma? Of course, she reached out to Donald Trump, asking him to provide some positivity to the situation. And, he obliged her by posting on his Truth Social site that consumers should give the brewer a “second chance.” He wrote, “The Bud Light ad was a mistake of epic proportions, and for that a very big price was paid, but Anheuser-Busch is not a Woke company.” He also posted a few bits of relevant information about the company…likely coming from White. Certainly he wasn’t influenced by the fact that he owns close to $5M of Anheuser-Busch InBev stock…ya think? Had Trump appeared as a contestant on his TV show, ‘The Apprentice,’ he surely would have had to fire himself!

GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT ON A FOOL’S ERRAND

Recent polls released by Bloomberg and Morning Consult indicate that Donald Trump is not immune to public disfavor should he be convicted in any of the remaining criminal trials he faces, with 53% of voters in seven key states stating a refusal to vote for him in that eventuality. And, should a prison sentence be a result, that percentage would rise by two percentage points…WHAT? Only two points…what’s wrong with a 47% spike, people? We know he’s a crook…he’s either purposely or inadvertently confessed to every wrongful action of which he’s been accused! “The preponderance of polling out there shows that there is a chunk of Republican voters who say a felony conviction would be a bridge too far,” says GOP strategist Dan Judy. “Does that mean that Trump still gets 80 to 85 percent of Republican voters, rather than 90 or 95 percent? Probably. But that could easily be the election right there.”

With the Bloomberg poll showing Trump up by six points with registered voters in the battleground states, the question is: would those figures be borne out in the general election? Some aggrieved voters typically look past any misgivings and vote for that candidate who echoes their own views. Case in point being the Access Hollywood tape where Trump disparages women, yet went on to being victorious. The four indictments with a total of 91 criminal charges only served to strengthen his hold onto the MAGAt base, rallying them with each new announcement targeting their Golden Jesus. An Economist/YouGov poll indicates a favorability of 79% within the GOP, but only 40% in the general public. While Trump asserts his innocence of all charges, the trials lie ahead, as does the onslaught of the Biden campaign and his supporters, both within the Democratic Party and its fringes.

At this juncture, it appears the lesser of the charges – the Stormy Daniels bribery case – will see the light of day before the other, more serious cases are brought to the fore, simply because the Supreme Court is wrestling with whether or not a president has immunity from prosecution…which brings up the question of whether Trump would see a boost resulting from any acquittal. Dan Judy tosses in, “As people always say, the most valuable resource you have as a candidate is time. The more time he is spending, and his people are spending, trying to keep him out of court and out of prison, the less he is spending out on the campaign trail trying to fire up his base, or persuade the few persuadable voters in this country.” Judy, known as a Trump cynic, realizes that any prediction regarding the former prez’s fate has often proven to be a fool’s errand. “As with so many things with him over the years, there is no history to fall back on here. There is nowhere to go to say, ‘This is what happened in the past in a similar situation.’ There is no way to know for sure,” he cautions.

Leaks from within Trump’s circle indicate that he believes he will be convicted of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in his upcoming trial, as Axios reports. He fully expects a DC jury will find him guilty of conspiring to defraud the American people on four charges that carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a verdict which would send his attempt to retake the White House into complete shambles, even as he plans to attend every proceeding of the trial to prove that a corrupt system is seeking his destruction. In the Georgia elections interference case, Trump is pointing at DA Fani Willis’s relationship with the chief lawyer in the case, Nathan Wade, as evidence of corruption, undermining the charges against him as Wade is being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in “this scam for her lover.” Willis admits to the relationship and says there are no grounds to dismiss the case or remove her from the prosecution.

Bocha Blue in a Palmer Report post says, “Trump wants to be seen as a Viking god, bold and proud in the spirit of an Achilles, never feeling fear. But that’s wrong. No Achilles’ heel for him. Donald Trump is lying. He’s lying to you, he’s lying to me. He’s lying to himself. Donald Trump is one of the most fearful little humans on the planet. He fears the unknown; he fears the known. He fears anything that will take away his pride, money or ability to win elections. And he is very scared of being found guilty in one of his criminal cases. To that, I say, of course he will be found guilty, but apparently, this is just making its way into Donald Trump’s consciousness, and it’s causing him a great deal of fear.”

It happened at the Colorado Republican primary debate, a long night under the hot lights with nine candidates, appearing before a large, attentive crowd eager to hear their spiels. All evening they had been asked to answer questions individually, but out of the crowd came a question addressed to the lot of them…“How many of you have been arrested? Let’s see a show of hands.” Six hands shot into the air…Lauren Low-Rent Boebert being one of those…six out of nine in the Wild New West! So, how did the crowd react? “Yeahhhhh!!!!,” accompanied by wild applause…their kind of folks, politicians proud of their arrests! Bocha Blue says, “Stupidity lives everywhere, even in the beauty of the sweeping mountains. These people are the party who says they ‘back the blue.’ This is the supposed party of law and order. Take a good look at ’em…you may not be able to for long, as they head for Whig territory. Six in nine! Boebert humiliated herself by not even making it into the top three in the straw poll. We should be grateful, perhaps, that it was not ALL of them with raised hands.” Reminds one of folkie Arlo Guthrie’s recording of ‘Alice’s Restaruant,’ where he tells of reporting for the military draft after being arrested earlier for dumping garbage for the restaurant. One of the sergeants asks him if he had ever been arrested and if he had gone to court, both answers being in the positive, which required him to go sit on The Group W bench, along with others who may not be moral enough to be in the Army. When the ‘meanest guy of all’ asks him, “Kid, whad’ya get?” And upon answering, “I didn’t get nothing. I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage.” When the Group W bunch found he had been arrested for littering, they all moved away from him until he added, “And creating a nuisance,” bringing them all back to shake his hand while having a great time sitting on their bench.

Bad news for Trump in the action he filed in the UK over the ‘Steele dossier,’ which contained allegations that he took part in “perverted” sex acts and gave bribes to Russian officials – the High Court judge dismissed the case he brought against Orbis Business Intelligence, founded by MI6 officer, Christopher Steele. Steele was the author of the dossier which contained the allegations that Trump had been “compromised” by FSB, the Russian security service, at which time The Don reportedly participated in “sex parties” in St. Petersburg, and consorted with prostitutes in Moscow. In her judgement, Mrs. Justice Karen Steyn said, “In my view, there are no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed to trial in circumstances where, whatever the merits of the allegation that the personal data are inaccurate may be, the claim for compensation and/or damage…is bound to fail. In reality, the claimant is seeking court findings to vindicate his reputation in circumstances where he has not been able to formulate any viable remedy which he would have a real prospect of obtaining, or which would itself be of any utility; and having chosen  to allow so many years to elapse – without any attempt to vindicate his reputation in this jurisdiction – since he was first made aware of the dossier, including the memorandum, on 6 January 2017.”

Orbis produced the dozen memos in the dossier in 2016, but Trump was sworn in as president in 2017 when material was then published by BuzzFeed. During the court hearing, Antony White KC, for the consultancy, said the case had been brought to pursue a “vendetta” against Orbis and the former MI6 officer, saying,“The claimant has a deep and intense animus against Mr. Steele and Orbis, which is reflected in numerous vituperative public statements which he has made since it was made public by BuzzFeed. Mr. Trump has a long history of repeatedly bringing frivolous, meritless and vexatious claims for the purpose of vexing and harassing perceived enemies and others against whom he bears a grudge.” The charges of Trump/Russia collusion in the dossier were accorded some plausibility based on Steele’s reputation, but have been discredited over the years, with Steele himself saying the claims were unverified tips that warranted further investigation, and not for release to the public, but he stands by the work, the sources, and the professionalism applied. Back to you, Donny!

Narcissism or dementia…you decide! Trump posted a question on his Truth Social site, along with a photo of half his face spliced with a photo of Elvis Presley, with the query, “For so many years, people have been saying that Elvis and I look alike. Now that this pic has been going all over the place, what do you think?” Maybe the new Taylor Swift competition brought this on; obviously, she needs to start paying attention! His previous attempts to liken himself to Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln and the Mona Lisa got him nowhere, so why not try Elvis? Or as one responder suggested, “Fat Elvis!” Close enough for you, Donnyboy? Ben Meiselas of Meidas Touch said that Trump’s recent behavior “has people finally seeing just how delusional, cognitively impaired, and utterly weird Trump’s campaign is.” President Biden remarks, “This is the weirdest campaign I’ve ever been engaged in,” and rival Nikki Haley has used the former prez’s prominent public blunders to ramp up her attacks on his cognitive abilities.

Curmudgeon, political writer and painter, Robert Harrington, who lives in England, posts on the Palmer Report that a scene in the 1987 Charles Bukowski movie, ‘Barfly,’ has the male lead hooting with laughter, as the female lead from the next room asks him, “What is it?” His answer, as he listens to a drunken couple’s brawling in the next room, “It’s hatred, the only thing that lasts.” Harrington is not so sure about that, but says it has staying power and motivating power, which drew him into political writing. He calls Eisenhower the last decent Republican president, and only had pity for Nixon, never noticing Ford. He vaguely disliked the Reagan/Bush duo, with George W’s martial rhetoric mildly repellant. But, hate for Trump is real, visceral, with abhorrent loathing as for a worst enemy, with his having transformed the mother country into a place of strife and division. As a Never-Trumper he has a core hatred. He quotes Brian Beutler of Substack’s ‘Off Message’ who says, “Never-Trumpers comprise a majority of the country. It suggests that anti-Trumpism is the most powerful force in American politics, and it husbanded well [it will make] an insurmountable obstacle to his hold on power.” Harrington believes this hate guarantees our win against Trump, a huge motivator to get voters to the polls, resulting in a crushing, unprecedented defeat. He always ends his posts with, “And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.”

Trump continues to claim that the Constitution gives him the right to do as he chooses as president, and even as not-president, it seems. But he probably is confusing Article 2 with Article 8, which says once a man is elected president he is immune from prosecution for anything he did before, during and after the term is up, as long as his name is Trump. Plus, Article 9 says that this former president, if he so chooses, has the ability to return, re-write the Constitution and make himself King of the USA. Dream on, Donnyboy! Those articles don’t exist…yet!

Musician, song-writer and poet, Patti Smith says, “In art and dream you may proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.” So, let’s don our combat sneakers and join Robert Harrington to rid our country of this divisive enemy of democracy to restore our balance and safety! And as author Kurt Vonnegut advised, “And how should we behave during this Apocalypse? We should be unusually kind to one another, certainly. But we should stop being so serious. Jokes help a lot. And get a dog, if you don’t already have one.”

TAKING BAD TO THE BONE TO THE BONEPILE

Money, money, money problems seem to be raising ugliness within the GOP ranks of late. It’s reported that the Biden campaign has been out-raising the Trump campaign, and the DNC has raised massive amounts of cash compared to the RNC, much of which is rumored to be going into Trump’s coffers toward his legal woes. As the RNC heads toward the bottom, a vote is to be held to authorize a line of credit, thanks to Citizen Trump, who is tanking this major political party’s funds. Totally apropos, since he has tanked almost everything in his own business history before running the nation aground during his term in office. The Grand Old Party won’t see the light of day again with his involvement, and to paraphrase Hillary Clinton, “Trump has written several books, but they all seem to end with Chapter Eleven!” Last one out the door, please turn out the lights!

The nonchalance over funds seems to have the GOP approaching the nation’s budgetary impasse with the same stubborn laxity, with House Speaker Johnson relinquishing control of the House Clown Car to the Talibangelicals. They cancelled votes on two party-line funding bills, a transportation bill was pulled due to resistance to cuts to he Amtrak budget, and a financials services bill was wrenched thanks to the MAGAts attempts to pack it with anti-abortion legislation. “I don’t think the Lord Jesus himself could manage this group,” groused Texas Representative Troy Nehls. “We’re ungovernable.” The Republicans spent days in finally selecting Speaker Johnson, but it brings them no closer to a cohesive majority, and the DNC is having a field day gleaning ammo for the upcoming campaign ads. This looks like a job for fund-raiser extraordinaire/high-wire artist George Santos…or, Kevin McCarthy, who at least proved his worth in that capacity before being run out of town.

GOPers need not look to our former prez, Donald Trump, for any assistance at refilling the coffers with his online grifting expected to edge into constant begging for his base to buoy up this poor, Constitiution-battered billionaire(?)/millionaire(?)/average joe(?) victim of Biden’s DOJ. It should take only a century or two to save his butt at the rate the meter is adding with each court appearance. Trump’s bragging during his deposition in the bank fraud trial came back to haunt him in the E. Jean Carroll defamation suit, as Carroll’s attorney made good use of the information he blurted at that time to inflate his net worth, his words used to convince the 9-member jury that he could afford to be penalized heavily to put a stop to his slandering of Carroll. Trump, in comparing his brand’s worth to that of Coca-Cola, said with puffed chest and Mussolini chin jut, “In my case, I know it’s billions and billions and billions of dollars, with the brand name alone valued at $2.9B or even $3B. I wrote a book recently and it sold through the roof! It’s all brand value. We have a lot of cash, we have great assets.”  At one point he gloated about the secondary market for his ‘collectible’ digital trading cards, “some selling for $82K apiece.” He also claimed that the Mar-a-Lago estate could be worth as much as $1.5B, but Palm Beach property appraisers give it a range of $1.8- to $28-million. It likely will be worth more upon change of the name to Carroll-a-Lago. Circulating on the internet currently is a Photo-shopped image of Trump Tower with new shiny gold letters reading E. Jean Carroll Tower…let’s run that one by Mr. T!

Journalist David Cay Johnston, author of the 2016 biography entitled ‘The Making of Donald Trump,’ feels that Trump’s mouth could never back off attacking E. Jean in hopes of a gigantic jury award in order to complain to his base that, “It’s a New York jury”, code for un-Christian and non-White, which his base will eat right up but will not serve to reach the supporters he really needs. Last year’s sexual abuse and defaming verdict against Trump resulted in a $5M award, which Johnston says he never expects to pay, but he also doesn’t believe he will ever see the inside of prison cell. The Don’s Truth Social network had postings critical of Carroll all during the second trial, and along with his Bad Boy immaturity during his presence in court, he was assured of a massive penalty by the observant jurors. Now, he’s faced with another quandary…$83.3M worth. Beyond criticizing the outcome of the trial, Truth Social has gone silent about E. Jean, likely because his caretakers have wrested his cell phone away from him. Bill Palmer on his The Palmer Report, asks, “Did his handlers take his account away from him? Is he passed out face down in a bowl of Cheeto dust? If Trump decides to keep attacking Carroll, it’s just going to cost him even more money…she can circle back for additional damages and sanctions if Trump can’t stop himself.”

Palmer accuses the media of trying to decipher whatever new move Trump makes, analyzing what, and why, it’s being done, when it has no coherency…only sheer stupidity. Then, as they peer into the dark hole which this stable genius has dug himself into, they ooh! and aah! that Trump finally has us right where he wants us. Flaunting his invincibility throughout the Carroll trial proved to be his downfall with the nine jurors, and perhaps it will stifle complaints that ‘Trump gets away with everything.’ Had he been gagged and tied to his chair, perhaps the new award simply would have been another $5M forfeiture. No doubt, Trump’s keepers told him to cease running his mouth following his first loss, but he’s either too far gone cognitively to understand how much harm he was doing to himself by continuing to attack, or he’s too far gone psychologically to care how much harm he was inviting to himself. In either case, he continues hiring the worst attorneys while insisting on defense schemes that are guaranteed to fail, all the while attacking judges, their staffs, and the court system in its entirety.

Posting a bond of $5M to file an appeal on the first trial occurred with minimum whining, but how does he post $83.3M to appeal the second verdict? It’s debatable whether or not he has that much cash on hand, and his PAC is stretched from paying his legal fees, at least the bills that even get paid. Absent an appeal, he must pay Carroll, a lengthy process involving having assets taken from him – a procedure that he is unable to prevent. Carroll was only interested in vindication, not money, and she has proven her patience in the years-long process to see justice. Trump stands to lose another $370M resulting from the New York civil fraud trial…ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching! Trump’s assets have wings! And, before we forget, a New York state judge recently ordered Trump to pay nearly $400K in legal fees to The New York Times and three Times reporters after dismissal of a suit he brought in 2021, an “insidious plot” to obtain his tax records he charged. Revelations that he wasn’t the self-made billionaire he claimed to be, that most of his wealth was derived from his parents or from tax-dodging, even as his businesses bled money. State Supreme Court Justice Robert Reed ruled that Trump’s claims “fail as a matter of constitutional law.” Hey, don’t that judge know the Orangeman don’t need no stinkin’ constitution?

Judge Arthur Engoron, in the New York civil fraud case against Trump, has new information to consider in his decision about financial penalties to be levied, regarding a $50M mystery debt related to the Trump Organization’s Chicago tower and an intercompany loan. Former federal judge Barbara Jones, the court-appointed monitor in the Trump fraud case, provided information that indicates the former president lied knowingly and repeatedly on his federal financial disclosures about a major loan that never existed, evading a possible $48M in income. Her information in a letter to Engoron says the filings contain inconsistencies and errors, but the company has been cooperative in the investigation. “When I inquired about this loan, I was informed that there are no loan agreements that memorialize the loan, but that it was a loan that was believed to be between Donald J. Trump , individually, and Chicago Unit Acquisition for $48M,” Jones wrote in reference to the name of Trump’s LLC holding the debt. She added, “In recent discussions with the Trump Organization, it indicated that it has determined that this loan never existed and would be removed from any upcoming forms submitted to the Office of Government Ethics, and would be removed from subsequent versions of the firm’s financial statements.”

Alan Garten, chief legal counsel for the Trump Organization, told The Daily Beast that her claim is inaccurate and the loan did in fact exist, which will be addressed in court. Garten insists that not only does the loan exist, but that it is money owed to Trump after a loan to the LLC. However, in an October filing, it was stated that Trump owes the LLC upwards of $50M, in the form of a ‘springing loan,’ a loan with unfavorable terms to the borrower. In 2016, Trump confirmed this arrangement to The New York Times, having bought back the loan form a “group of banks several years ago,” and that he had preferred to keep the debt on the books, while paying interest to himself from a practically worthless LLC. In the interview, Trump said, “We don’t assess any value to it because we don’t care. I have the mortgage. That is all there is…very simple…I am the bank.” It seems that a ‘practically worthless’ LLC with a $50M credit on its books would be worth at least that much! Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in D.C. remarked, “Assuming the court filing is correct, Trump would appear to have intentionally and repeatedly broken the law. Personal financial disclosures attest under penalty of law that information submitted is true…Trump had to know that the Chicago business never loaned him the money.” The Trumpmeister will surely be blaming the accountants and attorneys and others for any blunders. Watch out, Eric, Junior and Ivanka!

In a January 26 bankruptcy filing, former Trump attorney, Rudy Giuliani, listed a claim against his former boss over unpaid legal fees, stating the amount as “undetermined.” The initial December ’23 bankruptcy filing came after a federal judge ordered him to “immediately” pay more than $148M to defamed election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. In a series of unsuccessful lawsuits, Giuliani attempted to contest, and overturn, the 2020 election results in favor of Trump. The New York Times reported in August 2023 that, “Mr. Trump has never explicitly told Mr. Giuliani why he is effectively stiffing him, but the former president has pointed out that he lost the cases related to the election.” Also reported is that the Trumpster told his aides that he didn’t wish to see Giuliani get “a dime” unless he succeeded, and noted that $340K had previously been paid by the Save America PAC to assist with some of Rudy’s debt. Giuliani’s new filing also lists an “undetermined” amount owed him under “Joseph Biden Defamation Action,” a suit filed in October when Biden used the term “Russian pawn” in reference to the former NYC mayor…supposedly costing him “millions and millions of dollars” in lost clientele. In the category ‘tax refunds owed to you’ is listed “Overpayment of taxes from The Mask Singer” in 2022 amounting to over $10K, when he appeared on the TV show, The Masked Singer while singing ‘Bad to the Bone.’ The Donald probably smirked dramatically over that telecast.

While Giuliani managed to raise over $700K from just 13 donors , per an FEC filing, to help with legal fees after the court ruling, he was left with about $180K cash on hand after settling a half-million dollars of his legal fees. Rudy has always insinuated that he has “insurance” against Trump when the need arises, so does he have the courage to actually pull that trigger, now that he is in such dire straits? He once referenced that he and Trump would go down together, spurring Trump to host a too-little-too-late fundraiser, but with this new bankruptcy filing, he is hoping those who have claims against him will now go after Trump. This is an unlikely scenario, since The Don is begging for Divine Intervention to bail him out. This can only become more complex! Poor Rudy laments that he failed to save for retirement, failing to apply for any benefits and foregoing the pension, and “giving back to the city I love…although I would like to take it now. I don’t know how to go about it.” Hire a competent attorney, Rudy!

On his show recently, Seth Meyers showed a snapshot of a stunned-looking Giuliani, comparing it to “the state of American politics right now.” But, “If we really wanted to accurately represent America in 2024, we’d replace the stars on the flag with Rudy’s eyes.” Adding, “Good luck sleeping tonight!”

But, take heart from cartoonist, Charles M. Schulz: “Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.”

HAARPING AWAY TO WEATHER THE STORM

Over the past several days we have seen dramatic changes in the GOP presidential sweepstakes, with Christie, Scott, Ramaswamy, and DeSantis joining the Bootlickers VP Queue, leaving Nikki Haley to fight it out with Donald Trump. Three of the dropouts have not hesitated to jump onto the Trump bandwagon, with Tim Scott predicting that Trump will unite us as a nation. Where has he been for the last seven or eight years? In the ongoing Pundit Parade, Jonathan V. Last on The Bulwark says, “The future is Trump,” though he contrasts the ex-president with Biden, saying our current president despite having neither a cult of personality, nor media domination, nor engendering strong feelings in a party that does not fear him. The economy is in good shape and as long as this streak continues, the voters will begin to appreciate it fully. With Biden’s long list of popular legislative accomplishments, and his willingness to cooperate with Republicans to pass laws that create jobs, to invest in infrastructure, and reform laws, a rationale is created for his re-election. Trump has no actual policies for his whining candidacy beyond personal retribution, stopping immigration, and drill, drill, drilling for oil, an action on which Biden exceeds all presidents including Trump himself. Trump’s 91 criminal counts, a boon for his primary campaign, will burden his general election campaign, benefitting Biden. No word from DeSantis (now identified as Ron DeSuperfantastic now in Trump circles) on the disposition of his white go-go boots, which he should relinquish in exchange for a participation trophy.

Bill Scher in Washington Monthly says, “Forget New Hampshire. After Trump’s Iowa landslide, it’s over.” He feels that while the Hawkeye State rarely predicts a GOP nominee, Trump is different. The New Hampshire conservative vote is usually diluted by independent voters, which in the last three competitive NH primaries ranged from 37 to 47 percent; primary elections in those states through Super Tuesday have exit polls indicating independents are less than ? of the vote totals. New Hampshire was a springboard for Trump in 2016’s primary because he won 35% of the vote, with 49% of the remainder of votes cast going to five center-right challengers, due to the failure of the party establishment to back one candidate, and due to disunity within the grassroots conservatives. Hard-right candidate, Ted Cruz, who won Iowa garnered only 12%, but moving to more conservative state primaries brought coalescence around Trump. Scher gave Nikki Haley a chance of a reasonable showing in a three- or four-person race, but with the dropouts not in contention, it’s basically a two-person duel with heavy ramifications in future primaries. With NH behind us now, how did Haley’s candidacy fare in this test?

Sarah Longwell writes in The Bulwark that “It’s time for former Trump officials to come out against him if we want to stop a Trump restoration and his promised MAGA dictatorship. It’s going to require building a coalition of people who understand the stakes. And there are no better messengers better equipped to convey the peril of a Trump presidency than those who lived it firsthand, on the inside.” Then, she backtracks, asking, “But wait, haven’t they done that already? Mark Milley posed for a front-page spread in The Atlantic. John Kelly gave a statement to CNN. Others have back-channeled their grave misgivings, off the record to Puck and Politico. Hard truth: That’s not enough. I talk to Republican primary voters every week in focus groups, and you know what they don’t read? The Atlantic, Puck and Politico. Fundamentally, the reason they seem unbothered by Trump’s autocratic tendencies is that a lot of them don’t know about them.” Right, Sarah! The bulk of them DON’T READ…just like their messianic idol/idiot!

Charlie Sykes, also in The Bulwark, says, “Trump is dominant, but vulnerable. Biden has a problem with voters who are in denial. Iowa could help him with that. Via The Messenger: ‘Biden’s internal polling shows the vast majority of the campaign’s targeted voters don’t believe Trump will be the GOP nominee, a major issue for a campaign desperate to make 2024 a binary choice.’ Even Biden’s internal polling, according to top campaign officials, has highlighted this trend, with recent surveys finding around 75% of the campaign’s undecided voters do not believe Trump will be Biden’s opponent in November. Trump’s dominating win in Iowa last week could change that dynamic with undecideds.” The above pundit roundup quotes are garnered from Greg Dworkins’s Daily Kos post.

Mother Jones posted a memorable headline following Trump’s Iowa caucus triumph: “FLORIDA MAN FACING 91 CRIMINAL COUNTS WINS IOWA CAUCUSES. Donald Trump just accomplished something he wasn’t able to do in 2016 – he won the Iowa caucuses.” Not long after precinct sites opened Monday night, the networks called the first-in-the-nation GOP race for the former president, who appeared to be cruising to a dominant victory over rivals Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. None of his four indictments, criminal counts, civil suits and a Supreme Court battle over whether he can even appear on the ballot in some states turned off Iowa Republicans. Instead, they rewarded him for it. Niece Mary Trump notes that Monday didn’t bring all good news for Uncle Donald in her Substack newsletter, The Good In Us…the former president’s attorney, Joe Tacopina withdrew his law firm from representation in the two New York cases, leaving Trump with Alina Habba to stumble along for him. Tacopina told ABC News that he had withdrawn “on all matters,” offering no immediate reason(s). Mary says, “On what everyone knew was supposed to be a day of victory for Donald in Iowa, this loss will still be burning in his mind. It’s not unusual for Donald to go through lawyers at an alarming rate, but Tacopina’s high profile status shows just how dysfunctional Donald’s ‘defense’ really is.”

Tacopina withdrew ahead of a Tuesday jury selection in a second defamation trial related to E. Jean Carroll’s allegations that Trump raped her in the 1990s, for which Trump was found guilty. Trump was dissuaded from testifying in the first trial but wished to speak in the second, which may have played a role in the attorney’s departure, according to Mary Trump, especially in light her uncle’s penchant for self-destruction behavior. In a statement to Reuters re Tacoima’s firm’s departure, a spokesperson for Trump said, “He has the most experienced, qualified, disciplined, and overall strongest legal team ever assembled.” In the history of the world, doubtless, and into the future for time immemorial, gosh darn it!

According to The Palmer Report, “Trump was represented in 2017 by the best, most powerful lawyers money could buy – before he was inaugurated, such as the Kassowitz Firm. Now he’s got this numbskull – Alina Habba. She has no idea what she’s doing, not a clue about how to get something into evidence, while being belittled by the trial judge and E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers. She’s completely destroying herself with her lack of knowledge about the rules in a Federal Court of all places!” Not up to the job, but, boy, is she a knockout…just ask her! However, this is the best representation the grifting money can buy, unless Trump can poor-me a bit more pitifully on Truth Social to get those rubes to increase their contributions. So, he goes from the Kassowitz Firm to threatening the Supreme Court to rule in his favor, since Kassowitz probably expected him to pay their bill, leaving Habba to work for nothing while basking in the glow of an orangey fake-tanned jerk with a bad combover. Joe Tacopina disclosed to Al Sharpton that he quit because he had to “consult his compass” which also involved personal reasons, and while he was vague in his explanation, it was clear he was tired of being a part of the Trump Dumpster Fire. The defense’s tactic to enrage the judge into making a mistake doesn’t seem to be working. No attorney will be able to save Trump from the finality of his fate, so Habba is as good as any in her blundering since Trump has no idea what is going on anyway…good karma for both of them.

“Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.” Oh, the profundity! Bocha Blue on The Palmer Report says we should change those words to: “Traitor. Insurrection. Indictment. Trial. Prison.” Trump in his mental decline keeps bringing up the legendary quote regarding his quack exam by then-White House Doctor Ronny Jackson, who everyone knows is himself a complete basket-case. Trump, in his senility has revealed that Nikki Haley was once the Speaker of the House who refused to provide troops to control the J6 Insurrection…wow, who knew? Or how about his claim that George Conway is a city in New Hampshire? How did George accomplish this feat? And did Kellyanne know about this? And who can forget that the former prez remembers that Barack Obama is the current president who will be facing him in the general election in November? Plus, “Melania’s son, Barron, is tall.” Anything else, Donny?…Eric?…Don, Jr.?…Ivanka? OK, we won’t go there! He evidently is under the impression that he isn’t running campaign ads, but someone on the staff didn’t get the word, evidently, as we’ve all noticed a bunch of them. MSNBC host Johnathan Lemire says his decline is deeply alarming. “I think it’s going to be harder and harder for the campaign to manage this guy, and in just my opinion, he looks like he’s in a serious state of decline. And seriously, so confused.” Bill Palmer sees this as a now familiar pattern of The Don’s, “trying to say something that’s idiotic to begin with, and then getting so confused that he ends up saying something even more incoherently idiotic. This man is not well. How long before he’s so far gone, he ends up in an assisted living facility?”

The Iowa caucuses were affected by below-zero temperatures and with the thermometer predicted to see a high of -4 degrees, accompanied by 20mph winds, voters who were determined to turn out did so in diminished numbers which did not affect the overall resulting percentages. Enter Laura Loomer (formerly of Project Veritas, and best known for her rabid anti-Muslim positions, who also happens to be a lunatic heavily supported by Trump and the right), posting her conspiracy theory that the adverse weather was caused by HAARP to discourage caucusers from venturing out. HAARP is research project sponsored by the University of Alaska which studies the ionosphere, their location being advantageous for studying the Northern Lights, and according to Loomer, for brewing up horrible weather conditions to visit upon hapless voters. Conspiracy theorists have also blamed the organization for earthquakes, mind control, power outages, TWA flight 800, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and anything else their red-hat-covered-brains can bring from the rat hole.

Luckily for Trump, the weather provided him with a whole new campaign slogan going forward. He told supporters on the Sunday preceding the caucus date that even if they were “sick as a dog,” it was worth braving the chilly conditions to vote. Even if they then passed away, “It’s worth it,” he said. So, there you have it: “Vote and Die,” on the prospective t-shirts and bumper stickers. This is a perfect summation of Trump’s attitude toward his base…“Do this thing for me, and if you should die, that’s okay…I’m worth it.” Ah, Mother Nature! What would Trump be without it?

Colin Nissan had a recent humorous essay in The New Yorker magazine, entitled ‘Nature, Wow!’ where he says that, “People are curious about nature. That’s why there are so many Google searches about it, such as ‘Which snakes are venomous?’ And ‘Quick remedies for throat closing.’ Or ‘Can I write my will on a leaf?’…And ‘Places to move where there are less snakes.’ There’s something for everyone in nature, even deserts, for people who love the beach but hate enjoying themselves…Researchers have spent years trying to unlock the mysteries of nature, like why the plural of deer is also deer, and why sunsets are free but paying a taxidermist for one ferret cost me almost a grand. Twelve hundred with the sailor outfit. Nature is famous for its calm and tranquility. A good example is the beautiful silence right after a school of piranhas goes to town on a carp. The big takeaway here is that we need to do everything we can to live in harmony with nature or we can kiss those watermelons goodbye. That means listening when nature is trying to tell us something, and also cutting ourselves some slack if we can’t decipher nature’s cryptic messages amid all the intense weather and natural disasters.” So, there you have it…Laura Loomer and Donald Trump unravelled the cryptic messages for their purposes, but as for the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, not so much! For the rest of us, we don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows…the answers are in plain sight!

GALLOPING MEDIOCRITY IN THE NO-SPIN ZONE

His head spinning out of control, former Fox News host Bill (The O’Reilly Factor/No Spin Zone) O’Reilly is not having it that his books are being removed from Florida’s Escambia County libraries, being included in a list of 1,000 titles pending investigation under the state’s new book ban laws. Bill-O was quoted saying, “Preposterous! We are investigating and are seeking comment from @GovRonDeSantis. This will not stand.” Conservatives in the Sunshine State have been carrying out their campaign to remove any printed matter containing ideas, philosophies, and language with which they disagree, particularly those teaching critical race theory, or containing LGBTQ+ topics and those by LGBTQ+ authors. As a previous stalwart in favor of this legislation, O’Reilly claims, “When DeSantis signed the book law, I supported the theme because there was abuse going on in Florida. There were far-left progressive people trying to impose an agenda on children, there’s no doubt about it.” Of course, he now thinks the wording in the laws is “far too nebulous” and that Governor Ron should declare it “insane” that his books have been removed.

Further, “There are materials that are inappropriate and those materials have to be specifically included in the law with language that is very specific. You can’t be throwing John Grisham under the bus, it’s absurd,” he notes. Seeking retribution, he wants to find out who in the school district removed the books and “put their pictures up on television and on my website.” Perhaps we should have more respect for those reviewers at being more discriminating than they are given credit for since O’Reilly’s book entitled ‘Killing Lincoln,’ was initially banned from sale at Washington’s Ford Theatre bookstore when it was released. He and his coauthor, Martin Dugard, were accused of including factual errors, and a lack of documentation, according to Rae Emerson, deputy superintendent of Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service. Emerson’s review recommended that the book not be sold at Ford Theatre’s NPS store. So, while the NPS chose not to carry the Lincoln title, Ford’s Theatre Society sells it in their gift shop, allowing visitors to judge the merits of the book themselves.

‘Spinner’ O’Reilly was not the only victim of the Escambia County School District. Also targeted were dictionaries and encyclopedias sitting on their shelves, which drew widespread discussions and criticisms of the extremes to which they took the new book banning laws. HB 1069, which governs the new rules, targets books that depict or describe sexual conduct, launching Florida into the forefront of national bans, with 1,972 instances in 37 school districts in the ’22-’23 school year as documented by PEN America. Penguin Random House, along with PEN America and other organizations have filed a federal lawsuit against Escambia’s school board, arguing that their actions infringe on free speech rights and equal protection under the law. We can’t have kids with tender sensitivities reading about the likes of Beyoncé, Oprah or Thurgood Marshall, and if they wanted to know what MLK Day was all about, they might ask somebody…in a whisper! And, Anne Frank? Don’t ask! In essence, the government can remove any content of ‘disapproved speech’ which raises the question of the purpose of educational resources in restricting access to diverse literature. A federal court will hear the school board’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, crucial in determining the validity of both sides’ arguments re the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The outcome will likely have implications not only for Florida, but educational content across the US. Taken straight from the banned dictionary: Ignorant – lacking knowledge or awareness, in general, uneducated or unsophisticated. So, there ya go, Bill-O…just find that group and you can post photos and info to your heart’s content!

GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie showed some awareness in abandoning his bid for that spot, leaving the field for the MAGAs and the wannabe-MAGAs to fight it out. Bridgegate and all his failings aside, national affairs correspondent John Nichols wrote, “He was the last high-profile GOP contender who was fighting for whatever remains of the soul of the Republican Party.” Christie’s announcement was a concession/confessional as he stepped aside, admitting that ego was his downfall in becoming involved with Trump’s Spray-Tanic political quagmire that he now battles against. Some of his words were admirable in the melancholy atmosphere of the gathered supporters who came understanding what they would hear regarding his nowhere-role in today’s GOP. He vowed to keep up the pressure against Trump’s candidacy, telling his crowd and all voters that the former guy is unfit and should never be near the oval office again. Bocha Blue, in his essay in The Palmer Report, drops a few lines from ‘Vincent‘ by singer/songwriter Don McLean: “Now I think I know, What you tried to say to me. How you suffered for your sanity, And how you tried to set them free. They would not listen, they’re not listening still. Perhaps they never will.”

Christie also offered a few unsolicited words, picked up on an open microphone, about Nikki Haley who has seen her poll numbers pick up in recent days. He said, “She’s going to get smoked, and you and I both know it. She’s not up to this.” At this writing, Iowa caucuses are hours away, so in retrospect was she up to it? How did she fare against DeSantis? And how badly, in a cloud of dust, did The Donald leave her, stranded and smoking? A NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll had shown that 43% of Iowa’s Haley supporters would cross to the Democrats and Biden’s candidacy in the general election rather than give their vote to Trump, with 23% supporting Trump if he is the GOP candidate. Independent Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. could see 19% of Haley’s supporters swing into his column. “Haley is consolidating the anti-Trump vote. She does well with people who define themselves as anti-Trump,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, who has spent three decades conducting surveys in Iowa. Still afraid to attack Trump too directly, in the final GOP debate with rival DeSantis, Haley was asked, “Does Donald Trump have the character to be President?” A momentary deer-in-the-headlights look brought her answer, “Well, I think the next President needs to have moral clarity,” and after a pause, “His way is not my way.” Still running for numero dos, Nikki? During the debate, if DeSantis mentioned Nikki’s record, she would tell viewers, “Go to DeSantisLies.com,” ignoring an equally valid site, TrumpLlies.com! A Mike Luckovich political cartoon has contestant Nikki Haley on TV’s ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ with the posted question, “What was the US Civil War fought over?” The board shows _ _ A _ E R Y, so Nikki takes a stab at guessing the missing letters with “D R A P E R Y.” A perfectly good MAGA answer…after all, Scarlett O’Hara in the Civil War epic, ‘Gone With the Wind,’ makes perfectly good use of drapes, and who can forget the Carol Burnett Show’s sketch of that particular movie scene, curtain rod and all?

Johnny One-note Trump never participated in any of the candidate debates leading up to the Iowa caucuses, his reasoning being the polls showing him to be the runaway choice of the MAGAGOP, and it’s just as well since everyone knew what was going to come out of his mouth, with nothing pertaining to the topic at hand. His so-called debating style actually has a name with historical roots: the Gish Gallop. It is defined as a well-established method of outmaneuvering rhetorical opponents with an overwhelming onslaught of dubious arguments, also known as ‘spreading‘ in the debate community. The style’s name is attributed to Duane Gish, a biochemist and creationist who in the 1980s and 1990s used it to his advantage in evolution dialogues. The Gish Gallop leverages two basic human reasoning tendencies, on the concept that it’s easier and faster to make false claims than it is for an opponent to disprove even one. If the opposition fails to disprove every one of the questionable claims, triumph goes toward the ‘spreader.’ In setting up organized, formal debates, the Gallop (not to be confused with the Gallup) has met disapproval with rules limiting the points made by a presenter within a certain time frame; however, in today’s political atmosphere, televised debates, radio show panels, and talking-head presentations make Gish’s showbiz style right at home – an entertainment network’s dream come true.

Coping with a Gallop opponent can be done, but it’s time-consuming, and the open-mindedness and ability to recognize what is happening is paramount. By reframing the argument, a skillful debater can simply ignore the list presented and focus on a single coherent counter-argument not easily debunked, making the presenter look like a flake. Trump has perfected the Gallop, probably unconsciously, with his spewing of rapid-fire lies, insults and accusations, burying most opponents who are likely unprepared and limited in time to respond to his overwhelming blast. We have seen weak-willed interviewers who fail to interject, correct or take a pause to respond to his gibberish, being totally unprepared to counter his tricky onslaught with facts, documentation or relevant information. Eugenie Scott, a biologist and retired anthropology professor, founded the National Center for Science Education in 1981 to ensure that evolution, not creationism, is taught in our schools, says, ” Debate is a sport. It is not a way of informing the audience or the public of the accuracy of an opinion. It is played by rules that are different from those of logic and empirical evidence.” She also describes debates as “drive-by shootings when it comes to critical thinking.” And, speaking of drive-bys, we must remember that Hillary Clinton was deemed the winner in all the Trump/Clinton debates in 2016 and we see how that ended. Raise your hand if you believe RFK, Jr.‘s claim that the COVID-19 virus may have been “targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and the Chinese! New York Times columnist, Farhad Manjoo, writes, “You can come with all the facts in the world, but when you’re dealing with a conspiracist, there’s no real way to ‘win’ an argument. For people whose views aren’t anchored to facts, ‘winning’ is simply getting attention. And when you publicly argue with someone like Kennedy, you’ve already lost.”

Speaking of losing, our former prez has been convicted of fraudulently and massively inflating the worth of his properties, enabling him to borrow excessive amounts of cash on properties worth billions of dollars less. Then he backtracks to the original evaluations when it comes time to tax time, with no taxes being paid as a consequence of the claimed write-offs. He faces a fine of $250M and possibly seeing his businesses shut down in New York. Those properties with his name on them are owned by the banks, so the $80M and properties he garnered from his late father are dust in the wind since he has overextended himself. Speculation is that his cash-poor situation as he faces several penalties from his numerous court disasters will take down his empire…those unsuspecting MAGAs who send him their hard-earned monies from his beggarly entreaties on Truth Social can barely pay his legal fees. Plus, he is about to lose what was once a real ego-booster…his 2007 Hollywood Walk of Fame star! Hugo Soto-Martinez who represents the district where the star is located is looking into having the star removed. He says, “Donald Trump is a racist, fascist, and a threat to our democracy. We’re looking into where the authority lies, what the legal issues may be, and what a process for it might look like.” This will be a first, and most believe the ultimate authority for removal of this embarrassing honor is the City Council. Removal would also save a fortune for the city, which has had to pay for many cleanups, as the star has been defaced, smashed and otherwise damaged to the tune of $20,000 or so. Bocha Blue writes on The Palmer Report that complete removal is best…Hollywood stars are for the talented, and Trump’s only talent is starting insurrections and name-calling. As Joseph Heller says in his novel, ‘Catch 22,’ 

“Some men are born mediocre,
some men achieve mediocrity,
and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.” 

Which box does Trump fit into?