Category Archives: History and Politics

Well done, Robert Reich

Robert Reich:

Friends,

I hope you read today’s Common Good essay, which I posted late last night. 

In the meantime, though, I want to talk about symbols, images, and fascism.  

Here is Trump’s mugshot from his arraignment yesterday in Georgia. It’s a look of defiance — which I’m sure he practiced repeatedly beforehand — intended for his supporters and his Republican base to feel defiant, too. 

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this is Trump’s thousand-word response to Wednesday night’s Republican debate which he declined to attend. 

He timed his arraignment in Georgia for yesterday so that it — and this photo — would dominate Thursday’s and Friday’s news, rather than anything or anyone emerging from the debate. 

But a defiant photograph isn’t “news.” It’s a symbol, an image. Which is exactly what Donald Trump is. He has no political platform, no specific policy agenda, no new ideas, and no plan for what he’ll do if he gets a second term. 

He exists as a symbol for the anger, discontent, bigotry, and vindictiveness he has unleashed in America. 

He is as close to America has come to a fascist leader, who doesn’t want his followers to think or analyze. He wants them only to feel. 

Last Thursday, Trump complained that Fox News “purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big “orange” one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not. Just like 2016 all over again … And then they want me to debate!”

Of course he’s angry. For the man who’s all symbol and image and without substance, a photo like the following conveys a brainless buffoon. It must drive him crazy. 

But Trump is not a brainless buffoon. He’s a cunning marketer, a diabolic manipulator of the public, a sly producer of his own daily reality show. His lead in the GOP’s presidential sweepstakes has grown. He will almost certainly be the Republican candidate for president next year — even if he’s in jail. 

How to debate a symbol? How to take on an image? How should Biden and the Democrats, and everyone who cares deeply about this country, respond to a demagogue who obsesses over what he projects rather than what he stands for? How to deal with a demagogue who doesn’t want followers to think but only to feel rage?

Expose him for who he is.

Nice move, DOJ

Go to like this bit of reporting from the great Heather Cox Richardson

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force (CFETF) established by Attorney General Merrick Garland in May 2021 to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud, announced its results today. The Department of Justice is brining federal criminal charges against 371 defendants for offenses related to more than $836 million in alleged COVID-19 fraud, most of it related to the two largest Small Business Administration pandemic programs: the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans, both funded by the March 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. In April 2020, Trump removed the inspector general tapped to chair a special oversight board Congress put in place to oversee the distribution of the act’s funds.

Removing rules, regulators and watch dogs is one of the hallmarks of MAGA and their original patrons, insatiable fascist billionaires.

America the credulous

You can listen to the braying of geniuses like Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Bobert, George Santos, Lyin’ Ted, Sean Hannity and the 19 RICO defendants in Fulton County. Apparently tens of millions of our fellow citizens do, believing every stinging accusation about inflation, communism and Hunter Biden’s criminal late filing of taxes and his nefarious laptop.

Then there are the facts, which don’t seem to get much political traction in this land of nonstop advertising and propaganda, according to the polls, though they do actually matter to the average citizen very much. Here’s one minute of Mehdi Hassan, debunking some widely held MAGA bullshit.

Clarence Thomas’s fanatical former clerk surrenders in Fulton County

Eastman was booked and released from the Fulton County Jail shortly before noon. Outside the jail, Eastman told NBC News that he “absolutely” still believed the 2020 election was stolen.

“No question in my mind,” said Eastman, who added that he was paying his own legal fees in the case.

a source

He’s on record telling co-conspirators, in the lead up to January 6, that if his creative legal theory ever reached the Supreme Court it would lose 9-0, even Clarence Thomas would have to vote against the idea that the Vice President has the power to singlehandedly decide the outcome of a presidential election during the ceremonial counting of electors by declaring a false controversy and letting loyal, partisan legislators decide who actually won the electors of their state.

Ginni Thomas, at least, must be delighted that her fellow-traveler Professor Eastman is sticking to his original story that the 2020 election was absolutely stolen. Jesus personally told Ginni the exact same thing, in a series of undeniable revelations. If you have fanatical faith you really don’t need anything else, as long as you have wealth and power too.

No marketable skills

The constant line you hear on right-wing media is that Hunter Biden, a lawyer, has no marketable skills except for his connection to his famous politician father. That claim is at the root of the GOP’s outrage and the source of the “Biden Crime Family” meme in MAGA world. Hunter, Joe, “and associates”, the unsourced allegations forcefully argue, got paid millions, TWENTY MILLIONS!, by corrupt pro-Putin oligarchs in Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. (No less an authority than Lyin’ Ted Cruz stated that Jim Comer has produced bank records of the $20,000,000 “quid” and that the “pro” is Joe Biden bragging about having carried out his end of the corrupt deal Zelensky wouldn’t admit to, MAGA’s stinking pile of offal is HERE).

hereditarily wealthy moron

Meanwhile, this cretin (pictured above) unable to get security clearance to work as a top presidential advisor and go through his crucial White House portfolio (ending the opioid crisis, making peace in the Middle East, draining the deep state swamp, czar of the president’s Covid Task Force, vetting requests for last-minute presidential pardons) because of numerous conflicts and financial problems, was supremely qualified for public service and entitled to the $640,000,000 he and his wife raked in during their four years as public servants, and $3,000,000,000 in foreign money for his new hedge fund, including two billion from his new buddy MBS in Saudi Arabia, who acted against the advice of all his financial advisers and kicked in two billion in pocket change to this C student, imbecile and incompetent businessman right after Jared left public service.

Here’s a great line from Jared from his time as czar of the covid task force, brilliantly explaining to America why the federal stockpile of crucial PPE was not for use by anyone in the individual states:

But this is all misdirection and I am straying from the point, Hunter Biden had pictures of his penis on a laptop that Giuliani got his hands on!

USA! USA!!!

Under Georgia Law

Under Georgia law, the names of the members of a grand jury must be listed at the end of their indictment. Which makes sense actually, if you don’t know who they are how the hell can you intimidate or lynch them?

My ancestral Jewish spidey sense tingled as I looked at the three names that were crossed out, but still legible. It is reported that their photos, social media and home addresses are already circulating in the violent-prone rage-o-sphere of White grievance that is MGA world. They have already been receiving threats from the most faithful, most angry, and most patriotic, of the cult of Chrump. Heaven help this country.