The Homegrowns are Next

 

Trump to Bukele: "Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It's not big enough." pic.twitter.com/o20thGNK9e

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 14, 2025

Trump is serious, He wants to deport US citizens to an El Salvador hellhole. Don't kid yourself it will be for "good reasons".  Accept and believe the evidence of your eyes and ears: this man genuinely believes that people who criticize him or those who help him should be labelled criminals. The threat of being "disappeared" is how Trump means to manage dissent in this country.

But it's not just the first amendment that is in danger. It's the whole bill of rights. 

 He doesn't believe in due process or the Constitution, and neither does his attorney general. His White House is full of people who will simply lie regarding this one man--but they will also lie about anyone Trump deems an enemy of the people, because that is how the lies of weak people work. 

They don't suddenly develop a conscience somewhere down the line. The weakness corrodes every scruple, and soon the rule of law is gone.

This should be front page, five-alarm, screaming bloody murder news. It's time to call it fascism, and it's time to seriously talk about impeachment and removal. It's past time, even. But it might not be too late.

The Future's So Dark, I Gotta Wear Shades

 

Look, I have to retire some time, eventually, and I'm in my 50's, so I'm not grave-dancing over here about what tomorrow is going to bring. The whole election, despite what people were saying about Trump being a felon and a sex-pest and a danger to democracy had also an undercurrent of "This is a whole damn pudding-brained sociopath who will set the country on fire for giggles," but you what? Bygones. Let's just say some people out there chalked all of that up to Trump Derangement Syndrome and didn't want to believe the motherfucker was crazy.

But here's the SOB now:

Trump: "I spoke to a lot of leaders -- European, Asian, from all over the world. They are dying to make a deal, but I said 'we're not gonna have deficits with your country' ... to me a deficit is a loss. We're gonna have surpluses or at worst we're gonna be breaking even." pic.twitter.com/xnW7jb0u3R

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 6, 2025

Is everyone starting to get it? 

The financial deficits he's talking about is just a trade deficit.  We have a trade deficit with Madagascar. They sell basically vanilla. We have bakeries and ice cream factories and whatnot. They have people who are too poor to buy US goods. That's a trade deficit. Botswana sells diamonds. Same deal--we have jewelers and people buy engagement rings and so forth. They don't have the kind of incomes to be buying a lot of US goods. 

It just is what it is. Not everyone is going to be giving us a trade surplus--to think it can be so is just crazy and what you get when you don't know geography, or how anything but particularly trade works--you trade for shit you can't make or get easily. If I'm a pumpkin farmer, I don't want someone else's pumpkins--I want something I don't have. How is this hard to get? 

The Lie Trump is Servicing

 

While people are wondering whether Ukrainian President Zelenskyy needs to do some backtracking to make proper amends and all that and get back to the table with the US, Russian foreign minister Lavrov is out here calling this man a traitor to the Jewish people and basically a "Nazi". This has been a big part of Russian propaganda. It is, for so many reasons, especially disgusting to project this made-up bullshit to this man, who comes from a heroic family that fought against the Nazis, for the very obvious reasons. 

If the reasons aren't obvious to you--get off the internet, read books, touch grass. What the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you believe stupid made-up shit just because it matches the thing you want to believe? Shouldn't what is actually true matter? 

Trump has proposed that Zelenskyy is somehow the reason, being elected to the presidency of Ukraine in 2019, for the invasion that started in 2014 and which his own good buddy Manafort knows a whole lot about. (I get why Trump faithful try to step around all that. It's messy for them, no?) 

TWGB: The Farce of Law

 

Special Counsel Jack Smith has asked for the dismissal of the election interference case against Trump (without prejudice) and has dropped the challenge to Judge Cannon's dismissal of the classified documents (espionage) case--with respects to Trump, not with respects to his accomplices. 

People are pointing fingers. I see a lot of shit being shoveled Merrick Garland's way. I remember the disappointment folks had with Robert Mueller when Barr terminated his investigation and called for the report, which never did exonerate Trump, except in the eyes of TrumpWorld--and people who hadn't been paying attention. Look--I am not a lawyer, and I don't know what all goes into grand juries, planning a case, and dealing with the sheer firewall of money and privilege that comes with a guy being a former president. like Trump's lawyers were able to throw a lot of chaff up in the sights and gum up the works pretty nicely--no matter what the evidence was. 

There was a pretty damn serious PR game going on, too. And it looks to me like the clear news aspects of what Trump had done, and what those around him had done, got lost.

It seems like a lot to reckon with in a short time. I defer to the expertise of people who are experts about these things, and don't confuse my disappointment with a valid criticism--it truly is not my place to judge that part. I know my limits. 

On the other hand, the political aspect of this farce and who to blame for it all is something I feel competent to judge:

I blame Republicans. The Republican party is without honor. Since the Bush years, I have never gotten a fix on which part of them was dishonesty and which part ignorance, and I have long since stopped caring as both attributes are disqualifying. 

TrumpWorld Kakistocracy 2: Trolling?

 

In a timeline where Fox News personality Pete Hegseth could be SecDef, sure, why not float former Democratic Rep. Tulsi "Russia's Girlfriend" Gabbard for DNI and now-former GOP Rep. Matt "Hookers'n'blow" Gaetz to be Attorney General.

Senator John Fetterman suggests that the choice of Gaetz as "god-tier kind of trolling" on Trump's part, and while this is not wrong, I regretfully have to confess that I think just because it's trolling doesn't mean that he can't get in. I mean, my first thought was "stalking horse". That's the art of the deal, right? You throw out a name like Matt Gaetz, and then when he's cast aside, literally every other choice seems more sane. 

But that's assuming Trump is playing by regular rules, and I don't. I think the idea that he's considering wild stuff like adjourning congress and recess-appointing people is not really out of the question if he really does see Trump 2.0 as his revenge tour. 

Listening to the Felon

 

Trump: A criminal is a criminal, they generally stay a criminal and we do not have time to figure it out. pic.twitter.com/LJ1NRSVXtA

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 28, 2024

Trump isn't any nicer since he was shot at--he says so himself! His attacks on Vice-President Harris are nasty but unfocused. ("Low IQ"? Really?). And maybe he really did mean he would "fix" things so "his Christians" wouldn't have to vote anymore as in--there wouldn't be any more elections. But in the above clip--he really makes a point, doesn't he?

A sex pest like Trump stays a disgusting misogynist. A white-collar fraud stays a fraud. Trump's 34 convictions, like his 2020 loss and his two impeachments, stay on his record. It's completely true that SCOTUS can partially immunize this mess--but we can look right at him and realize that whatever his deal is--

We do not have time to figure it out. Trump says a lot of things. We shouldn't go tiptoeing through the tulips picking and choosing which crazy things he "really, really" means. (We are way past the "seriously" vs. "literally" question.) He's a conman and a thug, and that should be enough. We had whatever you want to call 1/6--he'd do it again. He lied about the election being stolen--he'd do it again. He took classified docs for whatever reason--he'd violate national security for his own weird reasons again. He screwed up the national response to COVID and crashed the economy--he can't be trusted in an emergency.

Harris Fired Up Milwaukee

 

FULL SPEECH: Kamala Harris electrifies the crowd in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as she delivers her first official campaign speech for the presidency.

Worth watching in its entirety and sharing far and wide. pic.twitter.com/GMSXHSiqHS

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) July 23, 2024

In the first 24 hours after President Biden dropped after the race, the campaign for Vice-President Harris broke a fundraising record. It feels like enthusiasm is BACK in this race.

I can't help but notice that her GOP detractors have some criticisms, which are, as far as I can tell:

1) She was a popular and attractive single career woman with an active social life before marriage,

2) She laughs (I think they are jealous because she gets the jokes and does not need them explained?),

3) She was either a total "cop" or just let everyone go, I do not know what story they want and neither do they,

and--

4) Something about being a "DEI hire" which of course, stands for "Doing Everything Impressively" (touches earpiece) wait a minute, they mean something else....and had to be told to tone that racist shit down.

Also, being desperate scared freaks, Articles of Impeachment have already been announced because...yeah. Exactly.  It's always clown time in this circus.

Is this hope I'm feeling?

I Love the Smell of Discovery in the Morning

 

Comer’s new talking point is that the reason his impeachment investigation is stalled is because there’s *too much evidence* 😆 pic.twitter.com/MOi09SmVka

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 30, 2024

It smells like burning whatever Comer's fucked-up old "evidence" is. And yes, I am saying "fucked up old evidence. " And Comer should know by now, it doesn't actually go anywhere. If there was too much evidence, why haven't we seen an orderly, not-debunked, probative trail of information that connects the dots from Hunter Biden doing....aw Jesus, any damn thing....and his dad somehow benefitting and quid pro quoing the fuck out of it? 

Hunter Biden, despite being depicted as unqualified for various positions he's worked in by Republicans as if he's a nepo-baby, is a lawyer. He's a good lawyer with really good lawyers. He's suing Fox News for defaming him over exactly the bullshit that the House GOP has being trying to impeach his father over. And I say "Bravo!" because here's the fun thing--Fox News seems to do the same thing for Trump the National Enquirer did--bury negative shit about Trump, and fluff absolute bullshit to denigrate his opponents. That's what happened with their Dominion and Smartmatic voter fraud lies--and until the Biden story became obvious toxic waste, that's what they were peddling to an audience well-conditioned (by them!) to believe in Democrat fuckery and excuse any obvious GOP lies. 

How shitty, busted and past its sell-by date is the Biden impeachment story? Um, Rudy Giuliani, who needs an intervention and seems to have no one in his life who is considerate enough to make it happen, is making it very clear SOMEONE should just "lean on" Zelenskyy again.  

The Mayorkas Impeachment was Mercy-Killed

 

JUST IN: The Senate has killed a second article of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, ending the House GOP-led efforts to oust him https://t.co/rQYK9hn0cb

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 17, 2024

Republicans can say whatever they like about precedent and whether the vote has an impact on future impeachments (I say this just means they shouldn't be proposed frivolously without an actual crime or misdemeanor--and for a bad precedent, they can look to the two times they failed to convict Trump of things he absolutely did).

Democrats just spared the absolutely backwards dog and pony show that they were going to put on. Honestly, it was a gift. Now very valued House GOP stalwarts can get on with important business like spreading Russian propaganda, talking about "space lasers" and holding "Appliance Week". 

 

TWGB: He is an Obstruction

 

I didn't post anything this weekend because I'm getting over some kind of extremely fatiguing chesty coughing situation, and also, too, when Trump compared himself to Nelson Mandela, my brain just kept frantically hitting the "NOPE" button.  Oh, hell no, we are not talking about how Trump is not Jesus followed by how he is not Madiba. Trump is not the oppressed. Trump is far from a founder of this country--he;s a homewrecker. Then, the House Judiciary Committee posted Trump as the whole mammy-jamming eclipse.  A blockhead who blocks the sun. 

Well done, cult members. You've finally described him correctly. He's a temporary obstruction blocking daylight: but daylight will prevail. 

Yep, one of the constant stories of these TrumpWorld grab-bags is Trump, the obstructer. The delayer. He is only transparent to the effect that he desperately despises transparency. And you can easily see that part--the NDAs, the Byzantine business structure, the Omerta, the stalling subpoenas and other dilatory bids of various kinds, all throughout his business and political career. 

TWGB: Impeaching Trump By Accident?

 

We are not at a serious point in this Biden impeachment inquiry--that much is sure. In the spirit of Jim Jordan, who has unseriously referenced random unrelated things like the 1/6 pipe bomb, the bag of coke in the White House, and the leaked Dobbs opinion, to do what other than pretend the Biden Administration is awash in scandal, I don't know, let me get my inappropriate rhetoric on:

You know how we have all these options in the "dairy" section of the supermarket these days? Vegan and lactose-free vegetable-and-nut based milk substitutes showing up on our shelves to give options to people who either can't or prefer not to drink animal milk? Anyway, I see these varieties and am pretty happy that people have choices to fulfil their own unique dietary requirements and tastes. Almond and oat milk both taste pretty good to me. But I see some people complain: How can you milk a soybean? How can you milk a cashew? 

Well, I don't know about that. What I do know is that in this impeachment inquiry, the House Republicans don't have beans and they don't have nuts, so I don't know where they think the milk is coming from, but the cow done died ages ago. 

And that is why in the image above, Rep. Raskin is smiling and Comer looks like his life is flashing before his eyes. 

TWGB: The Only Winning Move

 

The disqualification trial of Fulton County DA Fani Willis saw a decision that enabled the case to continue, as Willis stays on while her top prosecutor, Nathan Wade, leaves the case--but we also learn that the judge in the Trial, Scott McAfee, faced threats and was concerned about getting security for his family. This is appalling, but not an unusual feature of TrumpWorld. McAfee, a conservative, will be treated by MAGA as having been somehow biased (I checked Twitter--they are GRUMBLING) when it is hard to objectively state what was uncovered in the trial more than a mere appearance of impropriety. 

He made as fair a decision as he could. He chided Willis for her conduct. It's not enough. 

From what I can tell, the lesson of TrumpWorld is similar to the lesson of playing "tic-tac-toe" in the 1983 movie WarGames--the only winning move is not to play. It means a little something different here though--it's the choice of game. You don't win at appeasing MAGA. You win only by doing your job. In other words--how about a nice came of chess?

Mike Pence knows this one. He just recently explained why he could not endorse Donald Trump, his old running mate, for president. Trump required him to do something illegal and unconstitutional to show his loyalty and he could not. In return, his life was threatened, and Trump to this day considers Pence "disloyal". It seems clear that to Trump's mind, you cannot serve two masters: the Constitution and Trump.  It also stands as a stark warning to other would-be GOP VP nominees--he will not be someone you serve with, just someone you serve. I can only ask what the conscience of a conservative has to say about that.

Biden's Memory and Hur's

 

Memory is a motherfucker. That's something I picked up from Death and Other Details. But also from reality. Grief doesn't fix things into stone, like when you lost someone. You still have them, as a part of you, like a phantom limb, wearing their conversations in your mind. It can be a comfort and not a comfort all at once. You might know facts intellectually, but they don't exist in your lived reality. It's like two things, overlapping--what did happen, and what it feels like. 

Being human, being mortal, is weird. It just is. But the funny old thing is, Joe Biden is actually tracking quite well with reality. He has a lot of life experience. He can tell you about it in great detail. Damn near photographically. He also has had access to classified information and knows very well what to do and not to do with it. And his situation was not one damn thing like former President Trump's. There is no way to determine intentionality with what was retained by Biden, and some of what Hur looked at was diaries that were not a part of the PRA. Hur's characterization of Biden's memory was gratuitous and biased. 

They Know it Isn't a Choice

Nikki Haley suspended her campaign following Super Tuesday, where she won Vermont and continued to demonstrate that the Trump campaign does have a 10-30% problem with Trump-averse Republicans. In her speech, in which she didn't exactly endorse Trump, she nevertheless said she hoped that Trump "earned" her voters. 

Anyone want to figure out what that means? If part of Haley's case was that Trump was the wrong man for the moment, or that his previous term in office displayed his unfitness, or that a racist, sexist, multiply-indicted adjudicated rapist was a threat to this country and a shameful person to have as her party's leader, it would be clear that he did not have the ability to earn their vote. But her case was merely a numerical one: maybe voters would prefer Haley because she was normal. She never fully addressed his freakishness.

As it was, as a member of Trump's administration she was a poor standard-bearer for that claim having already done spade-work to "normalize" him, and as a Republican who campaigned for Herschel Walker by suggesting that Sen. Warnock be deported, or who said she wanted to be Rev. John Hagee when she grew up, or who botched a simple question about the Civil War out of a sense of shameless pandering, she only magnified the degree to which, these days, to be a GOP candidate is, in some respects, to be a freak. 

TWGB: Is it Dead Yet?

 

One might well ask if the House Impeachment clusterfuck is dead yet, but as for my observations of TrumpWorld, I maintain that just because the mule is dead is no reason for fools to stop flogging it so long as they find value in tenderizing the meat.  And that's what this is--red meat. Once the dogs are whipped up, they don't care how gamey it is, so long as they get fed. 

So what if the witness who was indicted for lying to the FBI has been re-arrested after being let go because:

“It has come to this Court’s attention that counsel for defendant has sought an emergency hearing in the District of Nevada to arrange the release of Defendant Smirnov, likely to facilitate his absconding from the United States,” Wright wrote.

Heh. Yeah. that sounds kind of novel, until you realize he has access to millions of dollars and several foreign intelligence contacts.  

So what if Tony Bobulinski's claim that former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson is a liar can be debunked with a photo? 

"In the shadows of the bleachers, I observed Mark and Tony Bobulinski's interaction through a gap in the vehicles. When they said their goodbyes, I saw Mark hand Tony what appeared to be a folded sheet of paper or a small envelope," Hutchinson wrote in the book.

"Cassidy Hutchinson is an absolute liar and a fraud," Bobulinski told the panel, saying he wasn't wearing a ski mask and that "[Meadows] didn't hand me a single thing."

Look, House Republicans Did Something!

 

They managed to get Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas impeached (by one vote) for the high crimes and misdemeanors of not being in a Republican Administration and them not having bugger-all else to show for themselves. This is the very important vote that Rep. Steve Scalise came back from cancer treatment for. This would have been a tie if one Democratic member wasn't out with Covid-19. They rushed to get this in ahead of Tom Suozzi's win in NY-03. 

Oh, Democrats accomplished something, too, last night. They flipped George Santos' seat, making a Republican slim majority that much slimmer. I'm sure that will help reduce the chaos! (No. I am being sarcastic,) Is it unreasonable to suggest, though, that a Democrat got elected in large part because Republican's seem like they can't get things done? 

Is Mayorkas likely to be convicted for the high crime of being a Democrat in the Senate? No. But that isn't the point. It was about sticking up a stubby middle finger at Democrats for any reason. You may ask, isn't it hypocritical after the games Speaker Johnson has been playing regarding the border?

So, Iowa Picked the Rapist with 91 Felony counts?

 

I don't especially enjoy the primary season because the idea of caucuses themselves are dense and dumb to me--what the whole fuck is going on with those? People are dropping votes randomly into paper bags and empty popcorn buckets. Who knows who is showing up? (I see no ID's in the deep freeze, they don't need these when the voters are all Y.T.'s.) 

And then there's Iowa itself--an entire state that feels like a FOX news set-up in a rural PA diner no more than ten miles from the nearest militia training site. What gets me is the state gets these political creatures camping out among them, speechifying at them, trying to shake hands with them for at least six months out of the year, and when the inevitable man/woman-in the street interviews take place, they just say the most normie, uninformed things. Like, one guy was hung up on where Vivek Ramaswamy was from because of 9/11. There were no Hindu people with Indian ancestry having anything to do with that. And if he was concerned, how about looking up anything at all ever? Candidates do townhalls, have debates, have featured articles in newspapers and magazines and there's FUCKING WIKIPEDIA and some dolt allowed to vote doesn't know where this man's people are from. OR who did 9/11. 

One young lady said she was just thinking about Jesus and how he died for our sins, and wasn't that why Trump was going through all these trials? No, damn it, I want to yell--you weren't thinking that; Trump and every asshole warming up the crowds for him told you that and it somehow drilled its way into the thing you pick out sandwich fixin's with. Being in trouble for defaming one of his rape/assault/harassment victims has NOTHING to do with you. He stole government docs belonging to the US Gov't which is basically all of us, and that is a crime against you. The insurrection was a crime against our government. Also against you. 

How in the hell did about half the caucus goers decide the guy who has been determined to be a rapist and a fraud, is twice-impeached, and had a whole bathroom's worth of White House docs, PLUS, horked out of his Florida home is still somehow fit to be president?

House Republicans Had Some Kind of Day

 

Things aren't great with the House Republicans. For one thing, some of them are big mad at Speaker Mike Johnson for trying to do something useful like make the government still happen, in part because it involves dealing with Democrats and obviously, that's insane. They tanked some rules just from spite because they're salty about it.  And poor Mike Johnson has to make a pilgrimage to Godfather Trump to get his blessing on the whole avoiding a shutdown thing, which is awkward, because we all know Trump wants the economy to crash because he absolutely said so. 

I have some idea of the kind of arguments that have to be made. If House Republicans are responsible for a shutdown--all Republicans could be blamed, including Trump. Whether Trump can hear arguments like that is dicey, though. Ditto (or maybe that should be "MAGA-dittoes") for the mascots some red districts have elected to Congress--they were elected to sow chaos and it really shows. They want a shutdown for the same reason Patriarch Newt Gingrich normalized Republicans causing shutdowns--just burning spite against the idea of doing government at all. 

This is why the House sucked out loud in 2023. They couldn't pass legislation for shit and just did mascot stuff. Retiring Rep. McHenry referred to it as "a very actively stupid political environment" and that sounds exactly right. 

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: All Trump Wants for Christmas

 

Well, it's not hard to figure out what Trump wants for Christmas, since it's all been put into a filing available to the public: he wants immunity!  Some people might want their day in court and to be found innocent and to clear their good name. 

He would like to very much not have that conversation out loud if we can at all. His lawyers are claiming that everything he did while president counts as an official act (I guess they mean everything: official Tweets, official watching tv, official golfing, and probably official trips to the bathroom--since that also covers "document handling") and he wasn't convicted by the Senate at his impeachment, so if that was good enough for them, it's good enough for him. 

It's a fantasy. It starts out with a wonderful supposition: 

"During the 234 years from 1789 to 2023, no current or former president had ever been criminally prosecuted for official acts. That unbroken tradition died this year, and the historical fallout is tremendous," the Trump filing reads. "The indictment of President Trump threatens to launch cycles of recrimination and politically motivated prosecution that will plague our nation for many decades to come and stands likely to shatter the very bedrock of our republic—the confidence of American citizens in an independent judicial system."

We are to believe it would seem, that the officeholders from 1789 to January 20, 2017 may have been simply lousy with crime, but were not prosecuted due to...tradition?  And we are not invited to contemplate the fallout from a president being told that literally anything they do and label an "official act" is without legal consequence? And he's handing that same card to our current sitting president?

Lordy. I think Santa definitely puts one on the naughty list for this kind of jackassery.