Category Archives: current events

I’ll say this for Trump

He knows how to establish a personal connection with an angry crowd, he shares their grievances in the strongest, most intimate possible manner.

Late last night I found myself reading the transcript of his entire speech to his followers immediately before the riot, transfixed by that long, hallucinatory labyrinth of a speech that sent a fired-up mob down to hang his vice president. There was a hypnotic quality to the speech, and an undeniable intimacy established with the crowd of 30,000 or so passionate strangers standing before him.

The individual parts of the speech, many of them, made no sense. Many of the sentences went nowhere, were not expressions of anything. It was impossible, in many cases, to discern what the hell he was even talking about, specifically. It didn’t matter. There were countless lies, as his historic crowd went from a hundred thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand while he spoke. He didn’t need to explain why, in spite of all the incredibly detailed proof of fraud he recited to his outraged followers, as Congress prepared to perpetuate this evil fraud on the nation, he lost virtually all of his many court challenges, except for the single one he prevailed in (which he highlighted as proof he was right all along). His prose does not reduce itself easily to words on a page. Yet the effect of the words is undeniable. The man knows how to fire up a goddamned crowd, in a uniquely personal way.

This is an undeniable talent he shares with his predecessor in firing up aggrieved crowds with incendiary lies, Herr Hitler. As with Hitler, Trump takes pains to sound like he’s in command of an amazing body of facts, rattling off specific numbers, instances, describing arcane circumstances in great detail, educating his audience. As with the Fuhrer, virtually all of this is bullshit. And like during a Hitler speech, the crowd becomes an essential part of it, chanting its “Amens!” in lusty unison. At one point Trump called the election results after 10 pm election night “bullshit”. And, I shit you not, the crowd immediately took the cue and began chanting “bullshit! bullshit! bullshit!” [1]

I’ve read it so you don’t have to. I didn’t select every part that grabbed me, there are a couple of great paragraphs in there, at different points, reviling the vicious Enemy of the People, the free press, it occurs in a couple of iterations. There were many other great bits I didn’t cut and paste– but this collection will give you a good sense of that acid trip of a speech.

The Washington Post, (where democracy goes to die in a darkness that does not allow low-paid workers in its owner’s vast sweat shops to collectively bargain to protect their health during a pandemic) published the entire speech here. If you have the stomach for it, I recommend it, as an non-chemical alternative to LSD. Again, I read it so you don’t have to. I’ve inserted a few headings for your scrolling convenience. Buckle up:

They gave these people bad things to vote for and they voted, because what did they know. And then, when they found out a few weeks later, again, it took them four years to devise this great — and the only unhappy person in the United States, single most unhappy, is Hillary Clinton, because she said, “Why didn’t you do this for me four years ago?”

(LAUGHTER)

“Why didn’t you do this for me four years ago? Change the votes, 10,000 in Michigan. You could have changed the whole thing.” But she’s not too happy. You notice, she — you don’t see her anymore. What happened? Where’s Hillary? Where is she?

They [Loeffler and Perdue] fought a good race. They never had a shot. That equipment should never have been allowed to be used. And, I was telling these people, “Don’t let them use this stuff.” [continuing praise of brave Republicans supporting him in election fraud claims during final certification] Marsha Blackburn, terrific person, Mike Braun, Indiana, Steve Daines, great guy, Bill Hagerty, John Kennedy, James Lankford, Cynthia Lummis, Tommy Tuberville, the coach, and Roger Marshall. We want to thank them. Senators have stepped up. We want to thank them.

(APPLAUSE)

I actually think, though, it takes, again, more courage not to step up and I think a lot of those people are going to find that out. And you better start looking at your leadership because your leadership has led you down the tubes.

You know, “We don’t want to give $2,000 to people. We want to give them $600.” Oh, great. How does that play politically? Pretty good? And this has nothing to do with politics, but how does it play politically?

And, some of the people here disagree with me on that, but I — I just say, look, you’ve got to let people live. And, how does that play, though? Okay, number one, it’s the right thing to do. But, how does that play politically?

I think it’s the primary reason — one of the primary reasons, the other was just pure cheating — that was the primary — super primary reason. But you can’t do that. You’ve got to use your head.

As you know, the media has constantly asserted the outrageous lie that there was no evidence of widespread fraud. You ever see these people? “While there’s no evidence of fraud.” Oh, really? Well, I’m going to read you pages. I hope you don’t get bored listening to it. Promise? Don’t get bored listening to it, all those hundreds of thousands of people back there.

Move them up, please. Yeah. All they — all these people, don’t get bored. Don’t get angry at me because you’re going to get bored, because it’s so much. The American people do not believe the corrupt fake news anymore. They have ruined their reputation.

(APPLAUSE)

But you know, it used to be that they’d argue with me. I’d fight. So, I’d fight, they’d fight, I’d fight, they’d fight, bump, bump, you’d believe me, you’d believe them. Somebody comes out. You know, they had their point of view, I had my point of view. But you’d have an argument.

Now what they do is they go silent. It’s called suppression and that’s what happens in a communist country. That’s what they do. They suppress. You don’t fight with them anymore unless it’s a bad story. If they have a little bad story about me, they make it ten times worse and it’s a major headline.

But Hunter Biden, they don’t talk about him. What happened to Hunter? Where’s Hunter? Where is Hunter? They don’t talk about him.

We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies that we’ve been forced to believe. Over the past several weeks, we’ve amassed overwhelming evidence about a fake election. This is the presidential election. Last night was a little bit better because of the fact that we had a lot of eyes watching one specific state, but they cheated like hell anyway. You have one of the dumbest governors in the United States.

(LAUGHTER)

And, you know, when I endorsed him at — I didn’t know this guy — at the request of David Perdue. He said, “A friend of mine is running for governor,” “What’s his name?” and you know the rest. He was in fourth place, fifth place. I don’t know, he was way — he was doing poorly. I endorsed him. He went like a rocket ship and he won.

And then I had to beat Stacey Abrams with this guy, Brian Kemp. I had to beat Stacey Abrams and I had to beat Oprah, used to be a friend of mine. You know, I was on her last show, her last week. She picked the five outstanding people. I don’t think she thinks that anymore.

Once I ran for president, I didn’t notice too many calls coming in from Oprah. Believe it or not, she used to like me. But I was one of the five outstanding people and I had to campaign against Michelle Obama and Barack Hussein Obama, against Stacey.

(BOOING)

And I had Brian Kemp who weighs 130 pounds. He said he played offensive line in football. I’m trying to figure that out. I’m still trying to figure that out. He said that the other night. “I was an offensive lineman.” I’m saying, “Really? That must have been a very small team.”

(LAUGHTER)

But I look at that and I look at what’s happened and he turned out to be a disaster. This stuff happens. You know, look, I’m not happy with the Supreme Court. They love to rule against me. I picked three people. I fought like hell for them. One in particular I fought.

They all said, “Sir, cut him loose, he’s killing the senators.” You know, very loyal senators. They’re very loyal people.

“Sir, cut him loose. He is killing us, sir. Cut him loose, sir.” I will never — I must have gotten half of these senators. I said no, I can’t do that. It’s unfair to him, and it’s unfair to the family. He didn’t do anything wrong. They made up stories. They were all made-up stories. He didn’t do anything wrong. Cut him loose, sir. I said no, I won’t do that. We got him through, and you know what, they couldn’t give a damn. They couldn’t give a damn. Let him rule the right way, but it almost seems that they are all going out of their way to hurt all of us and to hurt our country, to hurt our country.

You know I read a story in one of the newspapers recently how I control the three Supreme Court justices. I control them. They are puppets. I read it about Bill Barr that he is my personal attorney, that he will do anything for me, and I said you know it really is genius because what they do is that and it makes it really impossible for them to ever give you a victory because all of the sudden Bill Barr changed, if you hadn’t noticed. I like Bill Barr, but he changed because he didn’t want to be considered my personal attorney.

(FRAUD IN PENNSYLVANIA AND DEAD PEOPLE VOTING)

There were over 205,000 more ballots counted in Pennsylvania. Now think of this, you had 205,000 more ballots than you had voters. That means you had to — where did they come from? Do you know where they came from? Somebody’s imagination, whatever they need it. So in Pennsylvania, you had 205,000 more votes than you had voters, and it’s — the number is actually much greater than that now. That was as of a week ago, and this is a mathematical impossibility unless you want to say it’s a total fraud. So if Pennsylvania was defrauded.

Over 8,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were cast by people whose names and dates of birth match individuals who died in 2020 and prior to the election. Think of that. Dead people, lots of dead people, thousands, and some dead people actually requested an application. That bothers me even more. Not only are they voting, they want an application to vote; one of them was 29 years ago died. It’s incredible.

(“SEND IT BACK, SEND IT BACK”)

By the way, Pennsylvania has now seen all of this. They didn’t know because it was so quick they had a vote, they voted, but now they see all of this stuff, it has all come to light. It doesn’t happen that fast. And they want to recertify their votes. They want them recertified, but the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.

CROWD: Send it back. Send it back. Send it back. Send it back. Send it back. Send it back.

TRUMP: And many people in Congress want it sent back. Think of what you are doing. Let’s say you don’t do it, somebody says, well, we have to obey the Constitution and you are because you are protecting our country, and you are protecting the Constitution, so you are, but think of what happens.

Let’s say there are stiffs and they are stupid people and they say, well, we really have no choice even though Pennsylvania and other states want to redo their votes, they want to see the numbers, they only have the numbers go very quickly and they want to redo their legislature because many of these votes were taken, as I said, because it wasn’t approved by their legislature, you know that in itself is legal, and then you have the scam and that is all of the things that we are talking about.

But think of this: If you don’t do that, that means you will have a president of the United States for four years with his wonderful son, you will have a president who lost all of these states, or you will have a president, to put it another way, who was voted on by a bunch of stupid people who lost all of these states. You will have an illegitimate president. That is what you will have, and we can’t let that happen.16 These are the facts that you won’t hear from the fake news media. It’s all part of the suppression effort. They don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to talk about it.

(IRAQ)

Afghanistan, Iraq. Remember I used to say in the old days, don’t go in Iraq. But if you go in, keep the oil. We didn’t keep the oil. So stupid. So stupid, these people. And Iraq has billions and billions of dollars now in the bank. And what did we do? We did get nothing. We never get — but we do, actually. We kept the oil here. We kept — we did good.

We got rid of the ISIS caliphate. We got rid of plenty of different things. Everybody knows, and the rebuilding of our military in three years, people said it couldn’t be done and it was all made in the USA. All made in the USA. Best equipment in the world.

In Wisconsin, corrupt Democrat-run cities deployed more than 500 illegal unmanned, unsecured drop boxes, which collected a minimum of 91,000 unlawful votes. It was razor thin, the loss. This one thing alone is much more than we would need, but there are many things.

(Raffensberger — fake Republican)

In Georgia, your secretary of state, who I can’t believe this guy is a Republican. He loves recording telephone conversations. You know, that was a — I thought it was a great conversation, personally. So did a lot of other — people love that conversation because it says what’s going on. These people are crooked. They are 100 percent — in my opinion, one of the most corrupt.

Between your governor and your secretary of state — and now you have it again last night. Just take a look at what happened. What a mess. And the Democrat Party operatives entered into an illegal and unconstitution — unconstitutional settlement agreement that drastically weakens signature verification and other election security procedures.

Stacey Abrams, she took them to lunch. And I beat her two years ago with a bad candidate, Brian Kemp. But they took — the Democrats took the Republicans to lunch because the secretary of state had no clue what the hell was happening — unless he did have a clue. That’s interesting. Maybe he was with the other side.

The radical left knows exactly what they were doing. They are ruthless, and it’s time that somebody did something about it. And Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. (APPLAUSE) And if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I’m not hearing good stories.

Despite all of this, the margin in Georgia is only 11,779 votes. Each and every one of these issues is enough to give us a victory in Georgia, a big beautiful victory. Make no mistake, this election was stolen from you, from me, and from the country, and not a single swing state has conducted a comprehensive audit to remove the illegal ballots.  This should absolutely occur in every single contested state before the election is certified.

CROWD: We love you, we love you, we love you.

TRUMP: So, when you hear — when you hear, “While there is no evidence to prove any wrongdoing,” this is the most fraudulent thing anybody’s — this is a criminal enterprise. This is a criminal enterprise. And the press will say — and I’m sure they won’t put any of that on there because that’s no good and did you ever see — “While there is no evidence to back President Trump’s assertion.” I could go on for another hour reading this stuff to you and telling you about it.

The Republicans have to get tougher. You’re not going to have a Republican Party if you don’t get tougher. They want to play so straight. They want to play so serious. “The United States, the Constitution doesn’t allow me to send them back to the states.” Well, I would say yes, it does, because the Constitution says you have to protect our country, and you have to protect our Constitution, and you can’t vote on fraud, and fraud breaks up everything, doesn’t it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules. So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do, and I hope he doesn’t listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he’s listening to.

I think you have 250,000 people — 250,000. Looking out at all of the amazing patriots here today, I have never been more confident in our nation’s future. Well, I have to say, we have to be a little bit careful. That’s a nice statement, but we have to be a little careful with that statement. If we allow this group of people to illegally take over our country because it’s illegal, when the votes are illegal, when the way that they got there is illegal, when the states that vote are given false and fraudulent information.

As this enormous crowd shows, we have truth and justice on our side. We have a deep and enduring love for America in our hearts. We love our country. We have overwhelming pride in this great country. We have it deep in our souls. Together we are determined to defend and preserve government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

(APPLAUSE)

Our brightest days are before us. Our greatest achievements still wait. I think one of our great achievements will be election security, because nobody, until I came along, had any idea how corrupt our elections were. And again, most people would stand there at 9 o’clock in the evening and say, “I want to thank you very much,” and they go off to some other life. But I said something is wrong here, something is really wrong, can’t have happened, and we fight. We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.

Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun. My fellow Americans, for our movement, for our children, and for our beloved country, and I say this despite all that has happened,

the best is yet to come.

(APPLAUSE)

So we are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue — I love Pennsylvania Avenue — and we are going to the Capitol. And we are going to try and give — the Democrats are hopeless, they are never voting for anything, not even one vote — but we are going to try to give our Republicans — the weak ones because the strong ones don’t need any of our help — going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.

(APPLAUSE)

I want to thank you all. God bless you and God bless America. Thank you all for being here. This is incredible.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

And Mr. Trump had the genius and shrewdness not to ever say anything that, printed on the page, could be used to prove he had the intent to send an angry mob down there to hang Mike Pence, or to physically ransack the Capitol. HE NEVER SAID THAT!!! FAKE NEWS. All he said is that Pence is a person who maybe needs to find some courage because he’s the only person in America who can do the right thing so that a catastrophe can be averted as time runs out on all of us! And also, how disappointed he will be if Pence does not find the courage to enforce the higher law.

We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies that we’ve been forced to believe. Over the past several weeks, we’ve amassed overwhelming evidence about a fake election. This is the presidential election. Last night was a little bit better because of the fact that we had a lot of eyes watching one specific state, but they cheated like hell anyway. You have one of the dumbest governors in the United States.

When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules. So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do, and I hope he doesn’t listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he’s listening to.

[1]

Many of you have traveled from all across the nation to be here, and I want to thank you for the extraordinary love. That is what it is; there’s never been a movement like this ever, ever for the extraordinary love for this amazing country. And this amazing movement. Thank you.

CROWD: We love Trump. We love Trump. We love Trump. We love Trump. We love Trump. We love Trump. We love Trump. We love Trump. We love Trump.

and

That election, our election was over at 10 in the evening. We’re leading Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia. By hundreds of thousands of votes, and then late in the evening or early in the morning, boom. These explosions of bullshit, and all of the sudden — (APPLAUSE) — all of a sudden, it started to happen.

CROWD: Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

Don’t Tread On Me

Amy Goodman reports:

Details have emerged about the death of Rosanne Boyland, a 34-year-old QAnon and Trump supporter from Georgia who was trampled by the mob as it stormed the Capitol. Boyland was photographed Wednesday carrying a Gadsden flag — a Revolutionary War-era emblem of a rattlesnake with the caption “Don’t Tread on Me.”

source

14th Amendment, Phooey!

After the Civil War Congress amended the Constitution to abolish slavery (13th), extend equal protection of the laws to all citizens (14th) and ensure that male former slaves and previously freed black men could vote (15th). Each of these Amendments had a loophole or two that could be quickly exploited by the enemies of equality under law.

The thirteenth left open a loophole that allows the involuntary servitude of convicts, which has come in very handy for American business (and is indispensable to the State of California in fighting increasingly severe wildfires). The fourteenth was almost immediately judicially nullified, for use by individuals, for close to a century, (though corporate “persons” made excellent use of it all along) and states were allowed to apply equal protection and due process of law as they saw fit, under “States Rights”. As for the Fifteenth, well, states that didn’t want “black” voting were very creative in coming up with ways of legally quelling it, when they weren’t simply terrorizing potential voters by letting people lynch them.

There is this third section of the 14th Amendment, the amendment intended to extend the protected rights of federal citizenship (specifically the Bill of Rights) to the citizens of all states and has, since 1963, been used countless times to vindicate the rights of those unconstitutionally screwed by state and local governments nationwide. Section three was included because men who had engaged in violent insurrection against the United States were coming back into Congress, and fighting to be heard in lawmaking. We didn’t want blood-smeared traitors, who had recently endorsed the butchering of our army, sitting in the national legislature, making speeches for the slaveholders who’d so recently been robbed of so much of their wealth after losing the war.

Section three of the Fourteenth Amendment is a historical footnote today, a legal oddity that spells out no procedure, but is intriguing nonetheless in light of the continued endorsement of violent insurrection (“this is a moment for unity and healing” [1] “let insurrectionist bygones by bygones, the president learned his lesson” [2] “don’t divide us further, libtard cucks!” [3]) by many members of the Republican party. Like the ones who voted yesterday against Congress officially asking Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove an increasingly desperate, out-of-control president whose predictably wild criminality, including calls seeking to rig the vote count and to violent insurrection inside the Capitol by extremist militias, has soared as uncontrollably as the rampaging pandemic he bears not a whit of responsibility for. If a few breaks had gone differently (for instance if hero Capitol cop Eugene Goodman had not led rioters away from an unsecured door of the Senate chamber) there would likely have been a hostage situation in the Capitol. I wonder how Republican unifiers would have spun Mike Pence swinging from a gibbet [4].

Well, as always, you be the judge. Here’s that pertinent part of the 14th Amendment, see if it applies to anyone you can think of.

Section 3:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. 

[1]

The federal government has had no response whatsoever to Trump’s attempted putsch the other day. Silence from the federal government — no statement from any federal authority. So, you know, we can all move on, because Mr. Trump is quietly heading to Alamo, Texas, to run his perfectly appropriate insurrection from there, as the FBI suddenly gets busy tracking rightwing militia (domestic terrorist) plans for the coming week. Too bad about Pence, though. Let’s have unity and healing, y’all!

[2]

No reason to make people feel bad, we’ve heard apologies from some who were arrested after storming Congress chanting “Hang Mike Pence”. They admit they made a mistake. They regret their actions, or at least they say they do after they’re arrested, some of them. Very fine people, on all sides, on all sides!

[3]

After all, as our raging president continues to claim, this election was stolen from him by the traitorous radical Left, who are intent on dictatorship after mobilizing the Blacks, the Mexicans, Muslims, the Chinese, Iran, the Mass Media, Mass Transit, transsexuals, homosexuals, homophiles, homophones, atheists, secular humanists, Communists, Leninists, Socialists, Liberals, Maoists, Trotskyites, disloyal Republicans, Jews, Puerto Ricans, Samoans, and the cannibal pedophile elites who run Hollywood and the Democrat [sic] party. They know who they fucking are!

[4]

How is it that Congress has not passed rules for mask wearing in the House and Senate? Several members of Congress were infected with COVID during the lockdown when Congress was under siege by an armed right-wing mob. They were infected by Republican colleagues who refused to wear masks. Representative Pramila Jayapal, who was infected by these proud “anti-maskers”, reported that they mocked the attempts of others to give them masks. How, even now, that is there no rule in place? Trumpist contrarianism, yo. Time for unity and healing, bitches.

How to Never Heal

Pro tip: NEVER, EVER, ADMIT YOU WERE WRONG!

In a world where we all make mistakes, sometimes very hurtful ones, I’m glad to have a disposition that allows me to forgive people. That may sound funny coming from a man who felt he had to cast many old friends adrift over the years, but it’s true. All I need to be able to forgive is a sincere expression of regret when somebody I care about hurts me, their understanding of why I was upset and an assurance they will try hard not to act that way again. Reconciliation can’t happen without truth. If I won’t even acknowledge that I acted badly toward you, when you spell out exactly why you were hurt by my actions, repeated actions in many cases, what hope can you have about the comfort of our friendship going forward? Think about it.

How not to heal: refuse to hear what the other person is concerned with, no matter what, focus on your own counter-grievance, press it over and over. When they complain, tell them they are whining snowflakes, oversensitive, passive aggressive pussies. “I elbowed you in the Adam’s Apple for the fifth time this week — BY ACCIDENT, ASSHOLE, as I already fucking told you!” is an explanation that attempts to bully you into accepting your powerless in the relationship. “I’m not wrong, YOU ARE,” is an asshole’s first response most of the time.

People who are not comfortable apologizing will often “double down” in the sickening gambler’s phrase we all learned during Mr. Trump’s regime. Apology, admittedly, requires a moment of putting yourself in the other person’s shoes, recognizing that you too would feel hurt, followed by an act of humility — contritely asking forgiveness — that makes you vulnerable. Ironically, it takes a certain amount of strength and self-confidence to apologize, even when you know you’ve hurt someone.

Insecure people have a very hard time admitting they are ever wrong, especially when the result of their actions is set in front of them. By reflex they feel attacked, become defensive, counterattack. It is the only play of someone too insecure to acknowledge the possibility of being mistaken. We are living through a prime public example of what I am thinking about in interpersonal terms and it has us at the brink of being angry enough to actually begin murdering one another.

In the case of the many Republican politicians continuing to support the president (many by their silence) in his endlessly repeated lying claims of massive electoral fraud (he made the same claim when he narrowly “won” in 2016, millions of dead people voted then too), they are sticking to their stories [1].

That their story may make little or no sense, less important than having a story. As more and more terrible facts emerge, like sickening details of the violent riot incited by their leader, seen by everyone, the stupid cover-stories about the sudden need for unity, or Antifa, or Trump learning the first lesson of his life, become more and more ridiculous. They simply can’t stop now, not after their tireless, valiant campaign has finally brought us to to bring about this sickening, anti-democratic zero-sum political moment. Now even a violent riot by insurrectionists planned and fomented by the president can be … a… a teachable moment? — a step forward on the road together? They need a story. Any story is better than no story, wait, here we go.

To hold Trump accountable for planning and inciting a riot, inviting an angry mob to D.C. on January 6th to STOP THE STEAL!, sending the stirred up mob down to the Capitol while he instructed federal law enforcement to stand down, in hopes of seeing Mike Pence (so disappointing!!) swinging from the gallows and the heads of his other enemies on pikes (“Hi Nancy, hi Chuck!! Hi, Shifty Schiff! who’s laughing now?”), would– eh, DIVIDE THE COUNTRY! That’s it — yeah, Democrat traitors, look who’s trying to divide the country now, shameless partisan hypocrite zealots!! We’re trying to heal here, you libtard commie fucktards, and you’re… so… goddamn mean and hypocritical — and vindictive! Admit you’d do the exactly the same thing if you had the election stolen from you, or even claimed repeatedly and falsely that it was stolen from you!

As I watch this heart-sickening theater, personal feelings are being vigorously stirred. Two friends from childhood did exactly this move in recent years. One simply by refusing to admit that his reflex to make me angry had anything to do with him, the other by telling me he had no idea why I was upset with him, repeatedly asking for an explanation for why I was so hurt and then attacking me for explaining it in such a brutal way. In short, two smart people incapable of great insight into themselves, unable to behave any better than they did and angry at being unfairly expected to. Each now has the consolation of knowing that I was finally the cruelly self-righteous, heartlessly unforgiving asshole who put an end to a long, beautiful friendship. I don’t begrudge them, it’s all they’ve got.

I was telling a friend recently that I’d truly have no problem forgiving either of them, if they would only own up to what they’d done, and kept doing, that was so hurtful to me, promised to try to do better. If the first guy had a breakthrough in psychoanalysis and called to tell me he realized that he was actually, unconsciously, often trying to provoke me to rage and was sorry about it, I’d be playing guitar with him the next day. The second guy is a slightly harder case, because although he initially thanked me for my mildness in stating my grievance without accusation the first couple of times, he remained specifically unapologetic (he claimed to have no understanding of why, exactly, I’d been so upset) and non-responsive, repeatedly telling me I still hadn’t made myself clear, pushing me for clarification, and then blaming me for clarifying things, which was very hurtful and made him feel terrible! A more complicated kind of asshole than the first guy, still, I’d be glad to forgive him, if he contacted me with even a soupçon of insight into how his actions, and his constant doubling down, had finally aggravated me beyond endurance.

Politics is personal, its roots go back into our formative childhoods. Social scientists have run tests to determine the basic personality types of the typical liberal and the typical conservative. Here’s a test. Take these traits and assign them to one side of the political spectrum or the other: obedience, loyalty, harsh punishment, self-sufficiency, individualism. If you said “liberal” you pass the test. How about these: fairness, reconciliation, mutual help, community. If you picked “conservative”– how right you are!

We embrace the worldview that comports with our upbringing, or sometimes rebel against it hard, like Stephen Miller (whose family, survivors of Hitler, is anti-fascist). If dad taught you that the Bible said “spare the rod, spoil the child” and took every opportunity to not spare the rod, well, you are more likely to have a certain view of the righteousness of harsh punishment and retribution. If mom instilled a conviction that food should be shared equally by everyone at the table, that no-one should ever go hungry, or get less than somebody else, there’s a different fundamental lesson about what is truly important in life.

I knew the families of these two guys I grew up with quite well. The home life of the first was an endless exercise in restraining and repressing very understandable anger. The mother, a woman of great charm and intelligence, is a compulsive (though often harmless) liar and something of a manipulator. The father, an equally charming person, was treated like a rebellious child in their home, and acted chastened much of the time. This daily humiliation was disguised as a deep love that nobody could deny. The second kid was raised by an openly autocratic father and a narcissistic mother who worshipped his uncompromising dad without question. My friends had little chance to learn any life lessons at home but what they did. Both of these boys, as men, endured rough marriages that ended in ugly divorces.

You can understand these unfortunate backstories and, still, it doesn’t sit right (my home life was as bad or worse in many ways), in a world where we can work to gain more insight and change things about our lives that torment us the most.

I am prone to anger, and it is my daily work to get better at not succumbing to it, work I consciously do. One thing I’ve learned is that when you cannot solve an interpersonal problem with someone, it is crucial to simply walk away. That applies in the moment you are getting mad as well as longterm, of your decision to stay in an aggravating arrangement with little emotional counterbalance. To conclude that proneness to anger is simply my nature, and there is nothing I can do about it, would be an abdication of any moral responsibility or agency on my part. What they used to call a “cop out” in the sixties — it’s not me, man, it’s undeniable, immutable genetic-social necessity!

To return to my personal examples of the problem of making peace with people who have lost the ability to see things from your point of view: the first guy will endlessly deny his anger and his unconscious provocations, make it everybody else’s problem that they are so angry all the time — a stance that is, frankly, infuriating. The second guy will do pretty much the same, actually, though in a much more sophisticated way. They will both be right, eternally. And so be it.

It is beyond our powers to change any of that, least of all in someone else, particularly a person who sincerely believes we can really not do anything differently, or better, than we’ve always done. It reminds us of the role our native dispositions play in our outlook, I guess, and whether you’ve had the luck to have at least one parent love you unconditionally.

Back to “politics”, the sword hanging over all of our heads. As the US nears 375,000 dead of the pandemic, it’s clear that the president, who has snapped that he has no responsibility for it, doesn’t care. He cares about overturning a rigged election he has produced zero proof was in any way improper. He clearly DOESN’T CARE IF YOU DIE and he’s not going to address taking reasonable steps to prevent the wild spread of COVID-19, in fact, he’ll weaponize disease prevention itself and insist on super-spreader events like that mask-free tour de force of domestic terrorism he hosted last week then inflicted on the Capitol.

The plain fact that the leader of the wealthiest nation in the world, whose infection and death rates are 5X higher, by population (4% of world population, 20% of infections) than anywhere else, clearly doesn’t care about stopping the spread of this deadly plague, by itself, should be a compelling argument for removing him under the 25th Amendment. It’s depraved, if not outright insane.

Oops, there I go again, angrily dividing this poor, ravaged country!

Back to the promise of the title: How to Never Heal. Focus on a grievance and being the victim. Nurture those painful feelings, no matter what.

In the case of aggrieved Trump followers, let’s take one major strand of their belief system — that the unreasonable, pushy demands of America’s coloreds endlessly claiming racism in America are a crock of crap. Here’s what you do, Trumpie, hit back with history. FACT: the ones who were slaves, the black ones, were freed more than 150 years ago. Fucking get over it! You people are fucking animals, look at you! That’s why we had a phalanx of National Guardsmen in full anti-riot gear guarding the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as you passed by in your protest march — because you are insane, violent savages who will never be satisfied no matter how many rights we give you and you would have attacked even the sacred statue of Abraham Lincoln, the best friend you ever had until LBJ, if given the chance. Nothing will be enough for you, until we are your slaves. Now get out of our way so we can go hang Mike Fucking Pence.

There you go, it is as easy as that. If you are determined to be right, even with a grievous self-inflicted wound, even if it means being a moronic, self-deluding puppet screaming against your own best interests, it is very simple to do. Take the three easy steps again: focus on a grievance, nurture it, justify it, no matter what; repeat as necessary. You can thank me later.

On the other hand, if you want to heal, for some reason, there are a few necessary steps. You have to be honest. You need to honestly discuss the things in the past that have led to the harmful situation we find ourselves in now. You have to acknowledge terrible things that happened (beyond a nonchalant “we uh tortured some folks”, if you know what I mean) and commit to fixing them. You have to listen carefully, be open to all proposals for improving things, if you want to have real reconciliation. If you want to correct injustice you have to first look at it fairly, listen to the voices of those who are being hurt by it, remove from the conversation those who are intent on perpetuating unjust practices.

If you want to be right, of course, just blame the pitiful losers for wanting to be victims when YOU ARE ACTUALLY THEIR VICTIM! You know what I’m saying?

USA! USA!!!!

[1]

The New York Times, channeling The Onion (America’s Finest News Source), reported on its front page earlier today (they removed the headline in the last hour, during updates, so I paraphrase:) Supreme Court Declines to Fast-track Trump Election Case. I was too slow to click on it while it was up, and it can’t be easily found (searching “Supreme Court” on the buggy NYT phone app doesn’t do it) but, seriously– WHAT THE FUCK? What fucking Trump election case?

Current Events Collage

A selection of screen shots and three one-minute videos, provided particularly for those who believe this week’s riot in the Capitol could never have been predicted, or that the president is suddenly being uncharacteristically unreasonable and dangerous (though not dangerous enough to remove from office via the 25th Amendment, according to Karen Pence and her ilk [1]).

And screw the unfair and unconstitutional Twitter and Facebook bans, there are still plenty of extreme right social media platforms for the president to seek attention on:

371,084 dead of COVID-19 (and counting, fast)

source

It’s all fake news, folks.

[1]

I parenthetically mention Karen Pence again because the Vice President’s wife is the real force behind the president’s loyal poodle, Mike Pence, a man suddenly vilified by Trumpists. Trump and his followers were cruelly disappointed that Pence refused to break the law and declare all the Biden votes fraudulent (he had no power to do that anyway) and a lynch mob roaming the Capitol chanted that Pence needed to be hanged as a traitor. I disagree on all counts, and even if I did agree, Karen Pence, who wears the pence in the family, is the one the crowd really wanted.

The proper punishment for Pence is to release him into a roomful of angry gay teenagers who would be allowed to kick him as many times, and as hard as, they wanted. Once he was unconscious he’d be immediately swept from the room and given state-of-the-art medical care, to ensure no permanent damage, as best as possible. All the gay teenaged kickers would be given unlimited immunity from prosecution for any and all damage resulting from, or related to, their savage kicking of Pence, signed by President Trump and initialed by Karen Pence herself. Done and done.

“My only regret is that it is all so terribly true!”

The Birth of A Nation [1] was a breakthrough silent motion picture, the longest ever made at the time — over three hours long, an innovative twelve-reel epic considered by many a kind of masterpiece, certainly a landmark of filmmaking. It was the first motion picture ever shown inside the White House [2], where President Woodrow Wilson, the only American president born in the Confederacy, screened it for his guests. Afterwards he wrote the gushing review above (though probably without the colorful borders).

Birth of A Nation is a history of the Civil War that portrays the chaos and suffering in the war-ravaged South during Reconstruction, after the bloody Civil War it was forced to fight against Northern aggression. According to this electrifying (and mythically fabricated) history, after the war the poor south was being terrorized by savage blacks, lording it over their former masters, raping white women. A heroic group of modern-day knights arose to free the oppressed South and defend white southern womanhood. These chivalrous knights were the Ku Klux Klan, who arrive dramatically by horseback to save the day, and not a moment too soon!

Wilson is remembered, in many history books, as a Progressive and a visionary idealist who laid the groundwork for the United Nations. Every Black person I’ve ever talked to about Woodrow Wilson recites Wilson’s Klan bona fides. A straight up racist who re-segregated the federal government and engaged in other racist mischief while in office, (not to mention the odd bits of antisemitism while president of Princeton). It makes sense that he loved the history written with lightning by D.W. Griffith, though, or course, goddamn it, it was all so terribly true!

Speaking of history written with lightning, staunch racists and the terrible truth, you recall this emerging story, the recent siege of the Capitol where anti-democratic insurgents sure enough erected a gallows outside the Capitol and, we learned the other day, a group prowled the halls looking for the disloyal Mike Pence and calling for his immediate lynching (Karen Pence is the one they should have been looking to disable if they had a problem with anything Mike does or doesn’t do).

One thing the mass media pundits are still pondering, as a thorough investigation into the riot is called for, is “what went wrong?” For some reason Congress was overrun by a white supremacist mob called for and urged into action by the president and for hours no federal back-up arrived in force to stop it, even as police were brutally attacked and several were hospitalized. A total puzzler. I guess we’ll just have to wait for authorities to figure that head-scratcher out.

You’ll recall that unlike the overwhelming anti-riot force that was immediately used to disperse peaceful protesters so that Mr. Trump could pose with a Bible, these pro-Trump revelers were allowed to break into the under-guarded Capitol and wild through the halls of the People’s House for hours before Trump-controlled federal authorities allowed the National Guard to show up, the safety of our elected government finally protected and order restored. Very, very few arrests were made, the huge mob that had ransacked the Capitol was allowed to leave unmolested, though rioters attacked police (injuring a dozen including one who died of his injuries) vandalized the place and at least one defecated in a public area of the Capitol (get his DNA and make him clean it up). The president, who watched the mayhem live on TV, reportedly with satisfaction, finally addressed them.

President Trump on Wednesday urged his supporters who laid siege to the Capitol to “go home in peace,” hours after they first forced their way into the building. 

In a one-minute taped video released on social media, Trump urged his supporters to disperse. But he reiterated his false claims that his election defeat was “fraudulent,” which was the basis for the protest in the first place.

“You have to go home now. We have to have peace,” Trump said. “We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt.”

“This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people,” he continued. “We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace.”

source

Trump’s lawyers (the few remaining non-rabid ones) and family members finally convinced him, as details of the riot came into focus, that the storyline didn’t look very good for Mr. Trump, added up to a likely impeachment and later indictment for incitement to riot and a sustained call for an insurrection to overturn election results that made him feel bad. The facts don’t look good for POTUS, the blood of several Americans who died in the riot, including at least one police officer attacked by the mob, appear to be on the Insurrectionist-in-Chief’s stubby hands. Somebody wrote a short statement for Trump to read, deploring the deplorable actions taken at his urging. He grudgingly read it in a recorded message, sincerely expressing his outrage at the outrage.

Trump had for weeks urged the angry crowd to show up in D.C. (to rally, packed close together, maskless and shouting, during a wildly surging pandemic) on January 6th, the day the certified votes were officially tallied at the Capitol. Trump promised these enthusiastic young extremists it would be “wild”. He was as good as his word, this time.

Listen to this excellent 2:46 evocation of what preceded the Trumpist riot:

It is the first section of a Thursday report by National Public Radio’s Audie Cornish. The full episode of the broadcast is here. Here is a link to the transcription by NPR. [3]

He hosted a mass rally the night before where at least two pardoned felons rallied the crowd. Mike “Lock Her UP!” Flynn exhorted the crowd “those of you that don’t have the moral fiber in your body, get some tonight because tomorrow we the people are going to be here, and we want you to know that we will not stand for a lie!” (Hilarious, really, coming from a convicted liar, the first Trump official fired by the Liar-in-Chief, for lying to Pence). The night after the rally these amped up uber-“patriots” clashed with D.C. police. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser immediately called for National Guard troops to prevent a likely riot the following day.

Mr. Trump had his interim-acting minions take no action on the D.C. mayor’s request for National Guard troops to help prevent the inevitable, what he planned and very much wanted to happen. Politics is very personal for the president and Mayor Bowser had done horrible things to him, including painting a giant “BLACK LIVES MATTER” over Trump’s footsteps with Bill Barr and the Bible, so he repaid her, that nasty, low-IQ black female. The president himself whipped up the crowd the next day, telling them: “we will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved“.

As the riot raged, with Capitol police under attack (those officers who were not welcoming to the rioters, anyway) terrified Congress members hid and made calls for help. One call was to the governor of Maryland who immediately mobilized the Maryland National Guard. The governor’s request for federal permission to deploy the troops was refused for a couple of hours as the wild rumpus continued.

People died. The images of the brutal rampage are sickening to most Americans. After the crowd erected a gallows outside the Capitol, before they stormed and sacked the People’s House, that should have been the start of anti-riot intervention. Peaceful crowds that Trump hates and vilifies have been routinely assaulted, violently and with impunity, gassed and beaten by federal anti-riot troops that have been rushed in even over the protests of state and local authorities. An investigation will show that Trump ordered, and his acting lackeys obediently ensured, that federal law enforcement stand down, right after POTUS activated the Proud, Bugaloo, PooPoo and Incel Boys, took them off stand by.

Trump didn’t want to make the statement criticizing the by now wildly unpopular riot, but he did. The words were particularly ridiculous coming from the man who provoked the violence and lawlessness and took affirmative steps to make sure the mayhem lasted for hours:

“Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem,” Trump said, adding, “To those who broke the law: You will pay.”

source

Both of Trump’s statements, of course, are lies. Most of what he says is a lie, and beyond that, he doesn’t care one way or the other what he says, he’s a “transactional” guy– he says whatever he needs to for the sake of the deal.

He does not love the mob who worships him, he loves nobody, least of all himself.

He is not outraged by violence, lawlessness or mayhem, he incites those things, pardons people who do exactly those things, like the American mercenaries who shot up Nisour Square in Baghdad killing and wounding whoever was unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of their sprayed bullets [4]. The only people who pay any legal price in Trumpworld are losers, like the mentally ill murderer Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row; he is going to get to watch her die at his command on Tuesday when he wields his power of life and death again.

Mr. Trump and his enablers are writing history with lightning. The rest of us, for the moment, can only regret that it is all so terribly true.

[1] Wikipedia:

In spite of its divisiveness, The Birth of a Nation was a huge commercial success and profoundly influenced both the film industry and American culture. The film has been acknowledged as an inspiration for the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan, which took place only a few months after its release. 

[2] Wikipedia:

Birth of a Nation was the first movie shown in the White House, in the East Room, on February 18, 1915.[51] (An earlier movie, the Italian Cabiria (1914), was shown on the lawn.) It was attended by President Woodrow Wilson, members of his family, and members of his Cabinet.[52]

[3] Here’s a taste:

CORNISH: Also speaking that night was a former aide to the president, George Papadopoulos, who Trump also pardoned for lying to the FBI.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: We can’t forget, though, what Ulysses S. Grant said, there are but two parties right now – traitors and patriots.

(CHEERING)

Of course, Grant was referring to the traitors who had actually taken up arms against the United States in the bloodiest war in our history. The traitors whose flag of rebellion some in Trump’s crowd carried into the Capitol, along with actual Trump flags, which they waved while breaking through police lines, rhythmically grunting a two syllable chant with the exact cadence of the familiar “Seig Heil!” chant of yesteryear. Reason and knowledge of the past are not characteristics of Mr. Trump and his followers.

[4]

The massacred Iraqi civilians, whose unrepentant murderers Trump pardoned and had released from prison, included this nine year-old boy, Ali Kinani:

source

Oh, yeah…

Yesterday we broke this record with over 4,000 dead. USA! USA!!! Stop the Steal! Blue Lives Matter! Lock Her UP! (picture of her below) [1]

Oh, wait, breaking news, don’t lock her up — it deplores the deplorable behavior of those “deplorables” (though many were angry blacks in white face and the election was stolen from him by unAmericans):

Although, in fairness, it must be conceded, Mr. Trump’s myrmidons did not allow the National Guard to show up until the Capitol was overrun and Mr. Trump’s point was well-made.

In reading the prepared statement Mr. Trump proves beyond any doubt that he did sincerely regret the unsuccessful riot, particularly the death of a Blue Lives Matter officer who was killed by having his head smashed from behind with a fire extinguisher. And, of course, Trump would be saying this even if the real threat of criminal culpability for the deaths caused by the riot he/it unleashed was not hanging over his beautifully made-up head. Maybe he’s/its realized he/it can’t actually shoot somebody in the face without consequences (thank God for the federal death penalty though, nobody can stop him/it from legally killing those folks). We’re never to old to learn!

Meanwhile, wear your mask, stay at least 6 feet from others and be watchful, and healthy, my friends. Your lives matter.

Typical anti-liberty Anarchist Tyranny! (but still good advice)

[1]

My sincere apologies to all women and girls for this offensive little “joke”. Sekhnet hates when I do this kind of thing. It is meant only to be specifically hurtful to a famously misogynistic MACHO MAN (who dances clumsily to the gay anthem as he incites insurrection) in the same way I always refer to fucking White Supremacists as “niggers,”, and Nazis as, of course, (being one myself, no need for quotes) fucking Jews. Gratuitous, I know, but when hurling a sincere insult one should be mindful of what hurts the recipient the most. To say “Trump is a girl” is gratuitously offensive to all girls, I know, but I’m just trying to get the cowardly little douchebag to take a swing at me. To all girls I say “You go, girl!”