WE LET THIS HAPPEN, WE BROKE IT, WE FIX IT, STAY TUNED

Did you get yours? The Trump Inauguration invitation from the Trump National Committee 2024? The email is headlined “The Greatest Celebration in American History.” Imagine! The accompanying photo, beneath gold formal lettering reading “Join President Trump at his Second Inauguration,” shows a silhouette of Trump from the backside as he walks toward the podium on the viewing stand, with crowds of attendees stretching out across the Capitol Ellipse as far as the eye can see, and maybe farther than the eye can see! But wait! What’s this at the bottom of the photo…a link that says, “ENTER TO WIN.” You’ll have to scroll down, and squint, to read the tiny legalese in the paragraph at the bottom: “Contributions to Trump National Committee JFC are not deductible for federal income tax purposes, blah, blah, blah…It’s because of the commitment and support from real Patriots, like YOU, that we will SAVE AMERICA! Thank you again for your generous support.” And, the winner will get…it doesn’t say, no promises made, though the implication is that you will get to attend the the greatest inauguration…seated behind the podium?…or in the cow pasture beyond the Ellipse where even Sean Spicer will never see you? Just send money to find out!? Just remember that selecting that link puts you into the Grifting Arena!

Assuredly, it’s simply another grift! Remember all the previous ‘contests’ to win an onstage appearance with Trump at one of his rallies? Or dinner at Mar-a-Lago with the candidate? Or a flight to the RNC convention with the Trump Team? Just ask for a list of those winners (it’s already been done with zilch offered by The Team). It only took three weeks after Election Day (almost two months beyond the required October 1 signing)  for Trump to reach an agreement with the outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration to initiate the official transition of power, but he is NOT signing the agreement with the General Services Administration to unlock federal funding for the transition. In lieu of the government money, his changeover will be backed by private donors, operating as a “self-sufficient organization.” The so-called ‘memorandum of understanding’ between Trump and Biden will enable Trump and his team to access non-public government information, receive government briefings and deploy personnel inside the federal agencies and departments they will soon control. Trump has concern about the mandatory ethics pledge in the ‘memorandum,’ which was left unsigned, that included avoiding conflicts of interest in the White House; so instead, The Team announced it will use its “existing ethics plan for those involved,” which meets federal requirements and will be posted on the General Services Administration’s website. Questions still remain from the first Trump transition, with an accurate accounting of funds raised still hidden away from the feds…hard to believe, eh?

Trump’s vow to dispense with using taxpayer funding for the transition costs leaves his financial arrangements obscure, with donors being kept secret, despite a promise: “Donors to the transition will be disclosed to the public. Consistent with Transition policy already in place, the Transition will not accept foreign donations.” To date, Trump’s Cabinet nominees have not undergone FBI vetting, prompting Senator Elizabeth Warren’s response, “[the team’s announcement] fails to answer key questions about national security threats and FBI vetting of nominees, and increases concerns about corruption. There appear to be serious gaps between the Trump transition’s ethics agreement and the letter of the law. The reliance of private donors to fund the transition is nothing more than a ploy for well-connected Trump insiders to line their pockets while pretending to save taxpayer’s money.” In a November 13 meeting at the White House between Biden and Trump, Biden welcomed the president-elect and promised a smooth transition.

Trump’s refusal to accept GSA funds in the transition is a first, which means the GSA’s ability to ascertain transparency that individual donations don’t exceed $5000 or that foreign influences are kept at bay…a concern since there are no restrictions on international donations for transitions, as are in place for presidential campaigns. In shutting out FBI background checks, The Team is conducting private checking…call it ‘Trump gets a pass to pass?’ NBC News’s Chuck Todd has taken issue with Trump’s cabinet selections, questioning whether he has taken moral character into consideration…however a low-lifer might venture into that realm is yet another question…while suggesting that the picks are a “low-character crowd.” Todd says, “He knows he’s behaved badly over the years…he has civil judgements against him to prove it…in his drive to achieve fame and fortune. So, following that logic, nothing makes his success look more mainstream and acceptable than surrounding himself with people who have never let their moral compass get in the way of their own ambitions. No one is saying that someone who is accused of sexual misconduct but isn’t charged with a crime should be cancelled from society or be impacted in their ability to get a job.” He laments that ‘character’ shouldn’t be a partisan attribute, that there are many supporters in each party with good character, but that perhaps we have gone from being “a bit too puritan” to “a bit too permissive.” Continuing, he says, “The minute you start making an exception for character flaws on your side of the political fence, you’ll regret it, because one day it will be coming from a political opponent and not a political ally; and, wouldn’t it be a shame if the electorate decided that politics now belongs to the low-character crowd. This is the moment I fear we are now facing.” Jimmy Kimmel summed it up pretty well when he said on his show, “The President is a criminal. 34 times over, he’s a convicted criminal. Truth be told he’s not even looking for a cabinet…he’s looking for cellmates. Okay?”

“We’re a country of 330-plus million, with all that entails. But if we stop demanding or attempting to find high-quality character in our elected officials, then how are we going to become a ‘more perfect union’?” Todd asks. “And yet, does anyone believe the current political world is attracting the best and brightest into public service? We as a nation have taken this concept of ‘ends justifies the means’ and essentially turned the country’s North Star of ‘whatever it takes’ for our own success, not just ‘whatever it takes’ for our own survival,” he concludes. A questioner on the Quora website questions why the MAGA cult is still angry after success in the electoral process, even though they were warned what would happen as they feigned understanding.  Paraphrasing an answer by Tiffany Thomas, where she writes: “Because it has never been about actual policy or humanity for them. They’ve treated the fate of the country like it’s the Super Bowl…but they don’t even know who they’re cheering for. This is going to be a hard lesson for us all, but MAGA are going to be blindsided when they suddenly realize that the hate/vitriol/destruction they begged for is going to directly impact them too. No one gets a pass, no one has privilege in a fascist system…all will vanish right alongside the rest of us. Their guilt and accountability will be very difficult for them to embrace and accept. They’ve reached the ‘FIND OUT’ part of ‘FAFO’ and watching them search, ‘How can I reverse my vote?’ is a small consolation. There is nothing anyone can do now.”

So, they want to reverse their votes? Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling in the The New Republic wrote in mid-November that some Trump voters were having “a shocking bout of buyer’s remorse” with the reality of awarding him a second shot at the presidency. She writes that, “On Election Day and in the hours following, searches for ‘how to change my vote’ spiked in states that the president-elect won, according to Google analytics.The searches first surged the morning of Election Day before declining the day afterward. Interest in the phrase was not short-lived, though, with numbers climbing again on Monday…just shy of a week out from the election, and continuing to grow throughout the week. The apparent change of heart comes after Trump allies had admitted Project 2025 was the plan all along, and after women and girls became the target of an overtly misogynistic, far-right campaign claiming ownership of their bodies.” Google Trends registered the phrase at 100 on a scale of 0 to 100, which indicates the peak popularity for a search term. Trump’s significant win in Iowa also generated the highest number of state-by-state queries for the term, however, it is difficult to determine whether the searches were initiated by Trump or Harris voters. Once the voter drops the ballot into the box, a vote cannot be changed, a hard lesson to learn for those who sincerely had voting regrets.

Alton Frye writes in The Hill, “A majority has spoken. A disappointed minority may not admire the judgement rendered, but it must respect the right of the majority to express it. The election was clearly one in which voters’ perceived interests outweighed their professed values. Surely, not all of those supporting Donald Trump were applauding his character and the amoral values he represents. Close analysis of the promised Trump program suggests his voters may soon have second thoughts. Any new administration’s plans are subject to change, but if the next president is supported by the Republican-controlled Congress in executing the proposals set forth in the campaign, the hoped-for escape will lead to greater distress on several fronts. The multiple pledges of tax relief carry predictable consequences for national debt. Massive slashes in the federal work force would entail curtailments in public services. Politics breeds countless temptations, not all of them prudent.” In his wrap-up of the 2024 election, Frye says, “The dynamics invite diverse interpretations. One notable irony concerns the measurable movement of Hispanic voters toward support for Trump, despite his sometimes harsh stance toward immigrants. Some Hispanic commentators have viewed that movement as an importation of the frequent Latino gravitation toward a leader in chief, a ‘caudillo’ on the model of Juan Peron or Fidel Castro or Anastasio Somoza. Never mind that such caudillos have brought great grief to their peoples. Donald Trump has come to embody what one may call American machismo. The durability of that quality’s appeal will now be tested.”

Satirist Andy Borowitz, in a recent Substack post, writes, “In an advisory issued on Wednesday, the American Medical Association urged US patients seeking medical attention to go to Canada. ‘Commencing January 20, 2025, Americans should schedule even the most routine medical appointments north of the border,’ Dr. Harland Dorrinson, the president of the AMA, said. Dorrinson observed that recently announced changes to the nation’s healthcare establishment had already impacted Wall Street, with a boom for companies selling coffee bean extract, raspberry ketones, horse dewormer, and leeches. In the AMA’s gravest warning, he noted, ‘Rand Paul is now the most legit doctor in the US government.'” In a later post, Borowitz wrote, “Donald J Trump raised eyebrows in diplomatic circles on Saturday by naming the former drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman US ambassador to Mexico. Trump told reporters that the appointment of El Chapo was consistent with his policy of surrounding himself with ‘only the best people.’ When asked about El Chapo’s ten felony convictions, Trump said, ‘I wish he had more, but I still think he’s qualified.’ Trump’s plan hit a snag, however, when El Chapo turned down the post, stating that it would be ’embarrassing to serve in the same administration as Dr. Oz.'” Or serving in the same administration as Robert F Kennedy, Jr. who recently confessed to having a heroin addiction in his checkered past.

We can all echo Michael Moore’s final thoughts on November 2024: “Thank God, this month is over! We let this happen! We broke it. We fix it. Stay tuned.”

A LEOPARD MANDATE, TRANSITIONING, NO GUARDRAILS, HIDING SLAVERY

“I never thought leopards would eat MY face!” complains the voter who helped elect the leader of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party. This Twitter meme will simply be schadenfreude for the next four years for those who voted against Donald Trump’s third run at the presidency, enjoying every look of disbelief as the leopard takes a bite – you did this to yourself, America! Two bar patrons enjoying a beer are discussing politics when one says to the other, “Okay, you voted for Trump…convince me I’m wrong about my worst fears.” The MAGA-hatted companion replies, “Are you kidding?! I hope you’re right!!” Yeah, we’ll see about that when the leopards are loosed.

Trump and his MAGAts are crowing that the election victory is a mandate for his policies, but as it now stands, neither he nor Harris won even 50% of the popular vote; and while Trump narrowly won the popular vote contest, he had -2% winning margins in the key Blue Wall states…his victory being decided by a handful of people in a handful of states. Yet his reactionary followers still want him to blow up the government and impose the Project 2025 objectives on the whole country, while his other supporters outside the MAGA pale simply want lower prices and a secure border. If he is smart, Trump will be satisfied with inheriting the best economy in the world and a border that is reasonably secure, freeing him up to gloat on his victory and go play golf. He is not smart; he will be only be more resolute in his wish to impose tariffs, deport people, and exact revenge on his “enemies within” as he hacks away and runs roughshod over our civil liberties. As he moves quickly to appoint a regime of loyalty in his cabinet selections, which will allow him to operate autocratically, disillusioned supporters will find that expressing their displeasure only unlocks the leopard cage. Matt Kerbel writes on Wolves and Sheep on Substack, that Trump’s “driving rationale was dominance and inevitability” during his campaign, and that will permeate his second term. “Claiming a non-existent mandate for unpopular policies that harm his voters stands to weaken him politically, and can be used by the opposition to undermine the perception that he is strong. Trump’s MAGA base will never abandon him, and he owns the Republican party regardless of how much damage he does. They will always prop him up. But the way the rest of the country reacts to Trump will matter. We cannot end Trump’s presidency. But we can reduce Trump’s ability to use his presidency to end the republic,” Matt concludes.

Trump continues to flout ethics laws and norms ahead of his inauguration date, by accepting donations to fund the transition and refusing to sign ethics pledges or deliver an ethics plan mandated by the Presidential Transitions Act. The transition team also has not signed an agreement with the FBI allowing the agency to do background checks on Trump’s nominees. Deadlines were missed in September and October to sign memorandums of understanding with the Biden White House to facilitate the outgoing administration’s collaboration with Trump’s transition team, despite promises from Trump team leaders to do so. A New York Times story reports that the transition team has privately created an ethics code and conflict-of-interest guidance for transition staff, but those documents do not include the legal requirement of a statement regarding how Trump will handle conflicts of interest as an officeholder. Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to Biden’s staff saying, “This failure undercuts the fundamental purpose of presidential transition laws. In effect, president-elect Trump is undermining his administration’s ability to manage urgent national security threats, health and safety threats, and serious conflicts of interest starting on day one of his presidency.”

In the past, even in Trump’s 2016 transition, incoming administrations have signed an agreement to receive financial assistance from the General Services Administration which monitors the transition process. Acceptance of the funds, signing the agreement requires the teams to abide by conditions that would limit individual donations to $5000 and mandate transparency about donors. One concern with nondisclosure, is that of foreign influence, there being no restrictions on international donations to transition teams. Public policy Professor Heath Brown of John Jay College, and a presidential transition expert told the The Times, “When money isn’t disclosed, it’s not clear how much is donated, who is donating, and what they are getting in return for their donation. It’s an area where the vast majority of Americans would agree that they want to know who is paying that bill.”

The Trump transition team is conducting its own, private background checks with the excuse that the FBI is too slow and could disrupt Trump’s desire to get to work quickly. CNN has been told that Trump has privately questioned whether background checks are even necessary. Trump’s noncompliance with background checks, transparency rules, and ethics are simply groundwork for a corrupt administration worse than his first term, when he used his position to enrich himself and grant favors to his wealthy cronies. By not signing the transition agreement, Trump doesn’t have to work within the confines of the fundraising limits or disclose what interest groups are funding his transition to the Oval Office…the door is wide open. And we, the taxpayers, will pay for any favors that Trump bestows upon his generous benefactors.

The president-elect has made known his belief that at times laws can be ignored, even those in the US Constitution. And this dictum has now tainted the beliefs of his inner circle of aides, advisors, and the MAGA base. ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl reported that one Trump adviser told him, “If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary. That is all. The president gets to decide his Cabinet. No one else.” Here’s what The Appointments Clause in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution says: “…and [the President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law.” Not clear enough? The Senate advises and consents, not the MAGA mob! But can it hold up after a Trump takeover?

Following the defeat of the British, several attempts were made to arrive at a cohesive document to unite the new society to defeat the struggle for sectional supremacy. Benjamin Franklin’s 1775 draft presented to the Continental Congress to form a national government was ignored, as were attempts by several others. Three distinct societies had developed in the colonies, each one largely determined by the role of slavery in the labor force. Pennsylvania’s John Dickinson headed a committee that arrived at a plan in 1776 which was revised for seventeen months, becoming weaker with each revision before being presented in its final form in 1777. Because it was drafted during war, it had much to do with a mutual defense mechanism, but Southern states were put off because it made no distinction between slaves and white men in the apportionment of taxation. Slaves were property, not people, and Dickinson’s lack of awareness was offensive!

The inside cover blurb of Lawrence Goldstone’s 2005 book, ‘Dark Bargain: Slavery, Profits and the Struggle for the Constitution,’ reads, “On September 17, 1787, at the State House in Philadelphia, thirty-nine men from twelve states [Rhode Island refused to send delegates] signed America’s Constitution after months of often bitter debate. They created a magnificent, enduring document, even though most of the delegates were driven more by pragmatic, regional interests than by idealistic vision. Many were meeting for the first time, others after years of contention, and the inevitable clash of personalities would be as intense as the advocacy of ideas or ideals.” Over the next several months, that number of thirty-nine men would increase or decrease with the comings and goings of individuals, to a total of fifty-five participants debating the merits of their own wishes to rescue the states from the totally inadequate Articles of Confederation.

The text continues: “No issue was of greater concern to the delegates than that of slavery: it resounded through debates on the definition of treason, the disposition of the rich lands west of the Alleghenies, the admission of new states, representation and taxation, the need for a national consensus, and the very makeup of the legislative and executive branches of the new government. Goldstone provocatively makes clear, ‘to a significant and disquieting degree, America’s most sacred document was molded and shaped by the most notorious institution of slavery.'” Goldstone’s book chronicles the forging of the Constitution through the prism of the crucial compromises made by men both driven and repelled by slavery, and the needs of the slave economy. State House debates, backroom conferences in taverns and inns lasted until the wee hours, with the philosophical contributions of James Madison waning, gradually being usurped by South Carolinian John Rutledge, a lawyer and plantation owner. Madison was particularly perturbed at Maryland’s Luther Martin, a successful attorney and an antifederalist, who was seen by many as a drunken buffoon, especially after holding the floor with a two-day speech…though being praised by many, as well. Later in his career, Martin was retained by a Quaker in a land dispute, being asked “not to drink a drop” during the trial. The trial became stressful and Martin was afraid he would lose the case by remaining sober, so during a lunch break he purchased a bottle of brandy and a loaf of bread, pouring the brandy over the loaf as he ate it with a knife and fork. Promise kept! He then proceeded to win the case having fortified himself sufficiently.

After the participants had finally agreed on the final document and returned to their various regions, the next task was to convince their state governments to accept to the results of their work, convincing which included wining and dining, cajoling, arm-twisting, and even lying to get a consensus on an instrument which specified that growers’ importation of slaves would end in twenty years…we know how that turned out! Years later, Abraham Lincoln was quoted as saying, “Slavery was hid away in the Constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or cancer, which he does not dare cut out at once, lest he bleed to death.” Goldstone ends his volume in a chapter entitled ‘Supreme Law of the Land,’ in which he writes, “But, in the central role it played, the weight of evidence leads inescapably to the conclusion that the Constitution was drafted by highly pragmatic men who were pursuing limited and self interested goals. Philosophical concerns seemed to play only a minor role in the proceedings, and only then with but a few of the participants. Nonetheless, for all that, precisely because the delegates in Philadelphia were pragmatic, and were there to represent specific, parochial interests, they were able to draft a document that was workable, adaptable, and able to survive challenges that could never have been imagined in 1787. It is distinctly possible that had idealism dominated in Philadelphia, American democracy would have failed.”

Now, after standing fast, close to 240 years, we have a buffoon and his army who want to take an axe to the hard-won document, to make small changes like enshrining the right of billionaires and corporations to bribe judges and politicians, or insert the doctrine of corporate personhood, or simply throw the whole thing out and start over. At this point, 19 Republican-controlled states have signed on to a call for a convention under Article V, heavily funded by rightwing billionaires. In fact, we might consider that the Constitution is being rewritten already…consider the decisions of the six judges on the Supreme Court when they turned a law-breaking president into a king, ended rights of women to make decisions about their own bodies, gutted the power of federal agencies to protect consumers and the environment, and legalized bribery of politicians as long as the bribes are paid AFTER a vote…simply a ‘tip’ of appreciation, you see? The encore has in its sights gay marriage, contraception, pornography and banned books, union rights and religion in schools. The American public be damned in their overwhelming desire to see gun control, an end to gerrymandering, higher wages, money out of politics, climate action, fair taxation with enforcement for the morbidly rich and corporations, and SCOTUS term limits…and on and on.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes on her Lucid blog on Substack, “Before Bill Barr became Donald Trump’s third attorney general, he circulated a memo that was more or less an audition tape for the job he ultimately got. In it, Barr argued in favor of what had previously been a fringe theory of a powerful ‘unitary executive,’ – a president able to consolidate power at the expense of the other two branches as a very powerful leader…even Bill Barr would have never dreamed of arguing the president could use SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival and walk away with no consequences…now, the Supreme Court says it’s so.” Ruth calls Trump’s naming of Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget as context for the turn to the monarchical, away from the democratic, since Vought was the godfather of Project 2025 which will restructure our institutions. Though Trump claimed no knowledge of P2025 during his campaign, it is clear that was a lie, since he spoke at a Heritage Foundation conference in April 2022, where he told the audience that the groundwork was being laid with detailed plans for exactly what the movement would do.

Ben-Ghiat continues, “Project 2025 is a wrap. It’s locked and loaded, and ready to go. If you believe it’s about to disappear or that Trump won’t use any of it, I have some swampland in Florida for you.” She says that as recently as August, Trump had “blessed” the project and that it was ready to put into action, because British journalists secretly recorded him making such claims. “Now it’s clear that all of the horribles are on the table, everything from the end of the Department of Education to the discontinuation of the weather warnings NOAA provides,” she declares. As Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation said in July, ‘We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.’ The leopards are hungry and ready to perform their facials. The guardrails are down. We can only wait and see, as we put our efforts behind the Planning for a Better Day Party…

JOKING DOGES, ADJOURNING POWER GRAB, RESIGNATION, A CIRCUS

Comedian Wanda Sykes said on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week that though she “got her hopes up,” about a potential Kamala Harris win, she wasn’t surprised that Trump won. “I mean it’s so many reasons why you can say it happened. But, I think, you know, a lot of us aren’t, like, totally shocked, because sometimes America is just gonna America.” Not comfortable with the outcome, she asserted, “I’m a Black woman and a lesbian…how do you think I’m doin’? It’s like ‘Okay,’ you get your hopes up, you think you’ll move forward.” She pinned the blame for Trump’s victory with, “I blame those damn Cheerio commercials, showing all those interracial couples. You scared the [crap] outta white people. What are y’all doin’? Just sell the damn cereal…why you gotta be bringing us into this?”

HuffPost reports that eight years after a win in 2016, a defeat in 2020, The Don is now the next president-elect of the country, regaining “the seat of immense power with fresh grievances, threats of being a dictator on ‘day one’ and calling for retribution against his ‘enemies within.'” Don’t look for any respect for the rule of law…only the rule of one, “the greatest challenge to our democratic experiment since the Civil War.” HP says, “This is not a drill…now is not the time to cower or capitulate,” pledging to cover actions of the Trump administration “with the same rigor and honesty that we always have.” JoJo from Jerz posted on X: “How sad it must be believing that doctors, scientists, scholars, historians, economists and journalists are all lying to you, but a criminal conman, business cheat, reality TV game show host with a lifelong history of blatant, unapologetic, nonstop lying, is telling you the truth.”

In just the couple of weeks since the election, Trump’s old buddy Vlad Putin, is messing with his orange head. It took Putin two days to congratulate him, during a news conference, on his election success, which surely raised the former president’s uncertainty about the ‘friendship’ with his favorite strongman. Trump then claimed there had been a phone conversation with Putin, during which he warned the Russian leader not to escalate the war on the Ukrainians. Then came a poke in the eye from the Kremlin, denying that there was a phone call, which allows Putin to go ahead with plans to use North Korean troops to retake some occupied Russian territory, and move back into Donbas province. Will Trump learn a lesson about the limits of a misconstrued personal relationship as he is forced to consider our national interests early on? Naaahhh! Russia’s chief of intelligence, Nikolai Patrushev, made a comment in the Moscow newspaper, Kommersant, “The election campaign is over. To achieve success in the election Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.” Obligations to certain forces? This psychological punch is telling Mr. Trump that Russians now deserve payback for contributing to his election victory with their phony videos against Harris, and phoning in bomb scares to polling stations! Some are speculating that this is a blackmail threat by communicating that they have compromising information pointing to Trump or his staffers about colluding in these Russian ‘contributions.’

Throughout the campaign Trump made his wishes known that he wants a realignment with Putin, but Patrushev’s response simply reveals that Russia’s main goal is to sow chaos, breed mistrust, and weaken the bonds of democracy in the West, no matter who is president of the USA. Trump’s MAGAts are willing to go along with their leader for better relations with Russia as they seek to weaken China’s influence in the world. We can only speculate how Trump will proceed, whether he will change, or whether he even has the capability to change his standpoint as it becomes more apparent that Putin wants us to fail. Trump has a history of keeping private his conversations with Putin, the Washington Post finding at least sixteen private conversations…that we know about…during Trump’s first three years in office. A 2018 closed-door meeting in Helsinki is still a mystery, with Trump confiscating notes from his interpreter, ordering him to not disclose any details of the conversation. It’s notable that he told reporters ahead of the 2019 G20 summit in Osaka, Japan that his meetings with Putin were “none of your business.” The ambiguousness is alive and well today!

Trump, being true to form, continues to poke fun at his lackeys. Elon Musk was a victim last week when Trump accused him of hanging around Mar-a-Lago for too long. “Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him…until I don’t like him,” he mocked his  billionaire buddy, addressing Republican lawmakers on the Hill at their first meeting following his election victory. Musk has accompanied Trump on the golf course, in the dining room, and sharing conversations with world leaders whom Trump has called. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell sees Trump’s comments about Musk before the assembled audience as an assertion of his dominance in front of a group that has to laugh along with him. O’Donnell says, “Everyone laughed. They laughed that uncomfortable laugh. But they laugh when Donald Trump makes a joke about someone on his team, a joke that everyone knows is true, a joke that paints that person as pathetic, as Donald Trump’s personal sense of superiority demands that he do.” O’Donnell believes that the new agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is a joke as well, a humiliating demotion, with co-leader Musk being responsible in a “fake job that holds little more power than that of a K Street lobbyist.” As an added insult, he was given a working partner in Vivek Ramaswamy…not even a billionaire! Lawrence pointed out that Trump’s other cabinet appointments have been for standing federal departments…DOGE is not. Tech journalist, Kara Swisher, predicts the relationship between the two egotistical, narcissistic and indomitable entities is destined to fail. Donald owes Elon, but if he garners too much attention…poof! It’s all over a la Steve Bannon. Swisher notes that “Trump goes through people like tissues, essentially…they’re going to clash at some point.”

The provocative Cabinet picks Trump has made are stirring up outrage and shock in DC, even among the GOP, triggering a melt-down just as the president-elect intends. Most outrageous has been naming Matt Gaetz as his attorney general. Tulsi Gabbard will be director of national intelligence if confirmed, and Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth is headed for the defense secretary position. Those three individuals pose questions about The Don’s motivations and the direction of his second term, not least because of their professional, ethical or experiential qualities, or lack of them, reports CNN. Their commonality is an unfailing loyalty to Trump, all avid proponents of the stunt politics he spearheaded on social media; and if his “retribution” is to be carried out they will obey his orders. Trump rocked the boat further with his naming of Robert F Kennedy, Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services, who it seems will be given free rein to carry out whatever he wants, should he pass muster with the Senate…unless…

Trump has no intention of seeking Senate permission! Fearing that even a GOP-controlled Senate might be hesitant to confirm his choices, it’s speculated that he will adjourn both houses of Congress under the never-used Article II, section 3 of the Constitution, enabling him to recess-appoint his Cabinet nominees. Can you say, ‘Power Grab?’ This move allow him to impose on the government, everyone he wants, no matter how corrupt, extreme, inexperienced or controversial they might be. If Trump attempts this, and can get away with it, he will effectively remove the Senate’s confirmation powers forever, a norm-shattering disruption of politics, governance, and presidential power. With certainty, a high-stakes face-off followed by litigation would erupt, with no guarantee about the result. Conservative legal activist, Ed Whelan, hopes the rumor to take this path is wrong, being appalled at the idea. “It’s a fundamental general feature of our system of separated powers that the president shall submit his nominations for major offices to the Senate for approval. That feature plays a vital role in helping to ensure that the president makes quality picks,” he says. Whelan points out that it would take cooperation of Speaker Johnson and the House majority, being far from clear whether Republicans in either chamber have the spine to stand up to this unprecedented wrecking ball.

Black sheep, blackballed, ex-Vice President Pence jumped into the conversation, albeit uninvited, to plead with Republicans to reject RFK Jr. as our next Health & Human Services secretary. As odacationnews says, “before you go wondering if Pence has suddenly found something resembling a moral compass, his reasoning is entirely predictable: Kennedy is pro-choice. Pence is most certainly not. RFK Jr.’s certifiably nutty views on vaccines and other conspiratorial musings aren’t the problem, mind you. It’s Kennedy’s unforgivable opinion that a woman should have the right to make important medical decisions for herself. Noted, Mike. Don’t you have somewhere irrelevant to be?”

The Meidas Touch Network on You Tube has a presentation by Francis M. Maxwell, sharing videos of global impressions of Trump’s election, many of which have invoked fear and laughter around the world. The Scottish First Minister was ridiculed by a parliament member addressing his colleagues, for “offering his congratulations on behalf of the Scottish government to convicted felon Donald Trump…words fail me.” On Tik Tok, both the Finnish and Norwegian female parliament members proclaimed “our American sisters are not alone.” Referencing the Musk super pac’s $200M fund for Trump’s election, Australia has introduced a new bill that will ban billionaire Elon Musk and others from buying elections in that nation to insure that what happened in the US does not happen in their country. French President Macron called the Trump election “a moment of acceleration,” as he sees the possible trade war between China and the US as a time for adjustment of power, both economically and commercially, within the European community. He asked, “Do we want to read history as written by others, or do we want to write our own history? Now is the time to defend national and European interests.”

California Attorney General, Rob Bonta, said his organization “will be there” if Trump attacks the rights of the state’s citizens, and will insure that California will remain “a steadfast beacon of hope and progress.” This tack is being taken up by attorneys general across the country to legally defend against Trump administration excesses. In Trump’s first term, states brought on a wave of lawsuits to block moves like his travel ban, and family separations, as we even now face threats of mass deportations and rolling back of environmental regulations. Democratic governors see the trifecta of the White House and Congress, and a more conservative judiciary shrinking the number of venues for advancing Democrat’s policies at the federal level. The actions of governors and state AGs can make a difference not only in their own states, but across the nation. Preparations for several months entailed monitoring comments from Trump and his colleagues, studying Project 2025, and scrutinizing the conservative Heritage Foundation’s framework for Trump II. Preparations include prewriting briefs needing only slight editing in preparation for filing as needed. Bonta says, “What we learned from the first Trump administration is that he can’t help but break the law. It’s part of his brand. It’s part of what he does.” Trump’s first go-around brought in a world of heightened AG activism, resulting in current legal officers “much more proactive in getting ready for challenges that don’t even exist.” As the Turkish proverb tells us: “When a clown moves into the palace, he does not become king. The palace becomes a circus.”

The New York Times reports that Special Counsel Jack Smith is said to be assessing how to wind down his two federal criminal investigations and prosecutions of Donald Trump, with plans to beat the president-elect’s threat to fire him “within two seconds” of taking office by resigning first. With the Justice Department’s long-standing policy of not prosecuting a sitting president, Smith has notified prosecutors and FBI agents on his team that they can begin planning their own departures.The Supreme Court’s ruling that presidential conduct can’t be prosecuted even after a president leaves office covers such a broad swath, that their decision that a “president is immune from being held liable for ‘official acts'” pretty much frees Trump from many of his actions, anyway. DOJ regulations require that Smith make a final report on his investigation, allowing him to lay out the case against Trump on charges related to his role in the J6 Capitol attack and the mishandling of classified documents. It’s a race against time to see if he can complete that report to be made public before Biden’s term ends, but his intention is to leave no “significant part of his work for others to complete.” Is that Bill Barr hiding in the wings? Both House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Representative Barry Loudermilk have requested that Smith’s office preserve all records in the Trump probes, signaling that a congressional inquiry is in the making, prompting Elon Musk to laud the move on X, posting, “Jack Smith’s abuse of the justice system cannot go unpunished.”

Late Show host, Stephen Colbert charged that Trump, since his election, has “already managed to be way worse” than he expected, by bringing up the Matt Gaetz nomination. “During the campaign, I thought if Trump won, he would do the worst things I could imagine. Turns out, I don’t have much of an imagination,” he said. Colbert then directed his anger to Attorney General Merrick Garland for failing to prosecute Trump earlier, saying, “Are you sorry you didn’t speed up those Trump trials, you schmuck?” Can’t say he wasn’t warned!

AN AMERICAN CAESAR, BETTER ANGELS, WORST TACO TUESDAY

Steve Schmidt on his The Warning blog on Substack sums up the Harris/Walz loss for many of us in a few words: Losing sucks, reality bites! He quotes Harris ally and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, Donna Brazile, from her Washington Post interview: “The next step for the Democrats is deep introspection. You don’t jump from one horse to another when you are riding a donkey,” explaining that there needs to be a process to figure out what went wrong before the party decides on next steps and who should lead it. Schmidt believes it “means rejecting the extremism and cloistered divisive politics of Washington, DC mandarins whose grip on power has sent America veering into the Trumpian abyss.” He pinpoints 83-year-old James Clyburn as a “foremost architect of the political catastrophe that has left Trump as an American Caesar, unbound, unrestrained and thirsting for revenge,” calling for ‘Clyburnism’ to be rejected as divisive in the game of division in which only “the greatest divider always wins.” He believes Clyburn can’t see the mutuality of connection that forms the great union, seeking “preferences and prerogatives in the name of a faction” with a toxic philosophy and disastrous primary maneuvering. The end result allowed Trump to build a “multi-ethnic, multi-racial coalition of malice that utterly rejected Democratic Party platitudes, indifference and speech codes.” Schmidt says Democratic politicians treated Trump like a prop, not a threat, and Biden like an FDR instead of as a political liability…now the bill has come due! Republican pollster Frank Luntz told Jonathan Karl on ABC News that the person who directed Harris to focus on former president Trump in her campaign “committed political malpractice,” because everyone knew who Trump was with his long presence on the scene…we wanted to know about Kamala!

Schmidt writes that it is easy to denounce the electorate for going down the MAGA path, embracing election conspiracy theories and other nonsense…a possible consequence being the unleashing of a far-left reactionary mirror image of MAGA that will make the current MAGAts look reasonable…an occurrence which must be rejected. He suggests that it is important for us to realize that Trump has “substantially destroyed two political parties, the first and third oldest in the world, and he has also destroyed the credibility of most of America’s media by unmasking its hypocrisies, dishonesty and bias for clicks over news. The dimensions of his accomplishments are staggering, frightening, and very real.” So, for at least the next two years, “Trump will smash the federal government by deregulation at whim, writing executive orders at a record pace, obliterate the concept of Senate confirmation for top positions, hatchet the US Civil Service, turn the Justice Department loose against his foes, reward his cronies, cut government indiscriminately, militarize the Southern borders, deploy the US military domestically, invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, and attack expertise at every turn in the government as evidence of disloyalty.” All with the impotence of DC politicians! Schmidt views the Democratic Party as a “tightly held possession of a handful of people” and that we should be outraged by the result, and the entitlement of people like Chuck Schumer, while also pointing a finger at Joe Biden, who was soundly repudiated. The party’s next nominee will have to talk about big ideas, big reforms because the next nominating speech will be to a different America…the Democrats had better be looking for a cross between our two Presidents Roosevelt.

Schmidt concludes, “We are about to set sail on a new and endless sea of corruption, cronyism, malice, extremism and self-interest that will carry this country far into the abyss for which it voted. Two years from now, when the question of ‘should we stop it?’ is at hand, we will be deep in. Getting out will be no easy task, but there is a way out…it is to embrace Americanism over both Trumpism and Clyburnism. There are two years for an opposition to prevail in an election, and from the smoky pit of defeat and rejection it will be a long climb from the crater to the surface. My political advice is simple: when in a hole, stop digging. Now is the time to face reality before it bites us again.” As Henry R. Greenfield posted on Quora, “Good luck America, you did it to yourself!”

Jimmy Kimmel on his Wednesday show following the election, said, “Let’s be honest: It was a terrible night last night…the worst Taco Tuesday of my whole life. We had a choice between a prosecutor and a criminal, and we chose the criminal to be the President of the United States. More than half of this country voted for the criminal who is planning to pardon himself for his crimes. Kamala Harris called Trump today. She conceded and then explained what the word ‘conceded’ means.” He continued, visibly emotional, “It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hard-working immigrants who make this country go, for health care, for our climate, for science, for journalism, for justice, for free speech. It was a terrible night for poor people, for the middle class, for seniors who are on Social Security, for our allies in Ukraine, for NATO, for the truth and democracy and decency. It was a terrible night for everyone who voted against him, and guess what? It was a terrible night for everyone who voted for him, too. You just don’t realize it yet. But it was a really good night for Putin and for polio and for lovable billionaires like Elon Musk and the bros in Silicon Valley and all the wriggling brain worms who sold what was left of their souls to bow down to Donald Trump.” Suspecting that he is on Trump’s ‘enemies list,’ he asks that he be able to share a cell with Taylor Swift since he is good at making bracelets, “and I think we get along just fine.” On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon said, “America decided to get back with a crazy ex and elect Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States, and no matter who you voted for, I think we can all agree that it’s going to be a rough Thanksgiving.” Stephen Colbert on The Late Show asked, “Can we just tell Jimmy Carter that SHE won? And then can Jimmy Carter tell ME that she won?” Seth Meyers on Late Night cracked that, “They’re going to have to give me whatever drugs they’re giving Trump,” to be able to endure his second term in office. All three show hosts had similar jokes with the same punchline: “Online Google searches for ‘Did Joe Biden drop out?’ spiked on Election Day, most searches being from Joe Biden!”

A piece in The Hill by Max Burns, Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies, wrote, “No matter what the results ultimately show, American’s commitment to a fair and peaceful vote is a thumb in the eye to authoritarians both at home and abroad. That’s about all the joy Democrats (and lovers of democracy) will find in…the election results. The fleeting optimism that washed over the party…has crashed back to reality. In its place is the realization that democracy’s worst-case scenario is unfolding in real time. Our democratic institutions are not ready for what comes next. Neither are the American people.” He calls Trump a man “steeped in unsettled vendettas” and a string of federal felony charges which he is empowered to wipe away. “Trump will see his priorities as he has always seen them: party over country and self over all,” he surmises. “A man with 34 felony convictions can’t win the presidency in a nation where trust in institutions is high. It’s only in a culture where the justice system has long since lost its legitimacy that a man with such a thick criminal record as Trump glides by relatively unremarked. That one man can so effortlessly game American institutions to his own benefit says as much about the decrepit state of America’s institutions as it does about the moral decrepitude of the crook.” Exploiting the nation’s systemic weakness at every turn, and flooding social media networks with misinformation are the earmarks of the MAGA movement, while torching public trust in the courts with past claims of a ‘rigged justice system,’ even as Trump appointed ethically vacant Supreme Court justices. Burns concludes, “It matters that Trump won his office in a free and fair election. It matters that free people voluntarily chose to cloak Trump in power he will almost certainly abuse in far-reaching and destructive ways. Our country made the choice to walk down the dark path of Trump’s resentments and conspiracies. We will come to regret it.”

As Common Dreams reported last week, Trump’s campaign confirmed that “the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrants” ever is set to start immediately after the former president returns to the White House on January 20. Coincidentally, the chairperson of a leading US private prison corporation gushed over the “unprecedented opportunity” presented by Trump by delivering on his promise to begin mass deportations on “day one.” GEO Group stock surged more than 56% from the close of trading on Tuesday to Friday’s closing bell. CoreCivic, a competitor, had shares skyrocket by 57% in that same period. In the three months preceding Election Day, GEO had seen a 21% rise, and CoreCivic inched up only 11%. “The GEO Group was built for this unique moment in our company’s [and] country’s history, and the opportunity it will bring,” said George Zoley, founder and chairperson. “We have 18,000 available beds across contracted and idle secure services facilities, which if fully activated, would provide significant potential upside to our financial performance,” he added, and the scary part: “We also believe we have the necessary resources to materially scale up the service levels in our [Intensive Supervision Appearance Program] and air and ground transportation contracts.” Is there a waiting list to be Taylor Swift’s cellmate? Just asking! According to a study published last month by the American Immigration Council, deporting the estimated 13.3M people in the US without authorization, in one massive sweep would cost around $315B, while expelling 1M undocumented immigrants per year would cost nearly $1T cumulatively over a decade. Trump claims “there is no price tag” on his deportation plan, and that using concentration camps comparable to his first term’s mass detention centers are not of concern. “Summer camps,” as one Trump official had termed them! The Biden administration is on pace to match his predecessor’s 1.5M deportations, marked by President Biden’s signing of an executive order for reform of our incarceration system, and to eliminate the use of privately operated criminal detention facilities…not applicable to detainees held by ICE. A US Senate investigation in 2022 verified allegations of staff abuse against migrants jailed at facilities owned by private company LaSalle, despite their claims to be “run with family values.” Torture, medical neglect, sexual assault, and forced sterilizations don’t sound like the “unprecedented opportunity” we should wish for on “day one.”

Former Senator Claire McCaskill on MSNBC’s Morning Joe said Americans must now “acknowledge that Donald Trump knows our country better than we do” after his decisive win over Kamala Harris. She lamented, “[Trump] figured out that anger and, frankly, fear were way more powerful than appealing to people’s better angels. That anger and fear were going to work in this election, whether you’re afraid of immigrants or afraid of trans people, he figured that out. And I think we all thought everyone’s better angels would prevail. Turns out our better angels went on vacation when Donald Trump came down the escalator and they haven’t returned. The majority of America believes he was persecuted, not prosecuted.” David Axelrod, former advisor to Barack Obama, said, “Democrats have become a smarty-pants, suburban, college educated party,” leading to the Harris/Walz defeat. “I do have concerns about the way the Democratic Party relates to working-class voters in this country. The only group Democrats gained with in the election was white college graduates. And among working-class voters, there was a significant decline,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “The only group…Democrats won among were people who make more than $100K a year.” Rolling Stone magazine says the Harris campaign’s tent may have been too big, noting that several Democratic aides warned her against campaigning so closely with former US Representative Liz Cheney, daughter of Iraq war hawk Dick Cheney. “People don’t want to be in a coalition with the devil,” said an anonymous source. One strategist felt that involvement with Cheney risked alienating the liberal base as they reached out to Republicans in general, and wouldn’t convince many swing voters, if any. Caution warnings from donors and state party chairs were ignored.

Just in time! According to satirist Andy Borowitz: “Responding to ‘a situation of utmost urgency,’ President Biden released the nation’s Strategic Alcohol Reserve just hours before Election Night. Immediately following the announcement, the price of vodka dipped below three dollars a gallon and Biden’s approval rating surged to 94 per cent. But even as Americans cheered, experts warned that excessive liquor consumption could cause severe mental impairment akin to that exhibited by undecided voters. Statistics show that the nation’s alcohol supply has been under acute pressure since November of 2016.”

ARISTOTLE, BROTHERS GRIMM, MILK & COOKIES, ELECTION INTEGRITY

Well, here we are…some of us are sitting on the couch enjoying a glass of vino, or imbibing a cold one, as we breathe a sigh of relief, while others are cleaning the cobwebs from the corners of that neglected fallout shelter in the basement or in the backyard…or perhaps we are all doing just one of those acts in unison. What a trudge this election season has been! Or as George Will wrote in his Sunday commentary, “Of this mercifully truncated presidential campaign…no one wished it longer. Why prolong this incineration of the nation’s dignity?” Will characterizes Trump as “a volcano of stray thoughts and tantrums,” and Harris as one having a “versatility of conviction,” and as “a Play-Doh candidate foisted onto the electorate.” As for running mate Tim Walz, who is a self-described “knucklehead,” his flippant views made his GOP counterpart, JD Vance, resemble Aristotle in Will’s estimation. “Or perhaps one of the Brothers Grimm,” he comments, in referring to “Vance’s scary fairy tales” about Haitian kitten-cookers. Vance says his “stories” are intended to be “didactic,” and Will allows that this could be the case if he “candidly demarcated his fictions from reality,” labeling the VP candidate “a bristling porcupine of certitudes.” Will compares Harris’s selection of Walz as reckless as that of Trump’s selection of Vance, calling this year’s election choices the worst ever in our history. Regardless of the winner, “Both parties should be penitential about what they have put the country through. And both should begin planning 2028 nomination processes that will spare the nation a choice that will be greeted, as has this year’s, by grimaces from sea to shining sea,” he concludes.

On Jimmy Kimmel’s show last week he dispensed with his usual monologue of jokes to ask his viewers to share his message with Trump voters in their lives, admitting that the message might be lost on some, especially “If you’re one of those people who think Democrats are controlling the weather or Beyoncé eats baby skin…this is not for you.” He admitted, “I do a lot of mocking, and belittling, and it isn’t always productive…but I think I have good reasons for being biased against him…and you might agree with me even just a tiny bit.” Twenty minutes were then devoted to showing videos of the former president, in his own words, with excerpts his fans may have never seen, particularly if Fox News is their only source of ‘news.’ Kimmel asked, “Honestly, do you know anyone who speaks like that?” as he showed Trump’s increasingly incoherent rambling…except for “crazy people standing on the street corner yelling at cars…he’s completely preoccupied with nonsense,” pondering what his statements had to do with presidential leadership. He concluded this segment by telling Republicans they wouldn’t be alone if they voted against Trump, showing a wall of images of prominent GOPers who have come out against the MAGA standard bearer, including Mike Pence. “Who would’ve ever thunk it? It’s like if milk turned on cookies,” he declared.

In this post-election situation, we are in all likelihood still in the throes of the ‘red mirage,’ or hopefully, transitioning into the ‘blue shift,’ as vote tallies are being completed. It seems that Republicans appear to take an early lead in almost every presidential election, because red/Republican voting districts are smaller, with their votes being counted more quickly than larger city Democrat-voting districts, the occurrence being called the ‘red mirage,’ but as votes accumulate over the hours, days, weeks, or even months(!), that lead gets smaller, being called the ‘blue shift.’ Trump and his MAGAts had plans in place to jump on this phenomenon to call the race early…in his favor, and because the asleep-at-the-wheel media failed to publicize this happening, it will likely sow confusion among the electorate for some time. The wheels are coming off, and the courts should be preparing for a lengthy battle, as Trump plans to use his 2020 tactics to initiate The Big Lie #2. The term ‘election integrity’ has been bandied about for months, but election deniers have used it to prepare groundwork for challenging the 2024 election results, all based on Trump’s 2017 executive order establishing the ‘Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.’ “There is strong reason to suspect this Commission is not a legitimate attempt to study elections, but is rather a tool for justifying discredited claims of widespread voter fraud and promoting vote suppression legislation,” wrote The Brennan Center for Justice after it was signed.

A prescient opinion, as Trump and his allies have incited a narrative that fraud is widespread, though no evidence of interference/rigging has been found in either the 2016 or 2020 elections…or any recent elections! The strategy by right-wing activists and lawyers throughout the campaign has been to organize initiatives under the guise of ‘election integrity,’ warping the meaning of the term to sow distrust. Right-wing activist, Cleta Mitchell, has been recruiting individuals through her Election Integrity Network…to include election deniers…who continued to promote disinformation and conspiracy theories, who then became poll workers and monitors, all coordinated with the RNC. So now, we have scores of election deniers in our polling places to find fraud…or…? Elon Musk has set up ‘Election Integrity Community’ on X for users to report ‘suspicious activity’ which will undoubtedly result in a flood of misinformation to add to the confusion that his favorite former president so desires. And then, there is Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s ‘Election Integrity Unit’ which will continue its investigations of fraud…within the Latino community no less.

RNC co-chair, Lara Trump, jumped on the ‘election integrity’ bandwagon as a priority, announcing over the summer, “We are pulling out all the stops, and we are so laser-focused on election integrity.” Her team showed its dedication by hiring Christina Bobb as its lead election-integrity lawyer, who was later indicted for her efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Arizona. The New Yorker had earlier reported that the RNC had plans to staff a ‘war room’ with attorneys operating an ‘election-integrity hotline’ on Election Day…further injecting doubt into what has always been a legitimate process. Lack of evidence suggesting fraud still had 60% of Americans saying they were concerned according to a NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, with 88% of Trumpers and 30% of Harris supporters being concerned. Senior counsel Alice Clapman of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights Program says the “consistent, disciplined, repetitive use” of the term ‘election integrity’ was “designed to confuse the public,” with the sad irony being that those who use this framing have done so to push for restrictions that actually suppress voting, to include strict voter-ID laws and limitations on early balloting, or to threaten the existence of initiatives that ensure a fair vote. Clapman says ‘election integrity’ has been used in previous elections, but has exploded over the past four years, to the point that it has become a loaded or “partisan term,” with groups unaffiliated with right-wingers using more neutral terms such as ‘voter protection, and voter security’ to define their efforts to ensure free elections.

The Atlantic Daily’s Lora Kelley writes that “election deniers are chipping away at Americans’ shared understanding of reality,” quoting Ali Breland who wrote, “Violent rhetoric and even political violence in connection with the election” goes on, with one voter punching a poll worker who asked him to remove his MAGA hat in the polling place, and with several ballot drop boxes set ablaze in Washington and Oregon resulting in destruction of several hundred completed ballots. Election officials and poll workers, despite threats, were (and are) braced for targeted attacks by the rose-tinted glasses of Trump MAGAts as they continue their disruption of American democracy under the guise of ‘election integrity.’ A ‘red mirage’ indeed!

It is widely known that the government is ramping up security measures for the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2025 when lawmakers will certify the electoral votes of the presidential election to avoid a rerun of the 2021 attack on the Capitol. For the first time the session is designated a “National Special Security Event” which earns it the same level of security as presidential inaugurations…and the Super Bowl! Do we get to see a flyover of the Blue Angels? Or is it the Red Angels this year? At a Pennsylvania rally on Sunday, Trump again went off script, telling supporters that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House at the end of his term, as he escalated his unproven claims of voter fraud, using the last days of campaigning to remind voters of his term’s violent end…even as he hinted he just might never leave the Oval Office if he wins again. He punctuated his love of violence by joking about reporters being shot, calling for assassins to target members of the news media. Following on his heels was conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones encouraging his social media followers to “fight harder” and be ready for “civil war conditions” and claiming that Trump had gone “through all the evidence of election fraud” during his Sunday speech. “And now Trump sounds just like me,” Jones claimed.

Freelance photographer and videographer, P6 or penguinsix on YouTube, of Washington, DC, has posted extensive videos of security measures that were being installed due to tensions prior to the election…and the days following. His narrated tour of the environs around the White House show businesses being boarded up with plywood sheeting, and spiky anti-scale riot fencing going up at the White House, the VP’s residence and the Treasury building. The riot fencing (still festooned with Harris/Walz signage) was last used at the recent Kamala Harris rally on the Ellipse where she outdrew the numbers in attendance at Donald Trump’s infamous J6 speech leading up to the insurrection and invasion of the Capitol building. P6’s, or Andrew Leyden’s, site is worth a visit for some in-depth and scholarly information on our nation’s seat of government.

So, whatchagonnadonow, bunky? Now that the textapocalypse is over, exposing doomsday scenarios, false claims and desperate pleas to invest $20, $10, or even $5 in the next generation of leaders! Deadline tonight! (Question posed by Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc.) Paul says political campaigns are increasingly turning to text messaging for communication, surpassing the more traditional yard signs, phone calls, or flyers…texts are cheap, costing just pennies per message…attention grabbers! They can be personalized, tailored to a voter’s interests. Republicans and Democrats are equal offenders, both parties seeing their effectiveness by increasing voter turnout, volunteerism and fundraising. Unfortunately, there is little federal oversight or scrutiny of political texts…and it’s tough to detect a scam. Scott Wallsten, president of the Technology Policy Institute in DC, which studies innovation and regulation, says, “Texts are the most intimate platform there is. We want to hear from family and friends, not politicians’ thoughts about how America is ‘on the precipice.’ Laws or regulations governing political speech move into tricky territory. It’s important that candidates have ways to reach citizens to explain positions and encourage them to vote.” Responses to texts on social media are indicative of the frustrations felt by recipients: A texter wrote, “There isn’t much time left. This may be my last text to you.” which drew the response, “OMG – is the candidate trapped in quicksand? Is his plane going down?” Another text read, “Our hearts sank…we prayed we were wrong, Patriot. But if you don’t already know, here’s what happened,” drawing a response of, “To learn more – who died? Why am I a Patriot, just click on this link.” Another text is described as pathetic: “Look, these texts are really expensive to send. Can you please just read what I wrote?” Obviously in need of donations!

Paul Mitchell says that with the old style of campaigning being abandoned, texting is good for turnout and a definite positive for fundraising. People have stopped reading emails with the rise of texting…it’s cheaper. A text can be sent to every voter in your district three times before an election, spending less money than on half a mailer. Lawn signs never turn anybody out…TV commercials are good for persuasion. According to Scott Walsten, we open 98% of our texts…an irresistible target for a candidate. And how did they get your cell number? From voter registration data…even if you update your registration with a land line number there is still an open field in the record that might contain your cell number. Lloyd Cotler of Banter Messaging, a company that actually creates text campaigns, says they buy and sell data from other political campaigns, or a PAC, or an agency that sells consumer data. They may buy your email address, then spend money on a ‘data append,’ using a data broker to fill in the missing data points…for instance the phone number that’s on your supermarket rewards card. The messaging companies are testing messages to see which ones work and which kinds of voters respond, such as ‘Donate early,’ or ‘We have a matching donation,’ or ‘Just got horrible news…send money.’ Each message is sent through a platform, where messages are loaded, and pressing one button sends it to everybody…cheap compared to phone calls or direct mail. Scams pretending to be a candidate or a campaign are in the hunt for cash, also, so Cotler says look to see if they identify themselves, and be wary of promises of an ‘800% match’ or a ‘12,000 times match,’ and if they should imply that a celebrity is matching your gift, that’s a big red flag, because the celebrity would quickly run up against campaign contribution limits…they can’t match everybody’s gift! Walsten says texts are considered to be illegal spam if sent by a commercial entity using an autodialer, without your consent. Political texts are different, being governed by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which does not require consumers to ‘opt in,’ if sent manually. However, having a human hand press ‘send’ as a trigger to release thousands of texts into the ether obviously violates the spirit of the TCPA.

If you prefer not to receive campaign texts, reply with ‘STOP’ and if they persist forward the texts to 7726 (or ‘SPAM’) and if they continue to persist, or you believe federal rules are being violated, an informal complaint can be sent to the Federal Communications Commission, at fcc.gov/complaints. That’s an easy way to persuade them to stop because TCPA fines are really expensive, and the more complaints, the more campaigns will reexamine whether texting is a viable channel. Of course, by 2026, and certainly by 2028, AI is going to be a viable channel, so we’ll need more software to keep a ‘dancing’ former president off our desktop or the kitchen table, playing away with his concertina.

DONNY TWO-TONE, MCDONALD’S VS BURGER KING, LOSER TRIAD

From a recent Trump campaign rally in Nevada, Texas’ GOP Senator John Cornyn released a photo of himself and the candidate which immediately went viral. Viewers zoomed onto the former president’s face which had a dramatic color difference between his face, and his ear and temple areas. MSNBC contributor Brian Taylor Cohen posted the image on X, quickly gathering 9.2M views and a fever-pitched collection of comments. Over the past few weeks many have been saying that The Trumpster wears more makeup than does Kamala Harris…Maybelline eyeliner king is still JD Vance…with some having flashbacks to their first use of makeup in middle school, one poster confessing that it looked similar to her discovery of L’Oréal Dream matte mousse. Humorist Mrs. Betty Bowers believes Donny Two-Tone has the same approach to liquid foundation as he does to racial politics: no blending, keep the colors separate! Others were united in being reminded of the Tupperware look after microwaving of tomato-based pasta, while others felt it was a definite match for the MinWax Wood Finish color chart, Colonial Maple. Some felt he was simply getting into a pumpkin-faced Halloween spirit, with a few suggesting this represents a true border crisis…another saying a pressure washer wouldn’t leave a dent.

And the deranged guy just can’t get it straight in his head that he was found guilty of 34 felony charges for his scheme to silence porn star, Stormy Daniels, by buying her silence about their previous affair during his 2016 presidential run…he’s trying to do it again! MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow revealed a few weeks back that she had in-hand recorded phone calls, documents and emails from July to prove that Trump was once again attempting to buy her silence in a hush money deal. The new offer involved a lowering of the debt she owes from a failed 2018 lawsuit for defamation if she agreed in writing not to make “defamatory or disparaging statements” about him. Daniels turned down the deal but settled the case for $627,500, yet she still got in a shot last week when she affirmed “Trump is no Arnold Palmer.” A political cartoon making the rounds depicts a cartoonish MAGA-hatted elephant pointing to a wall shelf weighted down with a Trump Bible, Trump trading card collection, a Trump wrist watch, an over-long red tie, Trump golden tennis shoes, and a framed 8×10 glossy of The Trumpster. The MAGA-protagonist is saying, “Up here I used to keep my conservative, moral, and Christian values, but I had to get rid of them to make room for my Trump merchandise.”  You’ll need another shelf before it’s over, buddy!

Anita Chabria writes in the LA Times that “we have passed the point of discerning reality from satire.” As an example, she marvels that she “had to write the sentence about whether the speaker of the House argued with a CNN host about whether it was appropriate that the former president talked about the size of the late golfer Arnold Palmer’s junk at a rally.” Trump is quoted as saying, “Arnold Palmer was all man and I say it with all due respect to women…we have women who are highly sophisticated here.” To this Chabria responds, “Ah yes, I am currently eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich with both pinkies lifted, fancy-lady style, so I can tell you with authority that sophisticated women love (this type of) joke, almost as much as fart jokes.” Trump welcomed a few steelworkers onstage, asking them if they liked the Palmer story, garnering praise, to which Chabria says, “Which, to make a long story short, is all that matters to Trump.” She then brings in Trump’s adventure at a McDonald’s in Feasterville, PA, where he went for a photo-op of dress-up in a Mac apron (no gloves or hairnet) to run the fry cooker to pass out fries to a hand-selected group of drive-thru customers…25,000 he says. NOT! Chabria closes with, “Trump is many things, but he’s not stupid – especially when it comes to his base. Both his Palmer story and his minimum wage dress-up are forms of aggressive anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism that please his supporters to no end because the rest of us find it offensive. The offense is the point. As Trump said at the Palmer event: ‘The basic is easier to understand.’ In MAGA world, he’s not the joke. We are.”

Satirist Andy Borowitz writes of the McDonald’s appearance: “Calling the selection process ‘rigged,’ Donald J. Trump refused on Tuesday to accept that he was not chosen Employee of the Month at a McDonald’s where he briefly worked over the weekend. ‘I’ve been treated very unfairly by McDonald’s,’ he complained to reporters. ‘Frankly, I did win this selection.’ The Republican nominee alleged that he had ‘the most votes for Employee of the Month in the history of employees and months,’ but that ballots cast for him were stolen by a sinister individual he called ‘The Hamburgler.’ Trump said he would never work at McDonald’s again, asserting that ‘Burger King is better, quite frankly, because it’s a monarchy.’ A co-worker of Trump’s, however, offered a downbeat assessment of his job performance: ‘He kept on stealing fries and whatnot, and when I caught him doing it, he threw ketchup against the wall. That guy sucks.'”

Yale professor and historian Timothy Snyder writes on Substack, “We have seen this before. We know what Trump  losing looks like. Three Trumpian actions are predictable. We know them from the last election. Last time around, when Trump lost, when Trump knew he lost, he: 1. Claimed that he won, 2. Filed lawsuits, 3. Encouraged violence. He did these three things because he lost. They comprise the loser triad. Judging from past behavior, though, a repetition of the loser triad would signal that Trump believes that he has lost. In 2024, though, the sequence will be different. Allies of Trump have already filed dozen of lawsuits. Pro-Trump violence is likely to begin around election day rather than in January. But the timing of Trump’s claiming of victory will likely be the same, shortly after the election but before the outcome has been confirmed. To be clear anything can happen. Either candidate can win. That is why we vote and count the votes. And that is exactly why we should not engage in behaviors like the loser triad. The loser triad indicates that a loser is trying to break the system. This time around, the three actions will likely come in the following sequence. Trump, in the 2024 loser triad: 1. Files lawsuits, 2. Encourages violence, 3. Claims that he won shortly after election day. If Trump again claims too early that he won, this is not just a statement like any other. It is part of a plan to take power by a candidate who believes that he has lost an election – a repeat of a behavior that we know very well. If Trump claims victory, that is a good sign that Harris has won the election.”

Of course, he is setting the stage to contest a potential loss by blustering about the vote’s legitimacy and portraying the Democrats as a bunch of “cheaters” in their campaigning. He continues to escalate his doubts regarding the integrity as election day approaches. Recently, in Erie, PA, he incoherently ranted, “I would’t bother to campaign if they didn’t cheat. I wouldn’t even be here today – you know why? I wouldn’t have to campaign. I’m only here because they cheat. And they cheat in this state. Especially in Philadelphia…Philadelphia is out of control. Detroit is out of control. Atlanta is out of control. Places are out of control. Out of control.” Got that? Out of control! “If God came down from on high and said, ‘I’m going to be your vote tabulator for this election,’ I would leave this podium right now because I wouldn’t have to speak. We wouldn’t have any problem. We have to have a landslide because they cheat so damn much.” Academics and election officials, and even a voter data expert hired by Trump, all agree there is no evidence to support his claims regarding the 2020 election, nor did the few fraudulent votes cast, always exceedingly rare, have any effect on the final numbers in the race. Hello, America…he just needs to “find” 81 million dopes…

During an interview with Dr. Phil McGraw, Trump attacked California and its extensive and successful vote-by-mail program, saying he’d win the state if not for the supposed fraud. “I guarantee you, if Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California. In other words, if we had an honest vote counter, a really honest counter, I do great with the Hispanics, great, I mean I had a level that no other Republican’s ever done, but if we had an honest vote counter, I would win California,” he claims. Weave on, Weaver! The Harris campaign released a statement saying Trump “reached a level of delusion difficult for even Dr. Phil to diagnose.” Social media wasn’t having it either. One poster on X wrote, “If Jesus came down, Donald would demand that he be deported,” and in a similar vein another posted, “If Jesus came down you’d demand to see the birth certificate and then call him a liar, and don’t even get me started on what you’d say about his mom.” Another doubter wrote, “I’m just an ordinary Catholic, but I’m thinking that Jesus probably wouldn’t come down for a man found liable by a jury for sexual assault.” In digs at Dr. Phil, one posted, “A real doctor would be scheduling Trump for a rush visit to get an MRI,” with another posting, “Bro is completely delusional. I wonder if Dr. Phil is ready to make his diagnosis yet?” A closer writes, “If Jesus, Mary, Shiva, Krishna, Holy Spirit and Buddha all came down as vote counters, he would still lose California.” That’s a wrap!

According to Raw Story, if Trump loses, he will likely lobby House Republicans to refuse to certify the results, not a problem in 2020 when Democrats held a majority, but with Republicans now holding a slim majority, it could become a legitimate issue. Politico has reported that a bipartisan group of House lawmakers have banded together to jointly pledge to certify the results of the 2024 vote, and the group so far includes six House Republicans, who if they honor their pledge to certify a win for Harris, Trump allies would be unable to block certification with the current membership of the House. Republican Don Bacon of Nebraska says the group’s pledge is a reflection of traditional American values. “In America we respect election results especially once the courts and appeals work through the process. We fight hard to win during the campaigns and then respect the results when the votes are counted,” Bacon says. For more than two centuries the country enjoyed a peaceful transfer of power between presidential administrations, until Trump in 2020 pushed his MAGATs to refuse certification, lobbied states to “find” votes for him, and pressured VP Pence to reject the election results, before sending angry insurrectionists to fight police, break into the Capitol and ransack legislator’s offices. Four years later, Trump is sending the same message: election results will not be accepted unless the election is “fair” – meaning, if he wins. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of the election,” he threatens.

Donald Trump, on a break from visiting his golf courses in Ireland and Scotland, sneaks away in a rental car, finds himself down in Wales, a bit lost with no food or water in the bleak countryside. Spotting a gentle, crystal clear stream running at the roadside, he starts to take a drink. A man shouts in Welsh, “Don’t drink the water…the sheep pee in it!” Know-it-all-Donny yells back, “Speak English when you’re in England!” The man shouts back in English, “Use both hands…you’ll get more water.”

Time for a rerun of an old joke: Interviewer asks, “So, Mr. Trump, of the 30,000 lies you’ve told the American people, which is your favorite?” Trump replies, “I don’t lie.” Interviewer responds, “Yeah, that’s my favorite one, too.”

MONUMENTAL SUBJECTS, PREDICATES, NOUNS AND VERBS 

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris walked into the snake pit inappropriately named Fox News last week, to be ‘interviewed’ by Bret Baier, who is now a nearby neighbor of Donald Trump’s in Palm Beach, Florida. Evidently, he likes to be near his friends…in his very own $30M manor house. However, the ‘interview’ turned into more of a debate as both participants sparred, talking over one another to make their points, with Harris getting her wish of being able to defiantly speak to the largest MAGA audience in the cable news world. Baier tried to make the immigration system his battering ram, with Harris admitting that the system needs repair, and that she and Walz will support and enforce federal law. She went after Trump for his opposition to the bipartisan border security proposal simply to deny the Biden administration a victory in the lead-up to election day. Baier then pointed out that she and the former president are split in the current voter polling, asking her if she thinks 50% of Americans favoring Trump are “misguided” or “stupid.” “I would never say that about the American people. In fact, if you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he’s the one who tends to demean and belittle the American people. He’s the one who talks about an ‘enemy within,’ talking about locking people up because they disagree with him,” she replied. To counter her answer, Baier shows a clip of Trump responding to Fox News host Harris Faulkner’s question regarding his ‘enemy’ quote, which drew this answer: “I’m not threatening anybody.” Kamala firmly retorted, “Bret, I’m sorry, and with all due respect: That clip is not what he has been saying about the ‘enemy within’ that he has repeated when he is speaking about the American people. That’s not what you just showed. He has repeated it many times, and you and I both know that. You and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people.” She also made it clear that her presidency would not be a continuation of Biden’s administration, that “…like every new president, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership.” Baier tried to play ‘gotcha‘ for Harris’ support for Biden’s mental fitness as a president, but was quick to parry with, “Joe Biden is not on the ballot, but Donald Trump is. He’s unfit to serve. He’s unstable. He’s dangerous. And people are exhausted.” And so is The Donald, it seems, with his cancellation of several appearances.

MSNBC’s ‘All In’ anchor, Chris Hayes, criticized Fox News for showing a misleading clip of Trump’s “enemy within” comments to Kamala, when The Don referred to Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff as enemies, showing only his charge about “phony investigations.” Hayes believes that on his Fox News show, Harris Faulkner was offering Trump a chance to back off from his fascist rhetoric, but “Trump wouldn’t take it. He never takes it because he actually believes and wants to do what he says he wants to do.” Baier complained to his Fox colleagues that he sensed that Harris “was going to be tough to redirect without me trying to interrupt,” and that she showed up fifteen minutes past the 5:00 p.m. start time, like “icing the kicker” in football parlance. Harris has suffered through criticisms that she was unable or unwilling to sit through tough interviews, but she showed her mettle, and her team was pleased with her face-off with a hostile Fox News interviewer, a dicey move. Billionaire investor Mark Cuban, a Harris supporter, praised her showing at standing up to Baier, saying, “She used examples of policies. She gave a real world context. When Baier went hard after her, she didn’t call him names, she didn’t quit the interview, she didn’t make things up. She never once complained the questions were tough, she never played the victim card, she didn’t lose her temper. She didn’t take the bait to diminish or talk down to Trump supporters.” She was able to convey to 7.1M viewers her messages of affordable housing and small business expansion, while showing off aspects of her personality, with salient comments regarding Trump. Jesse Lee, who served in both Obama and Biden administrations commented, “I think to some extent the fact that she was so combative and just kind of vigorous and strong was a big contrast to Trump looking feeble and like he’s trying to limp past the finish line. There’s not a lot of things that are going to change undecided voters at this point, but I think that contrast is one of those things.”

MSNBC’S Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski called Bret Baier’s interview tactics “embarrassing” and “rude” as he attempted to derail her answers with interruptions “every three words.” Willie Geist claimed, “Bret Baier conducted that interview as if he had something to prove to the former president of the United States,” as Harris constantly repeated, “let me finish!” Geist said, “Kamala Harris went on Fox News, and took all those questions, and hung in there, and kept her calm, and didn’t attack the network or the interviewer or whine things were unfair. She talks policy, and she gave answers to tough questions. It goes without saying that Donald Trump would not be given the same treatment, talked over, not allowed to finish the questions.” Brzezinski added, “It was supposed to give viewers an opportunity to actually hear her plans as President. Instead, it almost immediately devolved into an embarrassing, bad-faith effort by a once-respected host to play to an audience of one…the host’s constant, rude interruptions were designed to distract from the issues and facts that Trump and his acolytes try and twist and distort every day.”

Satirist Andy Borowitz, in his The Borowitz Report, writes, “In a harsh rebuke to the Democratic presidential nominee, Fox News Channel asserted on Friday that Kamala Harris had ‘flagrantly broken’ the network’s ground rules for her interview by speaking in complete sentences. ‘Vice President Harris was hell-bent on uttering sentences that contained both a subject and a predicate,” Bret Baier, who conducted the interview, said. ‘I tried to prevent her from doing so by interrupting her, but she rudely continued.’ Baier added that Harris ‘stubbornly made nouns and verbs agree’ and ‘said things that she knew to be verifiably true. Our fact-checkers determined that on multiple occasions she used facts, in clear violation of Fox policy,’ Baier said. ‘President Trump would never do that.'”

Matt Gertz of Media Matters for America wrote: “Fox’s ‘news side’ has been in steep decline since Trump took over the Republican Party and the network rebranded as his personal propaganda outlet. But even by those standards, the partisan divide it displayed on Wednesday was striking and would be catastrophically embarrassing to Fox’s employees if any of them were still capable of humiliation. While [Bret] Baier has long enjoyed a largely unearned reputation as a credible newsman, he lives in palpable fear of his viewers abandoning his network. His subsequent performance was what you might expect from someone worried primarily about letting down Fox’s pro-Trump audience. Fox’s ‘news side’ always functioned as a cog in the right-wing media machine that laundered its talking points into the mainstream press, and its claim to independence was demolished during Trump’s presidency. But at this point the network seems to have all but given up even pretending to employ a credible news apparatus.”

Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Senator John McCain, in an attempt to force Democratic candidates to stop citing her late father’s memory while campaigning, threatened to release what he really thought abut VP Kamala Harris. She fired off on social media, “Now, I know democrats want to reinvent history and turn my Dad into any illusion you guys need him to be depending on the political moment you need to bastardize his memory for…but please don’t make me start sharing what I remember him ACTUALLY saying about Kamala Harris…And consider this my final warning shot, I will start spilling tea.” Democratic strategist Cliff Schecter who has ‘spilled tea’ on JD Vance regarding his past comments about Donald Trump, said he had some tea of his own to spill about her. “I wrote a book about your dad in ’08, as I’m sure you know, Meghan. So go ahead and do it, nepo,” he countered. “Then I’ll share what your father’s advisors [and] others close to him told me he really though about you. Things I had no reason to publish except to be cruel, but will happily share now in light of what you’ve become. You go first.” In later post Schecter said, “Meghan McCain doesn’t just get to threaten Dems [with] her unearned platform.” All’s quiet to date…

Former NBC executive John D. Miller has written a lengthy apology/editorial printed in U.S. News and World Report, that begins with him saying, “I want to apologize to America” [because] “I helped create a monster.” He goes on to explain how in developing Trump’s reality show, ‘The Apprentice,’ the creators used highly selective editing to make Trump appear much more intelligent, thoughtful, and decisive as a businessman than he is in reality. “I learned early on in my dealings with Trump that he thought he could simply say something over and over, and eventually people would believe it. He would say to me, ‘The Apprentice’…America’s No. 1 TV show.’ But it wasn’t. Not that week. Not that season. I had the ratings in front of me. He had seen and heard the ratings, but that didn’t matter. He just kept saying it was the ‘No. 1 show on television,’ even after we corrected him. He repeated it on press tours too, knowing full well it was wrong. He didn’t like being fact-checked back then either.” Miller was surprised about Trump’s political entrance, where he would continue his lying about immigrants, the COVID pandemic, and the 2020 election results. He adds, “While we were successful in marketing ‘The Apprentice,’ we also did irreparable harm by creating the false image of Trump as a successful leader. I deeply regret that. And I regret that it has taken me so long to go public.”

Georgetown University Law Center professor Neal Katyal wrote in a New York Times editorial, and explained later in an interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, that only one complicated congressional law could stand between the Oval Office and Donald Trump, according to his analysis. He warns that the nation should prepare itself for a legal brawl if Trump loses to Harris on November 5. “The rogues are no longer amateurs. They have spent the last four years going pro, meticulously devising a strategy across multiple fronts…state legislatures, Congress, executive branches and elected judges…to overturn any close election.” Several actions could be taken toward seizing power, such as challenging ballots in swing state lawsuits, sowing chaos on local election boards  and forcing fake electors on allies in state legislatures, before taking up the one through Congress. Katyal says, “The Congress has the power to swing the entire election. The rules are complex…even as a law professor I can barely make sense of them.” He offers one possibility, a 2022 law, that makes it more difficult for a Congressional member to object to a state’s vote by mandating 20% of members in both houses sign on to the challenge, which then must win a simple majority in both chambers as well. He cautions, “The rules are so complicated that they could be stretched, wrongly, to give Congress the power to select the next president by sustaining bogus objections. Don’t get me wrong, such maneuvering is totally inconsistent with the 2022 law. But it can be attempted and create chaos.” He is not optimistic that certain Congress members will put correct legal interpretations above party loyalty to their party’s presidential nominee…the Republican Party, according to Katyal, can no longer be trusted to hold democratic norms as sacrosanct. “We have much to fear…but if either candidate wins the Electoral College decisively, any dispute will be rendered academic,” he concludes.

Donald Trump charges Kamala Harris with lying when she says she worked at a McDonald’s restaurant when she was in college, so to nullify or diminish her claim he arranged to work at the French fry station in a McDonald’s last Sunday, an everyman’s job…no one is sure what this proves, but whatever he comes up with is bound to be good! On his show, Jimmy Kimmel says, “This is a win-win for Trump because working a deep-fryer will give him a new skill he could potentially put to use in the prison cafeteria.” This poke in the face is likely to fry Trump’s brain since he is still steaming from the remark Kimmel used during the Academy Awards in March, when Trump posted a wisecrack on social media about the show. Kimmel responded, “Thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching. I’m surprised you’re still up. Isn’t it past your jail time?”

After Trump, for ten minutes, made disgusting ‘locker room’ remarks about golfer Arnold Palmer’s impressive body part at a recent rally, satirist Andy Borowitz writes, “Donald J. Trump told supporters at a rally on Monday that if elected he will rename the Washington Monument after the legendary golfer Arnold Palmer.” Borowitz quotes Trump as saying, ‘Unlike Arnie, George Washington had no body parts worth remembering. He had wooden teeth, which, quite frankly, were disgusting. Get him out of here!’ An aide commenting on the former president’s performance said, “At this point I think we’re better off just playing music and having him dance.”

Satirist Andy Borowitz reports on “what the publishing industry experts are calling an unprecedented snafu,” with Melania Trump’s publisher of her new memoir hastily withdrawing the book, ‘Melania,’ from release after discovering “it mistakenly contained the full text of her prenuptial agreement. The prenup, which spans over 200 of the book’s 256 pages, indicates that next year Donald Trump must give Mrs. Trump a large lump sum, an arrangement Melania calls ‘my personal Project 2025.’ Additionally, the agreement stipulates a substantial penalty if Mr. Trump fails to pay, in what is termed ‘the Rudy Giuliani clause.’ Mrs. Trump’s publisher may come to regret its decision to withdraw her memoir, as early reviews are calling the prenup the only interesting content in the book.”

‘America’s Mayor’ Giuliani made the news last week via his daughter, Caroline, when she came out in favor of Kamala Harris in the presidential sweepstakes. She warned about reelecting Trump, using what she called her father’s “implosion” after being caught up in the former president’s “destructive trail.” By becoming a staunch ally of Trump, he lost his cache of being a respected prosecutor and the perception of being a strong leader of New York City after the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center buildings, to currently being bankrupt and disbarred from his profession. Caroline calls her father’s great fall as a perfect example of how Trump “destroys everything he touches,” and “watching my dad’s life crumble since he joined forces with Trump has been extraordinary painful, both on a personal level and because his demise feels linked to a dark force that threatens once again to consume America.” A filmmaker and a writer, she wrote in Vanity Fair that his downfall has only caused their already “cartoonishly complicated relationship” to become more desperate, and “after months of feeling the type of sorrow that comes from the death of a loved one, it dawned on me that I’ve been grieving the loss of my dad to Trump. I cannot bear to lose our country to him too.” She looked back on an earlier time when her father mentioned that he was considering becoming Trump’s personal lawyer, but she couldn’t persuade him to turn down the offer, after asking him not to “go down this morally perilous path,” alluding to Trump’s “open racism, rampant misogyny, and total lack of empathy.”

She writes, “I even told my dad that I already felt ashamed of my last name whenever I saw headlines connecting him to Trump, and that this escalation would only deepen that feeling,” but he joined the legal team in April 2018 during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into 2016 election interference by Russia. In November 2020, Rudy was given the job of attempting to reverse the election results nationwide, which only led to his disbarment, to several indictments, and loss of lawsuits which opened the trapdoor to bankruptcy. In her article, she writes, “Trump being the president was the worst thing that ever happened to my dad, to my family, and to our nation’s modern history. The consequences will only be more severe, and irreversible, a second time around.” Caroline blasted Trump’s conservative Supreme Court appointees and their recent decisions favoring the former president, and the “draconian” abortion bans resulting from the reversal of Roe v Wade. Consequently, since Harris is “the one candidate who cares about my rights as a woman,” and “our only chance for a better future,” she will be casting a vote for Kamala in November.

Former president Obama hit the campaign trail in Pittsburgh for Harris/Walz last week with such a vengeance against Donald Trump, one X user posted, “I’d like to report a murder.” Obama presented a laundry list of reasons to spurn Trump in favor of Harris, starting with “the constant attempts to sell you stuff,” naming the gold sneakers, the $100K watch, and the Trump Bible. “Who does that?” he asked incredulously. “You know, he wants you to buy the Word of God, Donald Trump edition. Got his name right there next Matthew and Luke.” Just above the ‘Printed in China’ notation, no doubt!Number 44 roasted Number 45, a father of five children, by asking, “Do you think Donald Trump ever changed a diaper?” which brought a cry from an audience member, “His own!” – delighting Obama. It was reported that Trump wore diapers while recording his reality TV show, ‘The Apprentice,’ being dubbed ‘Diaper Don’ as a result. His MAGA crowd, dismissed the charge, as they started wearing absorbent underwear at rallies, carrying signs reading “Real Men Wear Diapers.” Obama also let it fly against Trump for taking credit for the state of the economy as he took the reins as president in 2017. “I remember that economy when he first came in as being pretty good. Yeah, it was pretty good, because it was my economy. It wasn’t something he did. I spent eight years cleaning up the mess that the Republicans had left me,” he pointed out.

In Tom Tomorrow’s comic strip, The Modern World, created by Dan Perkins, an undecided voter exclaims, “As a freethinking political independent, I simply can’t decide who to vote for!” Sparky the Penguin pops up to help, saying, “Really! Well, let’s think this through! Donald Trump is an elderly rage-filled narcissist in obvious decline. He’s apparently unable to string together a single coherent sentence without going off on bizarre tangents. He’s a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who incited a literal insurrection. He’s surrounded by extremist freaks, like the deranged 9/11 conspiracy theorist he took to the 9/11 Memorial. He and his vile running mate are currently whipping up another round of anti-immigrant hysteria rumors. It’s already inspired bomb threats and will probably get somebody killed. His role models are authoritarians and dictators. He name-checked Viktor Orban during the debate. He’s made it clear that if he gets back into office, democracy as we know it in this country is pretty much over.” Unconvinced, the undecided voter says, “Sure…but I heard that Kamala Harris flip-flopped on some issues and stuff.” This leading Sparky the Penguin to say, “How reassuring it is, to know that this election may ultimately hinge on thoughtful, deliberative voters such as yourself.” Pretty much sums it up after reading the various op-ed pages!

Steve Schmidt on his The Warning blog, writes, “Kamala Harris enjoyed a magical July, a brilliant August and a spectacular September. October, not so much.” Steve says the tough days and their decisive moments have arrived, with campaign teams being exhausted, tempers frayed and a multitude of voices shouting opinions and advice…a high stakes phase in any campaign, a “mistakes were made” phase. Schmidt feels that the worst day for Harris was telling the hosts of ‘The View‘ that “nothing comes to mind” when asked what she would have done differently than Biden. He compares it to John Kerry’s quote, “I voted for it before I voted against it” during his run for the presidency. Schmidt questions, “How did the vice president wind up sipping beer with Stephen Colbert?” after giving her answer on ‘The View.’ He feels that the quote risks being a campaign killer, and that the team needs a timeout to refocus, to examine what worked well previously, and dump the October sloppiness.

Schmidt calls the Walz/Vance debate a debacle, where Vance needed to be confronted as an extremist threat, not given a rubdown, after lying about Haitians eating their neighbors’ pets. Walz’ performance was a refutation of the DNC convention, which pictured Trump as a clear and present danger. It was Kamala Harris‘ duty to reframe the election in the previous three months to make the race about Trump after the GOP had framed it as being about Biden and his cognitive decline. The Democrats were unable to justify Joe as the best candidate to stop Donald, which made Trump into the “truth teller” regarding the economy, the border and Biden with his historically low approval levels. Biden’s reputation and legacy are entirely dependent on a Harris/Walz win. Harris’ fight to increase her stature and standing with voters was well done, but now is threatened with a meltdown, attributable to her media interviews, “making her shrink in stature, putting a target on her back, and shining the light on her instead of Trump,” says Schmidt. He feels that Harris should embark on giving a series of closing speeches that make clear her philosophy about America, the American people, our way of life and our future, and by doing so voters will know who she is, which is what polls are indicating is needed.

Americans don’t want specifics, they want a competent, faithful, dynamic, normal president who confronts the tough issues unafraid. Schmidt suggests that her team read some of JFK’s speeches which contain ideas and aspirations that fit what Americans want to hear, because the interviews she is doing now are strategically wide of the mark…time to stop playing Whack-A-Mole. She has to fix “there is not a thing that comes to mind.”

Jasmine Parish Moreno, a daughter of Mexican-Iranian immigrants, writes on Common Dreams that “this election isn’t about a perfect candidate…it’s about our futures.” She continues, “Harris will never be my community’s liberator. But for right now, for this election, she is my target. My goal is to stop Trump and his MAGA allies from ever getting close to the White House again. Never has my vote been about me. It’s about what gives my family and my community the best chance of survival. I am under no impression that Harris is perfect; but I am not fighting with her. I am fighting to move her. I will vote for Harris on November 5, but my vote is not a profession of my love for Harris or my approval. It’s about making a deliberate choice to pick the playing field for the next four years that my generation and I will be forced, one way or another, to organize under. When I think about this year’s election, I wish I didn’t feel the fear I do about a future life under Trump. As someone who grew up with a family of immigrants, I know this is not mere speculation or exaggeration – Trump and MAGA Republicans have a plan to hurt my community. The anti-immigrant policies outlined in Project 2025 are designed to tear apart families across the nation – both at the border and in the very states and cities we call home. The sprawling immigrant detention camps and deportations carried out under his first administration were just a glimpse at what he could do under a second term, where he has promised to use the military to conduct nationwide raids in the places where we live, work, and pray to target anyone suspected of being undocumented.” Moreno says no perfect candidate exists now, criticizing VP Harris for adopting some Republican talking points on immigration, while ignoring the calls to end the genocide in Gaza carried out with US weapons paid for with American tax dollars.

Steve Schmidt feels that “the Harris campaign seems adrift and satisfied with a level of engagement with Trump that seeks to make an issue out of his trampling of dead norms, but focusing on small issues at the expense of existential ones will not end well.” Andrew Sullivan writes on The Weekly Dish on Substack, that Harris is obviously struggling to close the sale, pointing out that both Clinton and Biden were well ahead in the polls at this juncture in their respective races against Trump. Sullivan sees nothing being shifted, and “if anything, there’s a slight drift back toward Trump right now.” He wants to hear Kamala answer two baseline questions that are still unresolved in his mind: “Why do you want to be president? And what change would you bring to the White House and the country?” He characterizes them as easy, fundamental questions, and having listened to her closely in interviews, he still doesn’t know the answers. “I was born in a middle-class family” doesn’t cut it in his estimation.

Schmidt advises Harris to make her closing message about Donald Trump and the threat he poses to the American republic, liberty and world peace. He must be portrayed as a fascist and a profound danger, simple truths that the media is afraid to say. “To prove that she can confront danger abroad she will have to prove she is ready to face the threat at hand by confronting Trump for what he is” – a decisive debate performance falls short of this task in Schmidt’s estimation.

In fundraising appeals to his extensive mailing list, Donald Trump offered his donors a chance to appear with him on stage during his return to Butler, PA, the site of his bleeding ear problem. For as little as a $5 donation he offers consideration for having a photo made during the stage appearance for the lucky winner. “The crowd is going to LOVE YOU when you’re introduced as my VIP guest,” the blurb reads. It appears the lucky VIP winner was Elon Musk, dressed in all black clothing, performing his jumping jacks routine…no sign of any red MAGA-hatted winner doing the Mar-a-Lardo dance. The Trump campaign had no comment when asked to produce a winners list from all the previous come-ons for donations.

Word from the Trump team regarding the now-humbled Corey Lewandowski, is that he has been sent home to New Hampshire after slinking into the campaign as an adviser, and after suggesting to people he was plotting a coup to take over Chis LaCivita’s and Susie Wiles’ leadership of the team’s objectives. Called Trump’s security blanket, Corey was ready to take complete charge, but the boss had only asked “find something for Corey to do,” which didn’t include doing an audit of the campaign finances for one thing. Lewandowski’s record of being fired before the 2016 election, and being fired from a pro-Trump super PAC in 2021 over unsolicited sexual advances toward a donor should have been fair warning, but as a Trump ally said, “[Lewandowski] is Trump’s comfort blanket, and he’s like a cockroach. He never dies. He blew himself up.” Have the Orkin Man stand by in any case!

RELIGIOUS COERCION, TOURBILLONS, INANITIES & DISINHIBITION

Steve Schmidt on his The Warning blog hosted by Substack, writes, “George Washington did not have the insight to realize that all men are created equal, despite fighting for a cause that declared it an unalienable truth. That said, he certainly had the foresight to see the danger of political parties to warp patriotism into tribalism. In his farewell address on September 17, 1796, he said this:

‘However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion, as they accuse entire peoples of stealing and eating their neighbors pets.'”

Okay, okay…he didn’t say that last part nor did Schmidt write it, but Washington COULD have, had he given his farewell speech in 2024. Schmidt says, “the quote that defines a generation (‘They’re eating dogs!’), and an era that is exhausted, stale, ludicrous and coming to an end. Someday, someone somewhere is going to closely examine the inanity that occurred on CNN during the two hours that preceded the debate (with Kamala Harris) during which Trump psychologically decomposed on national television, and realize the scale of idiocies dressed up as commentary describing he greatest threat to freedom in America since 1860. Trump is most certainly an unserious man, but he is covered by a bevy of unserious people whose smugness blinds them to the reality that they make MAGA grow by fertilizing fascism with so much curiosity, wonder, and detachment. Standing for the proposition that what is cannot be, is as delusional as the fulminations from the deranged gentleman foaming at the mouth about immigrants eating dogs.”  Schmidt accuses CNN in the hours leading up to the debate of heralding Trump as Muhammad Ali incarnate, with Harris being mocked as an empty vessel. MAGA VP candidate, JD Vance, had claimed that Haitian migrants were “causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio,” by abducting and eating pets, so naturally the former president spouted that charge during the debate. Cue up the bomb threats by crazies toward schools and public buildings in Springfield!

Schmidt takes Ohio Governor Mike DeWine to task over an editorial he wrote defending Battlefield Springfield and its residents, with Schmidt’s calling his piece a struggle between the lie and truth. DeWine describes how he was born in the town, tells of his familiarity with businesses, churches and events, and mentions a rich history of providing refuge for the oppressed and being a place of opportunity, and how it hit tough times in the ’80s and ’90s. He feels Springfield has a very bright future, praising the Haitians who arrived there to make their dreams come true…the American story. He expresses his disappointment that it is now the epicenter of vitriol over the national immigration policy, but here is where DeWine veers off-track according to Schmidt. “Understanding what has happened is materially and significantly different from how it happened, no matter what the event may be. Why is DeWine willing to tell the truth about what is happening…the people being smeared, but afraid to tell the truth about how it happened and why it happened?” he asks. DeWine writes, “As a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield. This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives here.” Schmidt goes for the jugular, “Come again? Repeating claims? That’s what happened? Really? Why won’t Mike DeWine tell the truth about Donald Trump and JD Vance?…a career public servant, a governor, a father of eight, grandfather of 28, great-grandfather of one, husband of 56 years…in his last years of public life, pushing 80 years old, and not defending his hometown from the men assaulting it? What does Trump have on him?”

Schmidt says that DeWine’s choice is common and typical, a perfect specimen of a fascist apologist…a little man in a job too big for him when courage is in retreat and viciousness is the only virtue that matters within a party led by a rapist and criminal promising retribution, revenge, and violent mass arrests and deportations against his enemies…a hollow man kneeling to a vicious man. If we ever want to know what really happened in Springfield, and everything that mattered in ten years of MAGA, read DeWine’s essay. National Review’s editor-in-chief, Rich Lowry, explains: “Banking on evil is the strategy, and Mike DeWine has played his part. He is an appeaser and a weakling.”

On Fox News’ Media Buzz program, Democratic strategist Tim Hogan pointed out that Biden’s Homeland Security removed a higher percentage of arrested border crossers in its first two years than the Trump administration did in its last two. “You had Karl Rove on this network yesterday talking about the numbers on immigration. Yes, it’s still an advantage for Trump, but that is sliding away from him in some battleground states…in Arizona. But also, nationally, so I think it is smart to go at some of his advantages, and also, when he talks about the issue, sometimes he slips into lunacy,” he charged. “Lunacy?” questioned host Howard Kurtz. Hogan reminded Kurtz, “We saw it during the debate where he’s talking about losing cats and dogs.” Kurtz had to admit, “Well, yeah, and that one I can’t defend.”

Finally, The New York Times has come to its senses, with the editorial board endorsing Kamala Harris for president, claiming that Trump’s “first term was a warning and that a second term would be much more damaging and divisive” than his first stint. Kamala is described as a “dedicated public servant” with “a set of thoughtful plans to help American families,” with the November election being about something “more foundational” than two candidates’ competing visions for the country. The editorial board concludes, “It is about whether we invite into the highest office in the land a man who has revealed, unmistakably, that he will degrade the values, defy the norms and dismantle the institutions that have made our country strong,” adding, “It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump,” a man who “has proven himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest.” The Times says, “He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought…some of them hard to understand, some them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own ‘beautiful body.’ He relishes ‘a great day in Louisiana’ after actually spending a day in Georgia. He expresses fear that North Korea is ‘trying to kill me’ when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after Biden’s withdrawal from the race.” In an interview, he vividly recounted how the audience at his debate with VP Harris was on his side…“they went crazy.” Only problem being it was in an empty hall…no audience to go crazy or otherwise!

A computer analysis conducted by The New York Times in cooperation with ChatGPT reveals that Trump speeches now drone on for 82 minutes on average, compared to 45 minutes in 2016, and proportionately, he uses 13% more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than in 2016. In the same vein, he uses 32% more negative words than positive words currently, as compared to his first run for office, an indicator of cognitive change; plus, he uses swearwords 69% more often, a trend experts would call ‘disinhibition.’ His comparing Joe Biden’s physique in a bathing suit to that of Cary Grant’s at the same age? Let’s not go there, and let’s skip his claim about his own body – “You have never seen a body so beautiful.” His expertise on any subject is his pride and joy, being well-versed on “nuclear” because “my uncle…yada, yada yada…” Claiming that Venezuelan gangs are arming themselves “with MK-47s…I know that gun very well” since “I’ve become an expert on guns.” Probably meant AK-47s, you think? A Times reporter is annoyed that “it’s not possible to really cover him because he challenges news media process daily, has for years. The systems were not built to deal with somebody who says things that are not true as often as he does or speaks as incoherently as he often does.”

Jon Shore, who identifies himself as a psychotherapist, asks on Quora, “Does Trump’s peddling $100,000 gold and diamond watches make him more relatable to the middle class?” Jon has looked over the website for the Trump watches, reading the fine print, and doing some research, which has led him to these conclusions: The watches don’t exist at this moment; watches not guaranteed to look like product in the photos (for illustration purposes only); watches aren’t returnable; not Swiss made, Chinese made; sold by a fake company in Sheridan, WY, a lawyer’s office from which Trump tchotchkes are hawked, along with sex toys and various other products by unnamed companies; and, watches shipped worldwide. So, if you want to send Donald Trump $100,000, order as many as you wish…doesn’t matter if the product is real, fake or non-existent…just send lots of money. Shore is calling it a typical Trump scam. He doesn’t have to disclose buyers, whether they are Russian oligarchs, Saudi princes or even Elon Musk…it’s simply ‘personal funds’ for unlimited campaign cash. Where’s the Justice Department when you need…oh yeah, never mind!

A distinctive and anachronistic feature of the Trump watch is the use of a tourbillon (a French word for ‘whirlwind’), an 18th century invention used for improving timekeeping accuracy by suspending the components in a rotating cage, therefore counteracting the effects of gravity. The device is no longer functionally necessary with advances existing in today’s watches. But Swiss brands such as Patek Phillipe and Audemars Piguet have used them for years to signify status and success, with their brands costing $250,000 plus, so Trump is touting his watches as “not just any watch; it is one of the best watches made.” TAG Heuer offers one of its versions for less than $25K, and Seagull Watch Company in China sells one for around $1,700. Vintage-watch dealer, Mike Nouveau, calculated the value of some of the watch’s parts, coming up with a reckoning far below the retail price of $100K, saying that any company can order a tourbillon off the shelf and stick it in their watch. The 200 grams of gold and the 100 diamonds might give the Trump watch an added value of $16K, and with fabrication added, the final cost to make each is probably between $20K and $30K. The timepiece’s movement is actually Swiss-made by Olivier Mory of OM Mechanics but the company making the purchase will be producing the final product elsewhere, with Mory not concerned about his movements being used by a brand tied to Trump. He remarked, “I don’t have to be interested by a foreign politician…I don’t see any reason to be ashamed as movement producer. The US political system is like coming from another planet.” Only with if Trump’s name is on the dial face!

The real border crisis in America raised its ugly head last week…the one between church and state…when Oklahoma Superintendent of Schools, Ryan Walters, submitted a request for $3M from the Department of Education to buy 55,000 Bibles for placement in the state’s classrooms. Not only is he pushing Bibles, he’s mounting a scheme to enrich Donald Trump with taxpayer dollars. Seems that the requirements laid down by Walters fit only the Trump-endorsed ‘God Bless the USA Bible’ which raised cries of ‘corruption and manipulation.’ The Oklahoma Watch reported on a fresh wave of criticism in several areas, one of which pounced on the former president’s grifting, in particular with Bibles. Broad efforts have been ongoing by Christian nationalist organizers to assert themselves into the state GOP, encouraging that taxpayer monies be spent to place religious books in public school classrooms. The vendors who bid on the contract for the classroom Bibles must specifically provide the King James Version, with Old and New Testaments, must include copies of the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, with a binding of leather or leather-like material. One vendor carries 2,900 Bibles, but none fit the specs…only one fills the bill…Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA Bible, endorsed by Donald Trump, who gets a fee for lending his name to the cesspool. Superintendent Walters said, “We are going to be so proud here in Oklahoma to be the first state in the country to bring the Bible back to every single classroom and every state should be doing this…President Trump praised our efforts. President Trump has been a leader on this issue.” Well, gaaaahly, gee whiz! Why would that be? Prior to the Trump Bible issue, civil rights groups had spent months sounding the alarm over Walters’ push to mandate Christian teachings in public schools.

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United, released a statement saying, “Oklahoma taxpayers should not be forced to bankroll Superintendent Walters’ Christian nationalist agenda. His latest scheme is a transparent, unlawful effort to indoctrinate and religiously coerce public school students. Not on our watch. Public schools are not Sunday schools.” Experts are warning that contract specifications might actually represent a breach of state law, since they seem to target only one edition of the Bible…the Greenwood/Trump publication. “It appears to me that this bid is anything but competitive,” former state Attorney General Drew Edmondson told The Oklahoman newspaper. “It adds to the basic specification other requirements that have nothing to do with the text. The special binding and inclusion of government documents will exclude almost all bidders. If the bid specs exclude most bidders unnecessarily, I would consider that a violation.” The Atlantic’s David Graham calls the situation “incredible grift,” and Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall declared it “somewhere between hilarious and grotesque.”  While you’re at it, why not go for the watches too, Oklahoma? Those tourbillons will fit right into your very essence!

The Nebraska GOP’s sneaky attack to change their electoral voting system from a 2/3 split among their five electors to a winner-take-all rule was thwarted last week, which will likely give one vote to Kamala Harris instead of all five to Trump in November’s election. The state legislature couldn’t manage to get the votes together for inclusion of a heavily Democratic district into their MAGA cesspool, which could give Harris a bit of an edge in the final Electoral College result. Republicans still have a month to figure out their next attack plan.

North Carolina’s governor’s race lays scattered in ruins since the revelations about ‘Black Nazi’ and Lt. Governor Mark Robinson’s past adventures on porn sites, and his posting of inappropriate comments popping up to derail his gubernatorial candidacy. Several of his campaign staffers promptly resigned, but since then several conservative donors are now wondering how money was spent, especially since his campaign had been lagging behind so badly. The New York Times reports that the departure of chief consultant Conrad Pogorzelski, and finance director Heather Whillier has led to increased scrutiny of the campaign’s expenses, with Pogorzelski taking around $2M and Whillier’s group being paid $1.3M from the coffers which reported $15.8M on hand at July’s end. Former chair of the University of North Carolina, Harry Smith, admitted that he contributed $6,400, expressing regret that he had donated to Robinson with whom he wasn’t very impressed with from the start, as he confessed that Josh Stein will get his vote anyway. Panic took over the state’s GOP with the developments, and some members of Robinson’s team sought help from the Trump campaign to convince their candidate to drop out of the race. Of course it was too late to remove the Lt. Governor’s name from the ballot, and military ballots and overseas voter ballots were already in the pipeline; besides, who would stand in his place as a candidate? Plus, the Trump campaign had no comment, and even Donald Trump being asked for comment by a reporter, only brought his standard reply, “I know nothing about the situation.” He obviously felt he didn’t need to get into another hot mess.

Despite being a detriment to GOP prospects up and down the statewide ballot, Robinson says he is standing pat, so far, all in the face of critics blaming the party for getting into this fiasco. With many Republican leaders touting his candidacy, and Trump’s promise of an endorsement, they blundered ahead, with the national party looking the other way in spite of the many unseemly comments Robinson had uttered publicly. Robinson was probably vetted to a point, but his awfulness was accepted because he was a new, diverse, and magnetic voice for the North Carolina party. Party stalwarts who knew of his weaknesses, about some of his baggage, were horrified at Trump’s pledge for an endorsement, knowing they were rendered impotent to speak out against this apparent rising star. State treasurer, Dale Folwell, says, “Robinson was selected by former president Trump and other party officials who elevated him, and those officials and their consultants did know, should have known, or didn’t want to know about Robinson’s flaws. The party I joined nearly fifty years ago was based on conservatism, common sense, courtesy, humanity, humility, and ethics…not counterfeit conservatives like Mark Robinson who think they can build our party by people who to hate.” With Robinson’s vow to remain in the race, the state GOP concluded the damage had been done, end of conversation.

Another politician has fallen into his own trap, this time a Democrat; New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted last week on five federal charges of bribery, fraud, corruption and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. As Jimmy Fallon said on ‘The Tonight Show,’ “Its’ always fun when the city mimics the exact plot of the ‘Batman’ movie.” Adams is accused of accepting over $100K worth of free plane tickets and hotel stays from wealthy Turkish nationals and a government official. Fallon joked, “Adams insisted that he’s innocent and made it clear that he has no intention of resigning…unless ‘someone wants to give me $100K to go away. And then maybe we’ll talk about it.'”

Then, we have the case of GOP Mayor Doug Diny of Wausau, WI, who contracted right-wing-bird fever, then dressed up as a maintenance man…hard hat, work gloves, and Department of Public Works Department jacket, and perhaps steel-toed boots…so he could remove a ballot drop box outside the city hall. Moved it to his office for security! Right!..a guarantee to securely reduce the number of ballot box locations for those exercising their voting rights! Mayor Doug said, “I’m a staff member…nothing nefarious going on here…I’m hoping for a good result.” Your Groucho eyebrows, glasses, nose and mustache are slipping down your face, sir. Diny says the city clerk should have sought permission from the city council before situating the box, even after the state Supreme Court had just ruled in July that city clerks were the decision makers for best accessibility for the voting public. Of course, Mr. Vigilante Mayor feels that the best solution is to use a dolly to wheel the offending ballot box into his office closet…make those voters appreciate the value of the vote. Diny is now under criminal investigation in Marathon County, his act being a felony for impeding “the free exercise of the franchise at an election” – due to ignorance, ineptitude, or obtuseness? You choose.

Or, how about Portage County Ohio Sheriff Bruce D. Zuchowski who asked his followers on Facebook to “write down” the address of those who place Harris-Walz campaign signs on their front lawns, in order for him to drop off any undocumented immigrants, or “Illegal Human Locusts” in his words, who turn up. “They’ll need a place to live, so we’ll have addresses of their new families who support their arrival,” he says. Trump won Portage County in 2020, but recent polling points to thousands who support Harris-Walz, undoubtedly to the complete consternation of Sheriff Z.

Donald Trump is being obliged to play his concertina as he enters the stage at his rallies, since most musicians have protested his non-pernitted use of their recordings. He feels disadvantaged that he doesn’t play the guitar, but since he regularly claims that he is “greater than Elvis…the greatest of all time,” and draws bigger crowds, he won’t be buying one soon…though perhaps selling autographed instruments may be on the horizon as he attempts to grift every dollar from the pockets of his base. His latest grift is selling $100K watches, joining the trove of non-fungible tokens, Bibles, or your choice of assassination-themed or gold sneakers. As JD Vance says, “People can’t afford to buy eggs today!” – but maybe they can scrape up a few thou for a Trump tchotchke. And the watches may be appropriate in Senator Marco Rubio’s eyes, who in 2016 suggested Trump would be “selling watches in Manhattan” absent his father’s fortune. Former RNC chair Michael Steele excoriated the former president as a “two-bit huckster,” and Republicans Against Trump mocked him as “truly a man of the people.” Yep, a man of the people who needs their money to fund his failing campaign, pay his legal fees and shore up Truth Social! In all fairness, he is offering a “Fight, Fight, Fight” version of the watch for only $499, which features on the back an image of Trump with his fist in the air ala the post-assassination photograph…but it’s not political he claims.

On his show, Jimmy Kimmel blasted “Trump’s brand crap to sell to his lemmings,” dubbing the watch “Ro-Lex Luthor.” He played the commercial ad for the watch line, to which he responded, “Trump time, by the way, is five to seven years or four with good behavior.” Kimmel didn’t give Melania a break after her appearance on Fox News to promote her upcoming memoir release. “We now see Melania on the same schedule as Punxsutawney Phil, since rarely does Fox News allow a brunette to appear on their shows,” he jabbed. The book, ‘Melania,’ sits atop the Amazon.com best-seller list for pre-orders as doubting-Thomases speculate how many have been purchased by the Trump Crime Syndicate to manipulate the publicity prior to the release date. Kimmel then switched to Rudy Giuliani who was just disbarred from practicing law in Washington, DC, suggesting a New York City mayor opening might be arising soon now that he needs a new gig, especially with current Mayor Eric Adams‘ tenure looking pretty iffy. Kimmel said Democrats are hinting that Adams should step down with his new legal troubles, but encouragingly, “Republicans are urging him to run for governor of North Carolina.” In a poke at Donald Trump who called Kimmel “one of the dumbest human beings ever…what a dope,” he responded with, “Isn’t that sweet…he’s confusing me with one of his sons again!” The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon also got in on the watch grift, saying, “Your can tell it’s a Trump watch because of the tiny hands. Also, if you try to set it to military time, it says, ‘Sorry, I have bone spurs.'”

Two election prognosticators have joined the heated social media posts on their presidential election predictions, in the midst of the many polling result that appear on a daily basis. American University professor Allan Lichtman, who has gained notoriety by correctly predicting nine of the last ten elections, using his ’13 Keys’ method. Political pollster Nate Silver, founder of website Five Thirty Eight, now known as 538, is questioning Lichtman’s readings of his own numbers, saying his keys clearly favor Trump instead of Harris-Walz as he has previously indicated. Silver asks if Lichtman is being “totally arbitrary,” with Lichtman responding that Silver “doesn’t have the faintest idea how to turn the keys.” Silver says that although the Democratic ticket leads national polls by nearly three points, but Trump-Vance have a 56.2% chance of winning the Electoral College. Lichtman maintains that Silver is not a historian or political scientist, and has no academic credentials, while touting their opposing views on Obama’s 2010 re-election. Silver hit back at Lichtman on X with, “He is comically overconfident and doesn’t own up to the subjectivities in his method.” as the X audience cheered on the shouting match. Capitol Forum reporter Paul McCleod commented, “If you don’t know what they’re talking about this whole exchange looks like two wizards bickering.”

A data scientist from Northwestern University, Thomas Miller, has developed a model that uses info from political betting sites rather than polls, outperforming those using multiple voter surveys in three 2020 contests. Miller contends that political betting sites are best at “predicting the wisdom of the crowd,” with polling data being backward-looking. The betting sites have a steady stream of investors, thus a better measure of future outcomes. “It’s gone from a drastic landslide in Trump’s direction to a drastic landslide for Harris,” according to Miller, who adds that it would take an equally dramatic shift in Trump’s favor for the former president to move back into contention…as things stand now it appears as if Harris will win big in November. Shawn Tully, in a Fortune piece, writes: “Miller’s view merits close attention for two basic reasons. First, it’s based on numbers-crunching that’s arguably a lot more scientific than the voter surveys cited in charting the contest’s trajectory, and second, he achieved pinpoint accuracy four years ago.” So there we have it…jump on the winning bandwagon and leave the clown car in the dust!

Tim Walz posted a short video from his campaign stop at H&H Soul Food in Macon, Georgia last week, the main subject being a wall sign that reads, “Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy.” Serve us up, Tim!