Category Archives: Law and Justice

Judicial temperament

Emil Bove III in mid Roman Salute

Here’s some interesting and important material on the “judicial temperament” of Trump’s favorite unprincipled legal Pitbull, Emil Bove III, from an op ed in today’s New York Times. Bove is about as MAGA as they come, apparently deeply drawn to the intoxicating scent given off by America’s Greatest Winner Ever, or, at least, what he can get by loyal proximity to Jeffrey Epstein’s close friend.

In 2018 a defense lawyer, speaking on behalf of a group of colleagues, including several former prosecutors, wrote to a supervisor in the U.S. attorney’s office complaining about Mr. Bove’s “unprofessional and unethical” behavior. One former assistant U.S. attorney quoted in the email said that Mr. Bove was “a prosecutor version of a drunken driver — completely out of control” and that Mr. Bove was “quick to bully and threaten.” Still another said that he “seems totally hung up on a power trip.”

That complaint was followed by an incident that appeared to vindicate these warnings, when a federal judge dismissed a prosecution supervised by Mr. Bove after a request from the U.S. attorney’s office. In the case, which involved charges that the defendant had evaded sanctions imposed on Iran, the judge found that prosecutors had attempted to bury exculpatory evidence and then lied to the court about the matter. The misconduct was so severe that the U.S. attorney’s office, even after a jury verdict in its favor, chose instead to end the prosecution.

Then a group of his colleagues complained that Mr. Bove showed uncontrolled anger and was abusive toward subordinates, and they asked that he be demoted from a supervisory role. Mr. Bove was not demoted, but he decided to leave the U.S. attorney’s office shortly after that, in 2021.

Unlike many of his colleagues in the Southern District, Mr. Bove found a soft landing not at a major New York law firm but at a midsize firm in suburban New Jersey. In short order, though, Mr. Blanche asked Mr. Bove to join him in a new venture: a tiny law firm devoted to the criminal defense of Mr. Trump.

At his confirmation hearing, Mr. Bove portrayed his decision to defend Mr. Trump as an act of courage. “All manner of evil and negative consequences were sort of foisted and thrown at Todd and I regularly as we had to make a decision, and many others didn’t have the courage to make to stand up for what was right,” he said. He added, “That was a decision to fight for what was right and fight for the rule of law.” Mr. Blanche and Mr. Bove lost Mr. Trump’s criminal case in Manhattan, but as far as their career fortunes were concerned, they won big, securing themselves their next jobs. . .

. . . Mr. Bove fired about two dozen federal prosecutors in Washington who had brought cases against Jan. 6 rioters, and he endorsed the view that these prosecutions [he himself prosecuted many of the J6 cases] were a “grave national injustice.” Asked at his hearing whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Mr. Bove conceded only that Mr. Biden was “certified” as the victor.

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Sound about right for a lifetime seat on the federal appeals court, one step away from replacing Alito or Thomas, after their perfectly legal (6-3, suckers!) prospective and retrospective blanket lifetime pardons from Trump? Even a flagrantly criminal pardon, sold to the highest bidder, is cool, as long as the president does it in his official chair at the Resolute desk. So saith the MAGA Six. Emil Bove III would certainly agree. That’s called judicial temperament in MAGA world.

Boof, displaying judicial temperament at his confirmation hearing

Trump 2024 sweep of swing states highly unlikely

Click on image above for updated, improved version of this post

As George Carlin pointed out years ago, obscenely wealthy white men don’t need to meet in a smoke-filled room to hatch a conspiracy, all they have to do is simply keep acting in their common interest. Kick in a tax-exempt billion here and there to buy politicians and influence public opinion and you can control government policy, pack the Supreme Court with right-wing zealots from a far-right judicial fraternity, and fund all other measures needed to consolidate your power and privilege. Use dark money to buy political attack ads and create “grassroots” groups that gather angry, ordinary Americans and televise their coordinated nationwide protests against a Black president (formerly known as mulatto, half-white, anyway) on all of the corporate news outlets simultaneously. Consolidate media so that one script of right-wing talking points is read by thousands of trusted local anchors. Blame liberals for the biased media, and for rigging elections, pedophilia, etc., and continually vilify rare left-wing billionaire George Soros. We’ve been living in an escalating cacophony of well-funded right-wing propaganda for decades, with unregulated social media, AI and finally, an emotionally unregulated, colorful maniac front man/conman for the billionaire class as the final touches. The perfect shit storm.

There were many highly suspect irregularities in the 2024 presidential election that are outlined in the video, and this analysis barely touches on the sudden drop in mail-in ballots in 2024. We learned in the weeks before the election that Harris led in swing states in the early voting (every one of which she suspiciously lost, by virtually identical margins) This thorough analysis of the several pronged GOP attack on voting does not focus on the significant drop off in mail-in ballots under Trump megadonor Postmaster Looey DeJoy, which, by itself, was capable of wiping out a Kamala Harris majority. I’ll get back to that below.

Voters Cast Fewer Mail Ballots

One of the most noticeable trends this year was the sharp decline in mail-in voting, particularly in states that enacted significant barriers to absentee ballots. These declines may also be influenced by other factors, such as the easing of the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased availability of in-person early voting options. 

Georgia, for example, passed S.B. 202 in 2021, which introduced new voter ID requirements for absentee ballot applications and return envelopes, among other provisions. As a result, mail-in voting plummeted. In 2020, over 1.3 million mail ballots were cast in Georgia – making up 26% of all ballots. In 2024, that number plummeted to 286,000 ballots, or just 5% of the total votes cast.

Similarly, Florida – a state known for its high rate of mail voting – saw a drop in absentee ballots after the passage of S.B. 90, which introduced stricter ID requirements and reduced the number of drop-off locations. In 2020, Florida had over 4.8 million mail ballots (44% of total ballots). In 2024, that number fell to just over 3 million (28%). Texas, where absentee voting laws were tightened under S.B. 1 in 2021, also saw a dramatic decrease. In 2020, nearly 1 million mail ballots were cast in Texas (9% of total ballots) compared to roughly 342,000 (3%) in 2024.

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I’ll be keeping my eye on this Rockland County case (mentioned in the video) which appears to be on a very slow track to resolving the underlying issues raised by plaintiffs who claim their votes for Harris were not counted, or were counted for Trump, in Rockland County — it’s on the calendar for August 29, 2025, as the judge considers the Rockland County Election Board’s motion to dismiss.

We are witnessing the chaos, lawlessness and terror unleashed by unqualified anti-government loyalists serving as the federal government, on behalf of a clearly unhinged CEO. The theory is to keep turning up the heat. Create enough misery, financial and health insecurity, food insecurity, stoke enough hatred, turn up the heat on the frog pot to close to boiling and the more violent among us will react with violence, at which point, endgame, welcome to the Libertarian States of Charles Koch, Jeff Bezos, Peter Theil, et al.

Speaking of unhinged, revenge-fueled maniacs, I knew it was only a matter of time until Dear Leader got back to settling his ancient grudge with his longtime enemy Rosie O’Donnell…

FBI director Kashyap Pramod Patel’s birthright citizenship appears to be airtight, at the moment, as long as he doesn’t do anything stupid or disloyal.

Loyalty to Kashyap, not the Constitution

A highly problematic report from the highly problematic New York Times:

It’s no longer a gratuitous comparison, MAGA is, in every essential way, the National Socialist German Workers Party who had such stupendous success during the early years of World War Two.  The requirement of a personal loyalty oath to your superior officer (see, e.g., Führereid or Führer Oath) flows directly from the Führerprinzip, the irrefutable idea that all authority and power flows downwards from the infallible Leader through his chosen chiefs.  It is supported by that old motto of the Third Reich, Führerworte haben Gesetzeskraft, “the Leader’s word is law” since the Leader is the ultimate expert on every subject.  

You don’t advance in this hierarchic, loyalty-based system where you may never question orders unless you accept that you’ll be punished severely if you disagree with the boss — on any grounds.   Principled dissent,  or — as some might claim — acting on conscience, or in obedience to constitutional limits of power, forbidden.  Defiance of authority is a fatal violation of the loyalty oath you are duty-bound to keep, in an authoritarian party.   If part of your duty is to faithfully tell any lie you’re required to tell (and now, as then, there is required language you must always use when asked certain questions — Sprachtregelung [1]) , then you are part of a  totalitarian regime.

Make no mistake, these grossly unqualified, radically ambitious extremists in charge of Trump’s federal government are National Socialists, our own homegrown modern American Nazis (though the FBI director’s immigrant parents both emigrated from Uganda, Kash is a birthright citizen, for the moment).   Motivated by personal ambition and a blind willingness to do whatever they’re asked to do, these guys, Kashyap, Pete, RFK Jr., Kristi, Pam, Marco, Tulsi and so on, will do whatever their Leader, and Stephen Miller, tells them to do.  The same goes for the slim majority in Congress and Charles Koch’s Supreme Court super-majority.

Right now a few Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee face an agonizing decision about who to believe and who is lying.  A whistleblower, a recently fired (for candor to the judge, as an officer of the court), highly respected, fifteen year nonpartisan employee of the DOJ who has now corroborated the main allegations of his complaint — or the president’s recent criminal lawyer and former acting AG, current nominee to a lifetime appointment to the federal appeals bench.

What we know about Emil Bove III is that he’s a fierce and unapologetic Trump loyalist who represented the president in all the weaponized criminal witch hunts against the Leader. More recently, as Acting AG in the present administration, he appeared personally in federal court to deny that there was a quid pro quo to drop federal charges against corrupt-looking NYC mayor Eric Adams in exchange for Adams giving ICE access to the sanctuary city. He also told the judge that even if there had been a quid pro quo, the court still couldn’t stop DOJ from dismissing the indictment against Adams.  Bove told the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath, that he can’t recall if he told his lawyers to be evasive and obstructive in court or to simply ignore court deadlines and orders, like Judge Boasberg’s order not to send 230 non-criminal immigrants to a terrorist torture prison in El Salvador.  

At least one  GOP senator may have a hard choice to make, because the Boss really, really wants his bellicose myrmidon, which proved over and over that he’s willing to lie for him, on the Supreme Court when Alito or Thomas leave.   We’ll have to keep an eye on this one. 

A loyal man who never violated his oath

[1] Sprachregelung is a German language term meaning “speech code”. It refers to a formal or informal agreement, or order, that certain things should be expressed in specific ways in official communications by an organization or by a political entity. It can also cover such concepts as agreed “lines-to-take”, talking points, and the exertion of message discipline. An example came in January 1945 when Ribbentrop sent emissaries to contact the Western Allies in Sweden and Switzerland, aiming to negotiate a separate peace; they carried with them a list of Sprachregelungen to ensure they gave the same message. Wikipedia

MAGA insists on the right to be incoherent!

Jennifer Rubin used a phrase in a recent Substack piece that really puts the entire Trump political brand into a great frame. “In other words, coherent policy is impossible without an accurate understanding.” Trump reflexively makes coherent policy impossible by erasing the possibility of understanding with constant lies over mass media, threatening, bragging and bringing about the “complete and total obliteration” of fact for a large swath of Americans. 

The reason MAGA gets away with doing all these objectively incoherent things (take from the nation’s poor and elderly, while creating American carnage, to give more to Koch, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Thiel, Musk, $Trump et al) is because they “totally and completely obliterate”  any grounds for accurate understanding of the forces involved by indignantly insisting on their right to be incoherent (see, for example, Lisa Murkowski). 

Trump claims that the US “totally and completely obliterated” Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program with its illegal bombing of three sites after Israel disabled Iran’s air defenses. No discussion of war crimes or Trump’s flagrant violation of the War Powers Act because… complete and total victory! Pam Bondi answers questions, under oath, about her department’s shady, partisan, unethical behavior by bellowing about Biden’s supposedly weaponized DOJ, Benghazi, trans athletes, whatever other Fox talking point comes to mind.  I forgot until the other day that she was one of Trump’s lawyers during his second impeachment; it makes perfect sense when you hear her yelling at senators and accusing them of being partisan commie hacks.  Incoherence is MAGA’s brand, coherent policy is not a consideration, enforcing their collective will is their only priority. 

Incoherence is professional conman Trump’s natural milieu, stoking confusion, lying and attacking, while strutting in a childish display of “strength” as he threatens violence he knows the more unhinged of his cult will eagerly carry out, when the moment is right.  His constant dance of rage destroys the possibility of any productive discussion, let alone one based on an accurate understanding of discernible facts — the facts are his deadly enemy, like anyone who honestly reports them.

This is what tyrannical personalities always do.  Control the discourse by framing the terms and, in the case of a Hitler or Trump, making the frame as incoherent, chaotic, threatening, distracting, terrifying and enraging as possible.   Instead of Trump on the spot, the news cycle focused on the president forced to defend himself to Congress for his blatant violation of the War Powers Act and his war crime bomber attack on Iran, he strikes poses on TV, bragging, threatening and twisting arms to get all media attention on his arbitrary deadline for his Big, Beautiful “let’s make the poor so desperate we can provoke them to violence and have the police state we all want” bill to his Resolute desk so he can claim another big win, another 51-50 mandate. 

Tanking the economy for working people and increasing general fear and anxiety are necessary ingredients for the completion of the determined lurch toward American fascism that has been Charles Koch’s well-funded project since at least 1980. Without economic despair in Germany, no Hitler. Without similar conditions here, no American fascism. Turn up the heat enough on poor Americans, let enough of them go hungry, force them to care for elderly, sick parents at home, die of treatable diseases, use enough heavy handed Gestapo-like tactics against innocent immigrants and political opponents, openly weaponize the Department of Justice, and people will eventually begin to freak out. Time to bring in the troops, led by Mr. Insurrection Act, General Mike “Lock Her Up” Flynn.

Trump’s claim after Mueller laid out ten prosecutable instances of obstruction of justice was also “complete and total exoneration.”   The overemphasis is always a tell that he’s lying, as Jen Rubin points out, although his mouth moving is another tell.   Of course, like obliteration, there’s only one kind of exoneration, it means — beyond being found not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt — you were deemed innocent of the charges because evidence ruled out your guilt or the guilty party was found, tried and convicted of the crime you were accused of.  That we are in the hands of an insane, perpetually enraged and emotionally needy two year-old, does not speak well of our culture.

On our culture, I recommend Gabor Mate’s The Myth of Normal.  The book really lays out the toxic nature of our kind of normal. 

Trump’s perfectly normal, in this upside down world that normalizes people like him.  Hannah Arendt described Eichmann’s behavior during the Third Reich and pointed out that everything he did was perfectly normal, in Nazi Germany where an insane megalomaniac’s every spoken word was, literally, the law.   

One of the psychiatrists who examined Eichmann before the trial was asked by the court if Eichmann was sane for purposes of standing trial.  “Saner than I am, at any rate, after talking to him for two hours,” the shrink said.  Eichmann’s inability to think for himself (reflected by his inability to express himself, beyond cliches), to consider anything beyond what was “normal” at the time, is what marked him as the perfect Nazi bureaucrat.  

Here’s another perfect Nazi bureaucrat, a violent rioter tasked with helping to weaponize the government against all enemies of the Leader. You can’t make this stuff up…

Lisa Murkowski for president

Today’s profile in spinelessness goes to Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski who voted “yea” effectively casting the deciding vote for The Act [1], a bill she said repeatedly she didn’t support. A senator who raised his fist to an insurrectionist mob, Josh Hawley, can be counted on to sincerely express grave concerns about the serious damage a bill will do to working poor people in his state and then follow his conscience and vote to pass the bill, but Murkowski, it seemed (until today), still wanted to be seen as a person of independent judgment, integrity and good character. A sturdy spined, independent woman, like the senator from Maine, one of three Republicans who voted to kill the killer bill. Thank you, Susan Collins, 75% of our nation — and a legitimately frightened world — is grateful for your reality-affirming vote. As for Ms. Murkowski, read the transcript of her incredibly idiotic answer (and confession) to the accusation that she’d sold out the country for a deal that helps her state.

After she cast what amounts to the deciding vote (a vote any one of the remaining 50 Republicans could have made, of course, Lyin’ Ted, Lindsey, Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, Joni Ernst) in favor of a brutally unfair budget that punishes the poor and vulnerable to enrich the already obscenely rich, she was asked by NBC reporter Ryan Nobles what her response was to senator Rand Paul’s statement that she’d bailed out Alaska at the expense of the country:

“Oh my God… (then there was a long silence, and a long glare from Murkowski, then the reporter clarified that Paul had said that, repeated it, and asked for her response) …

“… my response is… I have an obligation to the people of the state of Alaska and I live up to that every single day. I fight for my state’s interests and I make sure that Alaskans are understood. I work hard to take care of the state that has more unique … situations … more unique people, and it’s just different. And so, when people suggest that federal dollars go to one of our fifty states in a quote “bail out”, I find that offensive. I advocated for my state’s interests, I will continue to do that and I make no excuses for doing that.

“Do I like this bill? No, because I tried to take care of my state but I know, I know that in many parts of the country there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. I don’t like that. I don’t like… the fact… that we moved to an artificial deadline, an artificial time line to produce something to meet a deadline, rather than to actually try to produce the best bill for the country. But when I saw the direction it was going, you can either say ‘I don’t like it’ and not try to help my state, or you can roll up your sleeves… [and lick the Leader’s ‘ring’, as required, and get the best possible deal in exchange for my vote]”

“Do I like this bill? No, because I tried to take care of my state but I know, I know that in many parts of the country there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. I don’t like that.”

“In many parts of the country there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill.”

And Lisa Murkowski doesn’t like that, not at all. Also, she didn’t like the artificial emergency and the pressure to pass the bill before the Fourth of July, didn’t like any of that at all. There hadn’t been time to fully debate the bill and make the best amendments to it, or even to read the final version in full. She didn’t like that. At the same time, when the moment came, she rightfully considered only the best quid pro quo she could get to make sure Alaskans, unique among the citizens of all fifty states, were not among those Americans who were “not going to be advantaged by this bill.”

”But when I saw the direction it was going, you can either say ‘I don’t like it’ and not try to help my state, or you can roll up your sleeves… [and obey the Leader’s will, as required]”

No, Lisa. You roll up your sleeves, vote “nay” and get back to work drafting a better bill if you believe millions of Americans will “not be advantaged by” a viciously cruel bill. All it would have taken to defeat “the direction it was going” was to say no to the naked quid pro quo (which you admitted to in your answer, fool) and vote to return the bill for further revision.

Imagine a person as dumb as a pile of shit. Ask it to respond to a critical comment about how it made a special deal that sold out the American people. I expect its answer would be something like “Oh my God … of course I made a special deal that sold out the American people, because I work for Alaska, which is unique, and not like the rest of those Americans who are, unfortunately, not going to be advantaged by this bill.”

Hard to ignore the smell of the thing as it gives its idiotic response.

It’s now time to call Congress members as this highly toxic shit sandwich heads back to the House and root for the dysfunction of the slim MAGA House majority and the political genius of one of Trump’s most loyal and delusional lackeys, MAGA Mike Johnson. I’ve got to write a letter to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, waiting to respond at a time and place of his choosing, tomorrow, remind me.

[1] Chuck Schumer officially got the name of the One Big, Beautiful Bill, an abomination and obscenity by any name, changed, to The Act. Small, symbolic victory, I suppose.

Echoes of a horrifying chapter of history

I recently watched an excellent documentary, Facing Tyranny, on PBS [1], about one of my heroes, Hannah Arendt. Arendt was a brilliant, fearless thinker and writer who was universally attacked for her frankness and irony in assessing Adolf Eichmann’s actual role in the industrialized mass murder of European Jewry (amidst the mass murder, and general slaughter, of tens of millions of others).

Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt’s account of the Eichmann trial, a masterpiece, was condemned and dismissed by critics from every part of the political spectrum. Arendt commented that she understood, in hindsight, that her ironic tone about Nazi horrors (and Jewish complicity in some cases) that the public was just confronting graphically for the first time, may have led to much of the criticism. The public, she now understood, had not been ready for her ironic tone in laying out such horrors. She took a drag on her cigarette, and said “if I had it to do over again, I’d have done it the same way.” My hero.

In a traumatized society obedient to the will of a madman, where führerwortes haben gesetzeskraft (the Leader’s word has the force of law) and every one of Hitler’s brain farts immediately became the law of Germany, an unquestioningly obedient, ambitious government worker like Eichmann was completely unremarkable.

Arendt noted that Eichmann’s inability to speak with any degree of coherence, outside of defending his duty to obey the laws foaming out of the Leader’s rabid mouth, reflected his inability to think. Remove critical thinking and every monster you can imagine springs to life. Society can then be dominated by the indecent, monstrous will of unreasoning, calculating, all-powerful psychopaths.

The evil done by these evil fucks is rendered banal by the lack of thought with which they commit unspeakable atrocities and their absence of awareness and conscience as they commit their, now legal, even praiseworthy, crimes. A guy like Eichmann, Arendt noted, was simply an efficient, hard-working, unthinking member of a bureaucratic lynch mob, not the demonic architect of mass murder the Israeli prosecutor made him out to be. People tried to rough Arendt up over that banality of evil idea. Good luck, I say, take a glance around Congress.

The Senate is currently debating a big, sadistic, hideously “beautiful” bill (beautiful only for our 801 billionaires, their cumulative $6,500,000,000,000 and their corporate alter egos) that will pay for the billionaires’ massive tax cuts by removing health care from millions of working, elderly and disabled Americans and starving poor children by the millions while closing rural hospitals and nursing homes, increasing taxes on the lowest earners by an audacious 73% as it drastically cuts taxes on the wealthiest, while giving fossil fuel climate deniers (currently already subsidized $700,000,000,000 annually) infinitely more profit by squashing cheaper, sustainable American renewable energy and allowing Koch and friends to drastically raise energy prices nationwide. Oh yeah, and since the BBB will “pay for itself” by cutting the social safety net half of Americans rely on, we also need to raise the debt ceiling by $5,000,000,000,000.

There is so much ugliness in the Big Beautiful Bill (example of Orwell’s Newspeak [2], like “Truth Social”) it’s impossible to know or itemize all of it. Why would a faithful follower of Jesus Christ want to see millions of American children and old people go to bed hungry, lose health care, die unnecessary deaths in the richest country in the world? How would Jesus feel about giving more to the already obscenely rich while the poor, and their children, are immiserated further? Christian MAGA supporters will not ever confront this clear moral question, which their MAGA pastors and ministers will proactively protect them from ever asking.

Remember, MAGA would not be in power without the organized support of millions of Evangelical Christians and radically reactionary Catholics (think Bill Barr, Leonard Leo, Sammy the Bull Alito, Clarence and Ginny Thomas). How did those two groups of Christians do in Germany during the rise of the New York Times’ Mr. Hitler?

I stumbled on a Chris Hedges video discussing the work of Eric Voegelin, who studied the Nazi era (after running for his life from the Nazis in 1938) and made certain chilling connections, which are summarized in this bit from a search for Voegelin’s Hitler and the Germans.

Responding to publications on National Socialist Germany, Eric Voegelin [in Hilter and the Germans] discusses the historian Percy Schramm’s “Anatomy of a Dictator,” along with studies of the churches and the legal profession. His inquiry uncovers a historiography that was substantially unhistoric: a German Evangelical Church that misinterpreted the Gospel, a German Catholic Church that denied universal humanity, and a legal process enmeshed in criminal homicide.

a German Evangelical Church that misinterpreted the Gospel, a German Catholic Church that denied universal humanity, and a legal process enmeshed in criminal homicide.

Here we have an American Evangelical Church whose leaders embrace a radically strange interpretation of the teachings of their Savior in flagrant conflict with those teachings, a radicalized American Catholic Church whose political leadership denies the humanity of girls and women who are rape victims (in the name of protecting the sacred fetus of the rapist), and a legal profession that… well, in Germany the doctors were the first professional group to voluntarily Nazify — being an “Aryan” and Nazi party membership were required to practice medicine in Hitler’s Germany — and, most certainly, the fucking lawyers were the second professional group to become loyal Hitlerites.

The horror, the horror. Makes me want to holler.

[1] Public Broadcasting, of course, is a deadly enemy to Trumpworld. How dare they make documentaries about radical left antisemitic Jews like Hannah Arendt? They harm innocent young white Christian children by recounting tired stories of so-called racism, slavery, and centuries of terrorism against Blacks. They don’t hate and reject gay people, as Jesus urged every Christian to do. They oppose book banning, book burning, they challenge propaganda itself sometimes! DEFUND PBS! (But watch the Arendt documentary first).

[2] In 1984, Orwell introduced the concept of Newspeak, a controlled language designed to eliminate any possibility of rebellious thoughts. By systematically reducing vocabulary, the ruling Party ensured that individuals could not even conceive of dissent, let alone articulate it. Words like “doubleplusgood” replaced more complex expressions, stripping language of nuance and ambiguity.

Newspeak operates on the principle that if certain words do not exist, the concepts they represent cannot be thought about. The language was deliberately constructed to remove any potential for subversive thought, thereby eliminating free will at the linguistic level. The ultimate goal? To make independent thinking impossible by restructuring language to serve only the Party’s ideological needs. By shrinking the range of thought through a diminishing vocabulary, Orwell emphasized how linguistic engineering could erode cognitive freedom. source

Election (fraud) Denial

Trump and the rightwing propaganda machine have done such a good, proactive, preemptive job of accusing Democrats of the crimes they themselves commit (weaponizing the DOJ, partisan hack activist judges, etc.) that it’s unthinkable for a Democrat to point out how fossil fuel billionaire Koch and Co. (with the help of Putin, Musk, Thiel, et al) almost certainly rigged the mathematically impossible 2024 election results.

These super-wealthy fascists were undoubtedly aided by harsh voter suppression laws in many states, (brought to you by a lying John Roberts/Federalist Society/Kochtopus 5-4 decision overruling a 98-0 Senate reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act).  Questioning the legitimacy of Trump’s highly improbable “mandate” (he won every swing state, a rare feat, even states otherwise swept by Democrats, with virtually identical margins, just out of automatic recount range, flipping 88 strategic counties blue to red while none flipped the other way) would make the Democrats look like whining, pouting, evidence-denying, democracy rejecting “election deniers” like Kari Lake, Trump and co.   

I find this short series very convincing, but then again, I can’t find an explanation for the 20,000,000 vote drop off in mail-in ballots (after mail-in voting increased in the 8 straight elections), except as the nefarious plan of a shameless, pugnacious Trump megadonor postmaster who retired, job done, shortly after the election.   

Let me know what you think, and share this with your group, see what they think.

Emil Bove III

Emil Bove, former Trump criminal lawyer [1], is on Trump’s short list to replace Samuel Alito, once Bove has been appointed to, and served briefly on, the federal appeals court. Bove was the acting head of the DOJ who dismissed the Eric Adams indictment and sought to keep the charges hanging over Adams’ head by dismissing the case “without prejudice” (meaning, he could prosecute at will in the future). Bove was doing this to advance Trump/Miller’s draconian deportation program by ensuring that NYC mayor Adams allowed ICE to operate freely in NYC, something Adams agreed to as part of a quid pro quo to escape prosecution for a variety of felonies.

Bove was outraged at the suggestion of a quid pro quo, as he told the judge. He also told the judge that even it was a quid pro quo, the judge still couldn’t stop DOJ from dismissing the case. Of course, after the quid pro quo was announced by Bove, U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon and six other federal prosecutors resigned in protest. Four deputy mayors in Adams’ administration also resigned.

Bove sent a lawyer to federal court in Maryland to stonewall the judge (one of the many currently sued on Trump’s behalf by rabid AG Pam Bondi’s DOJ) in the Abrego Garcia abduction/rendition to El Salvador prison for terrorists case. Erez Reuveni, experienced, recently promoted DOJ lawyer, who had argued Trump’s cases zealously in the Orange Polyp’s first term, was, as his duty to the Constitution required, candid with the court.

That attorney, former DOJ assistant director in the Justice Department’s Office of Immigration Litigation, Erez Reuveni, (I applauded the candor he was fired for at the time) is now a whistleblower, issuing a detailed warning about the corrupt orders he was given (lie to the court) by Bove, supremely loyal Nazi fuck and former Trump criminal lawyer that Trump is trying to ram on to the federal appeals court.

Bove stonewalled Congress the other day as he claimed not to recall telling Reuveni and a room full of DOJ lawyers to be ready to say “fuck you” to federal judges. “I don’t recall” said Bove, any time he was pressed, as every one of these carefully coached creeps does when a truthful answer would tank their nomination.

Reuveni’s whistleblower complaint begins:

Between March 14, 2025, and April 5, 2025, Mr. Reuveni, almost immediately after receiving notice of his promotion to serve as Acting Deputy Director of OIL, became aware of the plans of DOJ leadership to resist court orders that would impede potentially illegal efforts to deport noncitizens, and further became aware of the details to execute those plans. source

Here’s the money shot, the scene Bove claims not to recall:

Like so many other Trump Derangement Syndrome leftie commie fascist weirdos, anyone in MAGA world who does not line up to loyally do whatever they are asked, fired DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni was at one time, not long ago, a warrior for the mad president. Check this out.

It is a reasonable question to ask of Bove, if you have so little recall of what you said as acting head of the DOJ, since you can’t remember what every other lawyer in that suddenly silent room heard you say, should you be a fucking judge in the first place, you lying sack of sanctimonious shit?

And, since we live in a world of wrap around propaganda, here’s Rupert Murdoch, doing his part.  Language matters. Trump “reveals”…

[1] Wikipedia: In September 2023, he became a partner at Blanche Law, a law firm founded by Todd Blanche. Days later, Bove joined Donald Trump‘s criminal defense team.[12] In the state court criminal trial of Trump in New York, he was second chair to Blanche on Trump’s defense team.[18][19] Bove represented Trump in the federal classified documents and election obstruction cases.[20]

Government is not a fucking business

Try for a moment to forget that we are currently being bombarded by actual tax-payer funded advertisements made by sitting federal officials (Gabbard, Bondi, et al), shameless loyalists gushing over the great accomplishments of their Dear Leader. Robert Reich breaks down the simplistic, criminally cynical far-right claim that the government (whose purpose in a democracy is to promote the welfare of all citizens) must be run like a corporation (a judicially created “person”, a psychopath of eternal life with only one goal — monetary profit).

These Nazi fucks (right-wing billionaires and their “apolitical” corporate allies), if their claim is to be believed, and they are consistent, would consider it prudent for a democratic government to declare bankruptcy, like any other failing business, if democratic government faces the fate of the rest of Trump’s highly successful business ventures.

If I’m lying may my golden Trump sneakers get lost in the mail, like my ballot, my Trump bible, $Trump crypto, Trump NFTs and gold sprayed (in America) Trump phone, proudly made in the American minds of MAGA (all products are made in USA, even if “physically” made in China). USA! USA!!! We’re not a laughingstock anymore! We’re a great brand.

Anarchist Jurisdictions

A few thoughts about Trump’s obsession with violently occupying sanctuary cities, roughing up, handcuffing and sometimes even charging “Democrat” public officials (Black, Hispanic and Jew alike) and imposing his federal will, using the military, on all state and local governments, because they are godless communists who hate America and he is the democratically elected Unitary Executive who loves America and wants to save it from the savage, sick hordes of perverts in cities who make up the overwhelming majority of the American population (around 85%).

Recall that Trump’s pugnacious Attorney General, Bill Barr, declared places like New York, Chicago, LA “anarchist jurisdictions”. He and Trump threatened them, they would withhold tax dollars, paid by these jurisdictions, from coming back to them as Congress had appropriated. Using anarchist jurisdictions as his mantra, Barr sent out-of-uniform federal goon squads in unmarked vans to grab protesters off the street in Portland, overwhelmed with force and tear gassed peaceful protesters in DC to clear the way for an enraged Trump’s glaring photo op with a Bible. In one infamous, little reported incident, Barr even had a murder suspect executed by one of these squads.

In the case of the extrajudicial execution of a man suspected of killing a Trump supporter during a confrontation in Portland, Barr claimed the admitted antifa fighter had been shot to death after drawing his gun and trying to resist his peaceful arrest, as terrorists do. Eyewitnesses tell another story:

The Times article cited above details what actually happened in the “confrontation” that led to Reinoehl’s killing. Witnesses thought it was a mob hit, or a drug cartel execution. Reinoehl was walking toward his car, holding a cell phone and a bag of candy when the “confrontation” began. Two SUVs sped to the scene, cutting off Reinoehl’s car, four armed men leapt out and immediately opened fire. Nobody heard anyone identify themselves as police or yell anything else at the suspect. An unfired handgun was found in a pocket of Reinhoehl’s bullet riddled corpse, [proof that his killing by government agents was totally justified, as police investigators later found.]

Of course, who are you going to believe, the Lying New York Times, and twenty-two so-called “witnesses” who were interviewed by the paper, or men of unimpeachable integrity like Bill Barr and a president who, try as they might, simply cannot tell a lie?

source (me — citing to NY Times article)

There is always a bullshit “justice” story behind any political intimidation, oppression or corruption. The fake outrage story is particularly necessary to justify murder by governments.

The talking point that International Jewry planned and provoked the First World War, and the soon to be second, was a Nazi article of faith. It was propaganda gold, since many suspected it might be the case all along and even if the definitive book about it turned out to be fake, the truth it stated was still true. Repeat it enough times and it gains the ring of truth. “Why wouldn’t they do it?” became an obvious question.

Clearly, as exhaustively proved by the widely translated, perennially best-selling 1905 Czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion [1], the leaders of a centuries old global Jewish conspiracy against Christianity met periodically, at midnight, in the Jewish cemetery in Prague, to advance their eternal plot to dominate and destroy good Christians. It was equally obvious, to the Nazi, that Bolshevism was part of this global Jewish vision of world domination by a genetically inferior, but intellectually cunning, eternal enemy of The People.

The politics of uniting a base by hatred requires giving a threatening, hateful name to an intended common enemy, a name that evokes fear. Anarchists came over from Europe in the early 20th centuries and were quickly portrayed as bomb throwing, anti-law terrorists bent on destroying America. A few were famously tried, amid great public fanfare, and executed for crimes they almost certainly hadn’t committed (Sacco and Vanzetti, to name two famous ones).

Everything old is new again. Who are the deranged and dangerous people resisting MAGA, the attempt of righteous people of faith to bring Christ, guns and paternalism back to the center of American culture and law? Anarchist, globalist, socialist, Marxist, fascists conspiring to use violent, criminal brown illegals to dominate rigged elections and bring about “majoritarian tyranny”, depriving the silent majority of their rights under cover of fake “democracy”.

Living in the intended Age of Fascist Irrationality, where insistence on lies by powerful psychopaths may NOT BE CONTRADICTED BY FACTS, this kind of incoherent horseshit is the food on which fascism feeds. If cause and effect are reversed, crucial details left out (the unfired gun remained in suspect’s pocket as he was shot repeatedly for threatening officers with a gun) if a lie is just as good as the truth, if told for the right reason, if what you see with your own eyes is a lie and what we tell you, even if contradicted by your own direct experience, is true, you’d better goddamned believe it. Or, insist on being right, and we’ll kill you. Your choice.

Shot While Escaping, by George Grosz (circa 1936):

[1]

Sources employed

Source material for the forgery consisted jointly of Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu (Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu), an 1864 political satire by Maurice Joly;[9] and a chapter from Biarritz, an 1868 novel by the antisemitic German novelist Hermann Goedsche, which had been translated into Russian in 1872.[1]: 97 

Literary forgery

The Protocols is one of the best-known and most-discussed examples of literary forgery, with analysis and proof of its fraudulent origin dating as far back as 1921.[10] The forgery is an early example of conspiracy theory literature.[11] Written mainly in the first person plural,[d] the text includes generalizations, truisms, and platitudes on how to take over the world: take control of the media and the financial institutions, change the traditional social order, etc. It does not contain specifics.[13]

. . . On October 27 and 28, 1919, the Philadelphia Public Ledger published excerpts of an English language translation as the “Red Bible,” deleting all references to the purported Jewish authorship and re-casting the document as a Bolshevik manifesto.[55] The author of the articles was the paper’s correspondent at the time, Carl W. Ackerman, who later became the head of the journalism department at Columbia University.[56][54]