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Decompensation – Trump is at his most dangerous

May 23rd, 2019

According to Dorland’s Medical Dictionary, decompensation, among other things, is “failure of defense mechanisms resulting in progressive personality disintegration.” Basically, if a person with mental illness is confronted by a reality that shatters the comforting lies with which he has cocooned himself, he shatters, both mentally and emotionally.

Donald Trump appears to be in a state of decompensation and seemingly can no longer sustain the pretense of being a functional person able to interact with others.

Yesterday was remarkable enough. In a pre-planned meltdown (and one apparently vigorously opposed by his aides) he declared that he would not be interacting with Congress on legislative negotiations at all until the investigations of himself were ended. That was astonishing.

He concluded this utter spectacle by declaring grandly, that he was “the most transparent president in history, who doesn’t do cover-ups.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the performance “jaw-dropping” and it’s pretty hard to take issue with that.

By way of example, three presidents before him have faced serious impeachment proceedings: Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. All three continued to do their jobs and even on the eve of impeachment votes, continued back-and-forths with Congress regarding major legislation. They had a job to do, and they all had the courage and character to do the job, no matter how bleak their political futures appeared.

He had already declared that investigating him was treasonous, and today he doubled down on that, declaring that James Comey, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe were the traitors he had in mind. The reporter asking him that added, “Sir, the Constitution says treason is punishable by death. You’ve accused your adversaries of treason. Who are you talking about?” Trump didn’t seem to have any problem with the inference that he would want to have those four individuals put to death.

At a rally last night, he declared that William Barr, his lickspittle and contemptible Attorney General, was “looking into” investigating Trump’s political foes.

This is Nazi dictator stuff that is happening here.

Trump’s entire world is collapsing. He is a man who not only has lived a lie, but has been an utter lie since he was about three years old. He loudly proclaimed (and presumably believed) that he was a great businessman and one of the best negotiators on Earth. In the past fortnight, a stunning investigative piece by the New York Times revealed that not only was he a poor businessman, but in terms of money lost, the worst businessman in America over a ten-year span. Despite his efforts to utterly stonewall all investigations, Congress has his bank records from Wells Fargo and TD banks; Rex Tillerson gave hours of secret testimony about his pathetic meetings with Vladimir Putin, and he is losing court case after court case, unable to even use litigation as a delaying tactic.

Imagine the thing in your life that most defines you as a person, and is something your entire self-respect and self-image relies upon. Maybe you know it’s a lie, and maybe you don’t, but suddenly, you are totally and utterly exposed in such a way that the whole world knows about it. This is far worse than dreams about no pants in school, or getting caught downloading porn of 14 year olds. This is something that utterly smashes your entire public persona.

That’s what happened to Trump.

Now, I’m not trying to present him sympathetically. His is a tawdry, sordid, vicious life in which he has coldly and even joyfully hurt and cheated many people. He was utter sociopathic scum before he became president.

He also had Nazi proclivities. During the campaign, people warned that his bedside reading material consisted of one book: “My New Order” by Adolf Hitler. He admitted to this readily enough, but claimed that it was OK because the person who loaned him the book was Jewish. (He wasn’t, and it doesn’t exactly explain why Trump would fixate on a book that, along with many of Hitler’s speeches, provided a step-by-step description of how he attained and consolidated his power.) Even without Trump’s blatantly and viciously anti-Semitic, racist, bullying and dishonest tactics, the fact that he would put in considerable amount of his time studying this particular book is deeply disturbing.

So we have a President who is a sociopath and deeply admires a murderous long-dead dictator, and has a self-evident trait of finding and wanting to kill scapegoats. His actions in the wake of Puerto Rico’s hurricane should have put us all on notice: he doesn’t mind killing people.

Now all the rest of his defenses are crumbling. He is losing court case after court case, and even some Republicans are beginning to distance themselves from Trump. One, a Michigan representative, Justin Amash, called for impeachment hearings, meaning that Trump will want to try and execute him for treason. Pelosi is openly goading him into overreacting to the point where even Congress will have to consider removing him, not through impeachment, but on 25th Amendment grounds. She called on the GOP, his cabinet and his aides to stage an intervention, the way you might with a nephew who just got popped for drunk driving for the third time.

The worst of it is that Trump has toadies in Congress such as McConnell who will do nothing to stop Trump. He has frantically populated the Justice Department and the courts with stooges, and doubtlessly hopes his two appointments to the Supreme Court might shield him. It’s horrifying to realize that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh might do just that; they never were anyone’s idea of independent and impartial jurists, and Trump loves to use the Russian tactic of kompromat; who’s to say what he has on those two? It’s unlikely he would have named either without a file with nasty personal information.

Make no mistake: facing utter personal and professional ruin, Trump is at his most dangerous. He is capable of casually horrific acts; now he has, from his perspective, unlimited reason to employ such tactics.

Brace yourselves, people: the next chapter in this story is going to be very, very ugly, and quite dangerous.

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Aborting America – “Pro Life” shows its pro-death face

May 15th 2019

Imagine if some religious cult sprang up that declared that cancer was God’s way of calling his children home, and thus it was a sin to do anything to treat cancer. Thus anyone trying to eliminate cancer, including the removal of tumors, should be punished, up to 99 years in prison.

If that sounds pretty whack-a-doodle, reflect on the strange things the mainstream religions in America teach. Bible literalists have to believe such utter nonsense as the talking snake story in Genesis, the Ark story, and the sun holding still in the sky for three days. Non-literalists have to accept such oddities as virgin births, miracles, and power of prayer as being a real thing.

So having a group rising up and declaring that blastomas are an expression of God’s love and must be protected at all costs really isn’t all that far fetched.

That there is no biblical basis for such a belief is pretty irrelevant. After all, ‘God’s Will’ has been used to justify most wars, even against other Christian enemies, an unending bitter strife over mostly worthless land in the middle east, slaughter of indigenous tribes in Africa and the Americas, and even the massacre of cats in Europe (led to the plagues, that, as the rodent population exploded). Jewish and Islamic countries have (and still have) similar atrocities stemming from similar beliefs. Indeed, many of the worst elements of religious savagery in all three main faiths stem from the same source—the Mosaic Law of what Christians call the Old Testament.

But religious-based lunacy can exist independently of weird texts translated hundreds of different times that were originally written by people who didn’t know the Earth was a globe or that lobsters weren’t fish.

This leads to the abortion movement. In America, the Catholic Church always opposed abortion on grounds similar to my hypothetical pro-cancer faith; they thought all human seed was sacred, an expression of divine love, and thus it was a sin to waste seed. At various times and in various places, the church punished and even executed men for the ‘sin’ of masturbation.

When fundamentalists glommed on to the notion of stopping abortion in the wake of Roe v Wade, they brought their own brand of fundamentalist lunacy to the table. Every zygote possessed a soul and was an expression of God’s will.

Years ago, I came across a ‘public service announcement’ put out by some of the religious lunatics that featured an animation of a full-term baby being aborted, and as she (curly blonde hair and pink bow in her hair, the way most female babies are born) is dying, she’s screaming “Mommy! Mommy! Why are you doing this to me? Don’t you LOVE me?”

I laughed at the sheer absurdity of that cartoon, but here we are, 30 years later, and millions of Americans believe a truly savage blood libel spread by Republicans and Fox News that babies—real, actual babies—are being aborted after they are born because that is what Roe v Wade demands.

John Oliver had a clip of some intellectual abortion standing in the Alabama Legislature, droning on about “Baby Fetus” and even providing supposed quotes from this etymological absurdity. Two days later, Alabama passed a draconian law banning all abortion and providing life sentences to anyone performing or getting an abortion.

There’s an old saying: “People who can be persuaded to believe absurdities can be led to commit atrocities.”

It’s not even Biblical. The Bible doesn’t mention abortion, although it does condone ripping babies from the wombs of the women of vanquished foes and dashing their brains out against a rock. The New Testament has nothing to say about abortion, even though Nazareth had no shortage of midwifes who had abortifacient herbs and crude tools to physically induce abortion. Further, in many levels of society in that time and place, it wasn’t uncommon for female babies to be drowned or used to break rocks because female children were expensive and of limited use. For some reason, Jesus never did have an opinion on that.

Dressed up as a religious and moral crusade, the anti-abortion movement is neither. It doesn’t really care about “the life of a child,” as witness the fact that few if any of the people running the movement have any provisions whatsoever for the care and feeding of these involuntary children, or helping the mothers in any significant way, or otherwise assuming any responsibility.

It is, instead, a naked authoritarian power grab. It places a large segment of the female population in a precarious role where they can be effectively enslaved, either by pregnancy or the mere fear of pregnancy. If Alabama’s law is allowed to stand, the move will be on to ban birth control of all kinds. In the name of God, of course.

It’s a political movement, as well. The brownshirts of the GOP have long used the religiously insane as a handy bludgeon to enforce their more authoritarian dictates, such as enforced worship of the police and military, and to justify discrimination and segregation.

And if you take a look at the states joining the rush to knock down Roe v. Wade, with the exception of Ohio, all are in southern states with long histories of repressive authoritarians backed by the iron dictates of corrupt pastors.

It’s time to recognize the ‘pro-life’ for what it is: it’s not pro-anything. It’s anti-women, anti-choice, anti-individual, and anti-freedom. It opposes everything America stands for, including the right for every person not to have someone else’s religious dictates imposed upon them. No woman should be enslaved by some politician lying about God’s will. Nobody should have to follow the religious taboos of some church if they don’t want.

They are anti-America, and should be treated, not as voices of some god, but as enemies to American rights and freedoms.

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Biden His Time – Trump’s gone fishing

May 12th, 2019

Yesterday, Rudy Giuliani called Trump’s Attorney General, William Barr, “independent, brilliant and honest.” Translated from Giulianese into Realspeak, that means that Barr is a servile flunky, dull-witted, and corrupt. Translating Giuliani is pretty easy, as it turns out. Just take whatever he says and invert it. Black is actually white, up is down, and Trump is wisdom and integrity personified.

But then after about five minutes of speaking, Giuliani’s 32 kilobits of RAM is depleted, his buffer is empty, and the inadvertent truths start tumbling out. His eyes go blank, he starts sweating profusely, and Fauxnews suddenly has to go to commercial.

He is the face of an administration that exists on typos, lies and cruelty. He’s a perfect match.

So why is he yakking about the Barrbarous One, anyway?

Well, Rudy managed to get his tail in a real crack this week. He planned to travel to the Ukraine as part of a mission to dig up dirt on the present leader of the Democratic thundering herd, Joe Biden.

Well, not Joe, actually. His son, Hunter. Hunter Biden.

Now, Hunter isn’t an angel. He got popped for cocaine in 2014 and got kicked out of the Naval Reserve as a result. He also joined the board of Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies, Burisma Holdings, owned by Mykola Zlochevsky. Burisma in general and Zlochevsky in particular have been under a dark cloud of official suspicion of corruption for years, culminating in the Serious Fraud Office of the British government seizing some $23 million in Zlochevsky’s assets.

However, doing a fraud investigation on a Ukraine company is a bit like fishing for a particular turd in a septic tank. It’s dark, and there’s nothing to make a particular turd stand out. The Crown, confronted with systematic intransigence from the Ukraine government, eventually abandoned the investigation, unlocking the assets and paying the legal bills. That removed the legal liability, but not the suspicion. To give you some idea of how bad things are in the Ukraine, Zlochevsky, president of a natural gas company, had been the Minister of Ecology under the now-exiled Viktor Yanukovych.

It’s nearly as bad in the Ukraine as it is in Trumpistan, the former United States.

It doesn’t help that Hunter has close associations with Morgan Stanley and other Wall Street outfits. That doesn’t reassure as regards his business ethics and scruples. He’s was also banging his late brother’s widow after the brother, Beau, died. He proclaimed his love publicly, but this still had a fairly high element of creepiness about it. They broke up earlier this month, just about the time Daddy announced he was running for President. Pure coincidence, I’m sure.

Since the Ukraine activities ceased, he founded a hedge fund in China called Bohai Harvest RST, and the three billion dollar fund has involvement in various unsavory activities, such as mass surveillance and harassment of Moslems in China.

So it’s not too unreasonable to have questions about the activities of Hunter Biden.

But there’s never been any evidence that Joe Biden was involved in any of this. Indeed, as this was going on, his other son, Beau, was dying of brain cancer, which ensured Joe’s attention was elsewhere.

But the Ukraine thing was four years ago. Investigations went nowhere, and that particular turd eventually decomposed.

But now this month, Giuliani planned to go to the Ukraine in hopes the present Ukraine government could dig up some dirt on Joe Biden. It’s illegal to solicit campaign interference from a foreign government, but Giuliani probably looked at Trump and figured that if the President does it, it must be legal, and blabbed his intentions to the press.

I think the poor fool was honestly amazed at the reaction he got. In any event, he hurriedly canceled the trip, blaming Democrats and, weirdly, the Ukrainians.

Well, lo and fucking behold, here comes that Lion of Liars, the Parson of Persiflage, the Trumpty of Dumpty, Captain Pissmop himself, who declares grandly that Hunter Biden’s activities in the Ukraine need to be investigated, and is ordering his Attorney General, the “independent, brilliant and honest” William Barr, to open an investigation.

Yes, four years after the fact, and long after other investigations had closed on the matter.

Trump obviously feels that nobody should be near the White House who may have solicited illegal campaign meddling from foreign governments and been involved in shady financial dealings in the countries run by such governments. Why, to Trump, such a horrible situation was totally unthinkable.

So that’s why Giuliani was suddenly calling the sluggish William Barr “independent, brilliant and honest.” He needs some cover, and having Trump’s pet oaf of an A-G throw shade at Biden by attacking his son struck him as wise and patriotic (remember to translate from Giuliani to realspeak, now).

The remarkable speed with which Trump came up with the notion of having Barr investigate Hunter Biden tells us this: Trump originally told Giuliani to go to the Ukraine and get dirt from their government on the son of the now-leading Democrat he might have to face in 2020. If Trump hadn’t already known about it, he would have done what he usually does when Rudy does something exceptionally stupid and unexpected, and just left him to twist in the wind. The fact that he overreacted so quickly tells us he’s looking to cover his own ass, at least to the extent that he’ll give Rudy enough cover that Rudy won’t panic and blow the whistle on Trump.

And we think the Ukraine is corrupt.

If I ever run into Robert Mueller, I’m going to have to ask him what bait he uses to go fishing in the Trumpistan septic tank for a particular turd.

Well, Mueller will be appearing before Congress later this month. I don’t guess he’ll have any thoughts on Hunter Biden, but he will tell us about life in Septic Washington.

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There was music in the cafés at night – And revolution in the air

May 7th 2019

It’s a bit strange right now, comparing the headlines in the news with the general calm in the population at large. Trump and the Republicans are actively staging a coup against the United States, and seemingly inviting a revolt with their open sneers at the Constitution and rule of law.

But for now, people are just going about their business, outside of the cable stations and general media. Folks watched Game of Thrones the other night, and if they drew any correlations between Cersei and Trump, they didn’t speak of it. John Oliver did discuss what he calls “Stupid Watergate,” but the balance of his show was on the topic of lethal injections.

Some people are watching closely, of course. Even a majority of Americans are watching now. In the cesspools of Faux News, the viewers and readers are being assured that this is a plot against the wildly successful, patriotic and deeply Christian Donald Trump by Democrats seeking revenge for the Clinton impeachment or something. They have succeeded in making their audience so self-isolated that they can tell them anything, no matter how objectively ridiculous it is.

Just to show how insular and divorced from the mainstream this Republican cult really is, a fellow named James McDaniel set up a fake ‘right wing news’ website that featured stories of Hillary Clinton sacrificing children and Barack Obama running a secret coup from an underground bunker in Washington DC. He then promoted the site on actual right wing sites, mostly by forwarding his fake news stories.

In just two weeks, his site received a million unique visits, and hundreds of thousands of likes and shares. He said, “If I wrote about CNN being fake news and connected to ISIS, readers would agree wholeheartedly with my fabricated article. If I wrote about a black liberal or Obama supposedly saying something controversial, the response was unbridled racism and hatred. When I wrote about Hillary Clinton’s new emails that proved she was a child sacrificing maniac, people screamed for her head.”

Alarmed by the type of response he was getting, he posted a message saying everything on the site was fake, and added a disclaimer to every news story. Didn’t help. He wound up parking the page because right wingers kept right on believing the fake news stories.

So it’s not surprising that about 35% of the population has been brainwashed into supporting what amounts to open treason against the United States. But what’s going on with the rest of America?

In light of the Mueller report, in which the redacted version shows such a vast array of criminality and corruption on the part of Trump that over 700 federal prosecutors have signed a document stating that the evidence was so compelling that anyone who was not a sitting president would be facing multiple indictments right now, his popularity has actually improved somewhat, from a -16 on the aggregate polls in late January to a -10 now. Fully 78% of Republican voters believe the Mueller Report cleared Trump of any wrongdoing. Pfft! What do 700 federal prosecutors know, anyway?

Part of this response, ironically, is a tendency of people to ‘rally round the flag’; the thinking, if that’s the word for it, is that our president is under attack, and we must forget our partisan differences and defend the country. If you think that it requires a stunning level of ignorance to achieve that mindset, you are in a minority; relatively few Americans know who William Barr is, or even Mitch McConnell. These vaguely ‘support the President’ sorts take pride in “not paying attention to that political stuff” so all they know, in a dim sort of way, is that Congress and the President are having some sort of tiff, and it’s along party lines. They know who Trump is, but Jerry Nadler is just some Democratic politician they never heard of, so they side with Trump. And they are lacking the intellectual and educational tools needed to understand just how serious Trump’s defiance of the Constitution is, and how grave the consequences for them might be if he should succeed in his drive to become a dictator.

That still leaves over half the voting population of the US unaccounted for. And one of the strangest things about the coverage of all this is the utter lack of attention to what the voting public thinks about all this. Outside of the right wing sewers, media response is all but unanimous and vociferous: rule of law must be upheld, Trump must be held to account. But you can search the web in vain for reports of any outcry amongst the public. The aggregate polling sites ask if people think Mueller ‘cleared’ Trump or not, but not how the feel about what is going on. Activists sites such as MoveOn are rabid about the contempt Trump is showing for America, but not discussing actions outside of the power of the subpoena.

It’s perplexing. In just about any other country, a situation like this would result in massive rallies in every city, and talk of general strikes. Hotheads would be discussing revolution, and broadcasters would be urging calm.

Let me be clear: nobody sane wants a revolution, and I’m talking about rallies, not riots. (I don’t trust the right not to stage riots, either on their own behalf or provoking riots at rallies just for purposes of ratfucking the rest of us). But the country is in a very clear and immediate danger, and if Trump wins this, the only likely outcomes will read like the plotline from Game of Thrones. We can either move peacefully now and help save America from Trump and the Republicans, or face far less palatable options later on.

Why the ongoing silence?

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Barrbarian Rhatsophy – Barr belongs in jail—next to Trump

May 2nd 2019

William Barr, career criminal and putative top cop of the country, refused to show up before the House for testimony on the Mueller report today. Some wag on the Democratic side replaced the doughy and misshapen Trump stooge with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was an improvement, insofar as the bucket of chicken at least promised to provide some content.

The Republicans, who have descended below the level of kindergarteners in trouble with the teacher, tried blaming the Democrats for Barr’s refusal to testify. One major moron in waiting, Doug Collins, a Republican of Georgia, opined that “The reason Bill Barr is not here today is because the Democrats decided they did not want him here today.”

See? It was all the Democrats fault! Why, they wanted to ask Barr questions about his contradictions and lies, and to explain why Mueller was so pissed at him. That’s all. I’m sure there were reasonable explanations.

Other Republicans blamed Hillary Clinton because they couldn’t think of anything else to say. After all, it’s not like they would ever force Clinton to testify for 11 hours in response to loaded, ideological and dishonest questions. Given the perfect fairness and civility Republicans showed, is it too much to ask that Barr be given a pass?

Perhaps the best rationale came from the perjurer-in-chief, who is of the opinion that the suspect in a criminal trial should be free to refuse to be questioned by authorities if he felt the questions might be biased against him or cause embarrassment.

OK, fair point. When the LAPD asked Charlie Manson if he stuck a fork in Sharon Tate’s belly, that showed great insensitivity and even some microaggression on the part of the police. Better a mass murderer should be allowed to run free rather than to have to deal with impolite and even overbearing police!

Only an overprivileged moron like Trump could, with his bare face hanging out, demand the right for a suspect in a criminal investigation to determine what questions he might have to answer.

And poor Donald has so many other distractions to deal with. Both his nominees to the Fed imploded over the past couple of days, one because he couldn’t handle his household finances, let alone a world economy, and the other because he was the most stupid fucking bastard this side this side of a pile of dog shit. Indeed, Trump nominees implode with such regularity and to such comic effect that it reminds you of that episode of “Russian Doll” where the protagonist dies a couple of dozen times in the space of five minutes. Or Sideshow Bob with the garden rakes.

Now that the clown rodeo has closed for the day and there’s no longer any doubt that Barr is a criminal Trump stooge, the question arises: what is congress going to do about it? Even Pelosi flat-out called Barr’s actions criminal. Dozens of Democrats want him punished: arrest or impeachment, or both.

Make it march, guys. Arrest the guy. If he quits and thus can’t be impeached, he’s still going to face criminal charges. And Trump is starting to realize that the power of the pardon is a dangerous tool, as witness the fact that even as he was schmoozing with the psychotic murderers of the NRA, and despite Vladimir Putin’s howls of outrage, he was letting Maria Butina rot in jail.

If Congress orders Barr’s arrest for contempt of Congress and perjury before Congress, Trump may not dare intervene.

In fact, Trump being Trump, he’ll probably start calling Barr weak, stupid, fat, and a host of other adjectives, and create an enemy where he had an ally. We’ve seen him do that dozens of times before, with Sessions, Cohen, Manafort, and Ryan. It’s a gift, I tell you.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is threatening to sue to prevent Mueller from testifying before Congress. Think about that: the DoJ appointed Mueller to do exactly what he did, with the intent of giving his report to Congress, and now they are suing themselves to prevent Mueller from giving his report to Congress. It’s the sort of clownery you expect from inept authoritarian regimes, whether Rufus T. Firefly or Donald J. Trump.

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Mueller to Pissmop – Yes, you are fucked

April 19th 2019

Back on May 17, 2017, Confederate Pixie and then-AG Jeff Sessions told Trump that Rod Rosenstein had just appointed Robert Mueller to be a special prosecutor looking into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump slumped, and said, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”

It’s a side of Trump we don’t see very often: the one that is capable of doing an honest and forthright analysis of a situation. Usually all we get from him is demented and hateful gibberish, a trashy and despicable President playing to a trashy and despicable base.

Much has been made of Trump’s reaction. Not in the morally upside down world of the Republicans, where if Obama had said ‘fucked’ they would have impeached him for using cusswords in the White House. However, Republicans normally would think it’s OK for Trump to do so because he’s bravely fighting immoral people who might say “fuck” in the White House. But they’ve been strangely silent for other reasons.

Trump’s reaction is, prima facie, the reaction of a man who knows he is guilty. It’s the kid snapping his hands behind his back as the teacher walks in the room, the husband slapping off the computer screen as the wife walks in, the guy turning his face away as a police cruiser goes by. It’s not an admission of guilt, but it is the reaction of someone who is guilty.

The rest of the report, even Bawdlerized by Barr, makes it amply clear that Trump repeatedly and knowingly obstructed justice. There’s at least a dozen felony actions by Trump detailed in the report.

And yes, Mueller felt the Department of Justice could not indict a sitting president, and that only the House, through the power of impeachment, could do so. He strongly urged the House to do so, since he believes that no man is above the law—or in Trump’s case, in the sewers below the law.

We now know that in an action that is a felony in and of itself, Barr conferred with the Trump administration on what to censor in the report. Barr needs to be indicted and prosecuted for tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice, and die in jail.

But what we’re seeing now is what Trump felt he could get away with the public knowing. He has utter contempt for the resolve of the American people or their ability to stand up to an self-entitled millionaire autocrat. We do not yet know what remains hidden in the report.

Yes, there’s no doubt that some is hidden for legitimate cause; because it may interfere with other ongoing investigations. (Remember how war criminal and traitor Oliver North was able to skate because of Congress’ reckless release of evidence from a grand jury?) And there may be items that could harm national security if made public.

But this is the corrupt, self-centered and morally bankrupt Trump dictating to his loathsome toady of an Attorney-General what should not be allowed into the public eye. There remains stuff the public is entitled to know, and it’s probably the worst stuff of all. Congress must get the full, unredacted report. I’m happy to say the Congressional subpoena has been issued.

While other legal investigations into Trump’s tawdry life continue, the political battle is now joined.

Some Democrats are still saying it’s too early to consider impeachment. One of them is a presidential candidate, Cory Brooker. In a bizarre show of equivocation, he is saying that Congress should not impeach until the evidence is in, apparently unaware that impeachment is the gathering and evaluation of evidence of presidential misconduct.

He eliminated himself from any support from myself with that statement. What is the point in replacing Trump with a man who was unable to stand up against Trump when the time came to do so. What do we gain from replacing Trump with someone who is afraid of Trump?

We’re hearing the usual political arguments against impeachment hearings, of course. “Democrats are cowards and won’t start a fight they can’t win.”

Well, yes, some Democrats are cowards. And some, like Brooker, are just far too fond of political calculation. But if the Democrats aren’t willing to join this battle now that the time has come to begin fighting, then they will not win in 2020, or ever again.

There were politicians in England and France who, even after Hitler’s invasion of Poland, urged against a declaration of war against the dictator because Hitler had a massive military and England and France were too weak to beat him. In fact, that was the case, but the politicians who still urged appeasement are forgotten to history, because because while they were right in terms of the immediate situation, they were so horribly, horribly wrong on the bigger picture.

Dems who argue that impeachment must not happen because Republican will never support it need to realize that we’ve passed the Polish invasion point of the opposition to Trump, and that political headcounting no longer protects.

Republicans can also count heads, and some of them are cowards. They know, first hand, the political calculus of an impeachment, and how it can blow up in their faces. But they also know that this is a whole lot bigger than the man in the White House lying about getting a blow job. Trump is a felon hundreds of times over, and a serious and immediate threat to the continued existence of the United States. To not act is treason.

Even the redacted Mueller report makes it clear that we are at the point where we must impeach. We’re long past any reasonable excuse to let the Trump regime continue.

Yes, Pissmop: You are fucked.

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Trumpanazi – American descent into Nazism continues

April 13th 2019

The Premier League of Britain has a problem with some of its fans. Granted, footies have never been a particularly sedate lot, sometimes preferring to discuss the friendly rivalry between clubs with clubs, or chains, or shivs.

There have always been racist and bigoted assholes in their ranks, who delight in throwing bananas at black players, or shouting some of the particularly lurid racial abuse that is the hallmark of British hooligans.

But in recent times, the nature and frequency of these attacks has sharply increased. WestHam United is in the process of banning fans who videoed themselves singing racist ditties about the Jewish players on that night’s match rival, Tottenham. Two days earlier, Chelsea supporters sang anti Moslem chants about a player in Slavia Prague, and attacked one of their own fans who objected to the vile chants. And on the same night, Arsenal fans screamed anti-Islamic abuse at players on the other club, in a match in the Emirates. Those fans were lucky; most Islamic countries have notoriously little patience for slurs against Allah or his followers. Public whipping is the local equivalent of community service.

Of course, it isn’t just soccer. The number of such incidents has been on the rise throughout Europe and in North America. In Québec, a player, Jonathan Diaby, a 24-year-old defenseman for Marquis de Jonquière of the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey, and his family who were watching him play were subjected to such intense racial abuse from the filth in the stands that he was pulled from the game and he and his family escorted from the stadium for their own safety.

And unfortunately, it’s not just sports where this is happening.

Nazism—and let’s stop pretending it’s anything other than Nazism—has been on the rise, and emboldened by political power in many parts of Europe and the United States, Nazis come out from under their rocks in force. This is how they behave when they think they can get away with it.

It’s a phenomenon that puts us all at risk. Yes, even if you are a member of the so-called ‘master race’, male, and Christian. It’s not a political philosophy, not that such are especially coherent or good at attending to the interests of their own followers. It’s a mental illness, and an ethical vacuum using hate as a substitute for faith and strength. It eventually destroys everything in its path.

Hitler famously executed 12 million people, including six million Jews, between 1936 and 1945. No matter what the Nazis say, that happened. And among the six million he killed who were not Jewish, many were white, ‘pureblood’ Germans, who happened to be communist, socialist, atheist, liberal, intellectual, or just not approving of Nazism’s murderous tactics. And of course, the actual fighting killed even more of the very people who supported Hitler, beginning with the Brownshirts. Nazis killed many people, and resulted in many more being dead.

So if you’re sitting there watching Faux News, smug in the certain knowledge that Trump and his ilk will only target groups you hate, read some history. He’ll get you killed, too, one way or another. If you don’t flunk some unseen test for ideological purity, you’ll die in the fighting, or in the starvation after Trump and his kind have destroyed the country and the economy. You are as much at risk as any Hispanic immigrant, or Moslem, or African American. Your death may just be later, rather than sooner.

Hitler was able to con the German people—his followers—into believing he was acting on their behalf. The war nearly destroyed them, but even without the war, he would have gotten around to putting them in work camps and then death camps after he used up all the groups he hated and needed to feed bodies to the endless maw of his nationalistic ego. The millions who died because of him are nothing compared to the hundreds of millions he envisioned killing.

Trump—and there really is little difference between Trump and Hitler at this point—doesn’t even pretend to be addressing the needs of his followers. His “tax reform” was a vicious cheat that targeted the lower middle class, the source of much of his following. He proposes to make massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and to dismantle what remains of Obamacare. Probably about three quarters of the people who voted for him will be hurt by those proposals. Many will be killed.

But Trump doesn’t care. They served their purpose. They voted for him once. Like Hitler, that one election is all he needs. Once he consolidated power, Hitler’s only use for ‘the common man’ was that of cannon fodder.

Trump is trying to stage a coup against the United States now. He purged the department of Homeland Security last week, leaving the reptilian spawn of Goebbels, Stephen Miller in effective control of an organization capable of jailing millions. The bitch who threw children in cages wasn’t vicious enough for Trump, you see. He is defying Congress on its request for his taxes—a demand Congress unequivocally has a right to issue. He is using his lapdog Barr to try to bury the Mueller report, and its doubtlessly damning contents.

He tried to threaten ‘sanctuary’ cities with sending them what he considers to be animals and subhumans—immigrants. To the credit of the American people, most of those cities said they would welcome Trump’s castoffs. And his goosestepping followers won’t even stop to consider the mad logic behind protecting America from immigrants by sending immigrants to major American cities. Bigotry and hatred don’t run on logic.

He’s attacking a member of Congress for her Islamic faith. He tweeted twice a falsehood that she was dismissive of the attacks on 9/11. Never mind that Trump rejoiced in the attacks, claiming that it left him with the tallest building in New York City. (It’s a truism that when Trump attacks someone, he almost always ends up describing his own behavior). Equating someone with 9/11 for no other reason than that they are Moslem is exactly the same as claiming that Jews like to drink the blood of Christian babies, or that African Americans live only to rape white girls.

They are blood libels, these threats and smears. It’s the sort of thing you expect to hear from Nazi filth.

And it’s what we now hear from the President of the United States.

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Stumping for Beni – Trump disgraces himself, again

April 6th, 2019

A lot of American Jews will doubtlessly be surprised to learn that Donald Trump considers Benjamin Netanyahu to be their “Prime Minister.” He was talking to the American Republican Jewish Coalition Leadership, but in fairness, Trump may not have been entirely aware that these were supposed to be American Jews and not Israeli Jews, as he went on to say, “If implemented, the Democrats’ radical agenda would destroy our economy, cripple our country, and very well could leave Israel out there all by yourselves. Can’t do that.”

Yeah. “Yourselves.” It isn’t the first time Trump has used the trope that Jews all have divided loyalties and it won’t be the last. Even as he, and the Republican party at large, condemn Ilhan Omar, the Islamic Congresswoman from Minnesota for hinting that Jews have divided loyalties for saying that AIPAC has undue influence on Congress.

He was promoting a GOP strategy called “Jexit.” It’s a clever-ish play on words, based on “Brexit” and the reasoning is that because Trump says Democrats hate Jews, there is a mass migration from the Democratic Party to the GOP. Must be true: in 2016 the Democrats got 72% of the Jewish vote, and in 2018 they got 78%. See? Oh, wait.

Then there’s that term: Jexit. Republicans may be the only carbon based lifeforms on Earth that think Brexit was a sound strategy and something desirable for their allies to emulate. Right now the UK is staggering, red-eyed, pasty, doughy and slurring her words, and town drunks are stopping her in the street and saying, “Are you OK? You really should see a doctor, you know?” And Brexit hasn’t even happened yet. The UK could go from being “the poor man of Europe” to “the Somalia of Europe.”

I think it’s a safe bet that a very large majority of American Jews do not consider Netanyahu to be their prime minister, and aren’t eager to pursue a strategy named for the biggest national own goal in history. Yes, even worse than America electing Trump.

Even Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson, perhaps the only two Jews in Las Vegas that Trump actually gives a wet shit about, have to be looking at today’s performance and wondering how far this can ride this spivened old nag of a President before he finally collapses from dementia or gets kicked out of office.

Trump apparently was advised that his father was not born in Germany, but in New York City, and people were wondering about his mental faculties as a result of his recent claims. So he put the rumors to rest by noting his father was born in Brooklyn. The only problem was that Fred wasn’t born in Brooklyn. He was born in the Bronx, just as Donald was.

“Are you OK? You really should see a doctor, you know?”

By now convinced that the speech was going swimmingly and he had his audience in the palm of his hand, he decided to do a little bit of hate mongering, and told the crowd, “A special thanks to Representative Omar of Minnesota.” The audience of Republicans obligingly booed. Trump continued,

“Oh, I forgot. She doesn’t like Israel, I forgot, I’m sorry. No, she doesn’t like Israel, does she? Please, I apologize.”

At least now we know under what circumstances Trump will say, “I apologize.” It’s when he is doing a heavy handed and lame effort at sarcasm, not a good look on a man who possesses no actual sense of humor.

His timing was a bit off, though. A New York clown, one Patrick W. Carlineo, was arrested today for calling Omar’s DC office and saying, “Do you work for the Muslim Brotherhood? Why are you working for her, she’s a fucking terrorist. I’ll put a bullet in her fucking skull.” Carlineo then proceeded to leave his contact info, because, you know, it’s OK to threaten to assassinate members of Congress if they happen to be non-Christian.

I’m guessing this brain donor is a) aTrump fan, and b) not Jewish. Any takers?

But it reminds people that the hateful crap Trump spews is putting lives at risk. Hell, the stupid bastard can’t even ingratiate himself with groups he wants as allies without indulging in harmful stereotypes. Hint, Donald: American Jews are not secret agents of Israel. They don’t drink the blood of Christian babies, either. You might want to write that on the back of your hand, along with the word “Bronx.”

I don’t think he advanced the cause of Jexit. If only Britain had called the Brexit referendum, ‘Gallipoli II.’ Same positive connotations, you know.

The executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), Halie Soifer said: “We strongly denounce President Trump’s continued assault on decency and truth, as was evident in his speech earlier today before the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas.”

I suspect he was speaking for what now has to be more than 78% of Jewish voters in America.

As for Trump, a lot of people wondered why he would schedule a speech to a Jewish audience on a Saturday morning. It was, after all, Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. It occurred right after sundown in Israel, when television stations could broadcast his speech live. Israel has a general election in three days.

It’s possible that there were some Jews in the audience who DO have divided loyalties. They would be a tiny minority of the American Jewish population, but they do exist. The GOP tends to attract people like that.

But it’s certain that one person in that room does have divided loyalties, and with many different counties. Including, despite his well-known distaste for Jews, Israel.

That would be Donald Trump, once again accusing others of things he does.

Maybe he thinks Netanyahu was born in Brooklyn. Or Germany. You know, one of those New York resorts.

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Gorsuch Nonesuch – He’s our bear to cross

March 30th, 2019

Alleged Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil “Son of Anne” Gorsuch is one of four members of the court who are pretty much indistinguishable from one another. The other three are Clarence “Slappy” Thomas, Samuel “Little Scalia” Alito, and Brett “Hold My Beer” Kavanaugh. They are all members of the Federalist Society, breeding ground for right-wing lice and essentially just the John Birch Society with a makeover and more money. All four are corporatists, authoritarians, and, typically of authoritarians, profess strong religious beliefs.

Of course, authoritarians always stand foursquare for religious supremacy, since there’s nothing like religion to compel obedience from the masses. The entire GOP is hag-ridden with toy despots who love to chant “God is with us” (“Got Mitt Uns”) and disparage the rest of America as socialist atheist Moslem Jews.

Like most of his ilk, Gorsuch regards ‘separation of church and state’ to be a doctrinal error forced upon Americans by a liberal elite.

In the infamous Hobby Lobby case, which ruled employers were free to cheat their employees out of birth control, even when offered at no cost to the employer, Gorsuch said it, “was not, is not, the place of courts of law to question the correctness or the consistency of tenets of religious faith, only to protect the exercise of faith.” It stands as a really excellent reason why employers should have no say in employee health care—at all. Who wants to have their life ruined by a treatable condition just because the boss is a religious nut? That’s basically what the ruling permits.

Gorsuch once wrote in a decision, “[A]ll human beings are intrinsically valuable and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.” Note the use of the word ‘private’. The state must always be allowed to kill at will. It’s the Dominionist theology in a nutshell; it’s not piety that drives them; it’s authoritarianism.

Only Gorsuch knows if he subscribes to Dominionist philosophy or not. Dominionists believe that the United States is subservient to the will of god, and that Holy Writ supercedes secular law. Gorsuch has made it clear he believes in freedom of religion, in that religion is free to avail itself of public assets and impose its will on others, and he is absolutely silent on the doctrine of freedom from religion, the right not to be subject to church doctrine and church costs.

There’s a pair of cases pending before the court right now,  American Legion v. American Humanist Association and Maryland–National Capital Park and Planning Commission v. American Humanist Association. 

The subject of the case is the Peace Cross, a forty-foot tall granite cross that sits on a small patch of land in Bladensburg, Maryland at the crux (no pun intended—OK, I lied, it was intentional) of a three way major intersection in the town. The cross was erected between 1919 and 1925 (six years to do what the Romans could do in six minutes) on what then was private land. While the monument was purportedly to honor the 49 residents of Bladensburg who died in the Great War, the purpose was unabashedly religious. Donors were required to sign a card before even being allowed to donate that read, “WE, THE CITIZENS OF MARYLAND, TRUSTING IN GOD, THE SUPREME RULER OF THE UNIVERSE, PLEDGE FAITH IN OUR BROTHERS WHO GAVE THEIR ALL IN THE WORLD WAR TO MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY. THEIR MORTAL BODIES HAVE TURNED TO DUST, BUT THEIR SPIRIT LIVES TO GUIDE US THROUGH LIFE IN THE WAY OF GODLINESS, JUSTICE, AND LIBERTY. WITH OUR MOTTO, ‘ONE GOD, ONE COUNTRY AND ONE FLAG,’ WE CONTRIBUTE TO THIS MEMORIAL CROSS COMMEMORATING THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO HAVE NOT DIED IN VAIN.” Yes, all upper case. Religionists do like to shout.

There must not have been enough religious louts floating around at the time because in 1922 the project ran out of both money and Christians, and the American Legion took it over. The Legionnaires had a lot of fun with their new toy, holding many religious services (all Christian, of course) and patriotic hootenannies on the Fourth of July and Memorial Day and the like.

But along about 1961, the city elders looked at that big old top heavy stone cross that sat in the middle of a heavily-trafficked intersection with vehicles running around the cross in a tight circle. Possibly, they reflected that it was erected on behalf of a deity with a long and colorful history of arbitrarily smiting people, and it being an era when government actually looked out for the welfare of the citizenry, decided it might be wise to prevent a sudden gust of wind from dispatching some of the town’s good Christian folk to whatever reward they had coming. So they bought the land from the Legionnaires (records don’t indicate the Legion was particularly upset about this) and started doing maintenance. The new owners, the Appellee Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, are a state agency and they have spent a cool $217,000 in tax dollars on that cross since 1961.

Right wingers like to howl that the suits exist only because the plaintiffs were “offended” and unfortunately, that idiotic argument does appear in the court filings. But in reality, and the reason it’s in front of the Supreme Court Biblebangers is because this unabashedly Christian icon is being maintained on the public dime.

Gorsuch has argued that nobody can sue on behalf of separation of church and state unless they have Standing—some sort of direct involvement in which they can show demonstrable loss or impairment of their rights.

Something R. Muse at Daily Kos wrote, “Gorsuch did, in fact, claim that any plaintiffs who challenge government establishment and endorsement of one specific religion should be banned from suing the government to force it to uphold the Constitution’s Establishment Clause. According to Gorsuch, there is no situation that allows any American to have ‘legal standing to challenge’ a Christian religious display on government property; something that is in fact establishing religion. He claims that because ‘their only injury is that they take offense’ at the religious display on taxpayer’s land, in his theocratic mind being offended is not enough to demand the government abide by the law of the land – any more than expecting Christian conservative justices to support, uphold, and decide cases based on the Constitution.”

It seems likely that Gorsuch, along with the other Court godpounders, will ignore the fact that the public is being forced to maintain a Christian icon, but instead focus on whether the offended have any rights. I kinda hope he does. If he rules that religious folk have a right to offend, then I might take up a fundraiser to buy a piece of property facing a prominent church and erect an 80-foot tall bronze statue of a naked Satan, complete with bifulcerated penis with little snake heads on each tip. It would be great for tourism. If the court rules that churches can use public lands to offend, then I’ll start a crowdfund for a 600 foot wide plush Flying Spaghetti Monster to drape over Half Dome in Yosemite, that as hikers walk pasta, they may gaze on His Noodley Appendages and marvel at the wisdom of humanity.

Of course, there is a simple and elegant solution that could have prevented this case in the first place. Just have the Commission sell the land to a private buyer—a consortium of the local churches, a fast food chain, whatever. They assume all costs and responsibilities (including potential flattening of passers-by) and they can have all their little services and whatnot on their own dime.

You see, most people aren’t offended by displays that are religious in nature. If you put up a Nativity in your front yard, I might, at worst, shrug and ignore you. If I think you’re just trying to wind me up, I might respond with a tasteful tableau from a favorite movie, say by Tarantino or Cronenberg or maybe even Larry Flint. I got a holy right to offend too, you know.

But as noted, it’s unlikely this Court will rule from piety. They simply want to assert power, and the best way to do that is by asserting a right to control the rest of us. And there’s nothing like religion to compel obedience from the masses.

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Baseball – The season begins, and I have a few suggestions for the future

March 28th 2019

The Dodgers clouted eight home runs in their opening game, setting a major league record (the poor Diamondbacks set an MLB record for most homers allowed in an opening game, and a franchise record for most homers allowed in a 9 inning game). As a Dodger fan, I was delighted, but as a baseball fan, it pointed out some troubling aspects. The game took 2:48 to play, and by today’s standards, that’s considered a fast game. The average is about 2:55. Three hours is common, and four hours happen about 10% of the time. That’s far too long to watch or listen to a game. Baseball needs to work on picking up the pace. Yes, the typical NFL game is over three and a half hours long and packs perhaps 20 minutes of actual action in that time, but that’s why I don’t follow football. It’s a slow, boring time waster. Baseball is actually faster and more exciting.

But look at real football. Ninety minutes, plus injury time, so a typical game is about 95 minutes, plus 15 minutes for the half time break. You sit down in the stadium at 1pm, and you’re on your way back out by ten to three. And it’s nearly all action.

But baseball couldn’t be changed that much without altering the game out of recognition. I’ll settle for formats that allow games to be played in 2 hours and 15 minutes.

To that end, I propose the following changes: limit breaks between half innings to a minute and thirty seconds. That’s plenty of time for the fielders to take their positions. If a guy can’t get from the home dugout to first base in ninety seconds, he’s too sick to be playing. That would shave 23 and a half minutes off each game right there. Right there a typical game is 2:31:30. The long breaks are for the benefit of the advertisers, not the fans, and with everything from the announcer’s booth to the entire stadium plastered with some sponsor’s name, and even game moments branded by butt creams (for relievers) to security firms (for stolen bases) the advertisers can give a little something back to the fans.

Twelve second time clock on pitches, if bases are empty. Pitcher can only shake off the catcher twice per pitch. From the moment the manager takes the baseball from a pitcher, the reliever only has 1:30 to throw his first pitch, unless brought in for injury and thus not warmed up.

No more than five relievers per team per game. So what happens if you’re in the 15th inning and your fifth reliever is in his third inning and his tank is empty? Simple. There are no more 15th innings.

A game that is tied after nine can go a maximum of 11 innings. If at that point, it’s tied, then it’s a draw. Use a point system like football or hockey, and give teams two points for a win, and one apiece for a tie. Why 11 innings? Stats show that 10% of games make it to the 10 inning, a bit over 5% to the 11th, and only 3% to the 12th. It wouldn’t affect the game that much. Obviously, the playoffs would permit unlimited innings to settle a game.

Those reforms would speed up the games. What about the season?

Spring training starts in mid February, and the final out of the World Series is late October. That’s a long haul, particularly given the amount of travel involved. Even the strongest players are suffering physical and emotional exhaustion by the end of it all. (Incidentally, stats show that teams that play five hour marathons often have reduced performance for up to a month afterward.)

Further, early spring games are afflicted by horrific weather, resulting in many rainouts and make-up games later in the season when neither team is fresh.

So we need to reduce the length of the season and/or wear and tear on the players, and here my suggestions will have a significant impact on the game, but not in a way that baseball hasn’t used before.

First, add two expansion teams (in the example I came up with, I suggested Montréal, Vancouver or Portland but there are other configurations) to have 32 teams. The teams would be divided up into four divisions of eight teams, regardless of present league. Cities with two teams would each have both in the same division. With one exception (Arizona) each team would be one time zone or less from every other team in its division. (Even that could be solved—drop the expansion to Vancouver or Portland, move AZ to the west, and give the South one of several cities fully capable of supporting an MLB franchise—San Antonio, Charlotte, Oklahoma City). There would be no interdivisional play—all the natural rivalries are already grouped together. Each team would play each other team 22 times during the season, for a total of 154 games. The present season is 162 games, but for the previous 90 years of its existence, MLB had a 154 game season. Spring training could be shortened to three weeks and begin around March 15th. Trust me, the mid February start doesn’t make spring come any faster. The regular season could begin around April 10th, and end the first week of October. Playoffs would be two tier—EAST champion against CENTRAL, SOUTH against WEST. The present system of ten teams in the playoffs is ridiculous: yes, a team that lost 80 games could end up the champs, but you’ve reduced that long, long season to a few lucky breaks in a seven game series. Three tier playoffs are for the advertisers, not the fans. The last world series game should be about October 20th, no later.

Shorter season, faster games, less travel time. It will make baseball better.

EAST

Baltimore Orioles

Boston Red Sox

New York Yankees

New York Mets

Philadelphia Phillies

Pittsburgh Pirates

Washington Nationals

Toronto Blue Jays

CENTRAL

Chicago Cubs

Chicago White Sox

Cincinnati Reds

Cleveland Indians

Detroit Tigers

Minnesota Twins

Milwaukee Brewers

Montreal team

SOUTH

Arizona Diamondbacks

Atlanta Braves

Houston Astros

Kansas City Royals

Miami Marlins

Saint Louis Cardinals

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Texas Rangers

WEST

Colorado Rockies

Los Angeles Angels

Los Angeles Dodgers

Oakland As

San Diego Padres

San Francisco Giants

Seattle Mariners

Vancouver or Portland team