Menendez Needs to Resign

 

Now, I rarely slam the hell out of Democrats, but here's one hell of an exception: Sen. Bob Menendez of NJ is busted and he needs to resign. To repeat: he is busted, used up, out of credit, persona non grata and a whole pile of bullshit. This man took the little bit of rope he got from a hung jury in his last federal case and made a noose for himself. No sympathy, no nothing. 

The man had close to a half million in cash in his home, some of it sewn into his clothes, and $100K in gold bars.  To me, that spells "BUSTED". What does that tell me? His money isn't in the bank collecting interest because if he took it to the bank, he'd get unwanted interest. And it's also a "to the mattresses" situation. It's around in the eventuality of his needing a reason to not stick around. 

I hear what Majority Leader Schumer is saying when he talks up Menendez' service and his day in court: with respect to his service, he's getting a grace period to figure out what he wants to do before the hammer comes down, so he can go out like it's his own choice. That's respectful, I get it. But if the man doesn't know it's not a "forever" pass, he's a whole idiot. Because the NJ Governor is ready to replace this fool, and he has a rich mine of good people to choose from.  And the Senate doesn't need him so much they will let him fuck around forever:

And that's what his statement is. He really wants to go with: It's because I'm a Latino, huh? 

How about that answer is what makes him seem extra guilty? 

TWGB: Hoist on His Own Petard

 

He was indignant because he can't remember their anniversary. Also, his defense sounds like "Whatever she said happened didn't happen and also, she loved it" which is...disgusting. https://t.co/W3XPcG4hf4

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) May 5, 2023

The airing of Trump's belligerent and weird deposition should be required viewing for those who want an insight into who this once and possible future president is--he's fumbling between knowing what he did and wanting to plausibly disavow. He doesn't know who she is but their meeting can be proved. He can't remember groping or even raping her because maybe this is not rare? He "swooned her"--meaning she was supposed to be into it, when it didn't happen? She thought it was sexy when it never happened? 

The classic rapist line is supposed to be "You liked it. You wanted it." The rapist worldview skews towards the vindication of his penile misadventures.  After everything else, the idea that the victims liked it, that power or celebrity or stardom or privilege or however you want to put it, made the situation fine for some person to be violated by a person with social or financial leverage, is always disgusting. 

Trump is, for me, disgusting. Of course, as a many-times over identified sex pest, I find him appalling. As a mobbed-up money launderer for organized crime and foreign nationals, he's a national security nightmare. 

Autumn of Our Discontent

 

Election Day 2021's warning sign, for me, was the peculiar gathering in Dealey Plaza, of all places, of Qanon faithful assembling for a grand announcement by either JFK Jr. or Sr. (both deceased, and to the best of all inquiries of public record to discern, Democrats at last breathing memory) with the expectation that it would lead to the revelation of the One True President Trump and usher in some kind of new era. What we are looking at here is a phenomenon where an off-shoot of a somewhat incidental and transparently bullshit conspiracy theory (Pizzagate) has transmogrified into a kind of syncretic conspiracy theory cult, looking for a singularity that finally unifies all the conspiracy theories into one big satisfying thing. 

(I kid you not, the allegation that the Kennedys--kinfolk of Brian Boru, represent the Sang Real or Holy Grail legend of human nobility possessed of the bloodline of Christ via the Merovingians combined with the notion of a kind of Elders of the Priory of Sion finagling of an eventual theocratic United States victorious over the bloodsucking Satanist human traffickers that otherwise have been in charge since whenever the cultists deem shit went haywire under the auspices of some kind of God-appointed figure really does seem both like entire nonsense, and kind of cohere if you have studied  US conspiracy theory. )

When JFK Jr. or Sr. did not appear at Dealey Plaza (a morbid location for a revelation, in any event) and it also began to rain, some believers shifted their attention to another location: well surely, at the Rolling Stones concert something might happen (an example of High Boomerism if I ever witnessed one). However, they literally got no satisfaction. 

Unless Someone Makes You a Vampire....

"You have my undying support," Rep. Jeff Van Drew says after announcement that he was becoming a Republican.

"Same way," Pres. Trump says. "I'm endorsing him." https://t.co/nluHYPQWCj pic.twitter.com/4hzSy08xFF

— ABC News (@ABC) December 19, 2019

Wow, this happened yesterday. Van Drew didn't used to love him, but now, Trump has his "undying support."

That's....a lot. Maybe more than he wanted to say.

Election Night 2017: It's a Good Night

Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for. Don’t forget, Republicans won 4 out of 4 House seats, and with the economy doing record numbers, we will continue to win, even bigger than before!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 8, 2017

The POTUS seems to be unhappy with Ed Gillespie for losing even though he sort of did endorse him with robo-calls and stuff. Trump did not win in VA in his own 2016 election, and with his current popularity being, well, not exceptionally great, it's kind of weird that he thinks that going "more Trump" would have been better for a pretty mainstream GOP candidate in a fairly mainstream once-Red state. I'm going to say VA is definitely looking "purple" now. Gillespie's hard work involved adopting Trumpism in little, but people caught on that a vote for someone happy to spout Trumpist lines, would embrace what he stood for in other ways--Trump has it a little ass-backwards, I think.

But who really knows? Maybe Gillespie's turnout was lowered by the inept GOTV attempt by Don Jr., who Tweeted at VA folks to vote on Wednesday.

Anyhow, Democrats did well in VA and New Jersey. There are such good stories, too. There's Danica Roem, who beat bigot Bob Marshall to become a delegate of VA's 13th District. There's the story of Chris Hurst, a former news anchor whose fiancée was murdered. There is the story of Ravi Bhalla, who is is the first Sikh mayor of Hoboken.

It was an extraordinary night for Democratic wins, and for diversity and social justice. In Philadelphia, we elected a civil rights-oriented attorney to DA. Andrea Jenkins won a seat on the Minneapolis City Council. Jenny Durkan was elected the first mayor of Seattle since the 1920s (in a race that was bound to elect a woman, anyway--one of the great stories this year has been how many women have decided to run for office!) And Maine voted yes on a referendum to expand Medicaid in their state.

Progressives need to see this as just the beginning. We did well this time. We must keep it going!

Blame it on the Rain

Today, Donald Trump waxed voluble on Twitter while "working hard from New Jersey" and not at all watching cable news and being mad at stuff, which he obviously is too busy to do. It was raining all day in New Jersey, and therefore, it was too soggy to golf. Sad!

I suppose I could try to factcheck or...nah! Rainy days and Mondays, man.

Donald Trump's Stupid Weekend

Donald Trump decided to spend his weekend being a goddamn idiot, for mostly political values of idiot. He resigned himself to a program of "punching down" at civilian private citizens Khizr and Ghazala Khan who spoke at the DNC regarding his bigotry against Muslims and the sacrifice of their son, Captain Humayun Khan.


But that was not his only stupid activity--he also denied that Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. Um, but, um, well? How about what actually happened where people could see and have been reporting on, since like, more than a year?

You aren't getting a smart response from Trump in this one. You can't. It's sort of like his ridiculous conflation of former VA Gov. Tim Kaine and former NJ Governor Thomas Kean--quite different persons holding offices years apart in different states and affiliated with different parties--it does not seem possible he should be able to screw them up in his mind--did he? Well, maybe Trump has been notoriously dumb in public before.  But the stuff he's been coming up with lately is on a whole 'nother level--as if he had no staff and his kids/handlers/close associates couldn't even tell him to not be stupid. Or maybe--they have ideologically conceded that it's better not to even try to be wise?

But the fact remains--he does not seem to, on the surface or deep down, understand the least thing about what the office he is running for entails, or how he would occupy it. His understanding of history and process is minimal, and his personality is more or less being a jagoff.

Khizr Khan invited Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to  disavow Trumpism--they could. I have invited them, via this blog, to take the knee on the White House, and concentrate on downticket battles to remain competitive. But if they don't? I find myself empty of any real sympathy--

They knew what he was when they picked him up.

Basically, My Opinion is Kind of Out There

The one thing I'll say about the wall-to-wall coverage of the NJ bridge scandal is that there is sooooo much coverage, I don't feel like I really have to cover it, or that I'll necessary add anything new to the conversation. Other people can definitely turn up all the links they want to regarding whether this is something they think is in character for the current governor, or offer their opinions.

I'm not going to.

Do I have opinions.? Yep. That is all.