In Murdoch’s world you’re either a capitalist who doesn’t mind fascism if it lets you make more money or you’re a violent advocate of communist revolution. Black and white thinking is the sole intellectual mode of fascists (and hardline communists too, by the way). If you protest a criminally insane president’s destructive actions — communist or dupe of communists! If you publicly oppose fascism — ANTIFA TERRORIST! The First Amendment, with its protection of political dissent, makes this country ripe for communist agitation and overthrow with its license for every commie in the world to denounce the president and his agenda. Grrrr, grrrr… fucking commies…
Without (or with) irony, Murdoch refers to spineless contortionist Little Marco Rubio as “Florida man”. Usually the term refers to someone who got a body part removed (or worse) as the result of a drunken provocation of an alligator. In this case we have the two Republican “front-runners” legging it toward the finish line for who will succeed Mr. Trump in 2028, after Trump’s maker calls him for his eternal reward. Got to love the charisma exuded in that photo of soul dead, shape shifting opportunist J.D. Vance.
The last supper of Jesus, with his followers, was a Passover Seder. Tomorrow evening is the Passover Seder. Easter Sunday, this year, is a few days later. Jesus preached peace, protecting the weak, welcoming the stranger, being always ready to forgive those who act hatefully toward you. Christians believe that the crucifixion of Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice and demonstration of love and acceptance from the most humble and pure being who ever walked the earth — God’s son. Jesus was willing to painfully give his life to redeem mankind from hatred and war. On Easter Sunday, the New Testament tells us, Jesus rose from the dead and went back to sit at the right hand of his heavenly father.
There are many beautiful, awe-inspiring stories out there that explain mysteries humans can’t otherwise understand. I think about this as my little seven year-old neighbor is suddenly very curious about God, saints and the like. She’s drawn to the local church (partly for the free Lent merch, baby saints on cute keychains). She was surprised to learn that humans worship many gods, after I gave her two Hindu examples. She wasn’t that impressed by Hanuman, the monkey-headed god I mentioned to her, but she seemed fascinated by Ganesh, the beloved elephant-headed deity. She recalled the elephant-headed god days later and demanded pictures, which led to many questions. Humans have always had a longing for a transcendent story, particularly one that gives meaning to death and makes our puzzling stay here on this often incoherently violent earth part of a holy mission from an all-knowing, all-loving creator.
Long wars between various religious factions, often worshippers of the very same God, wars that last centuries, have long been the human rule here on earth. The chief spokesmen for religious purity (and they’re usually men) don’t always take the teachings of their religion as literally as they expect their followers to take their authoritative interpretations of religious doctrine. Take the Evangelicals in the United States, good Christians who passionately embrace faith and unquestioningly accept the absolute power of a corrupt, criminal, irreligious maniac, for its own ends. In this schema, Jesus was the Prince of Peace, maybe (certainly certain limitations apply to who deserves peace). Here’s Pete Hegseth on what his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ wants from the US military:
Yesterday Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post reported that former high-ranking military officials, experts on religion and law, and veterans groups, as well as current Pentagon staff and officers, have expressed deep concern over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s extremist evangelical worship services and his casting of the U.S. military as a force for Christian holy war. Last Wednesday he prayed for U.S. troops to assert “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy,” saying: “We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ.”source
I know, what you’re thinking. What in Christ’s name is that supremely unqualified, drunken misogynist asshole talking about? Anybody who has ever read the sickening history of religious war over the centuries, and down to the present and immediate future, knows exactly what the sick fuck is talking about — “holy war” — mankind’s most murderous curse. Overwhelming violence, in the name of an all-knowing, all-loving God, against those who deserve no mercy (because they don’t believe as we do, worship differently, are Christians who pray in Latin, have different colored skin, etc.). Jesus, at his father’s side in the heavens above, pukes his guts out when he hears this kind of confident, mighty perversion of his powerful name.
Donald Trump has never been totally exonerated in his long life of being endlessly, unfairly persecuted, no more than he has ever been held accountable for any of his various crimes and misdeeds. He has defeated justice many times, by delay, bribe (e.g. Pam Bondi in Florida, $25,000 to her campaign if she’d drop case against his fake university) obstruction, vexatious litigation, using government resources to prosecute vendettas, making threats against judges, jurors, witnesses, calls to violence, getting others to cover up his many crimes.
The second most corrupt Attorney General of modern times, Bill Fucking Barr, lied when declaring that the Mueller report “totally exonerated” Trump when Mueller wrote, in his report:
Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment [that Trump did not act with corrupt intent and did not commit felonies]. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. . .
. . . The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of the office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.
I know we live in a post-fact age, but consider this:
Any president who leaves office, illegally taking with him with boxes of classified and top secret papers, although presumed innocent until convicted, is a criminal suspect until investigated and exonerated of wrongdoing. Especially if, like Trump, he claims he can declassify them with his mind, that he doesn’t have them, that he returned them all already, that he’s willing to show the government that he doesn’t have them, then gets one of his lawyers to lie that no more classified documents are in his possession, and so on, rope-a-doping the authorities for a year and a half. When a federal judge signs a search warrant, specifically describing the evidence of crime being sought and the exact places where they are likely hidden, that’s not an “illegal raid”. There is nothing more legal, under our law, than the execution of a search warrant adhering strictly to the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.
The punchline; they find some of the classified documents the president illegally took when he was dragged kicking and screaming out of the White House. They find boxes of the documents he claimed he didn’t have, in a bathroom, in a ballroom, in his sock drawer, the ones he lied about having (or selling to Putin, Mohammed bin Bonesaw, et al).
He got away with clear violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice because he had a corrupt judge, appointed after he lost the election he claims was stolen from him, throw the case out, on the shabbiest of legal theories (tip of the cap to Clarence Thomas) after dragging her feet for over a year ruling on routine motions.
Consider Trump’s long campaign to reverse the results of the 2020 election, an election he was told, and knew, he lost (‘how did I lose to that piece of shit?’ he asked one of his lackies after losing the election). 60 baseless law suits, pressure on various state officials, a lying $50,000,000 ad campaign (payments for ‘Stop the Steal’ ads stopped on January 6, don’t you know?), slates of fake electors, threats to state officials, an illegal plan to get the DOJ to contest results in states he lost, a plot with his “friends” in Congress (“The Greenbay Sweep”) to throw the final certification into the House so he’d be declared the winner, increasing madness unto epic fury leading up to the passionate Day of Love on January 6, 2021, when he whipped up a crowd he knew to be armed to go to the Capital for a bloody riot the RNC later rebranded as “legitimate political discourse”. We all saw that legitimate political discourse unfold on TV, along with the president who sent the mob to disrupt the joint session of Congress and watched the assault on TV for over three hours, and how it led to 140 Capitol and D.C. policemen hospitalized with grievous injuries sustained during the legitimate political discourse. That he beat being prosecuted for his multi-tentacled treason and shitting on his oath to defend the Constitution, by delay, obstruction, threats, violence, etc. does not mean he was exonerated for jack shit.
Now Trump’s fully weaponized, selectively prosecuting DOJ, led by his criminal and impeachment attorneys, has fired everyone involved with either prosecution against their boss. At a far-right event the other day, Nazi consigliere Todd Blanche proudly announced this purge was complete. Fair is fair. Come to kill me, I kill you, how you like that, asshole?
Here’s one of the “righteously” fired DOJ attorneys, J.P. Cooney, with a short summary of how guilty Trump was of both of these disqualifying criminal conspiracies. Cooney is now running for Congress in Virginia.
These Nazi dickheads, convened by Charles Koch and his rarefied ilk at the radical right Heritage Foundation, published a detailed 920 page blueprint for explicitly transforming the US to a fascist oligarchy — the infamous, largely implemented Project 2025. The liberty loving billionaire mantra is privatize and corporatize, for maximum profit for the few (fuck the many) and also, remove all regulations and immunize corporate wrongdoers (protect the super wealthy at all costs!).
Here’s the Project 2025 plan for the TSA (see link above at 191). Compare this to their long running plan for the destruction of the US Post Office, and every other agency dedicated to providing public services or aid to those in need.
TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (TSA)
The TSA model is costly and unwisely makes TSA both the regulator and the regulated organization responsible for screening operations. As part of an effort to shrink federal bureaucracies and bring private-sector know-how to government programs, TSA is ripe for reform. The U.S. should look to the Canadian and European private models of providing aviation screening manpower to lower TSA costs while maintaining security. Until it is privatized, TSA should be treated as a national security provider, and its workforce should be deunionized immediately.
TSA could privatize the screening function by expanding the current Screening Partnership Program (SPP) to all airports. TSA would turn screening operations over to airports that would choose security contractors that meet TSA regulations and would oversee and test airports for compliance. Alternatively, it could adopt a Canadian-style system, turning over screening operations to a new government corporation that contracts screening service to private contractors… Blah blah fucking blah…
If he can do this, without Congress, (and we don’t know if he can or not, since the source is Fox News), why didn’t this painted orange turd do it a month and a half ago? Rhetorical question…
“I do believe I’ll be having the honor of taking Cuba,” Trump said. “That’s a big honor. Taking Cuba in some form. Whether I free it, take it. I think I can do anything I want with it, you want to know the truth.”
A criminally insane madman, raised by a psychopath father who demanded his boys be “killers” (note: Frederick Christ Trump, the president’s father, was conceived in Bavaria before his father was deported from Germany for evading military service — Fred Trump, born here, was an anchor baby) is in charge of the world’s most powerful military. He runs it like dad’s second choice for heir used to run the family business, as an absolute ruler, even if a figurehead while the old man was still running things.
If his bones tell him to do it, he won’t hesitate to commit the military might of the US to whatever his bones tell him must be done. He will act — boldly, impulsively, unaccountably — even if the Constitution places democratic limits on his actions. If 100, or 1,000, or 100,000, or any number at all, American and foreign, have to die, so be it. The cause is not important. War is war, and as Mr. Trump has already stated, it “often” involves killing. Congress has the power to stop this madness by withholding funds for further war, but Republicans have been too afraid of their mad, vengeful leader to oppose him. The other day two Republicans in Congress attempted to stand up straight, a remarkable thing to see.
Yesterday, after a classified briefing, House Armed Services Committee chair Mike Rogers (R-AL), who backed the Iran strikes, told reporters that Congress members “want to know more about what’s going on, what the options are, and why they’re being considered,” adding, “And we’re just not getting enough answers on those questions.” Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee Roger Wicker (R-MS) commented: “I can see why he might have said that.”
Wow.
While Trump continues with the cute answers to serious questions, when he’s not snapping reporters’ heads off or making violent threats, (he makes the best threats), along with being adorable with the cute remarks:
. . . Trump simply began the Iran war without consultation with Congress, and administration officials have refused to appear at hearings, instead briefing Congress behind closed doors. At an annual fundraising dinner for Republican members of Congress, Trump appeared to acknowledge he was violating the Constitution. He spoke of the “tremendous success” of what he called his “military operation” in Iran. He continued: “I won’t use the word war ’cause they say if you use the word war, that’s maybe not a good thing to do. They don’t like the word war because you are supposed to get approval. So I will use the word military operation.”source for both quotes
Indecency personified, with a nice assist from the jack-o-lantern-faced Secretary of Treasury and a cast of despicables. As always, Lawrence O’Donnell nails it.
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