Never Getting Over It

 

At first, I was just not going to get over 1/6/2021, but now that I think of it, I'm not getting over how in only four years, anyone convinced themselves that the disinformation-fueled violence was not just "not a Trump problem", but for some people it was even "good, actually...", so much so that if Trump pardons 1/6 rioters, some will shrug as if Trump having that power makes it right, and insurrectionist boobs like Marjorie Taylor Greene can even suggest a holiday for that event. 

Something very bad got uncorked that day, and we aren't even down to the dregs of it, I'm afraid. 

The End of Assad

 

I haven't really known where to start this week. Tblisi? Romania? But it's Syria. Good gracious if I were ever to believe, God. The rebels took over everywhere. Everything, after so many years, fell. And Bashar al-Assad's Russian friends have been run off, too. And he has fucked off to Moscow. (Actually, I know he was in Moscow last week and never noticed him leaving. When the heck did he leave to fuck off on back?)

I don't know if Assad-cheerleader and avid consumer of RU agitprop, Tulsi Gabbard is at home crying into her Putin shaped comfort woobie, but the quality of her often-offered pro-Assad and pro-Putin opinions are about to take an uncommon beating.  Which she totally has earned. 

I also don't know how Trump and them feel about what Romania has done with respects to their dodgy election. I personally think Trump should have been disqualified as an insurrectionist, but we just don't do stuff like that here, regardless of what our Constitution says. 

I do winder if some of the people who voted for him are feeling the buyer's remorse yet. And what exactly would happen if we tried to stage a "do-over" here. 

But this post isn't about the US--it's about this:

One Rough Hour, One Rough Beast

 

Trump says his idea for stopping crime is to allow for “one really violent day”: “One rough hour, and I mean real rough...” pic.twitter.com/6XeVXL6R8b

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 29, 2024

When someone shows you who they are the first time--believe them. This is Trump, ostensibly talking about crime. But what I think he means here is--what he calls "a crime". And that could be any damn thing. Making his hair look bad on television.  Saying he didn't win in 2020, or that Russia helped him in 2016. Crimes are crimes in the run-up to a dictatorship, and then things the dictator doesn't like are crimes. 

It's a "crime" that people believe him capable of crimes. It's a "crime" that his rallies aren't attended to his liking. They have a fix for that, in North Korea. 

I remember thinking that the Telegraph and other right-wing comms in advance of 1/6 reminded me of "The Turner Diaries"--specifically, the "Day of the Rope" part. Multiple posts from Trump-affiliated right-wingers were looking to do something to "antifa". And I don't think they were at all confused that "antifa" means "anti-fascist". This is why there was only Trump fans there.

TWGB: Blame America First

 

It is impossible to overstate how despicable and dangerous Trump's demagoguery is, even if he loses again. It’s blame America first. He surpasses even the far left in calling America a bad actor, irreparably broken, a hellhole that only he can save you from. He’s the anti-Reagan. https://t.co/PT0Bdk5kho

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) September 24, 2024

It gets worse from here--Trump literally extolls the participation of Soviet Russia in WWII because he was (supposedly) talking to some rando, and literally does not know any better than to think maybe Russia wins all the wars.

Trump on Russia: Somebody told me the other day, they beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon. That's what they do. pic.twitter.com/OCvRTPvP0j

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 24, 2024

They lost the Crimean War, they lost in Afghanistan, they lost against Japan. Russia looks bigger and better than they actually are and project strength because of paranoia. Trump doesn't know anything (a hallmark of conspiracy theorists) and so falls for anything that sounds like a fact. I wonder if he got his "news" from Tucker Carlson hosting a Holocaust denier, who happens to call Churchill the villain of WWII. 

Trump on the Bomb Threats

 

Q: Do you denounce the bomb threats in Springfield, Ohio?

Trump: I don’t know what happened with the bomb threats. I know that it’s been taken over by illegal migrants pic.twitter.com/LVtWfxnXIm

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 14, 2024

I think this horror show individual has taken a hard look at the polls and thinks to himself, "Well, maybe we'll just have a little race war before the election, as a treat." And I suspect Vance is a sociopath and fully along for the ride.

This was the start of a longer post but goddamn it. Look at the man. There's nothing new here. 

And We Never Mention 1/6 Again?

 

Donald Trump was shot at. I guess. Luckily, he only got a bloody ear out of it. One Trump fan died protecting his children. It's a terrible thing. A 20-year-old registered Republican with an AR-15 climbed up to a shed roof, was not stopped by local law enforcement, and fired in the direction of the stage.

That's very certainly a terrible thing. We have a problem with gun violence in this country. Senseless deaths and horrific injuries occur all the time. 

The knee-jerk response of many Trump Republicans was to immediately blame "The Left", President Biden, DEI, CRT, the Jews and Ukraine, because all the money intended for the Secret Service apparently went to missiles and now they have to hire dumb girls, or something. That's right, before they even knew who the shooter was or had any idea why he was shooting (which we still don't know).

Oh, and one more thing: we better not criticize Fearless Leader or bring up January 6th ever again. 

Needless to say, that's not something I'm about to do. Donald Trump getting shot at isn't going to make him a better person and this shooting certainly doesn't cancel out what happened on January 6th. I still believe he has no business being president and the reckless lying about election fraud that led up to the massive violence of that day, the bloodshed, the Confederate flag being led through the Capitol, the violence intended to our political system. is something the Republican party must atone for--

The Un-American Project 2025

 

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" https://t.co/ndMJlNlUKH

— Media Matters (@mmfa) July 3, 2024

Look at this Bond villain bullshit: "which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be." What he's saying right there is, will remain bloodless if the left lays back and lets it happen. Because I guess it's fun to threaten a whole Revolution. Tea Party people. I swear. They really want to see themselves proudly fighting to--

Install a monarchy? Undo the first American Revolution? Institute a lot of Christian nationalist and white supremacist rubbish that the majority of Americans don't want? 

Um--exactly. And there are a lot of former Trump Administration officials supporting this blueprint for chaos. 

Anyway, when I saw that term, "bloodless", all I could think of was 1/6 and the testimony of a Capitol police officer that she was slipping in people's blood that day.  They thought they were re-creating 1776. What they were doing was insurrection. What the 'bloodless" Project 2025 document boasts is undoing the American experiment of a government of, for and by the people--unless those people are conservative activists.

TWGB: We Need the Wood!

 

There's hardly anything wilder to me than Trump fluffing up his crucifixion narrative while being literally the most un-Christlike person you could think of. Turn the other cheek? Love thy enemy?  Forgive others as you would also be forgiven? Oh, that stuff is crazy. He sure does try it though. He's being persecuted for taking what he hast (overleveraged) and using it to get more rich (or at least, pretending he is).  He's being crucified (being prosecuted, not persecuted) for his hush money arrangement--a business fraud, based on an election fraud, based on an illicit sex fling--selling himself as a better man than he actually is. 

So how does this modern-day martyr show his Christ Consciousness? You know, the way Christ did, by letting his disciples know what Pilates' family members look like, so they could...use their imaginations. Who wants to tell me where in the Bible Jesus would have done anything of the sort? 

Trump is no Jesus and Judge Merchan is no Pontius Pilate--what the hell? This is where my blog title comes from--get on down off that cross honey, we need the wood! 

TWGB: There is no Mask to Slip

 

Trump has posted on his Truth Social account an image of one of his little fan club member's tricked-out rides, which on closer inspection, might merit a visit from Secret Service:

Along with the "FJB" and "Let's go Brandon" merch, the MAGA dissemination of this kind of violent imagery far more real and persistent than Kathy Griffin's more metaphorical "head of Medusa" pictorial, for which she is still to this very day getting protest shit. There is a lot of "literally vs. figuratively" context we could go over here, but that really isn't the point:

Trump has been fixating on the daughter of one of his presiding judges lately. He's definitely done that sort of thing before. Trump has an obvious motive--he wants to terrify people who might judge him. He wants them to be too afraid to do their jobs. It seems that both women had online accounts that putatively were critical of Trump, but were in hindsight not validated.  Were the fake posts a pretext for potential havoc? 

What we are seeing here is a movement so rooted in giving a permission slip to violence that the sharing of this image is supposed to be celebrated, not decried. 

TWGB: Aiding and Abetting

 

Trump salutes as the J6 Choir song plays pic.twitter.com/383RCt4TOT

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 16, 2024

Trump really loves his 1/6 convicted felons as if they were his very own co-conspirators, doesn't he? Some observers of today's Trump rally speech got exercised over his use of the term "bloodbath" as in, if he is not elected this year, there will be a bloodbath. Don't be stupid--this was just his usual hyperbole. It's his continued defense and support of his last bloodbath, where something like 140 law enforcement officers were pounded mercilessly by his little fan club, we should be looking at. 

It's a pity-looking at Trump's rallies these days is a little like returning to the scene of a crime where Father Time is stealing what insurers cannot replace and bankers cannot lend, and which, like any Trump property, might have been severely over-valued anyway--his fragile little mind. He thinks renaming Fort Bragg is somehow a repudiation of US successes, not a repudiation of Confederate failures. 

Tucker Carlson is Trying to Be "Useful"

 

Sad propaganda ronin Tucker Carlson has attached himself to the Russian shogun in the hopes of being viewed as valid, important, and not a fucking parasite in one of the most parasitical moves imaginable. He is going to serve us an interview of Vladimir Putin as if he were a western journalist who would do an even marginally tough job. 

We know what has happened to Russian journalists who challenge Putin (look at the date of her death--see anything?). We know what can happen with legitimate western journalists. Tucker Carlson, however, is mostly safe (even if he broke with the desired narrative for the moment--of course western journalists want to interview Putin, but Carlson won an HONOR!) Actually, Russia media love Tucker Carlson so much.  He's essential!  He shows that even in the West, Putin is respected. And in return, Carlson carries Putin's message to Americans, who are, frankly, easily impressed and dumb as hell. 

Hillary Clinton, who isn't brand new to any of this, calls Carlson what he rightly is: a "useful idiot." But she also delivers a fairly chilling coda:

It’s really quite sad that not just somebody like Tucker Carlson who has, as I said, been fired so many times because he seems unable to correlate his reporting with the truth, but also because it is a sign that there are people in this country right now who are like a fifth column from Vladimir Putin.

...

“There is a yearning for leaders who can kill and imprison their opponents, destroy the press, lead a life that is one of impunity and bound by any laws,” she continued. “There’s a yearning among certain people in our country for that kind of leadership. And I find that absolutely gobsmacking terrifying.”

A Civil War Over the Texas Death Moat?

 

My statement on Texas’ constitutional right to self-defense. pic.twitter.com/seNFZdmujP

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) January 24, 2024

The governor of Texas seems to really be pushing this states' rights issue a bit hard in Biden's direction, but it's very curious to me that he's doing so precisely when congressional talks over a possible immigration deal are breaking down because Trump doesn't want them to do Biden any favors.  

“Trump wants them to kill it because he doesn’t want Biden to have a victory,” said the source. “He told them he will fix the border when he is president… He said he only wants the perfect deal.”

Trump’s meddling generated an “emotional” discussion in a closed door meeting between Senate Republicans on Wednesday, as senators vented their frustrations for hours about the largely secret negotiations over emergency aid for Ukraine, Israel and immigration. The conference is splintering into two camps: those who believe Republicans should take the deal, and those who are opposed at any cost.

“The rational Republicans want the deal because they want Ukraine and Israel and an actual border solution,” said the source. “But the others are afraid of Trump, or they’re the chaos caucus who never wants to pass anything.”

“They’re having a little crisis in their conference right now,” the source added.

(I know, I know, anonymous source and all that--but this is exactly what they seem to have been telegraphing they're doing, too.) 

And we're going to see other Republicans stand with Abbott even though he's grandstanding over his death moat, not an actual solution to the immigration problem because, like I've said, it's partisan dick-slappery. Just with increasing levels of potential death and constitutional crisis, because Republicans aren't just unserious people--they are truly terrible unserious people.  And this is Greg freaking Abbott, whose other answer to the immigration situation was shipping migrants from Texas to other states which is also not responsible, a total stunt, potentially dangerous, and not a serous solution to anything. 

For a party that wants to make immigration a signature issue, the Republicans genuinely aren't interesting in doing anything sensible about it, but grandstanding and making things worse. 

They should own every little bit of that. 

And keep in mind that in part, this is also about Trump, who has long associated himself with Civil War ideation. He would rather see this country broken if he isn't to rule it. No person who thinks like that can be said to love this country. I strongly suspect that he doesn't, and neither do his confederates. 

TWGB: Epstein and the Other Shit

 

Trump is on the Epstein flight record and he made Acosta a cabinet member and Bill Barr, whose Daddy had a connection with young Epstein, visited the prison where the notorious pedophile pimp was stowed and the man dies shortly thereafter, and this is not actually anything Trump fans are concerned about, as previously well-noted. We know what Trump is and has been--he likes young girls and surrounded himself with pimps and pedophiles for years. And was involved with young, attractive women as often as possible. 

But you know what? Trump fans are rape apologist culture personified. He's supported by the religious right, the refuge of pedo pastors and promoters of the gospel of blaming the victim. That Trump is a godly man or a man of faith is a little lie the Trump cult likes to tell themselves.  It's a part of the bigger picture of the true Trump Derangement Syndrome. The Trump they have is lacking, so the faithful make up the Trump they want. It goes with the fake prophesies about Trump as chosen by GOD (so why did he lose 2020?) 

Trump will tell them, and you, like he wants to tell the courts--it was STOLLEN! Like, he's entering a 32-page round-up of voter fraud lies to an actual court. Shades of German servers and Italian satellites and Venezuelan software and bamboo ballots. Take it from Ken Block, who was hired by Trump to look into voter fraud--it was not a thing. 

But Trump loves that Big Lie. And in light of his adopting the language of "vermin" and "dictatorship", it's a good idea to see where he's going with the Lost Cause, Big Lie of his election--

He thinks he wants to rally in Madison Square Garden and other places he is not supposed to be a winner, in hope of winning not just swing states, but blue states.  So, that's great--because he pretended in 2016 he could have won California except for all the immigrants cheating (a lie he still makes to this day--that somehow, there's a magic path where people come over the Mexico border, get magic double-secret citizenship, and can suddenly vote in elections--he's barking fucking mad). 

TWGB: The Hot Stove Lessons of Democracy

 

A couple of days ago, one of the insurrectionists sometimes called "Pink Hat Lady" (government name: Rachel Powell) took to Twitter to complain of her treatment.  She has apparently spent the last three years barefoot and mooning out the window like a princess in a tower...no wait, she was able to move about, but violated her pre-term release and got home confinement. She pretends she has no representatives, but she had lawyers. She exhorted her fellow 1/6 dopes to enter the Capitol that day--why isn't she being looked at as a possible "Fed" provocateur, huh?

She's living in a whole different universe from our reality. She went from saying on social media: “We will do what we want and there’s nothing the gov can do to stop us,” to asking, “Why should I go to jail? Over what? A broken window?”

Burglars break windows, too, and are felons. And apparently, the government actually DOES do something about that. These windows were broken because the stolen-election-believing sheeple who went to the capitol on 1/6 wanted to steal the election back for their Peerless Feeder. 

Will incarceration "fix" Rachel? Who knows? But maybe she educates others as an example to not be her. 

This is why I look at nattering nabobs like David Axelrod with disdain. OOoooooohhhh, taking Donald Trump off the ballot will divide the country, will it? Tell it to the fuckfaces who already thought we were in a Civil War on 1/6. A Civil War, because Trump's election is a Lost Cause that he keeps fighting, and maybe, just maybe, that shit needs to be removed from his grasp, and the people who lived through our bloodiest conflict on this soil understood that very well. 

The Plant and the Plantation

 

In a clean-up attempt earlier today that cleaned up exactly nothing, Nikki Haley complained that she was set up by the question she had indicated was an easy one, and that the questioner was clearly "a plant":

"Yes, I know it was about slavery," she added. "I'm from the South, of course, you know it's about slavery."

Along with defending her answer, Haley also pointed blame at the man behind the question, accusing him of working for the opposing major political party.

"(He) was definitely a Democrat plant. That's why I said 'What does it mean to you?' And if you notice, he didn't answer anything," Haley said. "We see these guys when they come in, we know what they're doing."

It's really such weak horseshit, because if she saw him coming and knew what he was doing, she could have answered the question correctly.  It doesn't matter if the person asking the question is a Democrat supporter, a CNN reporter, a debate moderator, a space invader, Joe Biden himself or the Grand Wizard of the KKK: the answer would be the same. The questioner could be anyone at all, and their answer doesn't affect the one Haley needed to give. 

She wasn't jammed up by a sabotage. She did it herself.

But wait, she gets worse:

Wow. Nikki Haley goes full MAGA, says she would pardon Trump if he were convicted of a crime in a court of law.

She says it’s not in “the best interest of our country to have an 80-year-old man sitting in jail.” pic.twitter.com/cpoAWLXMBz

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) December 29, 2023

She would pardon Trump. But she doesn't clearly think she'd be in that position, because she also won't rule out serving as his VP. This is because she lacks moral clarity. She's spread thin trying to cover all the GOP bases. 

But all I'm saying is: this is the conundrum for the entire party. Every last member. Where do you stand on the truth? Where do you stand on the undermining of our republic? What does law and order mean to you?

The Freedom to do What, Nikki Haley?

 

Asked what caused the Civil War, Nikki Haley refuses to mention slavery: “What do you want me to say about slavery? Next question.” pic.twitter.com/cEMW3Cn9ku

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) December 28, 2023

It shouldn't have been considered a trick question, but we know that for Nikki Haley, it kind of is. Here's the exchange:

Q: What was the cause of the United States Civil War?

 Haley: Well, don’t come with an easy question or anything. I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do. What do you think the cause of the Civil War was? 

Q: I’m not running for president. I wanted to hear you view on the cause of the Civil War. 

Haley: I mean, I think it always comes down to the role of government. We need to have capitalism, we need to have economic freedom, we need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties, so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way. 

Q: Thank you. In the year 2023, it's astonishing to me that you'd answer that question without mentioning the word “slavery.”

 Haley: What do you want me to say about slavery?

Q: You've answered my question. Thank you.

 Haley: Next question.

The freedom to do what? The articles of secession of South Carolina and all the other Confederate states make it clear--to hold other people in slavery, which is not freedom for the people held in slavery. The proponents of slavery certainly considered it an issue of economic interest, to their mind perhaps, "economic freedom". But enslaved individuals certainly had no right to "be anything they want to be."

Ballots vs. Bullets

 

NEW: Colorado Secretary of State "extremely concerned" about pro-Trump violence

Jena Griswold received 64 death threats and 900+ threats of non-lethal abuse just within the first 3 weeks of filing the case to keep Trump off the state ballot. https://t.co/aEwbadUZtZ

— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) December 20, 2023

This follows a pattern that occurs around Trump, mostly because he encourages it. Trump's people do not respect the law because they have decided that supporting Trump is something higher than the law. What people who want to say that Trump has to be rejected at the ballot box don't understand is, Trump's insurrection started with undermining the importance of the ballot box. That pattern of violence and threats--includes poll workers and election officials.  

Trump has already established his people don't respect the ballot--he lost in 2020, and 1/6 was the result of that. There are two things I strongly suggest cause this. The first is the Tea Party and militia-based kayfabe that the 2nd Amendment is a remedy against one's own government in the event that it becomes "tyrannical" (which seems to include Trump receiving due process for indictments received at the determination of a grand jury).

TWGB: Civil War Solutions to Modern Problems

 

I think it's very fitting, after all, that Donald Judas Trump got a ruling against his being on the ballot for fomenting an insurrection under the 14th Amendment, because that remedy was a solution to insurrectionism post-Civil War, and the "1776" plan from Trump and his little friends was not a revolution for the sake of freedom, but a peculiar invocation of a civil war.  Because Trump losing made some people big mad and they believed stupid fraudulent shit about Chinese thermostats and Italian satellites and stuff. It really isn't more intelligent than that. 

I think the Colorado State decision makes a lot of sense, and frankly, I don't personally care if it's popular. Trump's favorability with his party doesn't mean anything to me, because look--how many people supported the Confederacy? A lot. They lost.

That's the point. You don't like the 14th Amendment, go crazy kids, vote for legislators who definitely want insurrectionists to hold office. Pro-treason in defense of random bullshit your whole face off.  But as for me, I will vote for Democrats and support the Constitution because I'm not a whole-ass traitor. You don't vote for pro-insurrection and pretend you are a patriot. You don't get to lie about the election, or pretend Trump is innocent regarding what happened on 1/6, and even have my glancing respect. 

We can all understand that Proud Boys stood back and stood by--until then, and Oath Keepers broke all their oaths that day. It wasn't antifa and the feds, it was Soft-Skulled crabs who were so proud of themselves, they selfied and posted to social media their civil war disobedience. 

Hillary Clinton and the Uncomfortable Truth

 

“So many of those extremists, those MAGA extremists, take their marching orders from Donald Trump,” @HillaryClinton tells me. “There needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members” in the GOP, she adds in our EXCLUSIVE conversation. pic.twitter.com/ImpYIBuQ5j

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) October 6, 2023

The right-wing is a bit up in arms with Hillary Clinton's statement that Trump's people are in a cult and need to be deprogrammed. Now, for the record, to me this is as benign a statement as calling some portion of the Trump supporters "deplorable"--he literally attracts militia folks and Klan members. If you aren't down with calling out would-be Timothy McVeigh's and the goddamn Klan as "deplorable"--I'm not sure what your standards are, but they sure as hell aren't mine. (Looking at Steve Scalise and Josh Hawley in their whole damn faces.) You either understand civil terrorism is kind of fucked up or GTFO. I'll say John Brown and Weather Underground weren't exactly doing it right--your turn? 

Anyway, Hillary Clinton is by far not the only one to notice that Trump mega-MAGA fan behavior is cultish. They signify via their unique clothing. They silo their sources of information. They believe what their cult leader says to the exclusion of what they might even see with their own eyes. Their religion, their associations, their concept of acceptable speech: all file in line with TrumpThink. 

When comedians and journalists alike do "man on the street" type interviews with MAGA, they sound like people from the Manchurian Candidate talking about Raymond Shaw.: 

“Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”

Don't Know Much About History

 

WATCH >> Ron DeSantis defends new curriculum that will teach children how slaves *benefited* from slavery.

"They're probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into, into doing things later in life." pic.twitter.com/Ls1wyk3tr4

— Ammar Moussa (@ammarmufasa) July 22, 2023

They parlayed: only AFTER SLAVERY ENDED WHICH WAS NOT A GUARANTEE! Generations of unpaid skilled workers labored under the yoke of slavery incapable of seeking other opportunities because they were not treated as people, but property, with little post-slavery option outside of running for it and possible death or recapture. In the meanwhile, they were denied literacy, they were in a segregated church, they had their families sold away from them, they were heritable to other members of their owners' families.  (No, stop everything and read about slave law.)

And they could be abused to within an inch of their lives or past it including sexual abuse. They were used in medical experiments. They were believed to be less capable of pain, a belief that persists in medical practice sometimes even today. They made a straight face in front of white people to preserve their dignity before God and others.