Bizarro Cabinet Spotlight: SecDef

The incoming POTUS has named many, many utterly horrible people as cabinet nominees. Some of these incompetent and dangerous buffoons and clowns (clowns with the arsenal of the Joker, by the way) will be confirmed by the incoming Senate. We can only hope that enough Republicans in the new Senate have actual standards befitting their office and the worst of the worst get rejected.

Our worst-of-the-worst spotlight today is on the Department of Defense. The nominee is one Pete Hegseth, who is a Fox "News" personality and wholly unqualified for the gig. But he is, like the incoming POTUS, a sexual assaulter who pays off women to keep them quiet, which likely makes him an A-one perfect candidate in the eyes of the man nominating him. He's also appears to be one to give Rudy Giuliani a run for his money when it comes to who's drunkest.

Prior to becoming a weekend anchor on Fox, Hesketh headed up two veterans advocacy groups, Concerned Veterans of America and Veterans for Freedom. He was forced out of both due to frequent intoxication and misuse of funds, among other reasons.

A report on Hesgeth's conduct with CVA described a series of drunken appearances at CVA events which were "embarrassing, but not surprising; people have simply come to expect Pete to get drunk at social events." One person who worked with Hegseth at CVA said, "I’ve seen him drunk so many times. I’ve seen him dragged away not a few times but multiple times. To have him at the Pentagon would be scary."

With VFF, Hesgeth mismanaged funds so thoroughly that the group had run up nearly half a million dollars in debts while having less than $1,000 on hand. “There’s a long pattern, over more than a decade, of malfeasance, financial mismanagement, and sexual impropriety,” said a former Hegseth associate. “There’s a fair dose of bullying and misinformation, too.”

That part makes him basically twinsies with POTUS 45/47. The alcohol abuse isn't something they have in common, but he was seen at a bar in 2015 shouting, with a companion, "kill all Muslims!" in a drunken chant, which no doubt 45/47 finds endearing. Oh, and he has white-nationalist tattoos and one of an American flag with an AK-47.

But not to worry. It's just the Defense Department. Not like he'd be heading up anything important or influential in any way.

We're so screwed.

Source: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/pete-hegseths-secret-history

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on December 3, 2024 at 4:49am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Quotes of the day

Botox cautionary tale and rejected Batman villain Matt Gaetz

“We’re going to see the return of diseases we have controlled for decades.”

—Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, about potential public health consequences of RFK Jr. leading the Dept. of Health & Human Services.

 

"[She is] our girlfriend."

—Russian state television commentator, speaking of Tulsi Gabbard, 45/47’s nominee to be Director of National Intelligence.

 

"I’m sure it will make for a popcorn-eating confirmation hearing."

—Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), speculating on whether or not Attorney General designee Matt Gaetz can be confirmed for a cabinet post.

 

"[He] will sacrifice our public lands and endangered wildlife on the altar of the fossil fuel industry’s profits."

—Kierán Suckling, executive director at the Center for Biological Diversity, about Interior Secretary nominee Doug Burgum.

 

And the chef's kiss of today's quotes:

 

"Matt Gaetz is a sex-trafficking, drug-addicted piece of shit. He is abhorrent. There are pools of vomit with more to offer the Earth than this STD-riddled testament to the failure of fallen masculinity.”

—Ben Domenech, co-founder of the ultra-conservative publication The Federalist, concerning 45/47’s choice for Attorney General.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on November 15, 2024 at 8:27pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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It begins

The Age of Idiocracy isn't scheduled to begin until next January 20th at 9:00am PST, but the incoming idiot-in-chief has already started naming his subordinate idiots, nominating some truly exceptional individuals to very important jobs.

I don't mean exceptional in a good way, either.

Many people that voted Republican, for POTUS and for Senate and House, likely don't realize what they've invited in. Not only are incompetents Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswami now co-heads of the fictitious "Department of Governmental Efficiency" (no such thing exists and no such agency can be formed without Congress), charged with eliminating government programs they don't think are good for billionaires, but the people being tapped for real jobs in the real government are frighteningly extreme.

For the benefit of some folks I've talked to over the past few days what have been asking who these people are, let's have a look at the proposed nominees for the Idiot Cabinet:

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio. You might say, wait a minute, isn't Rubio "Little Marco," one of those Republicans 45/47 hates and ridicules all the time? Yes, same guy. But that doesn't mean anything, the wannabe führer disdains everyone who isn't himself whether he says so publicly or not. Rubio is a toady, a yes-man, who will go in whatever direction the winds of power are blowing, yet is just enough of a "regular" (i.e. pre-2015) Republican that he won't face much trouble getting confirmed by the Senate. Left to his own devices, Rubio is a simpleton and a hawk who likes the idea of the U.S. being "robust" in confronting nations like Iran and North Korea and has characterized Vladimir Putin as a "gangster" (presumably as a negative), so accepting this gig means he'll do a 180 on all of that (except maybe Iran), since Putin is the incoming POTUS's boss and North Korea's Kim Jong Un is the incoming POTUS's best bud.
• Attorney General Matt Gaetz. In no universe, including this one, is Gaetz confirmable to any cabinet post without shenanigans of some kind. He is (was) the Ted Cruz of the House, loathed by basically everyone. He resigned from Congress early in order to stop a House investigation into allegations of him engaging in statutory rape and sex trafficking. Of course, 45/47 likes him probably because of all that, two peas in a pod, if you will. Gaetz would have no problems turning the justice department into a new form of thug force to carry out the incoming POTUS's grievance fantasies. At least he's out of Congress now.
• Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard has zero experience in the field, but she is a Russian propaganda mouthpiece, which makes her ideal for 45/47’s purposes of kowtowing to Putin.
• Secretary of Defense Pete Hesgeth. Though Hesgeth is an Army National Guard veteran, decorated for tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he has no experience in government of any sort. Instead, his career has been as a pundit/talking head on Fox "News," spewing lies and propaganda on behalf of 45/47. Also not remotely confirmable to the post in any year before now. Oh, and he has tattoos of Christian Nationalist/neo-Nazi symbols on his torso, so, yeah, nice guy.
• Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Infamous for being a puppy killer, Noem is no doubt attractive to 45/47 for this gig because as governor of South Dakota she defied all health measures during the pandemic and loves the idea of deporting immigrants. Though I suspect the biggest draw was that she killed her dog.
• CIA Director John Ratcliffe. This guy was DNI for the final year of 45/47’s first term, having been nominated, then withdrawn because of massive bipartisan pushback, then renominated and barely confirmed. His only qualification is staunch obedience to 45/47 in all things. When in Congress, Ratcliffe was ranked by the Heritage Foundation as the second-most conservative legislator nationwide. He was a member of the defendant's team in the first impeachment trial of 45/47.
• Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Also not confirmable, RFK Jr. is an anti-vaccine conspiracist and has claimed that vaccinations are a sort of "holocaust" on American children because he believes they cause autism (they don't). During the pandemic he slandered/libeled Dr. Anthony Fauci repeatedly and spread lies about COVID-19 and the vaccines for that virus, no doubt endearing himself to 45/47 in the process, including a whopper that the COVID vaccine killed Hank Aaron (it didn't). At one point, RFK Jr. was regarded as a respectable environmental activist, but no longer; he's a brain-addled nutjob who literally had a worm eating away at his cortex.
• Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins. Another toady, Collins was also on 45/47’s defense team in the first impeachment trial. Collins is a 2020 election denier, a climate crisis denier, an anti-abortion zealot, and an ardent foe of the Affordable Care Act. So, you know, exactly the kind of guy 45/47 would want in charge of veterans and their health care.
• Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. The perfect guy for the post in 45/47’s mind, the North Dakota governor is in deep with various energy industry CEOs. One of the loudest voices behind the absurd claim that Joe Biden Wants to Ban Your Gas Stove, Burgum supports fossil fuel industry of all kinds, hates the very idea of subsidizing a shift to electric vehicles, and wants to open protected Federal lands to mining and oil and gas drilling. The guy makes James Watt look like a tree-hugger.
• Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin. Zeldin has no experience (sense a theme?) in the field, though he was on the congressional Climate Solutions Caucus as a hostile member. He opposed the Paris Climate Agreement and champions the elimination of regulations that prevent industry from even greater polluting behavior.

Maybe "Idiot Cabinet" isn't the proper term. It's more like the "Bizarro Cabinet." Every official is there to do the opposite of what the job is supposed to be.

And that's just cabinet officials. If we were to get into White House staff it would be even scarier, in part because there's no check on them, the president can put whomever he wants there without approval from anyone.

Of course, 45/47 wants to do an end-run around Senate confirmations because he knows most of the people he wants in these jobs has no business being there. At this point we can only hope that the Senate Republican leadership won't just give away its power and abdicate its Constitutional duty. Not sure what kind of odds I'd give that.

Much of this has to be 45/47 trying to see just how far he can push the envelope before he gets back into the Oval. How many Senators are dumbfuck sycophants like Tom Tuberville and how many value their job to advise and consent and, if necessary, reject? Tuberville, Lindsey Graham, and no doubt at least a couple dozen others are lost causes, but what about the rest? What about incoming Majority Leader John Thune?

I suppose one silver lining of the Bizarro Cabinet is that since they all know nothing about their potential gigs a lot of stuff could blow up on their and in 45/47’s faces. Hopefully some of it, at least, won't blow up in ours as well.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on November 14, 2024 at 9:26pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Coping?

Captain Pike showed aliens how WWIII began slowly starting with Jan. 6, 2021

Like many of you out there, I'm trying to cope.

This certainly isn't the first election to have not gone my way, but it is the first one where not going my way has predictably catastrophic consequences and I'm not sure how to deal with it.

My neighbor expected it to go down like this, more or less. She was more cynical than I. Me, I truly thought people were going to repudiate the monstrous cancer on our society that is Trumpism. I mean, how could they not? Especially with the way the guy campaigned in the last month-plus?

And yet.

For the moment I'm still mostly stunned. But there are a plethora of other feelings in there, trying to surmount the stunned numbness. It's hard to catalog them all.

You'd think I'd mostly be angry. Don't get me wrong, I am angry—angry at the corporate media that abdicated its journalistic duty, angry at the candidate himself for his overall awfulness, angry at the Russians for their interference (bomb threats?!), angry at each and every one of the people who voted for this petty wannabe tyrant—but it's not the primary emotion here, and I'm not sure what is.

Sadness is in the mix. Fear, certainly. Helplessness. But also embarrassment.

I'm embarrassed to have not seen it coming. I remember the olden days of 2016, when he-who-shall-not-be-named won the first time, and having conversations with friends about what it would mean. I was 100% certain that he wouldn't last a full term in office (hell, I thought there was a very good chance he wouldn't last a full year), as he was surely going to commit multiple impeachable offenses and he would be removed by Congress. Which he did. And, after too long a period, he was impeached. But what I hadn't counted on was the complete and total slide into corruption of the Republican party.

That was then.

It's been eight years and we've seen the bastard get away with everything. We've seen officials from his party turn against their oaths of office almost to a person. We've seen the cult of personality so envelop tens of millions of Americans as to destroy their ability to think critically.

But I still believed in a majority of the voting public. What a sap I was.

When George W. Bush was reelected in 2004 I took it personally. I had worked for the John Kerry campaign, I knew Kerry was a fantastic potential president, and I knew what a disaster Bush had been. I also knew what dirty tricks and propaganda and outright lies the Bush campaign relied on and resented them no end. (And I still think history will one day reveal that those dirty tricks suppressed may thousands of Democratic votes in order to get Bush over the finish line.) When that election result came in I was furious. Bush had been the worst president in living memory, what the hell, people?

Today is so much worse, and yet I'm not furious, not at the top line. Instead I feel dumb. Foolish, even. I feel that I've allowed my relative privilege in this society to cloud my perceptions.

What the [shudder] president-elect represents is horrifying on more levels than one can easily count, but it's not new, not really. I just visited the site of a World War II internment camp the other day. Jim Crow laws persisted for decades. Misogyny has been ingrained in this culture forever. American society has been this ugly to one degree or another since Day One, but here and now is the first time I have felt—not just intellectually understood, but personally felt—oppressed within my own society. The majority of American voters hate people like me.

I'm not trying to draw equivalencies here, I am fully aware that I'm lower on the scale of hatred than many minority groups and people with more immediately obvious "otherness" about them. But the hatred feels personal for the first time.

Now, many that voted for the monster would tell me otherwise, that they didn't vote for him because they hate people. Some of them might even believe that. Some of them might be right, they could be in the cohort that is so disengaged from the world around them that they voted irresponsibly without knowing a goddamn thing.

But most of them voted for him because they hate. They like the cruelty their guy embodies. They like the bullying, the arrogant simpleton behavior, the basic meanness. The bigotry.

Maybe we need this. I mean, even in the idealized world of Star Trek, humanity had to get worse before it got better. In the series premiere of Strange New Worlds, Captain Pike shows an alien culture how Earth didn't get its shit together until after a catastrophic third World War, the origins of which, it was heavily implied, were traced back to January 6th, 2021 and the ensuing second American civil war. And I can now see how that scenario could come to pass—blue state governors are in a hell of a spot now, it's not difficult to imagine states trying to maintain the rule of law and fealty to the Constitution while Federal forces are arrayed against them. It's not difficult to imagine a violent crisis when the [gag] president-elect refuses to leave when his term is up in defiance of the Constitution. It's not hard to imagine a variety of scenarios that could play out with a fascist in the White House surrounded by enablers on all sides.

The majority of American voters preferred a convicted-felon, adjudicated rapist, fascist-to-the-core white man with the intelligence of a baked potato to a principled black woman with impeccable credentials and brains to shame MENSA. Racism lives. Misogyny lives. Idiocy reigns. Ignorance-as-virtue might as well be the new Republican credo.

And I feel—for now—broken and helpless in the face of a blind hatred I'd allowed myself to not see.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on November 6, 2024 at 8:37pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Freakout sets in

I had faith in humanity. I had faith in there being more sane American voters than rubes and dupes and fascist bigots. I believed in the ability of adult human beings to empathize with women stripped of their rights and dying in ER parking lots. I believed enough Americans were smart enough to know when they were being lied to and what propaganda was sheer bullshit.

Turns out I was wrong about all of it.

There was election interference and intimidation fuckery in several swing states, Russian interference again favoring the fascist candidate, yet turnout was impressively high. And the incompetent criminal Hitler-loving authoritarian bigoted idiot got more votes.

Even if things take a turn overnight and swing state totals narrow and perhaps even flip in a miracle of miracles, the reality still exists that this country isn't populated by good people. This country is full of stupid, disengaged, and/or evil people.

We're in for a very rude awakening indeed.

I've not processed this yet, really, so I'm just going to share what Ben Cohen wrote over at The Banter.

Enough Americans have been taken in by this extraordinary cult of personality and have voted in a madman to be their president. The mainstream press failed spectacularly, again, to focus on the danger Trump posed to America. They turned the presidential contest it into yet another horse race where the reds were fighting the blues in battle to the finish. Trump was sanitized, repackaged, and finally thrust back into the White House with barely a scratch on him.

The polls, having been basically wrong about everything since 2016, were far more accurate than I and almost everyone in the media anticipated. They did not overestimate the Democrats, and they appear to have correctly gaged Trump’s almost mythical ability to activate his base and bring low propensity voters out to the polls. And that really is the story of the race. Despite having run one of the most racist, deranged, insane campaigns in modern history, Trump pulled out the victory again.

He massively over performed with Hispanic men, and shockingly made the huge gender gap irrelevant. It is the comeback of all comebacks, only it isn’t the good guy who has won, but the convicted felon and sexual abuser who tried to overthrow the US government only four years ago.

Sane, well adjusted people know that Donald Trump should not be allowed anywhere near the White House. He should be in jail for the multiple crimes he committed while in office, including his attempted coup. Now he will grant himself immunity and no doubt commit more crimes during his second term in office.

We are headed to a very, very dark place right now, and those who enabled, funded and voted for this despicable charlatan will have to own what is about to happen.

. . .

This is a war that cannot be ceded. We cannot allow Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Fox News to destroy reality and decimate truth. He does not get a grace period, and he must not be respected. Donald Trump is a fascist, and fascists must be defeated. His lies will be countered with truths, and his disinformation will be fought with facts. This is war, again.

And here's the reaction from Craig Calceterra, which I don't think I could improve upon:

America just enthusiastically voted for a violent, lying, bigoted, misogynist, insurrectionist felon who promised it nothing but destruction and misery. It is a damning indictment of the country and its people.

Unlike in 2016, this was no fluke. This was no low-stakes leap of faith by some fed-up people hoping that an uncouth maverick might make their life better and might not cause much harm. This vote was made with eyes wide open. After all that’s been said and done over these past nine years, millions of Americans have decided they don’t care what Donald Trump is, what Donald Trump does, or who Donald Trump hurts. And make no mistake, he will hurt many. He has specifically and repeatedly promised to do so.

Donald Trump has harnessed a longstanding ugliness in this country. He has given voice to the desires of the tens of millions of people who want to round up, brutalize, and deport immigrants and they, in turn, have now given him the power to do so. He’s given voice to the tens of millions of people who want women to be, for all practical purposes, the property of men and, they in turn, have given him the power to do so. He’s given voice to the tens of millions of people who are just fine with abolishing democracy and instituting an authoritarian regime because they believe that regime will favor them and will punish those who they hate and they, in turn, have given him the power to do so. There is something very real, very large, and very ugly in the American body politic and there always has been. And America’s body politics has given Donald Trump power once again.

There is no coming back from this. America, the nation-state, will carry on in name as long as it has more bombs and missiles and money than anyone else and that may well be a very long time. But the ideas and values which all of us were brought up to believe in and that we have always called America is over. What is about to happen in America’s name will represent a perversion of every value I hold. The fact that it will be done with the country’s eager blessing means that the crimes will be committed with malice aforethought and that the damage will be permanent.

 

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on November 5, 2024 at 11:28pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Every accusation is a confession

The Republican nominee for President is losing his shit over the fact that he hasn't been able to kill the legal proceedings against him and that the public is learning more about what he did while criming. Here's one of his latest rants from "Troth-Senchal," his failing social media platform:

The release of this falsehood-ridden, Unconstitutional, J6 brief immediately following Tim Walz’s disastrous Debate performance, and 33 days before the Most Important Election in the History of our Country, is another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine and Weaponize American Democracy, and INTERFERE IN THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. Deranged Jack Smith, the hand picked [sic] Prosecutor of the Harris-Biden DOJ, and Washington, D.C. based Radical Left Democrats, are HELL BENT on continuing to Weaponize the Justice Department in an attempt to cling to power. “TRUMP” is dominating the Election cycle, leading in the Polls, and the Radical Democrats throughout the Deep State are totally “freaking out.” This entire case is a Partisan, Unconstitutional, Witch Hunt, that should be dismissed, entirely, just like the Florida case was dismissed!

There's one true nugget in that rant, though it is festooned with inappropriate capitalization: the upcoming election is, indeed, the most important presidential election in history (because if this clown wins it, America as we know it is over). Everything else is typical Trumpian horse excrement. But it does illustrate continuing patterns, including the projection of his own past and planned wrongdoings and criminality onto his opponents.

"Falsehood-ridden" is a kind term to describe nearly anything Donald Trump says in any context. Projection.

"Unconstitutional" is in some ways meaningless coming from him, as he had no idea what the Constitution says aside from a cherry-picked sentence here or there, but violating the Constitution is like breathing for Trump. He violated his oath to it countless times during his term in office. Projection.

I will agree that Governor Walz's debate performance was less than perfect, but he held his own, while VonClownstick's own debate performance was staggeringly awful. Projection.

The nearness to the election of the release of the legal brief he's talking about is his own fault, aided by the three Supreme Court Justices he installed. Trump and the super-majority of corrupt Justices caused the delays that brought things to basically a month from election day. Not quite projection, but certainly gaslighting.

Interfering in the 2024 election is and has always been his plan. Just listen to him tell people at his rallies that he doesn't need their votes, that he already has "plenty of votes." Why doesn't he need their votes? Because his plan is to ignore votes and cheat, and he has minions in swing states creating obstacles to voting and putting thumbs on the scales and introducing chaos to the proceedings for the purpose of making voting unreliable and suspect. Projection.

"Radical" Democrats? Please, this guy is an authoritarian fascist. Projection.

"Witch hunt" is a favorite term of his, used apparently without intended irony; investigations of his criminality are backed by mountains of evidence, but his own attempted takedowns of Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Alvin Bragg, Anthony Fauci, and who knows how many others—even Mark Zuckerberg, of all people!—are based in nothing more than the whining grievances of a bully not permitted to bully with unchecked impunity. Projection.

Finally, weaponizing the Justice Department is one of Donald Trump's core policy planks. He's attempted it (both successfully and unsuccessfully) during his term in office and he promises to do it again, this time without pesky DOJ officials that tell him he can't do it. Massive projection.

On that last point, the New York Times—a publication that for some reason refuses to acknowledge the reality of Donald Trump's anti-American fascist dictator-worship—surveyed a number of former DOJ officials about Trump's plans for weaponization. I turn the analysis of that piece over to the great Craig Calcaterra:

The Times spoke with 50 former top officials from the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office to try to game out how Donald Trump would, as he promises he will, use the FBI and the DOJ to go after his political enemies should he be elected. The upshot of these people’s opinion:

Forty-two of the 50 former officials said it was very likely or likely that a second Trump term would pose a significant threat to the norm of keeping criminal enforcement free of White House influence, a policy that has been in place since the Watergate scandal.

Thirty-nine of 50 said it was likely or very likely that Trump, if elected, would order the Justice Department to investigate a political adversary. (Six more said it was possible.) This, too, is something presidents don’t do.

The respondents were more split on how the Justice Department would respond. Twenty-seven of the 50 said it was very likely or likely that career prosecutors at the DOJ would follow orders and pursue the case. Thirteen said it was possible. Nine said it was unlikely or very unlikely.

Some of the people the Times spoke to blithely assert that Trump wouldn’t do this or that, even if they cannot point to formal mechanisms barring him from doing so. Indeed, they believe that people in the FBI and Justice Department would somehow do the right thing and stop Trump from doing what he says he wants to do. I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone who lived through Trump’s presidency can believe such nonsense but I suppose it’s pretty easy to be a Pollyanna about such things when you’re otherwise comfortable.

Personally, I prefer to believe what I see before my very eyes. And what I see is a man who has vowed to weaponize the Justice Department to go after his critics and enemies and has further vowed to use shock troops to round up minorities — including immigrants with legal status — and place them in concentration camps and subsequently deport them. A man who has promised to stretch the powers of the presidency in ways not seen in our lifetime. A man who, thanks to our corrupt Supreme Court, can now be confident that no one will be able to challenge his doing so. Again: this is not conjecture. He has openly and repeatedly promised this. He has promised to usher in what is, by any rational definition, authoritarianism and fascism.

This is not some conspiracy theory about a covert plot. It is not hidden. Donald Trump is saying it loud and clear. Most of the people who know how the system works believe he’ll do it. We had best listen.

I make it a point never to argue with Craig when he's right.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Craig Calcaterra   |   Posted on October 4, 2024 at 8:47pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Demolition derby

I had umpiring to do last night, so it wasn't until the wee hours of this morning that I finished watching last night's debate between VP Kamala Harris and convicted felon F*%face VonClownstick. It wasn't perfect, there were things I was disappointed not to see, and of course I spent too much energy yelling at the TV when the man in the swirly combover was spewing bullshit at us. (So much so that about ten minutes in I got a text message from my neighbor downstairs asking, "catching up on the debate?" followed by a screaming emoji. I toned it down after that because she's one of these freakish morning people who goes to bed early.)

Although I don't think it started out strong for anyone, by maybe 20 minutes into it I was starting to feel like this was going to be a game-changer in a good way. The vice-president brought the goods and delivered some effective smackdowns while also elucidating sound policy on a number of topics, all the while getting so far under the convicted felon's skin that by the end he was almost screaming into his mic in a barely-contained rage.

I'm anxious to see new polling in a week or so to see how this will change the state of the campaign. But for now I'm pleased that the event generated quite a few potential video clips for use in ads, showed the viewership that Kamala Harris is a calm and collected person with plenty of smarts and savvy, and provided such a clear contrast between sane and small-d democratic vs. unhinged delusional nutjob.

These are my two favorite bits from the event. The first is VP Harris forcefully rebutting the absurd claim that "everybody wanted" Roe v. Wade overturned:

 

 

And this is Harris schooling her opponent on Ukraine and NATO:

 

 

What I wished for and didn't get—and for which there was a teed-up opportunity, a hanging "hit me" curve taken for a strike—was for someone, either a moderator or Harris, to either ask Trump how tariffs work or simply point out that even after being president for four years and enacting several, Trump has no understanding of what tariffs are. He seems to genuinely believe that imposing a 20% tariff on, say, Chinese goods means that China pays a fee equal to 20% of what they sell to American companies. Even though when he had his little "trade war" with China no such money was collected because THAT'S NOT HOW TARIFFS WORK. I want someone, somewhere, on camera, to corner this idiot into explaining how he thinks tariffs work. He's basing his entire economic policy, such as it is, on massive tariffs on imported goods and he doesn't understand what that means. The topic did come up, but it was the vice-president that raised it and called it a proposed "Trump sales tax," which is what it would effectively be; when Mango Mussolini responded it was just to spout his idiocy that "other countries will pay" and he wasn't challenged on it before things moved on.

Just for clarification to any who need it: A tariff is a fee imposed on AMERICAN BUSINESSES that import whatever product the tariff is targeting, and those businesses pass the fee along to the end consumer in the form of raised retail pricing. The intention is to discourage the purchase of foreign goods when the government would prefer similar American-made goods have greater market share, so American manufacturing is boosted and American labor is used for those specific goods Americans purchase. The foreign option is still available, it's just more expensive TO AMERICANS as a deterrent. (In practice, American manufacturers sometimes raise their own prices to match, thus defeating the purpose.) The foreign manufacturer may be hurt by decreased export sales—or not, if they make up the sales by exporting elsewhere—but they pay NOTHING to the United States. If a tariff is placed on a type of product that doesn't have a similar American-made analogue, or products that American manufacturing can't scale to, it amounts to nothing more than self-generated inflation. 

Another thing I wanted to hear more about was Trump's call for deportation camps, but I get why that wasn't a focus; immigration was Trump's go-to whenever he felt like he needed to change the subject, which was often, so no need to give it more oxygen.

Anyway, it was a good night for the campaign and I eagerly await evidence in the coming weeks of how/if it moved the needle for the electorate. I mean, how this even remotely a close race I can't fathom.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Kamala Harris   |   Posted on September 11, 2024 at 6:27pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Court crisis

The six most dangerous people in the United States right now

The Supreme Court has been issuing incredibly bad rulings for two-plus years, but today's was the worst of the worst and has sent me into a fit of anger/frustration/(non-clinical) depression/outrage/terror/anxiety.

I was going to write a big screed about the indefensible and clearly unconstitutional "immunity" ruling but I find I can't focus my outrage into a coherent narrative in the time I have before I have to leave for umpiring. So instead I am going to quote Mary Trump, niece of the criminal ex-POTUS, who rightly is focused on preventing things from getting even worse.

The justices who are trying to make my uncle a king are traitors, equal to the traitors who attempted a coup against our nation and who have been spreading the Big Lie in order to undermine the American people’s faith in free and fair elections. With this immunity decision, they have launched an attack on our most important ideals. It’s a continuation of the 2021 coup attempt, and it’s the start of the next one, not just a rubber stamp for my uncle’s worst impulses and abuses but an open invitation for more .... This was an unjust and anti-democratic decision from a Court that no longer has any credibility and, apparently, no longer believes in its mission to uphold the Constitution. 

Six unelected people have stripped basic human rights from millions of women, destroyed the federal government, and made it almost impossible to hold Donald accountable while coming very close to granting him the powers of a king. It’s time for tens of millions of us to rise up and vote in unprecedented numbers. That’s how we tell the New York Times editorial board to fuck off. It’s how we increase the likelihood that Donald goes to prison or, at the very least, never gets near the levers of power again. And it’s how we start to take back our country from the corrupt traitors on the Supreme Court. 

This [SCOTUS] decision is the end of something and we have a choice: we can be demoralized and stop fighting, or we can use these horrific decisions as a rallying cry—because if we do nothing, the consequences will be swift and unthinkable. If we do nothing, Donald will win and that will be the end of the American experiment.  

So let’s get it together. If we want to save our country and our future and our children’s futures, we have to elect Democrats no matter what. 

This has all been worse than we thought it would be, but we now know it will absolutely get so much worse than we can imagine unless we own the fact that making sure American democracy survives is down to us and no one else.

This is DEFCON 1. SCOTUS is already doing what they can to implement Project 2025, just making shit up so violations of law and the very US Constitution—but only by the "right" people—is permissible.

The Roberts Court has stripped away reproductive rights from American women, stripped away regulatory authority from governing experts in any field, and declared Presidents are above the law so long as they can call their crimes "official." Not mentioned in Mary's great post is that the Court recently also legalized bribery of government officials, so long as the bribe comes after the favor as a "gratuity"; made it easier for frauds to be perpetrated on the Securities and Exchange Commission; stripped away portions of the Clean Air Act, thus allowing even greater pollution from corporate entities; allowed municipalities to criminalize homelessness; eliminated a ban on so-called "bump stocks" that convert guns into machine guns; and said states can gerrymander their Congressional districts as much as they like.

And that's just what I have off the top of my head.

The six justices appointed by Trump and by the Bushes are completely out of control, not even pretending anymore that they are not a subsidiary of the Republican Party, a Republican Party that has thrown its lot in with autocratic anti-American criminals. If we had a Congress without so many Republican enablers of this traitorous behavior, two of those justices—Alito and Thomas—would be impeached on monetary corruption grounds and a third—Chief Justice Roberts—for negligence as well as aiding and abetting criminality in several instances, not the least of which was the impeachment trials of Donald Trump which he presided over and completely abdicated his duties in. The other three are illegitimate based on (a) perjury in their confirmation hearings, and (b) their appointment by a criminal president.

The sooner any and all of these six people are removed from the Court the better. The sooner Congress and President Biden can expand the Court to match the number of circuit courts again the better.

Until then we're in big trouble.

 

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, President Biden, SCOTUS   |   Posted on July 1, 2024 at 5:49pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Debate debacle

President Biden looks aghast at some of the many, many lies told by Donald Trump last night. We should all know by now that Trump brazenly bullshits about everything, so the startled face did the President no favors. He should have expected the spewing fountain of dishonesty and been ready to commandingly smack it down. While he did correctly call Trump a liar, the delivery was unconvincing.

So...that wasn't great.

Last night's presidential "debate" on CNN was profoundly disappointing and unsurprisingly has sent the pundit class into a state of panic. 

I had expectations going in, expectations that Donald Trump would be, well, himself, and thus provide myriad opportunities for President Biden to smack him down (metaphorically) and contrast the incredible successes of the Biden Administration to the disastrous incompetence that was the Trump Administration, thus illustrating how blindingly obvious voters' choice should be in November.

Those expectations were met. The problem was, Biden failed to capitalize on those opportunities and had the demeanor of an exhausted elderly grandpa. Which isn't to say he was terrible; what he had to say was substantively decent, if not completely on point, but it was delivered in a manner that was not easy to immediately understand and reinforced the Republican propaganda that unfairly paints him as a doddering old man.

All that was frustrating. It made me wonder what the hell all that debate prep time at Camp David was used for and why the campaign thought arming the president with statistics and lists of numbers was a good idea. Biden was at his best when he let his clearly-prepped answers drop and spoke from the heart. He became more energetic and feisty then. Feisty Joe was good. But the obvious struggle he was having with making sure he got the prepared numbers into his answers was just really bad form.

What was most frustrating, though, is the pitches Biden let go by. Big fat hanging curveballs right over the heart of the plate screaming "hit me" that he didn't even take a swing at.

I could make excuses. The president was clearly dealing with a head cold and may well have been on some sort of antihistamines or decongestant medicines that, as I well know, make you a little fuzzybrained for a while. If so, I again point to the campaign aides and say "WHY WOULD YOU SEND HIM OUT THERE LIKE THAT?" but maybe they didn't know. I could focus on the journalistic malpractice committed by the alleged moderators of the debate, who didn't moderate anything and allowed countless egregious, blatant lies to spew from Trump's bulbous head completely unchallenged.

But in the end, Joe Biden had an opportunity to crush a grand slam homer and instead struck out on three meatball pitches basically served up on a tee. It is, to say the least, dispiriting.

The immediate reaction from pretty much everyone that watched it was to freak out. Now you've got a lot of people within the Democratic party talking about trying to nominate someone else. Which is not going to happen and the more time spent talking about the idea is, as California Governor Gavin Newsom put it, "unhelpful."

Presidential debates—which have only existed since 1960—are structured to emphasize the most surface-level elements of a candidate, and every cycle I wonder about their usefulness. Some are better than others, the "town hall" type that we've seen here and there since the ’90s actually give some opportunity to get into something unscripted and revealing. But generally they favor optics over substance, largely because of format.

(Some years ago I read a novel by the late newsman Jim Lehrer called "The Last Debate." I'm not recalling the details clearly now, but it told the story of a small group of journalists who contrived for themselves to moderate a presidential debate in a race where one candidate was profoundly dangerous and unfit to serve. The journalists made a choice to risk their careers by using the debate to crush the campaign of the dangerous candidate. They held his feet to the fire, as it were, on all of his misdeeds and completely abandoned the "rules" of the event by turning it into an airing of behavior that would appall a great majority of voters. I was really wishing for something even vaguely reminiscent of that kind of courage from last night's moderators and, of course, got bupkis.)

Joe Biden has been and continues to be an excellent President of the United States. The record is tremendously impressive. He has staffed his administration with quality, intelligent, capable, and supremely competent people who know what they're doing and work hard to advance an agenda that is in support of the American population as a whole. There is no reason on the merits to even entertain the idea of nominating someone else. 

But the freak out is real, and it's based entirely on fear.

Fear of stupid people.

I get it. I, too, am terrified of stupid people in massive groups. The Republicans have been maddeningly deft in their efforts to manipulate and con the rubes of America, tens of millions of whom voted for the fascist last time without realizing he's a fascist. Republican politics have long been based in scaring the bejeezus out of their voters, but in the age of Trump they've abandoned all subtlety in their fearmongering, relying—apparently successfully!—on entirely made-up fantasies of nonexistent caravans of murdering migrant hordes, entirely made-up fantasies of mothers killing their infant children for the sake of convenience, entirely made-up fantasies of economics that even preschoolers on any Ferengi world would recognize as bullshit, and mountains of blatant racism and misogyny.

How many of those tens of millions of rubes believe the propaganda? I know there are plenty who don't believe it but still like it for the racism and sexism; those are the "baskets of deplorables" Hillary Clinton identified in the 2016 campaign. Those people aren't a new factor, we've always had them or people like them around. But the rubes. They scare us. And they are scaring people who should know better into calling for the President to walk away from this election.

President Biden held a rally today in North Carolina wherein he was far more energetic, far better in his demeanor, and was received with far more comfort from the masses. I've heard it postulated that the disaster of last night's debate might well spur the campaign into hyperdrive for the remainder of the summer and fall. Maybe. I do hope they learned from their mistakes, at least.

Joe Biden is 81 years old. President of the United States is a very stressful job. To those who worry about that, I say look at who he staffs his administration with. Kamala Harris is a brilliant vice president, and should the need for her to take over come to pass, we would all be in good hands. (I still maintain that a large part of the Republican-led opposition to Biden because of age is an unsubtle dog-whistle to the deplorables to be scared of the black lady taking over.) I am completely unbothered by Joe Biden's age because no matter how he performed at the debate or in any other forum, he does the job of President very, very well, and should he lose the ability to do that at some point, there will be capable people there to step in.

Besides, the other guys are running a con man. A convicted felon, serial fraudster, adjudicated rapist, wanna-be dictator who hates the very idea of American democracy and has no understanding of how anything works. Except, of course, how manipulating rubes works. That's his one skill. He has no others. (Except perhaps using blackmail to leverage otherwise-smart(ish) people into allying with him. Looking at the complement of dudes with an R by their names in the Senate seems to indicate he's had success with that.)

 Bad debate or no, I don't think anything has changed here. The race is today what it was yesterday and was the day before. I wish the President had been quicker on his feet and hammered those juicy hanging curveballs last night—that might have made a significant difference in his favor—but there's still time to get some more at-bats. Meanwhile, the contrast between these two men remains monumental. In the words of Mary Trump, "President Biden had a cold and stumbled badly. Donald Trump is a traitor. The former should not in any way negate the latter.... I’ll take the decent guy with the sore throat who believes in democracy over the rapist insurrectionist monster every single time."

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, President Biden, CNN, Journalism   |   Posted on June 28, 2024 at 11:55pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Quotes of the week

A few notes from over the last week or so. I'd been meaning to post longer bits about each of these, but time got away from me and, you know, there was stuff to do. Anyway, a few things I heard/read that deserve some repetition:

• "I don't care about you. I just want your vote."  This was former president Cheeto Hitler in a rare moment of honesty, talking to the crowd at his hate rally in Las Vegas. The man cares about nothing other than power for himself and becoming a U.S. incarnation of Kim Jong Un.
• "If the hood fits..."  So said David Ferguson on The Bob Cesca Show last Thursday. David was referring to Supreme Court "Justice" Samuel Alito's outrage, outrage! at being called a bigot. "I just can't with these people," Ferguson went on. "They're like, 'how dare you accuse us of being prejudiced! We just hate black people and queers.' I want to Psycho-shower these people."
• “He can’t stand for 90 minutes, but he’s 100% able to be President? Have fun explaining that.”  That was alleged Congressman Josh Hawley (MAGA-MO) criticizing President Biden, thinking that the format for next week's scheduled presidential debate will have the candidates seated at a table and that said format was demanded by the president. I seem to remember President Biden standing for a long address at the House of Representatives a couple months back without any trouble. And guess what—standing is not a requirement to be President of the United States. Franklin Roosevelt held the gig for 12+ years without standing at all.
• "Time never applied to Willie Mays the way it applies to others. He is like a Kurt Vonnegut character, unstuck in time, everything, everywhere, all at once, simultaneously the Say Hey Kid playing stickball in the streets of New York and the wizard outrunning baseballs soaring toward the gap at Candlestick Park, and the slugger tearing into baseballs as if it is something personal, and the legend launching a million memories and making parents and grandparents feel like children."  That's Joe Posnanski, remembering the great Willie Mays, who died yesterday at age 93.
• And this, from satirist Andy Borowitz:
  
  THE OCEAN DEEP (The Borowitz Report)—Calling his longstanding fear of being devoured by them “delusional thinking at its saddest,” the world’s sharks issued a statement on Tuesday disavowing “any interest whatsoever” in eating Donald J. Trump.
     “Given his constant intake of Diet Coke and hamburgers, there is nothing to indicate that Trump would be anything resembling a nutritious meal,” the sharks’ statement read. “The very thought of biting into him is nauseating.”
     The sharks said that Trump’s anxiety about being eaten by them demonstrates “an inflated sense of his appeal, to say the least.”
     “We thought the same thing when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed he was eaten by a worm,” the sharks wrote. “Why do these narcissists think they’re so delicious?”
     In perhaps their most withering comment, the sharks concluded, “We might consider eating Trump if the only other thing on the menu was Steve Bannon.”

Tagged Politics, Baseball, SCOTUS, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on June 19, 2024 at 3:47pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Historic imagery

I find myself wondering and imagining where and in what contexts this photograph will be displayed in years to come. History texts, to be sure. The Smithsonian, perhaps. Countless dartboards.

It's glorious. Due process, my dude. I know it's a new experience for you, but just think about how very, very long you've gotten away without having to endure it despite your life of crime.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on August 25, 2023 at 1:33am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Slow news day

A lot happened in the news today. OK, well, one huge thing happened and a bunch of things in the ultimately inconsequential world of baseball happened and there was something about a new COVID booster vaccine.

But the Orange Menace being indicted for a third time is big stuff. I can only hope it gets reported on properly and sinks in to the public at large just how big, because the Republican strategy to "flood the zone with shit" works. The former president of the United States has been indicted for conspiring to overthrow the duly elected government, for intentionally ginning up discord among the public, for lying to basically everyone all the time in furtherance of election fraud while convincing a not-insignificant portion of the American public that he was a victim, not the perpetrator, of said fraud. It's a scathing indictment, and though the laws he's alleged to have broken are not as easily understood as the ones in his last indictment—that's three and counting, folks!—they're arguably much more important.

Yet, I got a text from a friend this afternoon that said, in effect, "this seems like old news."

And she's right, it does seem like old news. Because to anyone who has been paying attention, everything Mango Mussolini was charged with is stuff we knew about already; it's just now been thoroughly vetted and examined and formally charged and on the path to criminal trial. Also, because it's the third indictment so far (with a fourth coming maybe next week out of Atlanta), and if one isn't the sort to pay attention to the news closely, the headline "Trump Indicted" looks like a rerun.  But it's not.

It's huge new news. Knowing everything that went down in the leadup to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, knowing (or presuming) the motivation for same, knowing the unparalleled capacity for bullshit that the defendant-for-life has, all of that is not the same as having it formally charged by a grand jury.

Indictment number 1 was small potatoes, relatively speaking, concerning hush money to keep a salacious story out of the newspapers. Indictment 2 was bigger potatoes, national security stuff, theft of government documents and possible dissemination of same for unknown purposes. Indictment 3 is every potato in Idaho, conspiring to shred the Constitution and turn the United States from a democracy into an autocracy.

It's not old news. When the next indictments come (and they will), they will not be old news either, they will be additional crimes added to the heaping pile of crimes the ex-president is charged with.

The rubes of the Republican party may never admit they've been conned, may never realize that their cult leader is in fact a lifelong criminal that uses them as his personal ATM, may never wake up to the reality that Donald Trump is an un-American wannabe despot that cares nothing for them whatsoever beyond their usefulness to his greed and keeping him out of jail.

But the rest of us need to understand.

To paraphrase the current President, this is a Big Fucking Deal.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on August 1, 2023 at 11:37pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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