We're Over the Cliff. This Is Now a Matter of How Steep the Fall Will Be

So this thought has popped up again:

I think I've argued before about the unlikely scenario of the United States splitting into civil war, especially the disastrous economic implications of such an event. Very few states can stand on their own, and too many Red states - the likely culprits in a secession movement - are too dependent on federal aid to pull it off. Back in 2009, this kind of argument didn't make any sense to me.

But the thought is still out there, we ARE as a nation in the middle of an Honest-to-God Constitutional Crisis, and as the signs of irrevocable differences among Americans are growing this is getting too serious to ignore.

Just yesterday, Balloon Juice had two different articles about this issue, and as I take the commentary there serious then these arguments need to be considered. First, to Anne Laurie marking the Twitter war between Megan McArdle and Reality:

I tweeted McArdle back directly after that "twee cosmopolitan" putdown:

As Sam Houston and William Sherman tried to warn the hard Conservative wingnuts that were pressing for a regressive and racially-motivated war in 1860, the more Liberal left-wingers that made up the Union side of things had the numbers and the willpower to save the nation, give it a month or give it five years. Those same Liberal-leaning types - urban surely, educated most likely - may look weak or indecisive but in truth they have conviction and patriotic devotion (they're just trying to remain polite about it).

Ahem. Back to BJ:

Megan's thinking of "letting go" would be easy to understand except for the facts that 1) our cultural divisions are not geographic ones (even Texas and Florida and Alabama and yes South Carolina will be split internally by Right and Left factions), 2) such "letting go" will not resolve half the arguments we have, and 3) The side spoiling for a fight (hint: it's the pro-gun anti-gay racist trumpshirts) won't let it go and will turn violent no matter what.

And now Adam L. Silverman's piece, with analysis and insight (aptly titled Megan McArdle Knows Absolutely Nothing About Any Form Of War And Wouldn’t Even If A Member Of The Military Bit Her!):

What McArdle doesn’t understand, because she knows nothing about war – theoretically, conceptually, and/or experientially (sic) – is that there has been a low level insurgency in the US going back decades. We sometimes call this the Culture War. Sometimes it’s referred to as the Southern Strategy, but it involves one of the two major political parties and its supporting movements, including religious movements, in the US refusing to accept the legitimacy of any other ones. It includes frequent use of dehumanizing language and threats of violence ranging from legislatively and regulatorily (sic) directing the power of the state, utilizing lawfare, and actually threatening and sometimes undertaking violence against their opponents or the objects of their dehumanization campaigns when the insurgents don’t get their way. And these people – elected, appointed, voters, supporters, pundits, etc – are McArdle’s fellow travelers! They are part of the larger political, ideological, dogmatic religious, and sub-cultural groups and movements that McArdle has been marinating in since she was an undergraduate.

They also make the mistake that they are the only ones that get to define patriotism and to actually care about the US and its ideals. They have convinced themselves that they are the only ones who can properly interpret the Constitution when in fact they are the poorest of linguistic and political historians of the late 18th Century, which leads to constantly misunderstanding and misapplying the Constitution. And they have deluded themselves into thinking that because their opponents believe in civility that their opponents are also unwilling to actually defend themselves in the political, ideological, social, religious, economic, and/or legal arenas. And those delusions include the mistaken belief that they don’t have the means to do so.

Right now the US is experiencing one of its periodic bouts of growing pains. As was the case in the 1780s and 1790s, the 1830s and 1840s, the 1860s, the late 1870s through the 1890s, during WW I, in the mid to late 1930s, and in the middle 1960s through the early 1970s, a period of imperfect progress is being met with a backlash against it. It is ugly. It is unpleasant. It is damaging. People who do not deserve to be hurt are being hurt. The real question that McArdle should have asked, yet is incapable because she is as the one who does not know how to ask, is what does it really mean to form a more perfect union? And what are the best ways to go about perfecting the union? Those are the real questions of American civic life. Not whether Democrats in urban areas know how to use guns...

With all that as my background, what's MY take on the current downward spiral?

This all depends on the response to the most likely trigger to cause the "civil war": Mueller's investigation into trump's criminal ties to Russia and to Russia's interference with the 2016 elections.

The Far Right (pro-trump) have clearly marked out their line in the sand that Mueller's work is "illegal" and part of a "spygate" conspiracy hatched by the Obama-Hillary Left to steal the election (which, logically, meant Obama-Hillary should have done a better job of actually stealing it back when they needed to). If Mueller completes his Special Counsel investigations finding serious charges - serious enough to warrant directly arresting trump (which would mean breaking a gentleman's agreement to not arrest sitting Presidents Losers of the Popular Vote) - this side will freak out and rage against the "Deep State" that makes up the federal government.

The other side - made up of Never-trumpers, "Rule of Law" conservatives and moderates, progressives, essentially the 65 million who voted Hillary and believe Russia stole enough states to fuck with the Electoral College - have marked out their line: Anything trump does to shut down Mueller's work is full-on Obstruction and that the entire Republican Party will be guilty of selling the nation out to Putin.

From where we're at right now, Mueller and other investigators have found so much criminal misdeeds before, during AND after the 2016 campaigns that trump is going to shut it down as best he can: However, he's noticeably run out of legal means of doing so and he's bound to simply break existing laws to complete his journey to complete Obstruction and dismantling of the Rule of Law.

This all depends entirely on how the Federal agencies and how the U.S. Military responds.

Right now, most of the agencies - getting shredded by trump's corruption and mismanagement - are likely going to oppose trump right out of the gate. The Intel communities in particular - fully aware of how badly Russia hacked us and hurt us - will refuse to back any attempt by trump to shut down Mueller or the Justice Department.

The military is the big wild card here. Granted, most soldiers and officers are personally conservative: However, they are trained and expected to abide by the Constitution and Rule of Law (that is, they answer to their oaths to defend the nation, they do not take loyalty oaths to any one man the way trump expects). The military is also one of our more diverse institutions, with a lot of soldiers and officers made of the minorities - Black, Latino, women, and now LGBT - that would suffer under a trump rule that's unbound by Constitutional limits. If trump does go full Authoritarian by shutting down Mueller and violating the Rule of Law, there is a good chance the military will refuse to obey any further orders from that White House. At which point shit gets really real.

This is where the wingnut fantasies of their pro-gun militias taking out Army units come into play. This is also where those fantasies will get taken out pretty quickly because 1) those Far Right militias do not have the numbers, 2) those Far Right militias do not have air support, 3) we've seen these Far Right militias in action before, and they are so disorganized it's laughable. They only lasted as long as they did during their hissy fits because the Feds wanted to avoid another Waco tragedy.

Still, the military is expected to answer to the presidency as Commander-in-Chief. They could just as easily side with him as the "lesser of two evils" and just wait him out for "saner" leadership to replace trump (he's NOT going to live forever). If the military sides with trump and the Far Right, any resistance by the Progressive/Center Left will not last long either.

Congress, being what it is - owned by cowardly Republicans who refuse to rein in trump's worst behaviors - will likely collapse into factions when trump acts against Mueller. There are signs of rifts in the House already especially over immigration (and the dawning realization that the replacement Speaker following Ryan will be too wingnut even for them). If trump tries to play dictator, there's a chance enough Republicans will flip to Independent/Democrat to give Dems control of the House (and even the Senate): At that point, trump will be the one in serious trouble. If the GOP remains united, then trump remains unchallenged and key Democratic figures - Pelosi, Schumer, Harris, Warren - will find themselves targets of arrests.

If things do break down into civil war, the dividing lines are going to be messy, mixed-up, and all over the map. Where the first civil war was easier to map out with clear North-South boundaries, this coming fight isn't as geographically fixed. Yes, there may be solid Red (conservative) states and solid Blue (liberal) states, but within each state there are splits between the urban, suburban, and rural areas. Big states like Texas and Florida may be dominated politically by Far Right Republicans, but they've only achieved that thanks to rigged gerrymandering that ignored actual demographics. Any attempt to secede (if trump fails to stop Mueller) or to enforce their rule (if trump succeeds) will cause mass protests and chaos across every major city and then some. On the same argument, any attempt by California or Illinois or New York to secede (if trump wins) or enforce (if trump fails) will get rioting from the Red parts of their states in the rural and suburban regions (such as New York's Long Island or California's southern coastal Far Right communities).

There are very few regions that are decidedly in favor of one side over the other. If I had to say it, the only solid Red states that would ally with trump if he goes Full Dictator would be West Virginia, Idaho, Oklahoma, and maybe one of the Dakotas. The rest would have serious internal strife issues (yes, even South Carolina and Utah and Alaska). If there were any solid Blue states that would oppose trump, I'd go with Hawaii, Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont.

There will be no true safe havens. We will find that out right quick.

Actual civil war will be messy at the street level. Pro-trump forces - being gun-nuts evangelicals - will target what they hate most: Minorities, women, health clinics, gays, schools and colleges. They won't hit military sites - in some respects they won't even really fight to protect trump - because they'll know that's suicide: Instead they'll hit civilians the same way all terrorists would. THIS is why they don't want to give up the military-grade firepower they currently have to wipe out entire unarmed gatherings.

Pro-Constitutional forces - being legal-minded - will target the ones backing trump: Every Far Right media talking head and deep-pocket SuperPAC funder. Given how much of trump's support is based on lying and media manipulation, shutting down the likes of Fox Not-News, Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Drudge, Jones, Coulter, and others would be a necessity. After that, targeting every goddamned coal-roller truck in the nation. Eliminating trump's base of support because honestly there are few places trump can truly hide.

Changes to our nation's habits will be immediate. The electrical grid is vulnerable, our communication network is vulnerable, our transportation systems - highway, trains, airports - are vulnerable. Either side will disrupt each of these things to their advantages. Our schools will close, most places of business may close due to supply cutoffs, most of our common resources available through utilities will be shut down. Not every location will be hit hard - some states and cities obviously will be hurt more than others - but everyone will feel some kind of pinch.

Even the rich will be affected. Our financial systems and markets would have early days of downturn as chaos makes things unpredictable. Foreign trade and business deals will suffer at first, maybe prolonged by any drawn-out fighting. Breakdown of intrastate trade definitely will hurt local and regional business.

If the U.S. divides into civil war, our foreign allies - and enemies - will get disrupted themselves. Without trump to hold them back, Western European nations may reform NATO into a more aggressive front against Putin's meddling into Eastern Europe. Asia will likely slide further under China's influence. Israel may suddenly find that a distracted and divided United States leaves them alone with few allies just as their war against Gaza Palestinians and Iran/Syria gets serious.

All of the problems that led to this moment - immigration, trade, global terrorism - will remain unresolved or actually worsen.

If there's any good news in a trump-fueled civil war, it's that his overseas properties will fall completely to shit and file for bankruptcy.

Everything else will be a bloody mess, and none of us will be able to avoid it.

I thought once we could, that we were going to evolve past the cultural divisions pushed by an increasingly angry Far Right, that we were going to listen to the better angels of our nature.

But the goddamn Far Right doubled down on their madness, dug deeper into their re-enforced Narrative, and rallied around a person in trump who brought them a fake victory, ignoring all the signs that trump is NOT someone you want leading your war effort.

I have been saying for the past few years this was not going to end well. We're at Phase Two of the madness right now, and from what I see - what too many other people are starting to see - the end is more and more looking to be bloody and crazy and terrifying.

This is already out of control. And we will be lucky to live through this. But not all of us are that lucky...

All You Need to Know About trump Right Now, May 2018 Edition

I'm just gonna refer you to two different articles.

First up, David Frum with FIFTEEN Unanswered Criminal Law Questions about trump (I've Bold the questions I think are the most serious):

1. Trump campaign aides and associates met with Russian agents in advance of the Russian hacks and releases of Democratic internal communications. Did these meetings lead to any form of coordination between the Trump campaign, the Trump family, or Trump supporters on the one hand and Russian intelligence and its proxy, WikiLeaks, on the other?
2. Russia engaged in large-scale and illegal expenditures on social media to help elect Trump. Did the Trump campaign, the Trump family, or Trump supporters coordinate or assist in any way with these violations of U.S. law?
3. Trump campaign aides reportedly met with representatives of Persian Gulf governments who offered to violate U.S. law to help elect Trump. What came of those meetings?
4. How much Russian money has flowed into the Trump family and the Trump Organization since Trump suddenly and mysteriously became cash-rich in 2006?
5. Did all the foreign funds flowing into the Trump family and Trump Organization comply with applicable U.S. laws on taxation and money laundering?
6. Did the Trump family and Trump Organization themselves comply with all U.S. laws on taxation and money laundering?
7. To what extent was Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort beholden to foreign entities? What services, if any, did he provide them?
8. To what extent was Trump’s first national-security adviser, Michael Flynn, beholden to foreign entities? What services did he provide them?
9. The same question applies to Sam Clovis, George Papadopoulos, and other figures on Trump’s campaign and foreign-policy teams.
10. The family business then run by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, was in desperate need of funds in late 2016. The record shows he approached entities in China, Russia, and Qatar for aid. What is the exact list of foreign entities solicited by Kushner? What pitch did he offer them in exchange for their prospective investments? Did his pursuit of these investments ever tilt the administration’s foreign policy?
11. After the election, Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen obtained millions of dollars from foreign and domestic businesses in return for his promise to consult with them. Did Cohen share any of those payments in any way with the president, his family, or his businesses?
12. Since the election, Trump’s companies have received millions of dollars in licensing fees from entities in Turkey, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, and other foreign countries. How much have the president’s businesses been paid by foreign persons and what portion of his total income originates in foreign payments?
13. Is it true that Stormy Daniels’s daughter was threatened in order to coerce Daniels to sign a nondisclosure agreement with Trump? If so, who ordered and delivered that threat? Did any other women sign such agreements? Were any of them threatened?
14. Was Trump in any way connected to the payment of $1.6 million to former Playboy model Shera Bechard, an agreement facilitated by Cohen—Trump’s personal lawyer—and using the same aliases and structure as the agreement Cohen struck with Stormy Daniels on Trump’s behalf?
15. Elliott Broidy, the former deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee, told The Wall Street Journal that he had an affair with Bechard, and that she subsequently decided to terminate her pregnancy. He made the first installment of that payment on November 30; he had a private meeting with Trump on December 2, at which he pushed for a crackdown on Qatar, lobbying for which he expected to be rewarded by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. How did Broidy land that meeting—and why did Trump prove willing to follow his advice?

These are all legitimate questions that should not be evaded by trump nor his people.

Second, Washington Post's fact-checking by Glenn Kessler and Meg Kelly:

Here is a guide to the various “scandals” about the probe that Trump has promoted since he became president — and what happened to them. For context, we will include the actions taken by federal investigators.

March 4, 2017: ‘Obama had my wires tapped at the Trump Tower’ - ...On Sept. 1, the Justice Department said in a court filing that the FBI and the National Security Division confirmed that they had no record that would support Trump’s tweets: “Both FBI and NSD confirm that they have no records related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets. FBI again confirmed that they do not have any such records by consulting with personnel knowledgeable about Director Comey’s statements and the surveillance activities of the FBI.”

June 1: ‘The big story is the unmasking’ - ...Trump openly mused that Susan E. Rice, President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser, was in big trouble and may have committed a crime. “I think it’s truly one of the big stories of our time,” he told the New York Times on April 5. But the story did not have legs and faded from sight. Numerous former national security officials told The Fact Checker that Rice, as national security adviser, had every right to request the identities of U.S. citizens who were incidentally recorded or referenced in surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency. It turned out that Rice had unmasked the identities of senior Trump officials to understand why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan had arrived for meetings with Trump aides, but the UAE did not provide the customary notice about his trip to the Obama administration. Republicans on the committee decided she did nothing illegal.

Aug. 10: ‘The Democrats colluded with Russia’- Trump has repeatedly tried to turn the tables by claiming that the Democrats, not his campaign, colluded with Russia. The allegation never made much sense because the Democrats were the victims of hacking operations that transferred emails and other information to WikiLeaks through apparent Russian connections. ...The president gained some traction for his case when it was revealed that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee were the mysterious Democratic donors who paid a research firm, Fusion GPS, to collect information on Trump’s Russia ties... The White House began to argue that because Steele was getting information from Russian officials in part with funds provided by the Clinton campaign, the Russians were helping Clinton. Officials also suggested that the whole investigation was tainted because it started with the dossier. But that was undercut by the revelation that the probe actually started because of a report from an Australian diplomat that Papadopoulos appeared to know about the Russian hacking before WikiLeaks began releasing details...

Feb. 3: ‘The FBI was politically biased against me’ - The Nunes memo suggested that a group of politically biased law enforcement officials set out to sabotage Trump, with the Steele dossier as a key piece of evidence. The memo focused on the FBI application for a wiretap order that targeted Carter Page, a former Trump adviser, after he had left the campaign. The classified memo, which Trump ordered released, claimed that law enforcement officials had abused their powers by failing to make clear that one of the pieces of evidence was the dossier; they claimed it was tainted by political bias because of its Democratic origins... But the memo also confirmed that the investigation of the Trump campaign started with Papadopoulos, not the Steele dossier. The impact of the memo further faded with the FBI’s strong statement that it contained “material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy,” as well as the release of a Democratic memo that sharply disputed the conclusions of the Nunes memo...

March 18: ‘The investigators are hardened Democrats’ - Eleven members of Mueller’s team have made political donations to Democrats, compared with five with no record of such donations. Five of the 16 known members contributed to Clinton’s 2016 campaign. The Department of Justice is legally barred from discriminating against career appointees based on political affiliation, so Mueller, a longtime Republican, is not permitted to ask about political affiliation. Mueller took action against Strzok when texts expressing anti-Trump sentiments were discovered. But he can’t inquire about political leanings before hiring. (unspoken in this tidbit is the fact that among lawyers and other legal professionals that would partake in a Special Counsel investigation, many of them ARE Democrats by choice. You can't find enough Republican lawyers to hire in the first place)

The most current trump excuse - that Obama planted a spy (SPYGATE!) in trump's campaign - is also a losing argument because of various points: 1) the informant (NOT SPY) was inquiring into making contacts with trump's campaign only because of Papadopoulos' big fat mouth, 2) human sources like the informant is a standard FBI practice (remember Donnie Brasco?) when investigating criminal activity such as foreign nations hacking U.S. computers, 3) the Justice Department and FBI are not about to give up the source to trump's Congressional lackeys because doing so sets a precedent of partisanship interfering with the Justice Department's mandate to uphold the law and the FBI's ability to investigate crimes.

If I could combine both articles together under one thought it would be this:

donald trump is a lying crook trying to disrupt the very investigations into his crooked behavior and we as a nation are going to be fucked if he gets his way.

There. That simple.

Gods help us.

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN?!?!

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN???

Federal officials lost track of nearly 1,500 migrant children last year after a government agency placed the minors in the homes of adult sponsors in communities across the country, according to testimony before a Senate subcommittee Thursday.

The Health and Human Services Department has a limited budget to track the welfare of vulnerable unaccompanied minors, and realized that 1,475 children could not be found after making follow-up calls to check on their safety, an agency official said.

Federal officials came under fire two years ago after rolling back child protection policies meant for minors fleeing violence in Central America. In a follow-up hearing on Thursday, senators said that the agencies had failed to take full responsibility for their care and had delayed crucial reforms needed to keep them from falling into the hands of human traffickers.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN???

Every single person who had a hand in sending those kids into the black hole of darkest humanity should be in JAIL RIGHT FUCKING NOW. YOU DON'T DO THIS TO KIDS! YOU DON'T EVER DO THIS TO KIDS!

This is what the harshness of trump's anti-immigration rage is creating: A system ripe for exploitation and destruction and death. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THOSE KIDS???

Yes, these kids were part of families that were coming to the United States, but these were families looking for asylum and safety, and in rejecting that humane concept our own government pulled those families apart and sent 1500 OR MORE CHILDREN INTO GOD KNOWS WHAT HARM.

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN???

Right now, I am totally on board with calls to abolish ICE outright. This is insane, and illegal, and evil.

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN???

The Long Frustrating Sunday Of Coping With the Shitgibbon

One of the things I hate about this Era of Eternal trumpism (trumpus Horribilis) is how the ongoing scandal that is his damnable corruption makes it IMPOSSIBLE to keep up with a political rant blog like this.

I was going to start out this day writing about the news report that trump's campaign people - through trump ally Erik "Blackwater" Prince - made connections in 2016 with nations Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirate where those foreign powers offered to help trump win the election. Which is, by the by, illegal under 52 US Code.

This is serious stuff. As well as linking trump to even more corruption - the implications of Quid Pro Quos in that under trump's administration both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are getting exactly what they want - there is the likelihood Prince perjured himself before Congress when he was questioned about these type of meetings going on during the campaign. And while Russia's connection to all this - especially the interfering in the election itself - is still a part of the investigation, this revelation shows how eager trump and his people - especially his own son donny junior - were to make any lawbreaking deal they wanted.

But then this tweet from the Shitgibbon himself got out there (via Mock Paper Scissors):

I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!

As Tengrain himself notes: And game, set, and match: that sounds like Obstruction of Justice right there.

What trump is trying to do is call into question any investigation into the 2016 campaign, convinced that such digging is politically motivated as a revenge plot by Obama (and Hillary). Nevermind the evidence that such investigations began early in 2016 separate from any involvement from Obama's White House. Nevermind the fact that the Department of Justice and the FBI (and other intel agencies) are not motivated by partisan politics and are doing their jobs (which in this case is uncovering financial and political corruption). Read all these tweets collected on Anne Laurie's Balloon Juice article to understand better.

As what might happen tomorrow if trump does send his bullying command to Justice, there's a likelihood they will simply defer the request to their Inspector General (IG) office and let the IG investigate trump's claims (which are mostly based on wingnut conspiracy crap spewed via InfoWars and Fox Not-News). It won't defuse the argument - the wingnuts will never accept any finding that doesn't fit their fantasy Narrative - but it will keep this situation from escalating into a larger Constitutional Crisis.

Unless trump uses the "lack of urgency" by the DoJ to start firing people like Deputy AG Rosenstein to get the results he wants, in which case he IS trying to obstruct the investigation and IT WILL BE open warfare.

Even getting into Rudy Giuliani's claim that Mueller is promising to end his investigation by September is so small potatoes that I'm just going to link it here without comment. Except that WHY should we believe Rudy about Mueller's own plans?

So here's to seeing how Monday rolls out.

I don't want the world to end this week. Jewel Staite is coming to Orlando MegaCon this Memorial Day weekend...

fan art by Adam Withers. If he shows up at a comic-con, HIS SH-T'S GOOD GO BUY SOME.

Blood on the Streets of Santa Fe Texas (w/Update)

So this Friday, at a time in the year of late May when high schools are wrapping up exams and kids are getting ready to graduate, go to summer work, plan for family vacations, all the things you do when you're growing up... some angry guy with a gun showed up in Santa Fe Texas (between Houston and Galveston) and ruined life for the entire community.

Goddammit, gun nuts.

Wanna know how bad the school shooting problem has gotten in the United States?

Watch this:

A video interview with one student, Paige Curry, spread across social media, an artifact of a moment when children have come to expect violence in their schools.

“Was there a part of you that was like, ‘This isn’t real, this is — this would not happen in my school?’” the reporter asked.

The young girl shook her head: “No, there wasn’t.”

“Why so?” the reporter asked.

“It’s been happening everywhere,” she said. “I felt — I’ve always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.”

So immediately the gun nuts rose up to defend their pagan god of death - I am not joking, some nearby gun nut showed up with a big American flag and a piece strapped to his belt just to fucking pose for the cameras - to blame everything BUT the easy availability and access to military-grade rifles.

People blaming violent video games - the same games they play in Japan and Korea and Europe and everywhere else that doesn't have mass shooter incidents every other week.

People blaming social media - despite the fact that millions use Facebook and Instagram and AREN'T violent gun-toting assholes. And you wanna complain about your Second Amendment right to shoot anybody you want? Regulating social media will go against everyone's First Amendment right to share cat videos and podcast about lame episodes of Grey's Anatomy.

People blaming architecture - I SHIT YOU NOT - with the Lt. Governor of Texas openly claiming that schools shouldn't have so many entrances and exits, as though fire safety for buildings is an outdated concept... Not to mention the fact that if we did create just one way in or out of a school just makes it easier for shooters to bottleneck his victims at one location, great way to think that problem through, Mister Lt. Governor sir.

People blaming everything BUT THE ONE THING THAT TIES ALL MASS SHOOTINGS TOGETHER: THE GODDAMN GUNS.

Well, people should be blaming the one thing that is allowing all this gun violence to continue in our workplaces and gathering places and our homes.

Political cowardice.

Our elected leaders - cough Repubicans cough - are doing NOTHING except stand there offering "thoughts and prayers" because the goddamned NRA and other pro-gun lobbyists - all wonderfully financed by gun manufacturers profiting off each mass shooting like those incidents are free advertising - buy them off with campaign funds. Given a choice between doing the right thing and passing sensible gun safety laws that 80 PERCENT OF AMERICAN - gun owners included - are asking for, or kissing the ring of their lobbyist overlords... our Congress and our White House just sit back and pretend nothing is wrong until the next mass shooting.

It's been three months since Parkland, when the current mood of the nation towards guns has turned sour and angered, and despite all the promises by the likes of trump and Ryan and McConnell NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE in our halls of government to reduce the risk of gun violence the way a majority of us wish to be.

So here's the solution to gun violence in America, everybody. It's a very simple process.

1) Find out which elected officials and which candidates for office at the Federal and State and even County/City levels are getting campaign funds from the NRA. Since this is a 2018 Midterms for Congress and a lot of state offices, this should be easy to do.

2) MAKE GODDAMNED SURE YOU DO NOT VOTE FOR ANY CANDIDATE WHO RECEIVES NRA BLOOD MONEY. You might agree with that candidate on perhaps every other issue, BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ANYONE IN THE NRA'S POCKET DESERVES TO GET KICKED OUT OF OFFICE NOW AND FOREVER. (considering the massive number of candidates in the NRA's pocket are Republicans, now might be a good time to remember my constant call to NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN)

3) Make damned sure the officials you DO elect into office know the key reason they're there: YOU want effective and sensible gun safety laws - starting with Universal Gun Background Checks - passed as soon as possible (Day One would be nice).

This is on us, America. If anyone is going to save our schools, save our malls, save our concerts, save our movie theaters, save our public places, save ourselves it's going to be the voters. All of us need to stand up with this single purpose to stop gun violence. All else that is essential - our prosperity, our education, our economy, our happiness - flows from this single issue.

Get the vote out, America. Vote AGAINST the NRA. They made their choice, long ago. The NRA chose to worship their guns.

WE need to choose now to protect our families and our friends and our communities from their false idols.

Update: As always, Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station brings the big hammer to the argument, going after the cowards who refuse honest responsibility for gun control. Read every word, and add Stonekettle to your blogs worth following.

And Like All Bad Liars, trump and His People Are Trying to Erase The Truth

This part of the ongoing investigation into trumpWorld ought to scare the crap out of everybody (via the New Yorker):

...Last week, several news outlets obtained financial records showing that Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney, had used a shell company to receive payments from various firms with business before the Trump Administration. In the days since, there has been much speculation about who leaked the confidential documents, and the Treasury Department’s inspector general has launched a probe to find the source. That source, a law-enforcement official, is speaking publicly for the first time, to The New Yorker, to explain the motivation: the official had grown alarmed after being unable to find two important reports on Cohen’s financial activity in a government database. The official, worried that the information was being withheld from law enforcement, released the remaining documents.

The payments to Cohen that have emerged in the past week come primarily from a single document, a “suspicious-activity report” filed by First Republic Bank, where Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants, L.L.C., maintained an account. The document detailed sums in the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to Cohen by the pharmaceutical company Novartis, the telecommunications giant A.T. & T., and an investment firm with ties to the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

The report also refers to two previous suspicious-activity reports, or SARs, that the bank had filed, which documented even larger flows of questionable money into Cohen’s account. Those two reports detail more than three million dollars in additional transactions—triple the amount in the report released last week. Which individuals or corporations were involved remains a mystery. But, according to the official who leaked the report, these SARs were absent from the database maintained by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. The official, who has spent a career in law enforcement, told me, “I have never seen something pulled off the system... That system is a safeguard for the bank. It’s a stockpile of information. When something’s not there that should be, I immediately became concerned.” The official added, “That’s why I came forward.”

Consider who has access to that enforcement network, maybe Treasury, maybe Justice Department, maybe the White House. Someone in one of those offices - now under sway of donald trump and anybody else tied to Cohen - was actively scrubbing evidence out of a database nobody should be tampering with in the first place.

Remember the words from All The President's Men - the line itself was never directly spoken by Mark Felt, AKA Deep Throat, but Woodward condensed the warnings from Felt into a coherent phrase - about "Follow the Money." The one constant in every real scandal is the money. In trump's case, it's money coming from his questionable ties to foreign businesses and oligarchs looking to launder money and buy favors.

This is serious criminal shit here, folks.

Whine all you want about whether or not trump got help from Russia to steal the 2016 elections - by the by, HE DID - but you can't hide from the reality that trump and more and more of his fellow Republican toadies are selling themselves and this nation out to corrupt powers on a global scale.

We are so very royally goddamn fucked.

Update (5/19/18): Apparently the disappearance of those two SARs didn't mean they were deleted, they were placed under more restrictive access. This is still troubling as this may be an attempt to hide these documents from investigators. I may have jumped the gun about the possibility of trump's people destroying evidence, but the threat is still there...

Short Answer: Too Late, Already Gone Mad

Just saw this title on Slate.com, an article by Dahlia Lithwick that says

How to Survive Trump’s Presidency Without Losing Your Mind

My response?

Too late.

When the Electoral College broke down and the haters kept crawling out of the woodwork, I sank into a deep and terrible and angry depression.

BUT I'M MUCH HAPPIER NOW BHWHAHAAHAHAHAAHAAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHA (drinks tea) HAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHHAAHAAAHHEHEHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHAAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ahem.

Just buy my books, especially the upcoming Strangely Funny V anthology published by Mystery & Horror LLC due out later this month!

MADNESS!!!!!

But For Supporting Robbers

(Update: Thanks again to Batocchio for providing a link to Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round Up this Tuesday May 14th. I wanna thank all of checking in here, and if any of you are up for some summer reading I am part of an upcoming humor/horror anthology Strangely Funny V that should be out later this month! (I should be crowing aboot it when it gets released) Also, take a moment to - okay, maybe a month of reading by now - check out the rest of the blog! Now, back to the grindstone...)

It's hard to write something other than just a screaming rage at the Gods both Old and New about the ongoing revelations into trump's malignant racism, corruption, incompetence, and greed.

It's a little easier to link to articles like Conor Friederdorf's shaming of Republicans who applaud or ignore the train wreck that is trump:

This betrayal of the American public warrants more attention. Trump voters who wanted to rid Washington of sellouts should be most upset, but no one wants to admit that the person they voted for was misrepresenting his intentions. And those who rely on commentators like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, and Tucker Carlson for information lack many relevant facts.

Here’s what Trump voters should know. Michael Cohen was the president’s personal attorney. He stepped up when someone was needed to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels on the eve of the election, even using a shell corporation created under a pseudonym to hide the matter.

But that corporation wasn’t just for paying off the pornography actress. He also used it to receive huge sums of money from folks with powerful interests in influencing the U.S. government...

Remember when Trump told you that he would release his tax returns and then never did? Remember when he said that if he won the election he would put his business interests aside? “Ever since Trump and his family arrived in Washington they have essentially hung a for-sale sign on the White House by refusing to meaningfully separate themselves from their own business interests,” Bloomberg’s Tim O’Brien notes. “That’s certainly not lost on the companies that do business in or with Washington. They know that in Trump’s swamp, you pay to play.”

Much of this will surprise folks who get all of their news from Fox commentators and talk-radio hosts, with whom they are in a dysfunctional relationship.

The GOP base is drawn to media figures who support their president and quickly turn on those who criticize him as if they are guilty of a betrayal; for that reason, many populist-right pundits are reluctant to criticize the president or to delve deeply into the behavior of the swamp creatures he has enabled. Instead, they pander to the GOP base, keep them in the dark about important corruption—and so fail to keep the president and his associates accountable...

And yet you tune in to listen to the rallies trump still holds to keep his enraged base hooked, and yes they are still obsessed with the fantasy that Hillary and Obama are the "real" crooks. The trump crowd boos Obama and cheers Kim Jong Un. They hoot and holler as they mock John McCain for daring to speak against the Cheney torture regime that's staging a comeback.

The goddamn wingnut voter base doesn't care for the facts. They only care to kick libruls early and often as though that solves all ills.

The horrifying truth is that even if Mueller is able to complete his investigations, and even if he proves on a legal level that trump sold the nation out to Putin by teaming up with Russians to hack and subvert our elections, and even if the New York District's investigations into Cohen prove massive money laundering and bribery, all of that will never convince the Far Right. They'll buy the fantasy narrative from the conspiracy blowhards like Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh that this is all a "Deep State" revenge coup against a "noble and honest" trump who's defending them from godless baby-killing Fascist Liberal un-American Muslim Hill-bots.

Never mind trump using his political office to pull off financial scandals on a scope not seen since Teapot Dome. trump's voters knew he was a viper when they voted for him. That's WHY they voted for him, because he was the giant middle finger to the rest of the world for them.

Even if we can get trump out of the White House before he can cause more damage than he already has, this nation is already lost to a civil war between the Reality Based Community and the Far Right Narrative. We can't deal with a segment of the population that refuses to deal, ever.

We are so very royally goddamned fucked.

Summer Blockbuster Season 2018

It's May. That means one thing: SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER SEASON.

Although technically it started in late April because of the early release of AVENGERS INFINITY WAR OMG YES I SAW I HAVE FEELS AND KAREN'S BLAND-ASS POTATO SALAD CAN'T COVER IT.

So anyway here's AMONymous with his Annual Trailer Mash-Up of Summer Blockbusters!

I am psyched for Deadpool 2, Incredibles 2, and while people are looking to diss the Star Wars prequel Solo I have hopes that Danny Glover as Lando will fucking rock.

Where Zero Sum in Breaking Treaties Leaves The United States At Zero

So for my birthday today, the Shitgibbon decided to shit on international relations by having the United States drop its commitment to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that severely limited Iran's capability to build nuclear weapons.

This is in spite of lack of evidence that Iran is cheating on the deal (whenever they came to a point of breaking one of the rules, they reported the problem and complied), in spite of the evidence that trump and his hard-line foreign policy "experts" (cough Bolton cough) want war regardless of the facts or the cost, in spite of how our nation's most prominent allies (France, Germany and the UK) are against this move.

From my perspective, this is really happening because:

1) trump is obsessed with destroying Obama's Presidential accomplishments. Not just by eliminating Obama's executive orders and turning back regulations set by Obama's administration, but by decimating every foreign policy success Obama gained. The JCPOA deal Obama worked out - despite heavy Republican interference - was an international accord that signaled America's strength and the nation's commitment to reducing nuclear conflict, and did so sharing our stance with our allies in a way to keep those alliances healthy.

2) trump despises any deals made that he thinks he can get a better deal out of it. he's convinced by making this move it could force Iran back to the table with him, at which point he can bully out of them a sweet deal for himself - trump Towers in Tehran! - and make himself look good for the Nobel Peace Prize at the same go.

3) trump got talked into this - either directly or indirectly - by his Russian handlers working for Putin. Because getting trump to balk at international cooperation and deal-making gives Putin more political sway and prestige on the global stage. Who do you think Iran is gonna deal with now? Everybody BUT the United States, and in terms of military and foreign aid that means getting it from the likes of Russia and China more than the Western European nations struggling to get out of ties with a U.S. that's no longer sane.

Don't listen to me on this. Here's Adam L. Silverman at Balloon Juice providing better foreign policy insight:

Iran’s stated strategy here is to continue to comply with the agreement, keeping it in place with the other signatories – China, France, Russia, the UK, Germany, and the European Union. By doing so Iran intends to isolate the US. As future IAEA reports of compliance are reported, and as Iran maintains the deal with the other signatories to mitigate the reimposition of US sanctions and the imposition of any new ones, Iran will have positioned itself as the good citizen of the global system and the US, under the current President, as the rogue nation...

The US withdrawal from the JCPOA, despite the IAEA certifying Iran’s ongoing compliance because the President and his enablers don’t understand the agreement and how it works or because they’d rather go their own way and threaten military attacks and war, is another example of the devolution of the US from a superpower, the diminution of its power and influence within the international system, and the end of the American century. Here America First clearly means America Alone...

Despite the President’s zero sum, hyperbolic style of negotiation, the Trump Doctrine isn’t in play with the Iranians. They don’t care if the President feels as if he, and by extension the US, is being treated fairly. They’re not going to invite him for a summit, roll out the red carpet, and schedule a military review for his edification. They’re also not going to empower someone close to the government to do business with his companies... The Iranians are not concerned with a reimposition of US sanctions because they’ve decided that if they stay in compliance with the JCPOA that France, German, the EU, China, and their strategic partner in the region Russia will not reimpose their own sanctions or go along with reimposed US sanctions. Moreover, because the leadership of our British, French, and German allies personally intervened to ask the President to stay in the JCPOA and he disregarded their entreaties, he has further isolated the US from its traditional allies...

This is the end result of today's move: The United States can't be trusted to keep its deals, especially under a deal-breaker like trump. As a result, few if any nations will actively deal with us on any foreign policy or trade issue. We're already getting kicked around Asia for ignoring earlier trade pacts, and China's rebuffing any outreach because of trump's earlier tariff war maneuvers.

The United States is no longer a superpower nation. We used to be the only one standing after the end of the (First) Cold War in the early 1990s. Now we're crawling in the gutters screaming "America First" and wondering why no one's taking our calls.

And let's hear from David Frum. You know, the guy who NAMED the "Axis of Evil" that included Iran as a major threat in Dubya/Cheney's Global War on Terror. He's not happy about trump at all right now:

President Trump has just pushed the plunger on a sequence of crises...

...China has emerged as Iran’s largest trading partner. Its trade with Iran jumped 30 percent in the first six months of 2017. China has extended credits to Iran totaling some $35 billion, a significant sum for the shaky Iranian economy. Who will make China stop?

America’s European allies have been more cautious about expanding trade with Iran. Yet will their publics allow their governments to follow the despised and distrusted Trump administration into an escalating confrontation with Iran? Fifty-six percent of Germans describe relations with the United States as bad or very bad...

trump was going into this with bad footing to begin with: On bad terms with an angry China and on worse terms with European nations we used to rely on. And the insane thing, trump won't care:

Trump has never valued allies or partners. The only relationship he understands is one of power: He commands; others obey. But on Iran, the most relevant partners are precisely those who cannot be compelled to obey. Perhaps he imagines he can blackmail them: Join me in imposing new sanctions or else I’ll start a war that you will like even less. That is a bluff at serious risk of being called...

Frum also points out that Iran's no longer as isolated as it was, by having complied with the treaty on their own terms they have become a greater risk in the Middle East, but one that can't be stopped by bullying anymore:

The second is a crisis with Iran itself. One bad consequence of President Obama’s 2015 deal is that Iran is now a better-armed, better-financed adversary than it was then. Thanks in great measure to Trump’s own decisions, Iran has also gained a big victory for Assad’s client regime in Syria. It can retaliate against U.S. interests in all kinds of ways. It can escalate its terror campaign against Israel by using Hezbollah and Hamas. It can green-light a hot war against Israel in Gaza. It can also accelerate its drive for outright nuclear-weapons-state status...

While noted earlier that Iran promises to stick to the JCPOA - it profits them better as a public relations coup to stay away from nukes at the moment - if things do get dicey they can rebuild their weapons program... and with Russia and China as trading partners at this moment they can rebuild faster than expected (and in ways any bombing attacks by the U.S. or Isral can't stop). I don't think Frum's fears of a nuclear Iran is a major concern: What's more dangerous is just more instability in a region that's been unstable since the fall of the Ottomans.

The third crisis—the most ominous of them all—is a potential crisis with North Korea. Trump admirers are debating whether he should display his Nobel Prize at Mar-a-Lago or Trump Tower. On the evidence of his Twitter feed, Trump has convinced himself that the Kim regime has been subdued, ready to surrender its nuclear weapons at a grand summit with Trump. He may soon face the rude shock of discovering that the Kim regime believes instead that it has bested him...

This is a side story I hadn't been mentioning often because it was too unstable to get any hopes up. Recently, North Korea has opened up to the possibility of stopping its nuclear buildup altogether, something that has gotten all the pro-trump hardliners crowing about their big stick of bullying tactics to get Kim to the table. Thing is, so far all the deals have been between North Korea and SOUTH KOREA, and it has more to do with South Korea terrified of the fallout (literal) of any U.S. plans to invade the NK. And where Kim Jong Un is talking about "denuclearization", some observers note he's talking more about "getting the U.S. out of Korea altogether" instead of unilaterally quitting his nukes. That means trying to get trump to agree to something - troop withdrawals from a war zone his hardliners feel they can win - that would play bad back home.

And that's just one possibility. Jong Un may be willing to talk, but for all intents it'll be hot air and making jokes at trump's expense while he sits there without a Korean translator to help him out. And it'll catch trump in a situation where he'll be forced (by his own twisted Id) to wage two wars - against Iran and North Korea - at a moment where the United States can't afford to wage even one.

And it'll be at a moment when the United States will have few if any allies to come to our aid. Western Europe won't help in either case. Japan and Asia will refuse to back an invasion of North Korea (and South Korea might balk fearing NK reprisals). The only nations we could count on against Iran would be Israel and Saudi Arabia, and even then those nations would likely get tied down by uprisings at home. We could even face dire reactions across the globe - at the U.N. level - of having nations impose sanctions on us for trump's transgressions.

What the hell happened to a nation that twenty years ago was the most powerful on Earth? We squandered it all, chasing demons in the Iraqi desert we had no sane reason to chase. We succumbed to a massive military budget demand that spent and spent on junk that won't work while wasting our manpower on lousy pay and soul-breaking endless battles between Iraq and Afghanistan.

We let our jingoism and fear of Other drive half our nation into a drunken rage against the rest of the world.

And now that drunken rage is lashing out in ways that even our allies find repugnant and dangerous.

We're no longer a superpower. We're a wrestling has-been, tossed over the ropes onto the announcers' table, forcing Jim Ross to scream BAH GAWD at the devastation collapsed onto the floor.

This is definitely not going to end well.

I once noted the Republican Party was dead. Well, here's the zombie, come back for the United States, and we're getting bitten and there's nothing stopping us from becoming a shambling ghoul ourselves...

Heads Up, Peeps. Getting Published in Strangely Funny V

As some of you know, I try my hand at writing and I've gotten a handful of stories published in anthologies. So right now I've got good news about the latest volume of Strangely Funny:

It should be coming out late May with my story "The Pumpkin Spice Must Flow", so keep your eyes open, I will post links for it as soon as possible.

And someone checked out my "Surviving the Age of Obstruction" at the library so it's all good (and pssst it's still on sale online and stuff).

Previous volumes of Strangely Funny - "I Must Be Your First" in Volume One and "Minette Dances With the Golem of Albany" in Volume III - that include my stories are on sale as well.

A Quiet Time To Reflect and Repose

Just on a personal note, there gets to be a time when I can't really keep up with blogging and I need a minute or twelve to step aside. Granted, I'm doing this at a moment when the trump Train Wreck is getting close to mass explosion, but that's part of the reason why. There's about thirty different things angering me up to where I can't focus on just one.

I will post a time or two, especially since I've got good news about another anthology publication of a story I wrote. Stay tuned. Follow the LINKS I have tabbed on the site, thank you!

About Justice For the Poor, As the Good Book Says

You know what they call someone who goes around claiming to be a Christian and yet rejects everything Jesus himself taught and stood for?

You call them AntiChrists Republicans.

Just look at this mess over here (via Shaun Mullen at Moderate Voice):

...It did not seem to be in the same league as Kim Jong-un reneging on a peace deal or Vladimir Putin ordering the poisoning of a defector spy, but for Republicans it was enough to send House Chaplain Patrick J. Conroy packing.

It seems that in Republican eyes the right reverend had sinned when, in a prayer last November as the House took up the $1.5 trillion tax “reform” bill, he prayed for the bill’s chief advocate, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and other lawmakers to “guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.”

Although it took awhile, Ryan has now fired Father Conroy because he prayed for the poor. And the hungry, the powerless, the jobless, the fearful, the disabled and the victims of prejudice...

You see, that Jesuit priest was preaching from the likes of Proverbs: you know, bits like "Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and He will reward them for what they have done" (19:17) and "The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern" (29:7).

If the priest wanted to stay on Ryan's good side, he needed to preach more from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: "...We have no laws in this valley, no rules, no formal organization of any kind...But we have certain customs, which we all observe, because they pertain to the things we need to rest from. So I'll warn you now that there is one word which is forbidden in this valley: the word give." (p.714)

Ryan likes to sell himself as a Catholic to impress the religious Evangelical base, but he's always been a fan of Rand's hatred of the undeserving masses "begging for handouts" from "the great industrialists who earned their wealth."

This is actually a serious problem for Republicans overall. They LOVE to say they walk with Jesus but when push comes to shove they shove Jesus off the cliff in order to shove all the poor and vulnerable as well. Back to Mullen:

...Despite the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state... Republicans in general and Evangelicals in particular have been trying to ram religion down our throats for years in demanding that public school prayer be legalized, faith-based political action groups be tax exempt and employers be permitted to hide behind their religion in refusing to pay for employee benefits that include reproductive health care.

But for God’s sake keep religion out of their own house . . . er, House.

The hypocrisy of their faithlessness - wrecking laws and norms that were set up to help those who needed and deserved such help - exposes Republicans as the self-serving greedheads they are.

These Republicans do not GIVE. They do not give Justice, they do not give Love, they do not give Forgiveness, they do not give Hope, they do not give Charity, they do not give Grace.

These Republicans TAKE. And they don't take anything of true value, they just take money and power and fame and everyone else's lives.

Never call them Christians. These Pharisees spit on everything Jesus represents.

Buying and Selling Mulvaney

What the ever-loving fuck was this (via Vox.com)?

Want a favor from a member of Congress? Give him money. That was the advice Mick Mulvaney, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and head of the Office of Management and Budget, gave to a group of some 1,300 bankers and lending industry professionals at a conference in Washington, DC.

Mulvaney, a former South Carolina representative, said he would only meet with lobbyists who had donated to his campaign while speaking at the American Bankers Association conference on Tuesday, the New York Times reported. “We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” Mulvaney said. “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”

So even if a lobby group needed to speak to Mulvaney on the merits - on an actual issue that impacted his state/district/citizenry - that group STILL couldn't speak to him without paying up a campaign contribution first?

HOW THE HELL IS THAT NOT BRIBERY???

Oh, right. This is why:

The anticorruption interest is not sufficient to displace the speech here in question. Indeed, 26 States do not restrict independent expenditures by for-profit corporations. The Government does not claim that these expenditures have corrupted the political process in those States... A single footnote in Bellotti purported to leave open the possibility that corporate independent expenditures could be shown to cause corruption... For the reasons explained above, we now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption...

I call bullshit, Justice Kennedy. Mulvaney just made it perfectly clear that as an elected official he would listen only to those who Pay-To-Play. Any excuse he has now about "oh, we will listen to our constituents too" is too much ass-covering on his part.

And what the hell would be stopping Mulvaney from playing this Pay-To-Play scam now that he's in charge of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an office he is openly undermining by telling the banks and financial institutions under its review ways they can limit and shut the Bureau down.

Money is not Free Speech, you goddamn Conservative Greedheads. Money is a tool to buy and sell things. And with enough money, you can buy up politicians and sell out our nation. The ones who don't have any money can't play this fucking game.

Citizens United ruling is one of the key factors our nation is fucked up now with the corruption of trump drowning us all in the rot.

We are so very royally fucked.

What Do I Gotta Do On Polling Around Here, Offer Giveaways Or Something?

I don't think I can get an honest response to the question on whether I should even try a GoFundMe to afford a trip to Prague. It's just... three responses?!

Where are my seven readers?! Did four of you just... leave for warmer climes or something?

Sigh. Lack of a healthy response to even a suggestion of an idea tells me this won't go very far if I try it. 

So much for democratic traditions.

Next time I'll just pull a casino heist or something...

Past Present Or Future, Republicans Still Doomed

If we refer to Conor Friedersdorf over at The Atlantic, he's already noting how the Republicans were screwed up long before trump took over, and that they're still going to have these problems once he's gone:

...Yes, Trump beat a big field to become president, he is more popular among GOP voters than any rival, many elected Republicans fear publicly crossing him at the moment, and he is influential in setting the tone in Washington. Still, the conclusion that he has taken over the Republican Party is overstated and premature.

Consider these counter-points:

First, Trump’s position is unusually shaky for a first-term president. His influence will take a huge hit if the GOP loses big in the 2018 midterms. And it could suffer if investigations into Trump or his associates expose a significant new scandal. Neither of those outcomes is assured. But both are very plausible.

Second, if Trump starts to seem like he’s hurting the GOP’s popularity more than he is helping it, he has no reserve of personal goodwill or substantive support for his ideas on which to fall back. Trump’s unpopularity was illustrated most colorfully by an unnamed GOP representative quoted by conservative commentator Erick Erickson. “I say a lot of shit on TV defending him,” the legislator said. “But honestly, I wish the motherfucker would just go away. We’re going to lose the House, lose the Senate, and lose a bunch of states because of him. All his supporters will blame us for what we have or have not done, but he hasn’t led. He wakes up in the morning, shits all over Twitter, shits all over us, shits all over his staff, then hits golf balls. Fuck him. Of course, I can’t say that in public or I’d get run out of town.” The unnamed congressman even declared of the president he has defended on television, “If we’re going to lose because of him, we might as well impeach the motherfucker.”

Just to interject here: It's noteworthy that this Republican elected official is honest enough to recognize how horrifying trump is as a person and as President Loser of the Popular Vote. It's also noteworthy that this coward doesn't have the balls to go public on this and make a stand to save his own Party, not because trump has that much power to punish him but because the GOP's Wingnut Base (the rabid voters AND the dogmatic SuperPAC donors) do have that power. The Republican Party cannot change because the ones who should change it - the elected officials - are afraid of the true powers controlling the GOP now: the deep-pocket ideologues like the Mercers and the Kochs and the Far Right Noise Machine - Fox, Breitbart, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter et al. - that profits from selling their brand of fearmongering and don't want it to change.

Third, the GOP establishment has so far accomplished much more than whatever is supposed to be replacing it. Asked what Trump has achieved, his defenders typically respond that he appointed a Supreme Court justice, passed tax cuts, and got rid of unnecessary regulations. It is easy to imagine Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio doing those same things. Trump’s achievements reflect GOP priorities going back decades, not anything new to his agenda...

Conor is right about this: The Republicans have accomplished what they needed to, regardless of whichever Republican is sitting in the Oval Office. They've got their terrible tax cuts for the rich, they're getting their deregulation agenda taken care of, they've got hopes to get their anti-abortion finally to where they can ruin poor women's lives forever. Paul Ryan is eagerly retiring now because other than nuking Social Security and Medicare (which he found out he's not able to nuke) he's done what he wanted to do. Ryan's dangling his own MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner over his shrine to Ayn Rand as we speak.

Fourth, there is no heir apparent to Trumpism, or even a deep stable of future presidential aspirants like the one that the Tea Party movement provided the GOP...

This is an interesting point, in that so far during the special elections between 2017 to the midterms this year, trump has been an utter disaster as a banner-carrier for the GOP. He's made three high-profile attempts in two different states - one of them Deep Red Alabama! - and has failed all three times to get "his" guy(s) elected.

However, I think Conor is wrong about "no heir apparent." There may not be a specific protege or acolyte in the trumpian mold that stands to rise up and claim the GOP leadership for himself. trump HAS done one thing and that's show exactly how a demagogic racist sonofabitch can campaign on such behavior and win the GOP nomination.

Nothing is going to stop the next trump Wannabe to step up to the mic and drop bombs on hated libruls and in such a way the fervent wingnut base will rise up and claim that Wannabe The Next St. Ronnie who will smite all Democrats and Keep American Great Angry Aging White Male.

Which is the doom of the Republican Party, because if that's all they've got - raging racist assholes - then that's all they'll have, which is not going to win over the growing non-White population of this nation.

But this is what they as a party have been building towards, ever since the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s shifted the dynamics of liberal-conservative alignments and made the Republicans more and more Conservative. Except that their pursuit of ideological purity turned into a closed dogmatic belief system - referring to Frum here - that ironically turned most of the Party - from voting base to elected leaders - into Anarchist Nihilists obsessed with destroying the existing order to build their flawed Utopia.

trump may have been the result, but they've been building towards this ever since Nixon's Southern Strategy, and right through Reagan's administration of deregulation and corruption, and into Newt's Contract On America (where a lot of pundits are now realizing was the Point of No Return for Republican assholery), straight through into Dubya's reign of error, right into McConnell's Damning pursuit of Obstruction Now Obstruction Forever.

Even if trump departs tomorrow, by resignation or by fleeing to a country without extradition, the GOP will simply reload for the next demagogue to come in and claim "I will do everything in my power to make liberals cry into their cappuccinos YEEHA!"

There's no Republican Party to save because this is now a group of people who DO NOT WANT TO BE SAVED. They think they're already flawless perfect jewels in God's Mighty Plan. They not only will refuse to get into the lifeboats, they'll eagerly smash everything with fire axes to make sure nobody else gets on them either.

We are so very royally fucked.

Schadenfreude for Hannity 2018 Edition

Who knew that the Saturday Night Live opener this past weekend - where Ben Stiller comes back to do a spot-on mockery of trump lawyer(ish) Michael Cohen - would reveal that, yeah, Cohen probably isn't all that good a lawyer in real life?

So far, the only things he's shown lawyering has been trying to pay off women who had affairs with guys like trump and Elliot Broidy, an RNC finance deputy until he resigned before the weekend over revelations Cohen paid off a Playmate Broidy was having an affair with (plus the woman had an abortion because of the affair!). This also included someone the warrants referred to as "Client #3".

So today, this Monday, Cohen was in court trying to argue his way through the warrants and seizures of his legal papers and materials from last Monday. The whole thing was going to be a circus anyway, with Stormy Daniels and her lawyer planning to appear (not to testify but to sit there and make Cohen uncomfortable). But another thing that threatened to be a newsworthy event was the possibility the judge would compel Cohen to name his mysterious third client.

Speculation was rampant. I myself was hoping for Mitch McConnell getting named.

Well, read on:

BREAKING: NBC News confirms that, after being forced to disclose the name in court, Michael Cohen says his third client - after Donald Trump and Elliot Broidy - is Sean Hannity. - @AliVelshi

Ahem.

Give me a second.

BWHWHWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHHAHHA

I dunno if I ever brought the disdain I have for Sean Hannity, the blowhard of Fox Not-News that's NOT Bill O'Reilly. As a journalism grad, I have absolutely no respect for Hannity who struts and preens but lacks even the fundamental skills of journalism having been a goddamn college dropout. (side note: there is a shocking number of non-graduate talking heads on television)

With Hannity, my anger and outrage towards him is based on his failure to apply any amount of objective journalistic practice to what he does: EVERYTHING out of him is pure opinion with little fact, and with partisan bias galore.

So why is this a huge deal?

Because 1) Cohen's legal practice seems to specialize entirely on covering up sex scandals, 2) Hannity's network Fox News has a sordid history of sexual harassment claims, cover-ups, and worse, 3) Hannity is currently trying to deny any kind of legal connection to Cohen, and then saying he talked to Cohen about property issues, and then asserting that there's still attorney-client privilege even if there's no lawyering going on so shut up and look away why don't ya?

Let me repeat.

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Hannity himself seemed to be a little blindsided by today's revelation, as an observer of Hannity's radio show noted:

The Sean Hannity Radio Show so far:
Background rock music.
SILENCE.
More music.
Clip of Trump/Hannity show promo.
Another Hannity show promo.
Clip of Comey interview.
So far, Hannity has not yet spoken. - @ZackFord

Hannity eventually spoke up, spent much of his show blasting Comey, offered an excuse of "simple consultation," never received an invoice, WE WERE JUST GOOD FRIENDS, CAN'T A GUY HAVE MORE THAN ONE FRIEND, YOU KNOW, AN AMIGO?

Can I just repeat myself under the trope of Rule of Three?

BWHWHWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHHAHHA

If this were a gangster movie, the entire trump empire is looking less like Vito Corleone's operation and more like an army of Fredos, tripping over each other in the worst possible ways.

This would be funny if the fate of the entire planet wasn't under dire threat of these Fredos mismanaging everything into a fireball of doom.

Prague on My Mind

I admit it: I am envious of criminal lawyer Michael Cohen being able to travel to Prague.

I haven't ever traveled out of the U.S. before, and gods I want to travel to see the world, but my librarian wages cannot afford such luxuries.

But if Cohen got to go, I *wanna* go. sniff

It's just it's looking like around $1,000 for a five-day visit on a budget, with the round trip flight being $1,700. Plus emergency funds in case something happens and I get involved in a car chase between spies or some such.

So... serious question here: Am I allowed to start up a GoFundMe drive to raise funds to make such a trip to Prague? I will make it a working trip, blogging from the locations where Cohen went on his meetings (maybe also get a run-in with my guy the Golem). I hope to make the trip in August which may be out of season and hopefully not too hot or cold (Europe is farther north on the map than I keep imaging).

Should I try a GoFundMe?

Edit: Poor response to the Survey Monkey poll tells me a GoFundMe attempt would be equally futile. Damn. Congratulations Prague, you are safe for another year...

No Safety Or Surprise, The End

It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die...
-- "The End," The Doors

This has been offered up on Twitter as a must-read article from Adam Davidson at the New Yorker:

(after a lengthy introduction of Adam's experiences with two recent political disasters, the Iraqi Invasion and the CDO Meltdown) In Iraq and with the financial crisis, it was helpful, as a reporter, to be able to divide the world into those who actually understand what was happening and those who said hopeful nonsense. The path of both crises turned out to be far worse than I had imagined...

I thought of those earlier experiences this week as I began to feel a familiar clarity about what will unfold next in the Trump Presidency. There are lots of details and surprises to come, but the endgame of this Presidency seems as clear now as those of Iraq and the financial crisis did months before they unfolded. Last week, federal investigators raided the offices of Michael Cohen, the man who has been closer than anybody to Trump’s most problematic business and personal relationships. This week, we learned that Cohen has been under criminal investigation for months—his e-mails have been read, presumably his phones have been tapped, and his meetings have been monitored (this means if trump or his inner circle had any conversations with Cohen about anything shady (very likely) the Feds already have it)...

Trump has long declared a red line: Robert Mueller must not investigate his businesses, and must only look at any possible collusion with Russia. That red line is now crossed and, for Trump, in the most troubling of ways. Even if he were to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and then had Mueller and his investigation put on ice, and even if—as is disturbingly possible—Congress did nothing, the Cohen prosecution would continue...

This is the week we know, with increasing certainty, that we are entering the last phase of the Trump Presidency. This doesn’t feel like a prophecy; it feels like a simple statement of the apparent truth...

What Davidson is talking about here is, regardless of what trump can do to save himself - firing Rosenstein in order to fire or stop Mueller, forcing the Justice Department to counter-investigate Dems like Hillary and Obama for purely partisan reasons, shutting down Justice completely to stop the New York offices from indicting Cohen - trump's Presidency will become a wounded duck, lacking the prestige of office and respect by others through the Rule of Law trump himself no longer respects.

Granted, trump's fan base among the Far Right will become even more convinced of his wounded cries of "witch hunt!" and trump's haters will become even more convinced of his guilt, what will happen is the loss of political capital and goodwill any Presidency needs to survive in DC (and the world). What will happen with the Cohen investigation - not the Russian one - will be a public reveal of all the nasty secrets trump's been trying to hide for decades, as Davidson lists here:

...I am unaware of anybody who has taken a serious look at Trump’s business who doesn’t believe that there is a high likelihood of rampant criminality. In Azerbaijan, he did business with a likely money launderer for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. In the Republic of Georgia, he partnered with a group that was being investigated for a possible role in the largest known bank-fraud and money-laundering case in history. In Indonesia, his development partner is “knee-deep in dirty politics”; there are criminal investigations of his deals in Brazil; the F.B.I. is reportedly looking into his daughter Ivanka’s role in the Trump hotel in Vancouver, for which she worked with a Malaysian family that has admitted to financial fraud. Back home, Donald, Jr., and Ivanka were investigated for financial crimes associated with the Trump hotel in SoHo—an investigation that was halted suspiciously. His Taj Mahal casino received what was then the largest fine in history for money-laundering violations. (personal note: Notice how most of trump's crimes involve foreign businesses or persons with their own criminal pasts? It's like he seeks them out to do business with...)

...It has become commonplace to say that enough was known about Trump’s shady business before he was elected; his followers voted for him precisely because they liked that he was someone willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, and they also believe that all rich businesspeople have to do shady things from time to time. In this way of thinking, any new information about his corrupt past has no political salience. Those who hate Trump already think he’s a crook; those who love him don’t care.

I believe this assessment is wrong. Sure, many people have a vague sense of Trump’s shadiness, but once the full details are better known and digested, a fundamentally different narrative about Trump will become commonplace. Remember: we knew a lot about problems in Iraq in May, 2003. Americans saw TV footage of looting and heard reports of U.S. forces struggling to gain control of the entire country. We had plenty of reporting, throughout 2007, about various minor financial problems. Somehow, though, these specific details failed to impress upon most Americans the over-all picture. It took a long time for the nation to accept that these were not minor aberrations but, rather, signs of fundamental crisis...

It doesn't help trump or the Republicans that polling still shows a majority of Americans believe the investigations should continue (roughly 69 to 25 for-against on the Russian probe). A little over 40 percent of Republicans support the investigations, assuredly overlapping any trump supporters who may love him but recognize the need for legal investigations to continue. IF Mueller does come out with substantial evidence of Russian meddling WITH trump's help, how many of those voters will make the moral choice to drop trump like the plague?

Davidson doesn't refer to it, but a historical analogy would be to Nixon and Watergate. While the scandal broke during 1972, many voters did not know the details well enough to realize how bad it was, and even the ones who did know still did not realize how deep the rot was. Nixon won a ton votes in 1972 in a rout: People didn't realize the scope of the scandal until Nixon's Oval Office tapes went public in 1974 and most found out just how corrupt and nasty a lifeform Nixon was.

We are facing the same situation with trump. For all of those out there - myself included - who hate trump exactly for the crimes he's already committed, there are still a lot of fellow Americans who just can't see it yet. Public exposure of trump's sins - the likely possibility of fraudulent business deals, the rampant misogyny, the crass ignorance he barely conceals already - would go a long way towards waking up more Americans - especially those Republicans who can't yet accept the facts - to the dangers of trump's misrule.

The thing that Davidson can't address, what most of us don't have an answer for, are the exact details we're going to be getting during this period of the trumpian Downfall. Just how bad is this all going to get?

As guessed at earlier, trump will try to come up with some excuse to fire Rosenstein, except the departmental bureaucracy may merely shift the oversight of Mueller's investigation towards other careerists in Justice instead of an appointed trump lackey. trump may try a straight-up coup, ordering the military or National Guard in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area to shut down the nation's capital "for security purposes"... but that may lead to a mutiny among the guards. Either way, trump loses any respect (and most likely any control) of the Intel Community from the FBI to the CIA through the NSA and all the rest. Those are the ones who really know just how bad trump and Russia are tied together, they just can't tell us because it could compromise their intelligence gathering methods.

We can't consider the Republicans in Congress to do anything except huddle on the sideline and quietly whisper for everyone "just settle down and don't look at what's happening, everything is fine, all is well." At every point of this nightmare, the Republicans avoided the hard decisions they needed to make: they never stopped trump from entering the primaries even when it was clear he was a racist loose cannon; they never cut off the SuperPACs who were funding trump; they never tried to rally around one candidate who could inspire the not-crazy factions in their own party to show up and vote; they never got onto Fox Not-News and bitch-slapped the taste out of Hannity or O'Reilly's mouths to get them to shut up and stop riling their base into madness.

Even if Mueller presents to Congress a detailed list of federal crimes, of trump and his people - his own family - actively working with a foreign power to subvert our elections, we've already seen the House Intel committee close their own investigation (without ever really investigating) and give trump a "clean bill of health" that nobody else even in the Beltway media takes seriously. In the chaos of the GOP-held House as Speaker Ryan shuts down his part of the government with intent to retire, will any Republican take the leadership reins in opposition to a corrupt President? (short answer, no: long answer, are you fucking kidding?)

This is one very big reason the 2018 midterms has far too much Democratic enthusiasm: every anti-trump American knows nothing will happen until Democrats regain control of either part of Congress...

And don't forget those polling numbers. If the 69 percent in favor of Mueller's probe accurately reflects the American population, then any action by trump to stop Mueller should cause 224 million (out of 313 mill or so) or more Americans to rise up in protest. Granted, not all will because this would be a risky and potentially harmful move for anyone to make. But if even half that number rise up, that's still 112 million angry Americans in the streets. There aren't enough pro-trump army units willing to crush a revolt of that size.

The only rational conclusion - if trump's fraud and criminal acts come to light - would be to resign, and there are enough trump observers who think trump would cut and run when the going gets tough. Thing is, trump only cuts and runs when he knows his current con game is over but that he's got another con game to jump to in order to keep his scam going.

This is it for trump. The biggest grandest con game he can get. It's fueling his property empire as the expense of the Emoluments Clause he openly violates. It's getting him fealty and payoffs from foreign businesses trying to use trump to get into the U.S. to make more money. This is it for him. trump HAS NOWHERE ELSE TO GO WHEN THIS CON ENDS.

trump will not resign, no matter how much he hates the prison that the Presidency is known to be.

Problem is, for all that Mueller can uncover, for all the other investigations into Cohen and more, there is a rule in place with the Justice Dept. to not indict a sitting President. While the DoJ could overrule that if the situation got dire, that would be so partisan a move it would cripple their reputation - which isn't all that clean in the first place - for decades at the least. They would be compelled to pass their findings onto the one branch that could do something... that just happens to be Congress, which again are led by a bunch of Republican cowards.

That means trump has to leave either through Impeachment - hard to achieve even if the Blue Wave gives Dems control of House AND Senate - or 25th Amendment - unlikely as there are few Cabinet members willing to remove trump for his unstable behavior - or worst of all waiting until 2020 for him to either lose in a Primary challenge or lose the General election to Kamala Harris (one hopes).

The last scenario is the most likely. We are, GODS help us, stuck with trump for two more years causing damage from his broken and half-staffed West Wing.

Davidson may think we're seeing the beginning of the end for trump's rule.

Problem is, this is an end that can take a long time to reach. And GODS forbid, too much damage will get done as we try to get there...

We are so very very VERY EXTREMELY ROYALLY FUCKED.

Unless we get the damn vote out and flip both the House and Senate far enough to ensure an early exit by trump. It's the only way right now.

GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT. Get everyone you know to vote. Get everyone aware of what's at stake and how they need to vote. VOTE DEMOCRAT EVERYWHERE AND ANYWHERE.

We gotta fight for our own survival now. This is it.

Where Do I Even Start With This Day?

Just to top it all off, right now trump is trying to distract everyone from this whole week's worth of scandals by calling air strikes into Syria. As though starting a war would help him.

And wasn't this a goddamn movie plot point from the Clinton years?!

But this all follow-up to the ongoing news about trump's criminal lawyer Cohen (both meanings apply right about now) and the fact he traveled to Prague without reporting it to anybody because that trip involved a meeting with a key Russian official. Damn, everybody can afford to travel to Prague except me. *I'D* love to go to Prague, but then again I'm honest enough not to work for a scuzbucket like trump...

It's not helping that federal investigators likely got to Cohen's taped conversations with people. Considering that the warrants to search his materials - and that it's officially a criminal investigation on him now - any of those conversations relating to trump AND Russia and/or Manafort and/or anyone else under investigation opens up a can of worms where the worms are from Arrakis (the spice MUST flow...).

Throw in the roiling turmoil that is the Republican Party, where another rich white guy connected to Cohen had made arrangements with a Playmate (NOT the one who had an affair with trump by the by) to cover up their affair, covered up that she got pregnant, and then covered up that she had an abortion(!) which kinda violates a lot of things the goddamn evangelical base is supposed to care about.

Not to mention the fears that trump is one temper tantrum away from firing Deputy AG Rosenstein in another attempt to shut down the criminal investigations into Russia's interference with our 2016 elections and their questionable business ties to trump and his partners.

Also consider how trump is reacting to the guy he fired to commit Obstruction, smearing former FBI Director Comey over Comey's latest tell-all book that describes just how unhinged and dangerous trump is behind the scenes.

So yeah, this WAS Friday the 13th after all.

We are so very very VERY royally fucked, America.