Malicious Compliance?

 

Monday night, people became aware of a memo from the Trump Administration that halted payments regarding all sorts of things.  That memo said to pause "all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance." 

Well, that wasn't very specific. So maybe the memo was drafted by someone who didn't exactly know what all the programs were, but figured they were all suspect. Or maybe the memo was crafted by someone who really did want all the programs everywhere halted, but didn't know they would be leaving the Administration red-faced and red-assed.

Trump loves doing stuff, and also hates to be blamed for doing stuff. Somebody might get "you're fired'd" for this. I would like it to be Russell Vought, who hasn' t even been confirmed for OMB yet, but who is the Project 2025 guy who thought up this exact kind of thing, was singled out by the Trump Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt as the guy to contact, and is forever stuck in my mind as being the guy in the first Trump admin who halted the aid to Ukraine for the first Trump impeachment.

If Fascism is Baked in, Why Choose Fascism?

 

Q. Hearing John Kelly's disturbing revelation about Trump's admiration of Adolph H!tler, does it change how you feel about Trump?

Chris Sununu: No. We've heard a lot of extreme things from Trump. With a guy like that, it's kind of baked into the votepic.twitter.com/sMTbZicUrJ

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 24, 2024

So, I wanted to get this off my chest--fascism being "baked in" is the reason you REJECT a candidate, not the reason you support him. 

I might charitably presume Chris Sununu thinks this is Trump saying "extreme things" that he does not mean, and that he can differentiate the extreme things Trump says from what he intends to do, and from what those who surround him want to do. If this is how he is looking at it, he is deeply stupid, because people who support extreme words do so because they like them and want them to be so. Trump says them because he gets away with saying them and presumes that he can do what he likes later on, because he has persuaded enough people that the previously unthinkable is permissible. 

Sununu tells himself this is the direction that he believes people are going. So--he is following a multitude to do evil?  He is being a go-along-to-get along, imagining someone else will fix the problem of fascism? Or is he willing to get his hands dirty, too?

Coleoptera

Minus the Southern patois that sounds like Senator John Kennedy as rendered by bad AI, Donald Trump talking about groceries sounds like Jerry Lewis talking about "coleoptera" at about 2 minutes in. 

Just so we are clear, Trump thinks no one can afford bacon and we need to show ID at the grocery store to buy anything.  But long story short, if we made more gas and had less windmills and had huge tariffs on food not made here, you could probably buy a banana for ten dollars. Isn't that what a banana should cost? 

Now, I totally understand how windmills are killing the pork industry because that is exactly what you would expect--when pigs fly. Somewhere in Trump's mind, he's got it imbedded that if the costs for goods in the US market were higher because of tariffs, they (I think, China) would have to produce at a lower cost, which means they deregulate (snerk), and try to whoop up more "productivity" at lower costs from their workers. 

What Makes us Great

 

Crowd chanting USA at the DNC pic.twitter.com/zNh8WBPNRM

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 19, 2024

The above clip is from a full house at the DNC showing pride in the USA. They aren't calling for mass deportations. They don't want a day-one dictator to make America great by looking towards some mythologized past. They don't want some parade of demagogues to tell them horror stories about an imagined dystopia in the hopes they will trade today's freedoms for a false promise of security in a less-free tomorrow.

They want to move forward. Time's arrow goes in one direction, and they want that trajectory to bend towards justice. 

This diverse crowd has come together to do the work, to put in the sweat equity of democracy. The first night of the DNC was a crowded stage and at times, I felt something in my heart swelling about that. Unity through inclusion. Strength in protecting and defending one another's freedoms and hearing one another's stories. Standing up for what is right and even great about this country. 

More Listening to the Felon

 

Ingraham asks Trump about his comments telling Christian backers they won't have to vote again in 4 years. Trump responds by saying Jews should have their heads examined if they vote for Dems. Ingraham presses him & Trump doesn't exactly quell concerns he wants to end elections. pic.twitter.com/khGeauqp9S

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 29, 2024

I'm just going to leave my comment at this--if Trump's response to an obvious question to get him to ameliorate his "Christians won't have to vote again" sentiments is to bash Jews, I think that's a good indication he is NOT walking back his anti-democratic Christian Nationalist inclinations.

And it isn't a one-off. Not at all.

He's a Creep. He's a Weirdo.

 

Unearthed audio: JD Vance calls for a “federal response” to block women in red states from traveling to another state to get an abortion pic.twitter.com/t9YAbFuoPc

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 26, 2024

What the hell is he doing here? (Don. Jr. and Eric wanted dad to pick him.) He doesn't belong here. (But there's Silicon Valley money and Project 2025 backers behind him, so we will likely be seeing him for at least a minute more.) 

Yeah, JD may not be a sofaphile and maybe he isn't into dolphin porn, but he is a really weird guy. From a kind of racist take on stopping women from traveling to get an abortion, to being on board with tracking women's menstrual cycles--literally policing their bodies! to defending his unfortunate and weird "cat lady" comments in a way that is still unfortunate and weird, while taking a swipe at Jennifer Aniston, he's really shaping up to be one of the worst running mate choices imaginable.

He isn't really helping the Republican ticket, but it's sort of worse than that. He could be an active drag. In the voting sense--not in the George Santos sense. Except he has changed his names as many times as George Santos, so there's that.

"Unity" Trump and the New Attitude

 

Trump: Crazy Nancy Pelosi followed by a hammer motion. pic.twitter.com/TpXuwZlv0Z

— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) July 19, 2024

As the pundits were desperately hoping for--Ecce Homo: the Man Reborn,  who was definitely not going to ramble on, self-pityingly, spitefully, mockingly, calling Nancy Pelosi crazy while once again referring to the tragic assault on her husband, referring to the "China virus" in a way that has inspired racist animosity against Asian people, degrading the discourse as you know....

He always does. Was he supposed to change, now? After all this time? On his biggest stage, he gave an extended-play version of his regular rally speech, with a cameo from our old friend the "late, great Hannibal Lector" and a wistful concern that Kim Jong-Un misses him. 

I'm only mildly surprised we were spared his feelings about the water pressure in his toilets. 

Biden is old. Sure. He gets tired. Sure. He gets tongue-tied. And then there are the things that deliberately come out of Donald Trump's sewer of a mouth. 

Was there anything upbeat at all in his speech to the RNC, coming after the brilliant use of the lead-up by showcasing the values of the current party as represented by Kid Rock, Hulk Hogan and Dana White?

Well, there was a shout-out to Tom Homan, a former Trump Administration official who is a significant contributor to Heritage Foundation's Project 2025--which we were not supposed to think about as being the Trump Agenda except for being constantly reminded of it. But then again, Trump also gave a shout-out to Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who is "doing a great job". At what, I'd bet you two ham sandwiches you could not say. Does Trump think he's still governor? 

J. D. Vance: The Pence Replacement

 

Collins: The last time I checked, Joe Biden didn’t approve of the chance to hang his Vice President. Does it give you any pause to be Trump’s Vice President given how he treated Mike Pence?

JD Vance: I'm extremely skeptical that Mike Pence's life was ever in danger

Collins: I… pic.twitter.com/P0WQ8hfKRg

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) July 15, 2024

Well, I feel like this is a theory that may get tested in some way, but Vance is on the record saying he would definitely violate the bejesus out of the Constitution on Trump's say so in the way Pence refused to, which totally explains how Vance (who once described Trump as "Hitler") got picked for the job. 

I mostly savage Vance around this blog for being a yellow-bellied Putin-appeasement monkey, but I also want you to know he's an authoritarian Christofascist fucknut with extreme anti-abortion views who thinks women should stay with abusive husbands "for the children" (yes, a deeply unhealthy POV). He's a climate change denier and a faux-populist--he talks some kind of game about the working class but despises actual working people. 

He's basically what you'd get if you tried to Weird Science-up a VP candidate by feeding a computer the Project 2025 manual and hooking it up to a My Buddy doll. 

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--

Madame VP Harris Has a Word

 

Vice President Harris: This is the most significant election of our lifetime. The United States Supreme Court just essentially told Donald Trump, who has been convicted of 34 felonies, that he will be immune from the activity he has told us he is prepared to engage in if he gets… pic.twitter.com/E9Jee1Fpx9

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) July 7, 2024

Donald Trump very recently tried to deny that he has anything to do with Project 2025, even though it has an awful lot to do with him. To use the analogy of a very intelligent person, Trump didn't just fall out of a coconut tree, and NEITHER DID YOU, so when he says things like that, in the context of all that has gone before, you know he's lying. 

This election isn't just about Trump being an awful person (he really, really is though) but what he, in all his awfulness, is planning to do. Consider this--the stories to tear down President Biden's running mate are about to take off--some subtle, and some very much not. 

It hardly seems fair for Republicans to beat up on the Democratic running mate when Trump doesn't have one yet, having tried to get the last one lynched. 

Justice Alito Should Pack it In

 

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is facing calls to recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 presidential election after reports emerged of an inverted American flag flown outside his home days after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. pic.twitter.com/BumAk9E8y1

— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) May 17, 2024

If ultra-conservative SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito (and family) feels so thin-skinned about the burden of the public commenting on the job he's doing (which affects all Americans, and no shit people are rightly concerned) , so much so that the US flag, inverted, was flown on his lawn like a cry for help or a signal that it was time for a revolution (or insurrection), if his bias has become so apparent that people deem it fit that he recuse himself from the most important cases relating to the preservation of our republic and the continued relevance of the Constitution as well as the court on which he sits (what the whole hell else is the "presidential immunity" question?), then he can really do us a favor and retire. 

Before the election, thanks. Because apparently, elections make him just too emotional, and as a nation, we've already had two long national nightmares over that sort of thing.