Abuses of the Department of Justice by Congress

Congressman Devin Nunes, R-Donald Trump's colon

So, the memo was released. I read it. I’ve not heard any news about it today yet, but I sure heard all the hype ahead of time that Republicans and Fox “News” have been spewing. I was concerned that it would be so much cherry-picked information and half-truth nuggets about the FISA warrant process in general and Carter Page in particular, with so many key omissions and maybe some outright BS added in for fun, that the lemmings that watch Fox “News” and listen to Alex Jones would be so convinced of a nefarious “deep state” oppression of poor, poor Donald Trump that it would spread to mainstream media outlets and actually gain traction with the public.

It still might; I mean, Americans can be pretty damn stupid. Trump’s approval ratings actually went up after his apocalyptic State of the Union speech that announced zero policy or agenda items and stoked fear of immigrants with bullshit about how brown people are coming to kill your children.

But the memo itself? It ain’t all that. If one actually reads it fully—and, you know, knows words, the best words or even some words—it actually undermines the Trumpster brigade’s claims.

It’s also full of shit, of course, no doubt with the intention of confusing and distracting from the big picture by giving us other things to refute and argue about. Even if you allow the title—“Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Abuses at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” which itself implies a conclusion not found—it chooses not to be subtle in propagandizing.

Referring in section 1) to the Steele Dossier as compiled “on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign” omits the fact that before anyone associated with the DNC was involved it was started by and funded by the Washington Free Beacon on behalf of Republicans. It goes on to allege “political origins” of the dossier—which may be true, but those origins were not from the DNC or any Democrats—and claims that Christopher Steele was “working on behalf of—and paid by—the DNC and Clinton campaign,” which is utter bullshit.

It goes on in section 2) and 3) to attempt discreditation of Steele himself, alleging violations of protocol and suggesting that his “desperation” that Trump not become President was the source of, rather than result from, his findings while investigating Trump. Section 4) characterizes the dossier as known to be “salacious and unverified” (portions have since been verified) with the implication that those terms somehow mean “incorrect,” which they do not, and reiterates the suggestion that Steele fabricated his findings due to a pre-existing political agenda. Section 5) ties in the “scandal” of the Pete Strzok/Lisa Page text messages that were critical of Trump (the memo makes no mention of the fact that these messages were also critical of Clinton, Sanders, other Republicans, other Democrats, and evidenced no clear preference for any one person or candidate; nor does it mention that Strzok was removed from the investigation when these text were found, lest there be any appearance of bias), but to do so has to acknowledge that the investigation that the Carter Page FISA warrant was a part of actually originated with another Trump staffer, George Papadopoulos, in July 2016. The memo begins with stating that the issue at hand is the October 2016 FISA warrant, which is the date of a renewal of an already existing warrant to surveil Page.

The thing is, none of the bullshit matters.

In terms of factual, relevant information that shows an improper granting of a FISA warrant or other abuse of power, the memo has exactly zero content.

The origins of the Steele Dossier might have relevance if it were shown to be false, but to date nothing in it has been disproven and several items have been verified. Christopher Steele and his agenda are not the issue, the issue is whether or not Trump staffers (in this case Carter Page and Papadopoulos) are acting as agents of a hostile foreign government. Probable cause had to be shown at each renewal of the warrant, and the memo itself describes the Steele Dossier as “part of” the warrant application. This means that there was other evidence in addition to Steele’s findings that went to establishing probable cause. Nothing in the memo even suggests that any item within the dossier is inaccurate, it simply impugns the investigator. It also admits that at the time of the initial FISA warrant on Page that examination of the Steele Dossier was “in its infancy,” meaning it would not have had much bearing on whether or not to grant the warrant, and that even then it was “minimally corroborated,” meaning that what little they had examined had been corroborated.

Devin Nunes, probably with help from the White House, concocted this document for political reasons only, to attempt to paint Christopher Steele as a partisan who fabricated his dossier because of a hatred of Trump, rather than a concerned investigator who developed a fear of Trump because of what he found while compiling the dossier. It is supposed to be a document that shows “abuses” by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, but gives no evidence of any kind that the FISC issued a warrant improperly.

No careful reading of this memo can lead to conclusions other than motives of purely partisan obfuscation and distraction by someone with something to hide.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Devin Nunes, Republicans   |   Posted on February 2, 2018 at 9:36PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Cognitive Competence

So, the "President"'s doctor says Trump's cognitive ability is fine and there's no reason to believe he's suffering any kind of decline or dementia.

I have no trouble believing that.

As much as it might be in some weird way comforting to think that President VonClownstick is a demented old man and that's why he says and does the horrible things he says and does, there's no reason to think so. It'd be one thing if there had been an observed change in his behavior, but aside from Michael Wolff's observation in the Fire and Fury book that he's taken to repeating himself more often than he had been previously, I don't know of any. He's been this same sort of racist blowhard misogynist ignoramus moron the whole time he's been a public figure. Presumably before that, too.

He's completely compos mentis. He may be (and is) a narcissistic, vain, incredibly insecure egomaniac; he might be (and is) a bigoted, mean, willfully ignorant sociopath; he may be (and is) a weak-willed, greedy, and fundamentally cruel fool whose lack of intellect and dearth of knowledge makes him an easily-manipulated danger to all of humanity; but he's perfectly sane.

What I do have some trouble believing is that the man weighs only 236 pounds. That rings about as true as the back of Terry Forster's baseball card.

Tagged President VonClownstick   |   Posted on January 16, 2018 at 2:51PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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The New Normal

The avalanche of crap coming from the White House has been impossible to keep up with. There's just too much. Every day brings news of a new outrage from President VonClownstick or one of his toadies. If it's not the "shocking" racist statement about immigrants form "shithole countries" (this shocks no one who has been paying attention, that's who this idiot is), it's the neverending stream of lies coming from Sarah Huckabee Sanders' press briefings or tweets that parrot Fox News and cause national security officials to go into frenzied damage-control spasms. And that's just the "big" stuff.

Rachel Maddow did an exceptional "A" block the other evening that pretty well covered my feelings on the subject; there is just SO MUCH in terms of outrageous behavior, bad policy, overt meanness, and basic incompetence and stupidity coming out of 1600 Penn. that we're numb to it. It takes the exceptionally salacious or brutal to be given its proper reaction and attention, otherwise it's just Trump being Trump and so much yadda yadda yadda.

We humans only have so much bandwidth to devote to keeping up with the details of this crisis in history, but even if we don't pay strict attention to the yadda yadda of it, we have to remember that's what it is. Life keeps on chugging forward day by day, but we are living through a pivotal period in history that demands attention—as much as we can bring ourselves to give it, anyway.

 

Tagged President VonClownstick, Politics, Rachel Maddow   |   Posted on January 14, 2018 at 6:32PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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A Year of Trump

It could be worse.

A year since the election that gave us the most embarrassing and heinous man to ever hold the office of President of the United States, the orange idiot has basically failed to accomplish much of anything. Not entirely—the number of judicial appointments is concerning, of course, and a staggering number of executive orders intended to screw people and pollute the planet—but in terms of big policy, he's got bupkis to show for his efforts. (If we can call them efforts. Being ignorant of his actual job duties, he's actually done very little policymaking.) Still, everything he has done has been horrible, and the behavior of other elected Republicans is arguably more horrible as they allow him to continue to be president while pushing legislation that defies their mandate as public servants.

Last year at Thanksgiving I was asked how long I thought Trump would last in office. I said, if I recall correctly, somewhere between "until Christmas" and "early 2019," depending on how much the Republican congress would tolerate. Congress has already supported and/or turned a blind eye to more than I would have thought they would, but when the tax-reform bill fails that might tip the scales. Maybe. Who knows, with this crowd. Paul Ryan is apparently as corrupt as anyone this side of the Trump family themselves, at least in terms of betraying his duty to serve the public interest in favor of an overall agenda of enriching himself and his benefactors, so maybe nothing will tip the scales. The Mueller investigation could produce incontrovertible proof of treason and Ryan might shrug it off. The midterms may have to happen—without enough cheating to rig things—first, assuming we and our electoral system of government survive through 2018.

Meanwhile, he's still living at 1600 Penn. It could be worse, but it's plenty bad already. John Oliver lays it all out.

 

Tagged Congress, President VonClownstick, John Oliver   |   Posted on November 14, 2017 at 5:40PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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The Changing Face of Evil

I had been in the middle of writing a post about this country's penchant for revisionist history, referencing John Oliver's show segment about Confederate monuments, the Harvey Weinstein outrage and how it was only now coming out that he'd been horrible for years and years, the rampant bullshit being spewed out of the White House press room, and on and on. All that was leading into some commentary on the recent rash of stories about high-profile sexual predators, from Weinstein to Bill O'Reilly to Roger Ailes to the Catholic Church to the Penn State University guy to Donald Fucking Trump.

And Bill Cosby.

So I'm writing this and then Rachel Maddow's show begins and she starts talking about Harvey Weinstein and ... Bill Cosby.

Rachel threw the Cosby scandal right up on my TV as I was trying to write something about it, which was, frankly, a little irritating. :)

The thing is, when I was a kid, Bill Cosby was a big deal to me. I didn't care one way or another about his sitcom, really, though that was fine; I loved his standup albums and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. Fat Albert was the highlight of Saturday morning cartoons with its thematic educational bent showing us kids how to be good people and treat our fellow humans better, and the standup albums were joyfully rich with funny stories that were wholesome and didn't depend on insults or any sort of derogatory language, that were relatable by most people in American culture. Many of them about growing up and childhood adventures, many of them about everyday events. It was a sense of humor that I gravitated to, a way of storytelling I delighted in.

The Cos was a big part of my adolescent years. I knew (and still know) whole albums verbatim, having listened to them countless times. I regaled my dad and others with retellings of routines about tonsillectomies, Cobra automobiles, Junior Barnes, go-cart races, and The Lone Ranger. 

About 20 years ago(!) I drew a large piece I called "Heroes," a charcoal montage of portraits of five public figures that were highly influential in making me me: Gene Roddenberry, Jimmy Carter, John Lennon, Jackie Robinson, and Cosby. I was and am proud of it, it's one of my more satisfying works, and it's been hanging in a prominent place in my living room ever since.

It's still there, and every now and then I wonder if I should take it down. It has a kind of aura about it now that seems like a Confederate statue or something; that's not quite the right analogy, but in any case an honorific to a person that is now a symbol of misogyny and abuse. It's bothersome. (Roddenberry and Lennon were no saints, they had their respective issues, but they each worked to overcome them and to live by their high ideals and I never felt any reticence about displaying their portrait in my home.)

Yet, the influence of Bill Cosby the performer remains, and if I were to listen to one of those standup albums now, I wouldn't enjoy its content any less. The taint of knowing that the performer was/would become a sexual predator and commit irredeemable acts upon who knows how many women would be there, but the humor is still funny and the brilliance of the storytelling is still what it was when I was 12.

So I'm torn about leaving my charcoal masterpiece up on display. I don't want to be thought of as glorifying the symbol of horror that Cosby has become, and if I could somehow replace Cos in the picture cleanly I probably would, but that's not the way these things work. And I still honor the other guys, and the drawing is still something I'm proud of as a piece of work.

In my earlier (pre-Rachel Maddow interfering with my train of thought) draft of this post, the overarching point was more about acknowledging the nastiness of history in general and resisting the temptations to sanitize our narrative of past events; ignoring historical evils is not a way to overcome them in a society nor on an individual level, and in fact just makes things worse — witness the inclination of many Americans to wave the Stars and Bars while insisting that reveling in that heritage has nothing to do with racism, or how long it's taken for the culture to come around to treating behavior like Weinstein's and Cosby's as worthy of outrage and condemnation (still waiting on the culture to come around to condemning Trump, though).

History is written by the winners, goes the adage, and it's important to remember that the word "history" is a contraction of "his story." With so much reliance by people like Trump and most Republicans on warping accounts of contemporaneous events into unrecognizable fictions, vigilance is needed more than ever. We all need to own up to the bad stuff, even when an admired figure is revealed to be a heinous monster.

Tagged Politics, Cosby, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on October 10, 2017 at 7:26PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Apply Pressure

If it's Monday, it must be time for another letter to Congress.

That's the way it is here in Trumpistan—every day there's a new outrage. So, gotta make our voices heard, especially since I didn't participate in the airport demonstration or the downtown rally last night. I sent the same one to all three of my reps, and by all means, feel free to crib for your own letters to Congress (though if you do, don't copy me verbatim, if it starts to look like a form letter it'll have less credence).

January 30, 2017

Dear Sen. Maria Cantwell :
Dear Sen. Patty Murray :
Dear Rep. Pramila Jayapal :

Hi. Me again. I know, this is starting to become a ritual.

Today's plea regards the upcoming votes on cabinet nominees. Please, for the sake of all humanity, oppose with vigor the confirmations of Betsy DeVos, Jeff Sessions, Scott Pruitt, Tom Price, ... you know what? Every remaining Trump cabinet appointee is horrendous. They ALL need to be denied.

Perhaps more importantly, it has become crystal clear that the president is being controlled by Steve Bannon, a man no one elected to anything. This neo-Nazi is writing presidential executive orders and directing policy, taking advantage of Mr. Trump's obvious intellectual and psychological deficiencies to pursue an agenda of bigotry and mayhem. (He has said -- out loud! -- that his goal is to "destroy the state.") Steve Bannon needs to be denied as well. I don't know offhand what authority Congress can bring to bear on someone with a "White House adviser" title, but somehow, some way, he has to be removed from his position of influence.

The Trump Administration has been in power for just a week-and-a-half and the damage has been mind-boggling. Trump and Bannon's disregard for civil norms, policy procedure, legal review, and basic decency—not to mention the Constitution—must not be allowed to continue, lest the chaos of these last few days turn into complete and utter disaster in the next few months, let alone four years. And I haven't even mentioned the brazen, naked corruption happening with the president, his staff, and his cabinet nominees! The number of outrageous things this administration represents is almost infinite.

I'd say focus on the top of the food chain and "simply" impeach Mr. Trump, but I know the Speaker and most of his fellow House Republicans aren't likely to entertain that notion, at least not yet. So until that course becomes feasible, please: Give no quarter.

Oppose these horrid cabinet nominees. Find a way to remove Steve Bannon. Support the judiciary when Trump and his people break the law, as they did with the Muslim immigration ban (and let's not mice words, that's what it's intended to be).

Protect us.

Sincerely,

Mr. Tim Harrison
Seattle, WA 98103

Tagged Dystopia, President VonClownstick, Congress   |   Posted on January 30, 2017 at 4:31PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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The Occupation Begins

Well, here we are. Day One of the Trumpocalypse. For two-and-a-half months we've been anticipating this day with anxiety of epic proportions. Just what are we in for now? And will we survive it?

One of the few amusing things about the election results is the general consensus of the nerdosphere on social media that the 45th president is basically Gul Dukat, the principal villain on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It is remarkably fitting; Dukat even made the claim that he was sending his people into the ruinous clutches of a hostile foreign power in order to "make Cardassia strong again" (he may as well have said "great"). Gul Dukat is a narcissistic, autocratic, brutal oppressor who fools people with smarmy charm, all the while believing fervently that he's the hero, and that true victory is not vanquishing your enemies but "to make your enemies see they were wrong to oppose you in the first place. To force them to acknowledge your greatness." He was even a cult leader for a time. There are at least ten Dukat Twitter accounts that conflate the Cardassian dictator with Mr. Trump. The best is Joe Sondow's @realRealDukat, that copies tweets from @realDonaldTrump with small edits to substitute Dukat for Trump and other DS9 terms for real-life ones:

Though Dukat was eventually deposed and his successor ultimately defected to the good guys, by the end the planet Cardassia Prime was war-ravaged and in utter ruins. May fact play out better than fiction.

The analogy isn't perfect—Gul Dukat is smart and has a knack for oratory, while Trump can't properly read or string together consecutive coherent sentences. But we'll call that artistic license.

With all this in mind, here's my latest sketchbook entry.

Tagged President VonClownstick, Star Trek, Gul Dukat, Twitter   |   Posted on January 20, 2017 at 4:44AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Help Congress Help Us

Since the election, I've written four letters to my congressional representatives. I'm quite sure there will be many more to follow, because the stakes have never been higher for our Republic. My prior letters urged opposition to Trump cabinet nominees and support of investigation of and appropriate action for the Russian attack on our election. This one is about the Affordable Care Act as it faces catastrophic maiming if not outright repeal by the Republican leadership.

I have added a link on the right sidebar (not visible if you're reading this on your phone, maybe if you tilt it over to landscape mode) under "Be Heard" that I invite everyone to take advantage of. It'll take you to to a site that will find your Senators and Representative based on your zip code, then give you a ready-to-go form that will send them email or, for a nominal fee, printed snail-mail letters. They don't have to be long, they don't have to be especially eloquent, they just need to convey your opinion on a particular issue. Take advantage of this tool! Write often! (And check out Indivisble as well for helpful pointers on what to say.)

January 8, 2017

Dear Representative Jayapal:
Dear Senator Cantwell:
Dear Senator Murray:

Firstly, thank you for your advocacy and efforts thus far regarding public health matters in general and the Affordable Care Act in particular. The ACA has been a godsend to the American people, even those who haven't recognized it as such; I myself have returned to the ranks of the insured thanks in large part to the ACA.

The Republican goal of repealing the ACA is astonishing—or rather, it would be if the Republican party bore any resemblance to its former self—and I implore you to continue to oppose them in their efforts to strip us all of this newfound ability to get care.

What Congressional Republicans are trying to do would be criminal under broader context and should be stopped. Consequences of repealing the ACA without substituting any comparable alternative are predictbale, because we've seen them already. For the most fortunate Americans, they will be forced into lesser insurance coverage for more money. For the rest of us, it could mean the choice between financial ruin and death.

Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, and their respective posses are either indifferent to the fact that their agenda will bankrupt and/or kill thousands of Americans, or they are deliberately planning it. That makes them, if they succeed, guilty of negligent homicide or premeditated murder, all so they can enact a kind of atavistic revenge fantasy against a soon-to-be-former President that they detest.

If there is a legitimate reason for the GOP's repeal effort outside of (a) empowering the insurance industry to make greater profits on the backs of Americas who can't afford it and (b) giving a giant middle-finger salute to President Obama, I don't see it. It certainly has no basis in serving the interests of the American people.

Keep up the good work, and please—remind your Republican colleagues that they are supposed to be PUBLIC SERVANTS, not officious-looking hit-men.

Tim Harrison
Seattle, WA

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on January 7, 2017 at 11:12PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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American Idiots

The Trumpsterfire nightmare is going to be worse than we imagined, and I don't think our collective imagination was all that restrained. We're just three weeks into the transition period, and in that short span of time, President-Elect VonClownstick has said and done too many outrageous and insulting and downright frightening things to keep track of.

There's a lot of stupid distracting bullshit he's spewed through his Twitter account, but let's look at the real "highlights" of our PEOTUS in these three weeks:

• Settled a lawsuit for fraud, paying $25,000,000 to make the suit go away and prevent a conviction (and walking away with an estimated $150,000,000 in fraudulent gains)
• Either directly or indirectly intimidated his alleged rape victim into dropping her lawsuit against him
• Appointed a white-nationalist propagandist, Stephen Bannon, to the post of chief White House strategist and senior counselor
• Began filling out his cabinet nominations with people who are, to a person, unqualified for their designated departments; horrifying contenders for remaining positions include Joe Arpio for Homeland Security, Myron Ebell for EPA, Harold Hamm for Energy, Jan Brewer or Sarah Palin for Interior, John Bolton for State(!!), Rudy Guliani for State or National Intelligence, the list goes on.
• Declared that the concept of "conflict of interest" does not apply to him, despite the plethora of conflicts he will have, a notable few of which include a financial interest in the Dakota Pipeline project, real estate holdings the world over, and a Washington, DC, hotel that he will not be allowed to lease once he's inaugurated but plans to continue operating anyway
• Discussed policy with world leaders on unsecured communications lines with no preparation or briefing, the exact thing he threatened to jail Hillary Clinton for
• Took credit for "saving" a factory from moving to Mexico even though the factory had never had any intention of doing so
• Objected to recount efforts in states where he won by a thread, claiming that we should respect and accept the result form election night and insulting the parties seeking an audit, then almost immediately thereafter made a baseless claim that "millions of people voted illegally" and accused three states in which he lost of harboring "serious voter fraud"
• Continued to refuse to disclose his tax returns, presumably to continue hiding all of his debt to foreign banks and governments as well as his general avoidance of paying taxes and the true value of his net worth
• Interviewed a candidate for Secretary of State who is serving two years probation for the crime of leaking classified information, precisely what he accused and threatened to jail Hillary Clinton over

The twitter rants insulting the Hamilton cast and declaring flag-burning should be punishable by loss if citizenship  and maligning the New York Times and other journalism outlets are windows into this man's psyche, but ultimately distractions form the real problems. 

The incoming administration is shaping up to be the most massive collection of incompetence and ignorance to ever occupy the White House, coupled with the most corrupt chief executive in the nation's history.

Be aware. Be vigilant. Be active. The Senate can thwart at least some of his appalling cabinet nominations, so let your senators know you won't support them if they support Jeff Sessions or Tom Price. (Or Ben Carson or Elaine Chao or Betsy DeVos or ...) Support organizations that will be extremely busy in the coming years such as the ACLU, who will undoubtedly be swamped with cases against cabinet secretaries and other officials who don't respect the Bill of Rights. Make your voices heard by local officials as well, support efforts to keep localities relatively safe from official thuggery. Intervene if/when you see unofficial thuggery, as the election of this weasel has emboldened those among us who would oppress and terrorize minorities and disadvantaged persons. Write to newspapers. Hold journalists accountable for their behavior if and when they fail to report or spin any of these atrocities as somehow normal. If you can afford it, support journalism and civil rights causes financially. 

Oh, and don't get sick, as efforts to strip you of your healthcare will be aggressive and venomous.

We're in for a rough ride.

 

Tagged President VonClownstick, Politics   |   Posted on November 29, 2016 at 10:27PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Thinking it Through

I seem to have rattled a cage or two the other day with some posts on social media about the election. Not surprising, I guess; it's a pretty charged issue considering the extreme consequences that have already started to unfold. But the cage-rattling came about because I referenced (mostly via link) third-party "protest" votes.

I'm acquainted with several people who were in the "I can't support Hillary no matter what" camp and who intended to vote third-party in protest. I don't know if they actually did or not, but hundreds of thousands of other people did. And I remain unclear on why. Sure, I know the standard answers: "Neither of the major candidates is good enough for me" is what they all boil down to, and if any substance is given to support that conclusion, it generally fails to stand up to even minor scrutiny. "Hillary is just as dishonest as Trump," for example, or "the DNC cheated Bernie out of the nomination and therefore Hillary is illegitimate," or my favorite, "both parties are essentially the same" — all of which are demonstrably false without even expending much effort.

But those details are beside my larger point. What I'm really wondering is, why are so many people essentially abdicating their responsibility to vote by casting a "protest" ballot? In Michigan alone, tens of thousands cast ballots that just left the section on President blank, which is slightly easier for me to understand; I think it's beyond foolish and irresponsible in this particular case, but I understand the logic of "I don't like any of these options so I vote for none." It's the idea that a "protest vote" for someone like Jill Stein or Gary Johnson is any different that throws me.

Let's think it through, shall we? The premise seems to be this: The Republicans are running candidate A, who is unacceptable. The Democrats are running candidate B, who is also objectionable. One of them will win no matter what. But rather than take a hard look and make a decision about whether, on balance, I prefer A to B or B to A, I will instead cast my vote for candidate C, a fringe figure who represents one or two of my views in strong stead while being severely unqualified on the whole and who has zero chance of winning. That either A or B will actually become President, and that the repercussions of that result will be gigantic, is less important to me than voicing my protest over the two major candidates.

(Or, I will instead vote for candidate D of the fringe party because I support the fringe party and want to give it more influence. This is ridiculous — the Green Party, for instance, has so little presence today that adding a vote to its minuscule showing in a presidential election will do nothing to affect its influence. If you want to build up the Green Party, work on it from the bottom up, not the top down; get Greens elected to city and county councils, mayorships, then state legislatures, eventually sending a Green or two to Congress. Then you've got a presence building. It doesn't work starting at the top.)

But what are you protesting? The nomination of someone you object to? How does that protest work? In the case of 2016 and Jill Stein, it's reasonable to assume that protest votes for her were protesting the Democratic nomination of Hillary Clinton, so what constitutes a successful outcome? It seems to me that the only possible goal of protesting Hillary Clinton with a vote for someone else is that someone else win the election. "I object to Hillary's nomination, therefore I will protest with a vote for Jill Stein, showing that the Democrats should have nominated someone more liberal. This will be heard and possibly be influential when Hillary loses." Right? I mean, if she wins, the protest will fall on deaf ears, won't it? So the goal of the protest requires her to lose. (Protest votes for Gary Johnson are harder to break down, they might be in protest of either Clinton or Trump, but the point is the same, it can only work as a protest if the one you're protesting loses.)

Then there's the "safe state" caveat. The "I prefer candidate B to win, but since I live in a state that will surely go to B anyway, I can safely vote for candidate C to voice my objection." How does that work, exactly? Who hears that protest? What becomes of it? Your state might be "safe" for B, but if you narrow the gap between A and B enough you can make it less safe for the next time 'round and give A's party a better shot — C's influence is still nothing, but now B's party, which you ultimately prefer to A's, may be more vulnerable to A's party, which you dislike.

Am I wrong? How can a protest vote be effective otherwise? What's its point if not to help defeat the one being protested?

And I don't want to hear the "this way I can vote my conscience" bullshit argument, either. Your conscience isn't served by casting a ballot for someone that won't get more than a tiny fraction of the vote and doesn't send any kind of message that will be heard. Your conscience is there to tell you not to do something that might make you feel good but will hurt others, and it can distinguish between the two possible winners. Even in cases where it truly is a case of choosing the lesser of two evils, one of them is less evil.

The bottom line is that protest votes mean the voter doesn't care which of the two possible winners wins, that s/he is fine with either result. And in this particular election, I can't see how anyone can view the two candidates as equally good or equally bad. Even those that hate them both hate one of them more. I don't actually believe that third-party voters in 2016 didn't care who won, that if pressed, they wouldn't find they preferred one over the other. Yet, here we are.

Maybe the system is broken. Maybe we'd be better off with a kind of parliamentary setup that gives representation to minor parties, or maybe things would improve under the current system if we had a third major party. But, for now anyway, we have the system we have. And we are in real trouble because of how this election turned out.

Third-party voters are not the sole reason we have President-Elect VonClownstick. There were many causes of this nightmare and I don't want liberals to fight among themselves placing blame on each other for the corruption and criminality to come, especially since the news media, the FBI, the Russians, and plenty of other factors (not to mention actual Trump acolytes) played bigger roles. But I do want us all, liberal and conservative alike, to use our heads and think critically when it comes to elections and not ignore the big picture.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on November 17, 2016 at 4:56AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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One Week On

So, we've all had a week to process. Our collective wish to wake up and discover it was all a dream has gone unfulfilled. How do things feel now?

Still shitty.

Mr. VonClownstick seems to be a bit deer-in-the-headlights about what happens now, which in a way is a consolation, because that's how a lot of the rest of us feel too, just for different reasons. But what is not consoling in the slightest is how he's preparing to take office, which is to say, not preparing much at all in terms of basic things like hiring staff and returning calls form the Pentagon, and who he's surrounding himself with, the horrid details of which I don't want to get into here.

So there's nothing in the way of mitigation to make us feel better, and the surreal nature of the past seven days promises to continue indefinitely. But life does go on, and spending all of our time semi-catatonic, compulsively checking Twitter feeds for some bit of reportage that can make sense of this nightmare, or frantically busying ourselves with anything and everything mundane to just focus on something, ANYTHING else (I've been doing all three) isn't healthy or practical. Everyday life will reassert and we'll begin to function again, sooner than seems reasonable, and we can resume enjoying things again. But with a new feeling of vigilance attached.

I say "new," but it's really only new for some of us, isn't it? I've been neglecting my cartooning endeavors for far too long (and though I do want to resume it at some point, I've no immediate plans to do so), but I have had the basis for a Cloud Five sequence swirling around my head about the new vigilance; for people like me, who have lived entirely in the context of relative privilege and the normative majority demographic, it's new, even shocking, to feel threatened like this by agents of authority, and my C5 alter ego would express this. His best friend and crush would have to explain to him that to her it isn't so much a new feeling as one that had always been there at lower volume, but now it's been cranked up to 11.

Anyway, this post is unfocused and kind of rambling, but worthwhile to get out even as a stream-of-consciousness sort of thing. Part of the process of processing, and all that. Yes, now we have to band together and fight for the forces of civility and inclusion and basic reason, but first we have to come to grips and regain some equilibrium.

Tagged Politics, Dystopia, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on November 15, 2016 at 9:41AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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