Category Archives: History and Politics

Latest US gun massacre, for the moment

This murderous asshole was a female of some kind, killed three nine year-olds and three adults. Assault rifles, two of them. Number one cause of death for Americans aged 1-19, bullets.

Heather Cox Richardson, with context:

Seven people died today in a school shooting in Nashville. Three of them were nine-year-olds. Three were staffers. One was the shooter. In the aftermath of the shooting, President Joe Biden once again urged Congress to pass a ban on assault weapons, to which today’s Republican lawmakers will never agree because gun ownership has become a key element of social identity for their supporters, who resent the idea that the legal system could regulate their ownership of firearms.

In the wake of the shooting, Representative Andrew Ogles (R-TN), who represents Nashville thanks to redistricting by the Republican legislature that cut up a Democratic district, said he was “utterly heartbroken” by the shooting and offered “thoughts and prayers to the families of those lost.” 

In 2021, Ogles, his wife, and two of his three children held guns as they posed for a Christmas card with a caption that read: “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference—they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”

Heather

Waco!

“Remember the Alamo!”

No dog whistle needed for Trumpie’s first 2024 campaign rally. Waco, on the anniversary of the bloody government/ armed cult standoff and deadly fire at the compound of an armed anti-government cult in Waco, Texas.

Two years later, to the day, Timothy McVeigh blew up a government building in Oklahoma City, killing over hundred Americans.

30 years later, on the day, Trumpie, choosing Waco, on the infamous anniversary, sacred to those who hate democracy, to make his Hitlerian promises of merciless retribution against those sick trairors who would enforce the law.

Makes presidential candidate Ronald Reagan’s dog whistle to Southern racists, giving a states right’s speech in Nashoba County Mississippi, at a County Fair very close to where three civil rights/election workers were murdered by the klan and buried in a dam, seem almost subtle by comparison.

Same goddamn song, different singer. Indict Roger Stone already, for fuck’s sake…

Trumpie’s ongoing obstruction of justice

Federal judge Lewis Kaplan, recognizing that a dangerous psychopath was a party to a lawsuit soon to be tried in his courtroom, took special precautions to insulate the jury from tampering, intimidation and threats of violence.

On the same day, the office of Alvin Bragg, the district attorney who Trumpie demeaned as human scum, a degenerate, psychopathic animal inserted by hateful Jew billionaire Soros, received, according to The New York Times, a package containing unidentified white powder (and a single piece of paper with the typewritten words, “ALVIN: I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!”). Can you say stochastic terrorism, taking its cues from the fearsome intimidator-in-chief?

Ben Meislas, an articulate lawyer with a nuanced understanding of the legal and political landscape of our threatened democracy, puts Trumpie’s rage tweets in context. He points out that judges are already using them as evidence of Trumpie’s lifelong penchant for intimidation, threats and inspiring violent retribution against all of his dangerous, sick, psychopathic, animal, Jew, Black, often female enemies. Ben included some of Trumpie’s recently posted overheated pronouncements against a few of his recent deadly enemies, human scum, worse than the Gestapo!

The timely hush money payment that allowed Trump to win the Electoral College

Using the timeline of actual events (so unfair!) right before the 2016 election, Lawrence O’Donnell shows how crucial suppressing the story of the porn star who had a brief sexual encounter with the entitled pussy grabber-in- chief candidate was to Trumpie’s brilliantly engineered electoral college victory a few weeks later.

O’Donnell makes a good case that without this well- timed hush money payment, there never would have been a president pussy grabber. So rather than a minor infraction that should not be the first prosecution against the totally innocent and persecuted self-proclaimed billionaire, it is fitting and proper. The illegal and fraudulently concealed campaign contribution of suppressing this damaging story is foundational to the entire 45th president’s story.

If it wasn’t for all the so-called facts, Trumpie would have excellent defenses to all of these baseless partisan witch hunts!

Trumpie totally refutes judge’s finding

Judge Beryl Howell granted the DOJ’s motion to compel Trumpie’s attorney Evan Corcoran to answer questions, under the penalties of perjury, about the many classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago after he certified, falsely, that after a diligent search all documents had been returned. She ruled that attorney/client privilege does not apply to many of the questions because of the crime/fraud exception.

Because Trumpie and his attorney appear to have jointly participated in crimes, obstruction of justice, for example (the order is under seal) attorney/client privilege does not apply to conversations and actions related to those crimes. Corcoran has to answer the DOJ’s questions about these alleged crimes, or plead the Fifth.

In response Trumpie’s “office” issued this stinging smackdown of the weak, woke DOJ and pathetic, abusive American justice system, as reported in The New York Times:

source

Hell, of course you will!

Fascism is mass submission to a narcissist’s will

It occurs to me how on point the “arguments” of authoritarians are to the “arguments” of narcissists.  They are simple and direct frontal attacks on everything you believe.  They can be summarized as “I am right, only I see clearly, and no matter what you say, fuck you, if you show the slightest defiance I’ll kill you (and everyone you love) and make you regret you were ever born.”   

The essential, deliberate irrationality of fascist argumentation was neatly summarized in a recent conversation between Brian Tyler Cohen and the great Mehdi Hassan.  The Gish Cohen refers to here was a “creationist” who was famous for raising dozens of false arguments in a short time and overwhelming the person he was debating.  Since it is impossible to refute all fifty falsehoods in a given debate, the Gish Gallop leaves the impression in the audience that many of the false statements, since unrefuted, may well be true.  Trump is a first ballot Hall of Fame Gish Galloper and his MAGA cohort, wielding their high pressure firehose of excrement, all regularly use this technique.  Here’s Cohen and Hassan:

Cohen:  … referring to Steve Bannon’s quote about flooding the zone with shit, the writer Jonathan Rausch once remarked “this is not about persuasion, this is about disorientation”. He’s right, when the likes of Trump and Gish engage in the gallop, their purpose is often not to try to win over but muddy the argument for everyone involved so they can bewilder and confuse while hopping from one falsehood to the next…

Hassan:  yeah, and it also has implications far beyond rhetoric, debate, argument.  It also has implications for democracy, Brian.

Cohen:  It destabilizes everything because then you don’t know what’s true …

Hassan:  That’s exactly what facism thrives on.  If you read the works of people like Jason Stanley, they make this point.  The point of the fascist, the authoritarian, why they lie, why they discredit the media, why they don’t want to live in a reality based universe, why they want alternative facts, is not because they want you to believe them over the liberal or the progressive.  They want you to believe no one, they want to leave you confused.  And what happens then?   Then you are more susceptible to the strongman who wants to lead you into the light.

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If you have ever struggled with a narcissist who angrily blames you for all bad feelings in the world, you have had a direct, bitter taste of the essence of fascism.  Who is the fascist strongman?  A malignant narcissist capable of unimaginable cruelty toward masses of his fellow human beings, someone who has never, ever been wrong about anything, and has a violent mob of fanatical loyalists willing to die to prove it.