The Orange God of Mar-a-Lago: December 2022 to January 19, 2023

UPDATED 3/3/23

 

December 1, 2022: November draws to a close with Democrats on a solid winning streak. Stock market up. Job gains solid. Gas prices down. Russia getting an unexpected ass-kicking in Ukraine. 

(Zelensky to Biden: Thanks for the dandy weaponry!)

 

__________ 

“I think it’s been clear there’s no bottom to the degree to which President Trump will degrade himself and the nation.” 

Sen. Mitt Romney

__________ 

 

On the Republican side clouds continue to darken. GOP leaders have been forced to face the fact that Donald Trump met with (a) one white supremacist for dinner, and (b) also the antisemitic guy who brought him. To top it off, the invited guy later said (c), “I like Hitler. Hitler did a lot of good things.” 

The two dinner guests were Nick Fuentes, the white supremacist, and Ye, the rapper, who was feeling the love for Adolf. 

Republicans sounded shocked to learn about the dinner – as details trickled out. But this blogger was shocked that they were shocked. 

Trump has been dancing with the white supremacist fringe since the day he rode down the escalator in 2015, and announced he would be running for president, because Mexican people trying to enter the U.S. were mostly “rapists” and “killers.” And, oh, there might be “some” good ones. 

Wink, wink. 

Let’s be honest. Below, we have a group of MAGA faithful cheering Nick Fuentes. Nick is a disgusting human being. 

They apparently don’t know that – or worse, do know that, and they’re still cheering him on.

Who is Fuentes? He’s the founder of a group called “America First.” He has his own podcast. And on that podcast, he enjoys jokes about the Holocaust. In one episode, a follower sends Nick a message, which includes a riddle. Nick thinks Matt’s riddle is hilarious and reads it on air. “If I take one hour to bake a batch of cookies, and Cookie Monster has 15 ovens working 24 hours a day every day for 5 years, how long does it take Cookie Monster to make 6 million batches of cookies?” 

Fuentes responds with a hearty laugh, “I don’t know, that’s a good question.” Hilarious, right! I imagine some of Nick’s listeners shooting their right arms out straight in the famous Nazi salute. 

We’ve covered Nick before. (See: 2/27/22, 3/7/22 and 11/25/22.) 

Nick is truly, truly repulsive. (We don’t use dehumanizing language on this blog – or we’d probably say worse.) 

You can tune in to hear what Nick says, if you don’t mind swimming in racist sewage. Nick thinks segregation was good for this country. Bring back Jim Crow! Of African Americans he says, mockingly, “Oh no, they had to go to different schools. Their water fountain in that famous picture was worse. Who cares? Grow up, drink out of the fucking water fountain. It’s water, it’s the same. Even [if] it was bad, who cares? We all agree, it’s better for them, it’s better for us. It’s better in general.” 

We all agree? 

Well, these Trump fans do. If you’re not familiar with the “white power” sign the Proud Boy in the center, and several of these louts are flashing, you should look it up. No, Nick, we don’t all agree. 

Not all Trump fans are racists. Let’s be clear about that. But racists really, really do love Trump. 

We’ve also covered that topic before. 

And Nick Fuentes has said repeatedly that he really, really loves Trump. While dining at Mar-a-Lago, Nick told Trump he was one of the greatest Americans ever – and Donald was proud of that fact. 

It didn’t help when Ye wandered onto the set of Infowars to do another show a few days later. Fuentes was with him, and host Alex Jones asked Ye about his views, regarding the German mass murderer.

 

“Well, I see good things about Hitler also. I love everyone,” Ye said in response while wearing a fully hooded mask on the set of Jones’s show. “And Jewish people are not going to tell me you can love us, and you can love what we’re doing to you with the contracts, and and you can love what we’re pushing with the pornography” while also condemning Hitler, he added, saying “you can’t say out loud that this person ever did anything good, and I’m done with that.”

 

“Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler,” Ye continued. “Also Hitler was born Christian.”

 

As the show headed to a commercial break, Jones told Ye he had a “Hitler fetish,” to which Ye responded, “I like Hitler.”

 

(Okay. This blogger is scratching his head a moment. Ye is okay with Hitler because Adolf was a Christian???) 

As for Fuentes, we should probably note that on January 6, 2021, he led a group to rally outside the Capitol, later tweeting that the insurrection was “awesome and I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t.” 

* 

“He mainstreams, he legitimizes Jew hatred and Jew haters.” 

Again, we should not tar all Trump fans as racists or antisemites, and we should keep in mind that many good Republicans do exist – even if many are still too cowardly to take Trump on. 

A few decent voices, at least, could be heard. Sen. Bill Cassidy, for one, was spot on, when he tweeted, “President Trump hosting racist antisemites for dinner encourages other racist antisemites. These attitudes are immoral and should not be entertained. This is not the Republican Party.” 

Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas expressed the growing frustration felt by many decent members of the GOP. “I hope someday we won’t have to be responding to what former President Trump has said or done,” he said during an interview last week. “In this instance, it’s important to respond.” He accused the man from Mar-a-Lago of “empowering” the country’s bigoted extremes. 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for a leader setting an example for the country or the party to meet with [an] avowed racist or antisemite,” he added. “It’s very troubling, and it shouldn’t happen.” 

Trump himself offered up a few lame excuses – but, tellingly, did not choose to denounce Fuentes or Ye for their beliefs. He claimed he didn’t know who Nick was when he came to sample the “best chocolate cake ever” at Mar-a-Lago. But not even some of his most loyal fans were buying. “A good way not to accidentally dine with a vile racist and anti-Semite you don’t know,” Ben Shapiro responded, “is not to dine with a vile racist and anti-Semite you do know.”

 

Reporters for The New York Times gathered responses from Jewish supporters of the former president.

 

“I am a child of survivors. I have become very frightened for my people,” Morton Klein, head of the right-wing Zionist Organization of America, said on Monday, referring to his parents’ survival of the Holocaust. “Donald Trump is not an antisemite. He loves Israel. He loves Jews. But he mainstreams, he legitimizes Jew hatred and Jew haters. And this scares me.”

 

(Blogger’s aside: Klein should have noticed when Trump mainstreamed hate

of Mexicans, Muslims, and many others.)

 

“We have a long history in this country of separating the moral character of the man in the White House from his conduct in office, but with Trump, it’s gone beyond any of the reasonably acceptable and justifiable norms,” Jay Lefkowitz, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and a supporter of many of Mr. Trump’s policies, said on Monday.

 

The Republican Jewish Coalition also condemned Mr. Fuentes and Mr. West for their “virulent antisemitism.” Without mentioning the Orange Elephant in the room, the Coalition called “on all political leaders to reject their messages of hate and refuse to meet with them.” 

Ronald Lauder, a billionaire fundraiser for the GOP, issued a suitably blunt statement. “Nick Fuentes is a virulent antisemite and Holocaust denier plain and simple. It is inconceivable that anyone would associate with him.” 

Yet…Trump did.

 

* 

“There’s no bottom.” 

Liz Harrington, Trump’s spokesperson, assured a right-wing broadcaster on Monday that Mr. Trump was “probably the most pro-Israel president we’ve ever had.” Unfortunately, she then added: “President Trump is not going to shy away from meeting with Kanye West.” 

Yeah. Why shy away from a guy who says he likes Hitler? 

(Blogger’s aside: I’d shy away. I’d definitely shy away.) 

I like Hitler??????

 

If Ms. Harrington was full of sh*t, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) was brief, but got homed in on the key point. “I think it’s ridiculous he had that meeting. Just ridiculous. That’s all I’m going to say.” 

Two members of Congress who lost their seats because they had principles enough to call a spade a spade, and call Trump the king of spades, also spoke up. Rep. Adam Kinzinger blasted both Fuentes and the former president. “Trump hangs with the David Duke of weak soft boys of today, Nick Fuentes,” he tweeted. 

Rep. Liz Cheney roasted not only Trump, but a Republican colleague (for now). “First [Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)] and now [Trump] hanging around with this anti-Semitic, pro-Putin, white supremacist,” she said with disgust. “This isn’t complicated. It’s indefensible.” 

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, an unabashed critic of the man from Mar-a-Lago, called the dinner “disgusting.” 

“I think it’s been clear there’s no bottom to the degree to which President Trump will degrade himself and the nation,” he added. 

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie sounded warning for his party. “This is just another example of an awful lack of judgment from Donald Trump, which, combined with his past poor judgments, make him an untenable general election candidate for the Republican Party in 2024.” 

Christie added, “He can’t stand not having attention all the time…And so, having someone show up at his club – even if you believe that he didn’t know who Nick Fuentes was – and want to sit with him, feeds the hunger he feels for the attention he’s missing since he left the presidency.”

 

* 

Republicans “teeing themselves up for disaster in 2024.” 

Other Republicans were more careful or more cowardly in response. Retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) dared to offer up a modicum of decency – because he’s retiring from Congress anyway. “It was wrong and inappropriate to have that meeting,” he said. “White supremacy has no place in our nation’s culture. It’s antithetical to everything we stand for as Americans.” 

(Um: See picture of Proud Boy Trump fans, etc., above.)

 

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who burns with desire to be the next Speaker of the House, managed to distance himself, and the GOP, daintily, from the neo-Nazi, but not from the guy who had dinner with the neo-Nazi and the neo-Nazi’s bosom buddy. “I condemn his ideology; it has no place in society at all,”  McCarthy said of Fuentes. As for Trump, he added helpfully, “The president can have meetings with who he wants; I don’t think anybody, though, should have a meeting with Nick Fuentes.”

 

“And his views shouldn’t — are nowhere within the Republican Party or within this country itself.” 

Others tried to straddle the right-wing fence and landed on their nut sacks. “President Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table,” his former vice president, Mike Pence, told NewsNation. “I think he should apologize for it, and he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification.” 

Then Pence made sure to say he didn’t think Trump hated Jewish people, ignoring the fact that Trump keeps attracting the same kinds of guys who do hate Jewish people. 

Several Republicans went with the excuse that the people around Trump should have warned him off from having dinner with such awful individuals. “That’s just a bad idea on every level. I don’t know who is advising him on his staff, but I hope that whoever that person was got fired,” Senate GOP Whip John Thune of South Dakota grumbled. “I’m gonna take at face value that the president didn’t know who the guy was,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). “I didn’t know who it was. Whoever allowed anyone with his background to get that close to the president should not have a job in the Trump team.” 

(Blogger’s note: I knew who Nick Fuentes was, because I haven’t had my head stuck up my ass.)

 

Avoiding mention of Trump entirely, Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, also insisted that “white supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican Party.” 

And yet, we know they do. 

Sen. Josh Hawley went with the kind of creampuff response we’ve come to expect from the Missouri “track star” who first welcomed, then ran away from rioters on January 6. Rather than criticize the former president, he offered lamely, “I suppose he can have dinner with whomever he wants. I wouldn’t have had dinner with him.” He meant Fuentes, of course. Not Trump. 

Mike Pompeo, who hopes to be president someday – just as much as Kevin wants to be Speaker of the House – and so, like Kevin, dares not rebuke Trump by name – “boldly” exclaimed: “Anti-Semitism is a cancer.” As Secretary of State, he assured everyone, he fought it! “We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry,” he said. 

The Wall Street Journal, once so happy to fawn over the Orange God of Mar-a-Lago, seemed to understand at long last. The former president was a threat to the Journal’s dream of Republican domination and more tax cuts for fat cats. Trump wasn’t “going to change” they said. The next two years would “inevitably feature many more such damaging episodes.” Republicans who continued “to go along for the ride” were “teeing themselves up for disaster in 2024.” 

(The blogger would argue that they’d be teeing up the country for disaster.)

 

The Journal continued:

 

“Worse is that Mr. Trump hasn’t admitted his mistake in hosting the men or distanced himself from the odious views of Mr. Fuentes,” the Journal’s editorial board wrote.

 

“Instead Mr. Trump portrays himself as an innocent who was taken advantage of by Mr. West,” the piece continued. “This is also all-too-typical of Mr. Trump’s behavior as President. He usually ducked responsibility and never did manage to denounce the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, or others who have resorted to divisive racial politics, or even violence as on Jan. 6, 2021.”

 

“Mr. Trump’s failure to vet visitors is an example of his usual lack of organization and discipline, especially given that Mr. West has also been spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,” the Journal’s editors wrote.

 

David Friedman, Trump’s former ambassador to Israel, insisted anti-Semites “deserve no quarter among American leaders, right or left.”

 

“To my friend Donald Trump, you are better than this,” he continued. “Even a social visit from an antisemite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable,” Friedman said on Twitter.

 

The problem being rather simple, in the end. Trump isn’t better than this. He isn’t now. He wasn’t when he was president.

 

And he never will be.

 

He can’t denounce Fuentes and he can’t denounce Ye. He can’t because a depressing part of his base is pro-Fuentes, pro-Ye, and inclined to like Hitler.

 

You can even look that up.

___

 

 

12/2/22: Republicans may be technically right – that white supremacists have “no place” in their party. Sadly, white supremacists don’t know it. They have long believed that Donald Trump has been speaking their language.

 

__________

 

“Without us Donald Trump will be defeated and 2024 will be a repeat of 2020.”

 

Blaze Groyper

__________

 

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which devotes itself to defending Jews from all kinds of attacks, ran an article a few days ago, focusing on right-wing extremists’ reactions to the news about Nick Fuentes, Ye, and their dinner with Donald at Mar-a-Lago.

 

Let’s hit a few lowlights. First, the ADL noted, “Many prominent Groypers, a network of white supremacists who support Nick Fuentes,” had abandoned Trump in favor of Ye’s 2024 presidential campaign.

 

Did you know there was a network of white supremacists? And that until now they were big fans of the former president?

 

The ADL explained that “several prominent Groypers” had changed their social media handles to signal the shift. Tim Gionet (aka Baked Alaska), changed his Telegram handle to “Baked YE24 Alaska.” If you’ve never heard of “Baked Alaska,” he was one of the rioters arrested on January 6, has plead guilty, and awaits sentencing. As for some of the other “Groypers,” the ADL mentions a whole swarm. They include Tyler Russell, Steve Franssen, and Matt Evans (a.k.a. Beardson Beardly). Evans said on Telegram that if he had to “compare Christian values,” Ye was “miles ahead” of Trump. Reactions from the right-wing Proud Boys were mixed, but several chapters commended Fuentes and Ye for exposing the “Jewish influence” in American politics – by which we they meant the Jewish influence that was always bad.

 

Fuentes himself suggested that the “America First” movement he founded would have to distance itself from the former president in order “to move forward in the service of Christ, in service of the truth, and service of America.”

 

Someone posting as “Blaze Groyper,” disagreed with Fuentes’s fresh assessment. “Without us Donald Trump will be defeated and 2024 will be a repeat of 2020,” he or she warned. Another Groyper attacked Fuentes directly – insisting he didn’t care about Trump or the millions of people (like all these Groypers), who supported the former president. Other Groypers hinted that the dinner itself was a “hit job,” to make Donald look bad, and that it involved trickery by a “Jew donor.”

 

Andrew Anglin, the neo-Nazi founder of the Daily Stormer website, took a different tack. He commended Fuentes and Ye for helping bring white supremacist and antisemitic ideas into the political mainstream.

 

Naturally, the QAnon crowd – made up of people who see conspiracies afoot even when reading recipes for Christmas cookies – agreed there had to be a sinister plot behind the dinner debacle.

 

Then again, what if this “debacle” was no debacle at all, but instead a reverse-make-Trump-look-bad plan to confuse mainstream media. What if Trump was simply working fresh magic behind the scenes!!! At least one follower of the “Q” decided that had to be the case. “Classic POTUS – give fake news a hint of some juicy, potentially damaging gossip and let them spin their anti-Trump fakery for a week or two,” he or she suggested. “In the meantime, Trump and whoever is on deck get on with the next phase of the Plan, without the interference of mainstream media. Has been this way since 2016. Stop worrying, God wins.”

 

The Plan. God wins. Also, neo-Nazis.

 

Finally, The League of the South weighed in on the matter of the dinner. “All the pieces are on the table for a 3 way split tbh [to be honest] which will given [sic] Biden a clear path to 2024. Again this is why we support secession and the creation of our own Southern Confederacy.”

 

Ye, I think, had better be careful, because some of these erstwhile “allies” may want to bring back slavery.

 

It’s that kind of crowd.

Murdering another Jew.

___ 

 

12/3/22: Writing in The New York Times, last week, Michelle Goldberg noted that there was no way decent Republicans should have been surprised by Donald Trump’s decision to sit down to dine with a pair of antisemites. Namely: Ye, the rapper, and Nick Fuentes, the neo-Nazi twerp. 

Goldberg, who is Jewish, explained:

 

At this point, there is no excuse for being shocked by anything that Donald Trump does, yet I confess to being astonished that the former president dined last week with one of the country’s most influential white supremacists, a smirking little fascist named Nick Fuentes. There’s nothing new about antisemites in Trump’s circle, but they usually try to maintain some plausible deniability, ranting about globalists and George Soros rather than the Jews. Fuentes, by contrast, is overt. “Jews have too much power in our society,” he recently wrote on his Telegram channel. “Christians should have all the power, everyone else very little.”

 

According to Axios, Goldberg explained, during dinner Trump turned to Ye and said of Fuentes: “I really like this guy. He gets me.” 

Of course, he does. 

Meanwhile, Elon Musk was hard at work, doing his best to bring more antisemitism into the mix. First, Elon welcomed Trump and Ye (formerly: Kanye West) back to Twitter. (Trump hasn’t yet indulged.) 

Then Musk started tweeting.

 

On Sunday, he tweeted that Alexander Vindman, the Jewish retired Army officer who testified about Trump’s attempt to extort Ukraine’s president, is both “puppet & puppeteer,” echoing an old antisemitic trope about Jews pulling the strings behind world events. On Monday, Musk tweeted an image of the alt-right symbol Pepe the Frog.

 

The whiff of gas chambers got so bad even House Judiciary Republicans had to delete a tweet that had read, simply: 

“Kanye. Elon. Trump.”

 

* 

SINCE OUR TOPIC TODAY is hatred, we might as well revisit the story of David Wayne DePape, who tugged at right-wing heartstrings when he attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer. Donald Trump Jr., for example, thought it was highly amusing when DePape fractured 82-year-old Paul Pelosi’s skull during a middle-of-the-night home invasion. 

Who is DePape? I missed this story when it came out, but CBS captured the essence of the man.

 

DePape was known for embracing multiple conspiracy theories on subjects such as voter fraud, climate change, and the COVID pandemic on at least two different online forums. He also has posted antisemitic screeds and entries defending former President Donald Trump and Ye, the rapper formally known as Kayne West who recently made antisemitic comments.

 

In other posts, the writer said Jews helped finance Hitler's political rise in Germany and suggested an antisemitic plot was involved in Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine.

 

In a Sept. 27 post, the writer said any journalists who denied Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election “should be dragged straight out into the street and shot.”

 

An Aug. 24 entry titled “Q,” displayed a scatological collection of memes that included photos of the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and made reference to QAnon, the baseless pro-Trump conspiracy theory that espouses the belief that the country is run by a deep-state cabal of child sex traffickers, satanic pedophiles and baby-eating cannibals.

 

“Big Brother has deemed doing your own research as a thought crime,” read a post that appeared to blend references to QAnon with George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.

 

In an Aug. 25 entry titled “Gun Rights,” the poster wrote: “You no longer have rights. Your basic human rights hinder Big Brothers ability to enslave and control you in a complete and totalizing way.”

 

In one of his recent posts about Donald Trump, DePape asserted, “Trump you NEEEEEEEED to make Tulsi your VP in 2024.” 

 

It almost goes without saying, but DePape vehemently opposed COVID vaccines. In other words, in DePape you had the template for the far-right fan of Trump. The kind who can happily believe anything, no matter how ludicrous.

 

POSTSCRIPT: Unable ever to apologize, the president decided the best way to explain his appalling choice of dinner guests, was to attack “Jewish Leaders” in this country. 

In thanking Wayne Root, a Jewish writer who came to his defense afterward, Trump wrote on Truth Social:

 

Thank you Wayne – You are great but how quickly Jewish Leaders forgot that I was the best, by far, President for Israel. They should be ashamed of themselves. This lack of loyalty to their greatest friends and allies is why large numbers in Congress, and so many others, have stopped giving support to Israel.

___

 

 

12/5/22: Let’s keep it simple today and say that Rejected-President Donald J. Trump is nuts. 

Still unable to admit he got toasted in the 2020 election, still unable to show any evidence in court to prove his claim, and still insisting he deserves a second term – right now – he offers up a remedy for his pain. 

On Truth Social, Donald suggests the following course of action, to rectify the error Americans made in giving Joe Biden seven million more votes than they gave him. F**k the voters! 

And f**k the Founding Fathers, and the f**king horses they rode in on. To Philadelphia, I mean. 

He wrote:

 

__________ 

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” 

Donald J. Trump

__________ 

 

You read that right. F**k the U.S. Constitution! 

This, dear Trump fans, is the guy who has already announced he is running for president again and who cherishes your votes. And he’d like your permission to terminate the three branches of government, rid himself of checks and balances, stomp across the Bill of Rights, and make himself President for Life. 

James Madison: Architect of the Constitution.

Donald says: "F. U."

___ 

 

12/7/22: Even little children know that Donald Trump is running for president once more, much like COVID, which won’t go away. And you may have heard he wants to terminate the U.S. Constitution. In other words, he wants to finish the job he started when he said he could pardon himself. 

While sane Americans condemned Trump’s latest threats one whack job member of Congress, Rep. Paul Gosar, heard the alluring siren song of fascism. And announced his support! Then both Trump and Gosar realized they might need to deny they supported what they said they supported. 

First, let’s take a look at exactly what Trump posted on his website Truth Social last Saturday:

 

So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Elections Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great “Founders” did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!

 

My liberal peepers tell me that the word “termination” does appear, and using my stellar reading skills, I see Trump did insist all rules, “even those found in the Constitution” may be swept aside when necessary. 

As in: When Donald wants them swept aside. 

The Founding Fathers, he claims, would not have “condoned” his loss (by seven million votes) to Joseph Biden. 

The results of the 2020 election should be “OUT,” and the “RIGHTFUL WINNER” should be declared. 

Trump, of course! 

As for Rep. Gosar, he posted Trump’s screed on his Twitter account, commenting in response: “Unprecedented fraud requires unprecedented cure.” 

Then Gosar lost his nerve – because he’s not only a dimwit, but a sneaky coward – and deleted his tweet. 

As for what the Founding Fathers had to say about “terminating” the results of fair elections, we will leave it up to the former president, Congressman Gosar, and all their ill-informed fans, to peruse the U.S. Constitution in search of wisdom.

___ 

 

12/8/22: On a happy note, eighteen U.S. Marines were recently sworn in as citizens in a ceremony on the deck of the World War II battleship North Carolina. Pfc. Christian Mejia, who enlisted a little more than a year ago, called his experience “one of the best journeys” imaginable. 

“When I came here from Guatemala, I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself, bigger than my family,” he told ABC News. “So I decided to join the Marine Corps.” Since graduating from boot camp, he said, he had “noticed the love” that he received from Marine superiors, comrades, civilians, everyone. “It’s honestly a pleasure to be part of the Marine Corps,” he said. 

“The best part, of being a Marine, Mejia continued, “is being able to protect the freedom that this country offers to everyone, everyone that lives here, no matter what they are; it doesn’t matter if they’re citizens or not. We all have the same rights and overall every opportunity we have to become better than before.” 

These eighteen new citizens – from one Marine battalion – represent fourteen different nations, now blended into one. 

So, Trump fans, the moral of the story should be clear. Not every immigrant who comes to this country, legally, or not, plans to slit your throat while you sleep. And might we add: If we relied on members of the Trump family – who never don the uniform – we would have zero Marines to protect our freedoms. Or even do what this blogger, a former Marine, did back in 1970 – which was sit at a desk in a supply unit at Camp Pendleton and shuffle paperwork. 

It wasn’t particularly dangerous. But at least I didn’t let fake bone spurs keep me from enlisting. 

A supply desk in California: safe duty.

Cleaning the latrine. Somebody has to do it!

(The blogger did volunteer to go to Vietnam. Twice. But he wasn't sent.

___ 

12/9/22: Today, we’re going to catch up with as many headlines as possible, regarding the decline and fall of Donald Trump. 

 

“One of the worst Republican candidates in our party’s history.” 

We know that Herschel Walker, Trump’s pick for a seat in the U.S. Senate from Georgia, has been tossed into the ashcan of history and buried by voters. Republicans knew they had a perfectly winnable seat in Georgia in 2022, but ended up stuck with a perfectly ridiculous candidate. 

 

Mr. Walker had no business running for the Senate.

 

We know, by  comparison, that Gov. Brian Kemp – whom Trump worked to defeat in the GOP primary – went on to win the general election in that state by a comfortable 350,000 votes (53.4% vs. 45.9% for his Democratic opponent). Walker blew his chances for a win when he started talking about vampires and werewolves on the campaign trail. Then he had to admit he actually lived in Texas, and kept revealing he had children by several women, but didn’t know much about most of them – despite his claim to be a “family values” Christian conservative. 

Where Kemp won with ease, despite Trump, Walker lost by 97,000. 

With Trump. 

Sen. Ralph Warnock – an actual Christian pastor – is headed back to the Senate, for a full six-year term. Democrats now retain control of the upper house of Congress, thanks to one man. Donald. 

Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan – another Georgia Republican – summed up the debacle this way. Walker, he said was “one of the worst Republican candidates in our party’s history.” 

Trump loved him.

 

* 

EX-PRESIDENT BLUBBER has been inviting a string of losers to Mar-a-Loserland of late. Tuesday, his guest was Liz Conklin, famous for spouting “QAnon” and “Pizzagate”  conspiracy theories. 

 

“Pizzagate” and other nonsensical conspiracy theories. 

Conklin was there to raise dough for a project near and dear to the hearts of all poorly-educated Americans.

 

According to social media posts, the event was billed as a fundraiser in support of a “documentary” on sex trafficking – one of the pillars of the QAnon conspiracy theory. The website for the film, which includes multiple falsehoods and claims of mass sex-trafficking in Hollywood, boasts that it is “Banned by YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and PayPal.”

 

You wouldn’t normally brag about that – but this was Loserland, and Conklin and the former president are both losers. They just don’t know it. According to a video of his remarks, Trump himself told assembled guests, “You are incredible people, you are doing unbelievable work, and we just appreciate you being here and we hope you’re going to be back.”

 

Not one to miss a golden opportunity, Conklin says, she brought up “Pizzagate” during dinner with the former president. If you don’t remember that particular conspiracy theory, it involved the claim that Hillary Clinton was running a child-sex trafficking ring out of a pizza parlor in Washington D.C. 

One true believer showed up at the supposed center of the degenerate ring and opened fire with an AR-15 in a bold attempt to “save” the children. It turned out that there were no children there to be saved – and the shooter only perforated a few unoffending pizzas with gunfire. 

The only tangible result was that poor, dumb trigger-happy Edgar Maddison Welch ended up being sent to prison for four years for his flailing efforts. 

As the owner of the pizza parlor said at the time, Welch had fallen for “an insanely complicated, made-up, fictional lie-based story,” all just part of a “coordinated political attack.” 

So, now Conklin was back – pushing the same stale pizza – and no doubt filling Trump’s head with fresh horse manure.

Welch being arrested.

People could have been killed at the pizza place.

  

* 

FOR MORE FUN with felons (allegedly, in this case) we should note that Florida state lawmaker Joseph Harding has been indicted on six federal charges, including money laundering, and wire fraud. Harding is accused of stealing $150,000 in COVID-relief funds he had no right to claim. 

Rep. Harding first won fame (albeit limited) when he introduced his state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill in the legislature. 

You know…because if you talk about LGBTQ topics in school, all the little lesbians and gays and transgenders would start stealing other kids’ lunch money. 

No. Wait…that would be some little Harding.

 

* 

DID SOMEONE mention “election fraud?” The bugaboo Trump and Trump fans obsess about? Well, we finally have a serious case to report, this one involving voter suppression. 

 

Real election fraud to report! 

NPR explains the scam:

 

Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman robocalled roughly 85,000 voters across Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio in the summer of 2020, falsely telling them that voting by mail would risk “giving your private information to the man.”

 

Prosecutors say the pair were targeting neighborhoods known to have a high percentage of Black voters.

 

The robocaller, who claimed to be with a non-existent group called “the 1599 project,” falsely said that voters’ information would go into a database accessible to police, debt collectors and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which would use the information to impose vaccine mandates.

 

Trump fans will no doubt be thrilled to learn that…wait, WTF???...the two Trump fans plead guilty last October, and were sentenced this month, to spend 500 hours apiece, registering real voters, while wearing ankle bracelets for six months. Burkman and Wohl will remain on probation for two more years, and must pay $2,500 in fines, each.

 

* 

WE ALSO KNOW today that Donald Trump is upset because President Biden managed to get Brittney Griner out of a Russian prison – in a trade for Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer. 

 

“I don’t suggest he cares now any more than he did then (zero).” 

Trump said Biden should have traded Bout for Griner and Paul Whelan, who has been jailed in Russia for four years. 

Griner, the basketball star, had been imprisoned for ten months – and had recently been sent to a Siberian labor camp. 

In any case, Trump said he would have sprung Whelan, if he was in charge. Plus, the right wingers insisted Griner hated America because she had spent time protesting against police brutality. Trump himself had made it clear (see: 8/11/22) that if it was up to him, Griner, who he called a “potentially spoiled person,” could rot in prison. 

He also claimed that he could have sprung Whelan, posting on Truth Social: “Why wasn’t former Marine Paul Whelan included in this totally one-sided transaction? He would have been let out for the asking.” 

David Whelan was quick to note that his brother Paul had been snagged by Putin and his buddies when Donald was president.

 

Former President Trump appears to have mentioned my brother #PaulWhelan’s wrongful detention more in the last 24 hours than he did in the 2 years of his presidency in which Paul was held hostage by #Russia (zero). I don’t suggest he cares now any more than he did then (zero)

___ 

 

12/10/22: The right-wing fringe are having a hard time accepting electoral defeats – whether they be the red wave that wasn’t in 2018, or the thumping Trump got in 2020, or the other red wave that wasn’t in 2022. 

 

“We would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.”

 

At a gathering of haters on Saturday, the president of the New York Young Republicans Club, offered up his thoughts on how the right could finally start winning. Or maybe just copy a page from the 1933 Nazi playbook. “We want to cross the Rubicon. We want total war. We must be prepared to do battle in every arena,” he told a black-tie crowd. “In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets,” said NYYRC president Gavin Wax.

 

“This is the only language the left understands. The language of pure and unadulterated power,” he added.

 

Actually, what we understand is math. And candidates that matter. In 2020, for example, our side, in the person of Joseph Biden, got seven million more votes that Wax’s side. SEVEN.

 

MILLION.

 

In November, our side managed to hold control of the U.S. Senate, because the right put up candidates like poor, pitiful Herschel Walker for office.

 

And, Mr. Wax, if you really want to win elections again, stop hobnobbing with white supremacists, like Peter Brimelow, who attended your gala, and no doubt approved of your call to battle in the streets.

 

Also, get rid of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. At this same gala, Rep. Greene suggested that if she and Steve Bannon, the pardoned fraudster, had been in charge on January 6, 2021, the attack on the nation’s capital would have succeeded. “I will tell you something,” Greene told the guests, “if Steve Bannon and I organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.”

 

Yep.

 

I am definitely voting next time for the people who want to win elections by shooting other Americans.

 

Make America great again. Also, bloody.

 

Also attending the gala: Congressman-Elect George Santos, who turned a blue district on Long Island red.

 

At least Santos isn’t a white supremacist. (See: 12/27/22.)

___ 

 

12/13/22: It’s official. We have results from another recount regarding a close race in the midterms, this time from Colorado. 

If you are a Trump fan, you are thinking, aha, more proof of voter fraud! 

 

Sore losers in Trumpistan. 

In this particular battle, with a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as prize, more than 370,000 ballots were cast. The margin of victory was a little more than 500 votes. So you know Democrats were going to cheat! 

Okay. No. The winner, by that slender margin, was Rep. Lauren Boebert, the right-wing nincompoop who loves guns, hates liberals, and almost makes Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sound smart. 

Under Colorado law, any race decided by less than half a percentage point is subject to automatic recount. 

Boebert’s opponent conceded even before the final tally was complete – because he’s not an idiotic election denier. And he knew how accurate results in U.S. elections are these days. (Someone should tell Donald Trump.) 

The state folks counted all the votes a second time and proved again that significant voter fraud is about as common as Trumps volunteering to serve in the U.S. military during wartime. 

Which never happens. 

As it turned out, Frisch gained one vote. Boebert lost three. The final results: 

Lauren Boebert          163,839

Adam Frisch               163,293

                                                            ___________ 

Margin of victory:            546

 

Unfortunately, election deniers are like zombies, who like to feast on human brains, and keep coming back from the dead. Down in Arizona, where old people go to retire and shrivel like prunes in the sun, the deniers were demanding recounts, and possibly gunfire as solution to their defeats. 

Kari Lake, who lost a close race for governor, with more than 2.5 million Arizonans going to the polls, thinks she should be declared victor. She doesn’t care if her opponent beat her by 17,116 votes. 

Fellow denier, Mark Finchem, who dreamed of becoming Arizona’s next Secretary of State, and running future elections, decided his race had to have been rigged. Because his dumb ass got beat. 

In a Twitter rant, he insisted, “the results from the machines defy all math.”

Mark Finchem - you are deep in denial when you lose by 120,000.

What really defied all math was Finchem’s feeble grip on reality. The math in his case was entirely clear.  

Adrian Fontes:           1,320,619

Mark Finchem            1,200,411

                                                             _____________ 

Margin of victory:        120,208

 

FUN FACT: Finchem looks like a model citizen compared to fellow Republican Keith Douglas Casey, who ran for a seat in Congress from Texas. Three times, Casey has run, in an effort to unseat the Republican incumbent, Rep. Randy Weber. Three times Casey has been creamed in the primaries – last time losing by, cough, cough, 80 points. Copying a page – or maybe an entire chapter from the Donald Trump Election Denier’s Playbook, Casey claimed that Weber and Gov. Gregg Abbott, also a Republican, had conspired to cheat him out of a win. 

A recount wasn’t going to work, so Casey decided to start telling people he was going to kill Weber, instead.

___

 

12/14/22: We’ve said this before, and we’ll keep saying it as long as necessary. Not all Trump supporters are racists. But if you are a racist, you’re probably going to love Donald J. Trump. 

This week’s evidence: Meg Miller, head of Turning Point USA’s University of Missouri chapter. It turns out she liked to joke about killing n----rs. In an old social media post, only recently uncovered, related to the school canceling classes for a day, after the killing of an African American, Miller thought it would be funny to post: 

“If they would have killed 4 more niggers we would have had the whole week off.” Then she added three smiling emojis.

 

* 

MILLER is by no means the only crazy person we need to report on today. It turns out that back in January 2021, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) had a few undemocratic instincts he wanted to share with President Trump. 

We now know that on January 17, with Trump set to leave office in three days, Rep. Norman had a thought on how Donald could still win a second term. It was time to text White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

 

“Mark [Norman wrote], in seeing what’s happening so quickly, and reading about the Dominion law suits attempting to stop any meaningful investigation we are at a point of ... no return ... in saving our Republic !! Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!”

 

He meant “martial law,” of course – but whatever he meant, he was really calling for a coup. Almost two years later, we still have no evidence that Dominion Voting Systems or anyone else rigged the 2020 election.

___ 

 

12/15/22: It would seem, at this point, that the folks on the right wing will believe anything about those of us left of center and our leaders.  

Seven-time, pardoned felon Roger Stone says he saw a demonic portal open up over the White House when the Bidens moved in. 

Really. 

Enough said about this crazy crew.

 

* 

ONE CHRISTIAN PASTOR may have opened up his own demonic portal. Evan Edwards, 64, and his son, Josh, 30, are accused of scamming the federal government out of $8 million in COVID relief funds. They reportedly used some of the loot to buy a home near Disneyworld. 

Under the Paycheck Protection Program, the two claimed they needed a loan to save the jobs of their 486 workers. But when investigators showed up at the address they provided for their office, they found a store front. 

And no sign of any “486” employees. 

In fact, none.

___ 

 

12/16/22: Donald Trump’s “big announcement” has been revealed. He said it was going to be “big,” and yesterday the world waited. Would he announce his running mate for 2024? Maybe Nick Fuentes, the white supremacist? Or Kari Lake, the lunatic Arizona election denier? She’d be a perfect fit. 

Was he going to dump Melania for some bimbo? 

Would he announce support for the Russians in the war with Ukraine? No one would have been shocked if he had. 

It turned out to be:

 

D) None of the above.

 

Trump wanted all his fans to know he was selling NFT’s – basically, a new way to bilk the bozos. For $99 you could get – digital trading cards. Each and every one featured a picture of Donald in macho pose. He was an astronaut. He was a sheriff. In one option, he was a superhero with laser beams shooting from his eyes. In every digital pose, the fat galoot in real life looked surprisingly fit. Or, as he put it, you could own “amazing ART of my Life & Career!”  

You could hardly make this up. 

Yet, this was Trump being true to himself. He’s never been anything more than a person suffering from a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and even his cultish fans may someday  grasp that truth.

All these and more - for only $99.

 

* 

JOSHUA RUSSELL is unlikely to enjoy his Christmas, even if someone does get him a set of Trump’s digital cards. 

Russell has been arrested and charged with sending death threats to an unnamed Arizona official, because he didn’t like the way voting turned out in 2022. Or 2020. “The only reason you’re still walking around on this planet,” Russell had warned, “is because we’re waiting for the midterms to see you prosecuted for the crimes you have done to our nation.” 

Watching one Trump-backed candidate after another in Arizona go down in flames this past November, Russell called the unnamed official a “traitor,” for failing to clean up the imaginary corruption in the 2020 election. Then he allegedly added: “We will not endure your crimes on America another day. You’ve been busted, over and over again.” 

“A war is coming for you. The entire nation is coming for you,” he promised. Now he’s spending the holidays in jail.

 

___

 

12/17/22: I think we can all agree that more guns in more places – including stockings on Christmas, will make us safer. 

That is why I am feeling really safe to learn that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has already stopped a record number of guns from being brought aboard planes in this country. So far: 6,301 guns this year. 

And 88% were loaded. 

I don’t mean I feel safe because the weapons were found. I want to say how excited I am to know that Americans aren’t about to let tyrants trample on their Second Amendment rights. If we can start sneaking guns onto flights, we can start opening fire if persons next to us hog the armrests.

___ 

 

12/18/22: Mr. Trump has been tipped off. He knows the January 6 Committee is going to recommend he be indicted for crimes related to the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. 

On Truth Social, he goes berserk. In one post, he seems to encourage violence (again) if he’s indicted:

 

Our Country is SICK inside, very much like a person dying of Cancer. The Crooked FBI, the so-called Department of “Justice,” and “Intelligence,” all parts of the Democratic Party and System, is the Cancer. These Weaponized Thugs and Tyrants must be dealt with, or our once great and beautiful Country will die!!!

 

In a second post he storms: “Republicans and Patriots all over the land must stand strong and united against the Thugs and Scoundrels of the Unselect Committee. It will be a dark period in American history,” he adds, “but with darkness comes light!!!” 

Note to Trump fans: The country won’t die if Trump is indicted, nor if he is found guilty. That’s why we have courts. 

A three-branch system of government. 

And it’s not “patriotism” to stand by a man who lied and said he won an election in 2020 that he didn’t. 

It’s stupidity.

___ 

 

12/19/22: Arizona election denier Kari Lake isn’t about to wait for results from a recount to see if she lost her bid to become the next governor of the state. (She did. By more than 17,000 votes.) 

 

No one needs to start shooting redcoats. 

She’s calling for Maricopa County officials, by far the most populous county in the state, to be jailed. “These people are crooks,” she told a crowd of dull-witted admirers on Sunday. “They need to be locked up.” 

(If this sounds familiar, keep in mind, that someone has described Ms. Lake as “Trump with better makeup.”) 

The failed and furious candidate also cited various Founding Fathers and said their blood was coursing through her supporters’ veins! “They were fed up with tyrants,” she said of George and Tom and James, “and they weren’t going to take it anymore,” she told fans. “I think we’re right there, right now, aren’t we?” 

No. We’re not, dummkopf. No one needs to start shooting redcoats. You have access to a recount, Ms. Lake. 

You can gather any evidence you can find of fraud and take your case to the courts and try to prove your point. Even you know that, as you told your ill-informed supporters. “We’ve seen judges dismiss cases, I don’t want you to get discouraged,” you told them. “It could happen. We’re going to kick this right up to the Supreme Court, and I will not stop fighting.” 

This isn’t tyranny. You’re going to have your day (or days) in court. And you’re going to lose again. 

Just like Donald.

Bunker Hill - when redcoats were a real issue.

___ 

 

12/21/22: I think it’s safe to say that Donald Trump is not enjoying his best Christmas season ever. 

Even many loyal supporters have told him they won’t be helping him terminate the U.S. Constitution. 

Plus, he’s still fat and still a loser. 

Now the January 6 Committee in Congress has recommended criminal charges, related to the attack on Capitol Hill in 2021, to the Justice Department. The most serious charge accuses the former president of abetting an insurrection.

___

The entry for December 22, 2022, is posted separately – and has to do with Donald Trump’s taxes – titled “President Trump Buys some Bullets.”

12/23/22: When Rep. Tom Marino came out in favor of Donald Trump, when Don first ran for office in 2016, he was one of the first members of Congress to do so. Marino later described it proudly as “one of my life-changing moments.” 

 

“Severely lacks character and integrity.” 

Six years later, Marino has soured on the man he thought could make America great again. Today, he says the former president is responsible for multiple GOP losses in the recent midterms. 

That’s true, of course. But in a letter to fellow Republicans, Marino goes on to say that Trump  is “acting like a childish bully” in attacking other potential GOP candidates for president in 2024. 

And he’s surprised by that? 

Did he sleep through his party’s primaries, back in 2016? 

This time, Marino is wide awake. To secure his support, Marino explained, Trump would have to be someone he isn’t.

 

Trump would have had to “grow up and act presidential and refrain from calling potential candidates derogatory names.”

 

Trump, he added, “has thrown several people that were close to him under the bus”; “has no idea what loyalty means”; and “severely lacks character and integrity.”

 

“I will not support Trump, in fact, I will campaign against him,” Marino’s letter concluded. “Our country deserves a person who is mature, respects others and is honest to lead our nation.”

 

Go figure! Sensible Americans have been warning that Trump lacks character and can’t even spell “integrity,” almost from the moment he stepped off the escalator in 2015, and said he’d like to be president.

___ 

 

12/25/22: Merry Christmas, everyone! Or “Happy Holidays,” if you prefer. And what Christmas would be complete without heartfelt ex-presidential greetings from Donald J. Trump? 

 

“WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION!” 

On Truth Social, on Christmas Eve, we got a gem:

 

Merry Christmas to EVERYONE, including the Radical Left Marxists that are trying to destroy our Country, the Federal Bureau of Investigation that is illegally coercing & paying Social and Lamestream Media to push for a mentally disabled Democrat over the brilliant, clairvoyant, and USA LOVING Donald J. Trump, and, of course, the Department of Injustice, which appointed a Special “Prosecutor” who, together with his wife and family, HATES “Trump” more than any other person on earth. LOVE TO ALL!

 

Yes, “LOVE TO ALL!” 

Then today, we woke up and rushed to the tree to see what presents we had received, and we got this warm message from Donald:

 

On this very cold but beautiful Christmas Day, look at our Nation NOW on the Southern Border compared to only a short time ago during the Trump Administration. We had the most SECURE Border in our history, versus the “horror show” that that is happening now, with record setting numbers of people, many of them hardened Criminals (including Killers, Human Traffickers and Drug Dealers), POURING INTO OUR COUNTRY at a rate the likes of which we have never seen before. The USA is dying from within!!!

 

Then, to hammer home his point, Donny added: “TODAY, LIKE NEVER BEFORE, WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION!” 

It warmed my heart I tell you – all that Christmas cheer. And I started hoping that when I had a belated chance to celebrate Christmas with my son and one of my daughters, on December 26, that they would have bought me an AR-15. That way, I could protect them and everyone else I love from all the “Killers” swarming the highways and byways of this “FAILING NATION.” 

Merry Christmas, America!

 

POSTSCRIPT: I rarely quote Democrats to make points on this blog. Occasionally, someone says something too precise to ignore. This time, it was Rep. Jamie Raskin. In response to the former president’s recent string of attacks on the work of the January 6 Committee, Raskin tweeted: “Donald Trump could spend the remaining days of his misanthropic life behind bars.” 

Misanthropic. 

Perfect.

___

12/26/22: Despite all the gaudy presents and all the eggnog he could drink, Donald Trump was still feeling punk the day after Christmas. After hearing that a reporter named Olivia Nuzzi had interviewed members of his inner circle – and learned that even they had doubts about his plans for a third shot at the presidency – he blasted her as an “unattractive wack job.” 

 

“He just goes, plays golf, comes back, and fucks off.” 

In a follow-up post, he referred to himself as America’s “favorite President,” which would prove Nuzzi’s basic claim – that Trump is holed up in Mar-a-Lago, surrounded by toadies, living a life of pure delusion. 

You can understand how a narcissist like Trump might not be able to stand what Nuzzi wrote.

 

At one point, she had even talked to him. She wondered about reports that he was reluctant to leave the premises at Mar-a-Lago. He insisted he was getting out. He went to Miami all the time. 

Nuzzi was dubious:

 

What he means when he says “Miami” is that his SUV rolls down the driveway, past the pristine lawn set for croquet and through the Secret Service checkpoint at the gate, for the two-hour trip to another piece of Trump real estate, the Trump National in Doral, about eight miles from the airport in Miami-Dade County. There, he meets regularly with an impressive, ideologically diverse range of policy wonks, diplomats, and political theorists for conversations about the global economy and military conflicts and constitutional law and I’m kidding. He goes there to play golf. “He just goes, plays golf, comes back, and fucks off. He has retreated to the golf course and to Mar-a-Lago,” one adviser said. “His world has gotten much smaller. His world is so, so small.”

 

Nuzzi’s “wack job” article was good for plenty of laughs, and I also learn a few details about Donald’s life that I’d never heard before. 

She noted, for example, that in the late 80s, he registered as a Republican. Later he switched to the Independence Party, then to the Democratic Party. Then he went back to the Republicans, then back to being an independent. Then tried the Republican Party for a third time. 

If the Know Nothing Party had still been in existence, Trump would have given them a shot. And he’d have fit right in. Racism? Check. Xenophobia? Check. Believe in weird conspiracy theories? Check. 

The Know Nothings were “Make America Great Again,” before the first Trump ever set foot on these shores.

 

* 

AS FOR how Nuzzi managed to get inside Trump’s head, the former president is partly to blame himself. He talked to her in some detail; and she was able to talk to several former and current Trump advisors and aides. Several commented anonymously. One mocked the string of losers who had been visiting the former president at his estate of late. When Trump announced he was running for a third term, most media outlets ignored his invite. And only the dregs of  the political world appeared.

 

The magic is gone,” an adviser [told Nuzzi]. “When Seb Gorka and Raheem Kassam and Kash Patel and Devin Nunes are your stars, that’s the D-list. It was D-list MAGA. When Brick Man — that freak, Brick Man — is in the VIP seating, we’ve got a problem.”

 

Brick Man is a man who wears a suit made of fabric with — you guessed it — a brick pattern. The bricks symbolize the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. He wandered around the ballroom offering interviews to reporters. I have a high tolerance for this kind of shit, obviously, [Nuzzi wrote] and I could not. “If you’re looking for an indication of how bad things are going,” the adviser added, “it’s Brick Man not just being there but being in the VIP section.”

 

A second former White House official warned Nuzzi:

 

“I think if he’s even our nominee, we may lose our country. Even if I don’t believe he can win a general again, I think he could burn down the country. I think it’s that dangerous. I’m terrified.” The current staff, this person said, reflects this. “No decent people want anything to do with him,” the former official said. “I think he knows he’s got a fucking F-team and he’s embarrassed by it.”

 

Still, this person admitted, the F-team may have a point: “There are so many gross opportunists, the minute it looks like he’ll win, they’ll all be back.”

 

And even now, Trump has Matt Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Kevin McCarthy, who can tell the truth, but only for so long. He’s got all the pardoned felons from his first term still on his side; and the white supremacists still love him and pine for the day he returns.

___ 

 

12/27/22: This blogger has never been one to say that all politicians are liars, nor that all politicians are alike. 

It is true that all politicians promise more than they deliver; and many make bending the truth a performative art. 

Still, George Santos is in a league of his own. 

The man hasn’t managed to take the oath of office and already he’s piling up lies like logs for a bonfire. 

Who is Santos – if that’s even his name? He recently flipped a congressional district on Long Island, from Democratic blue to Trumpian red. And like Trump, Santos complained about “fake news” when The New York Times investigated, and labeled his campaign resumé “largely fiction.”  

For example, Candidate Santos told prospective voters that he was a graduate of Baruch College. 

It turns out he wasn’t. 

He said he also attended New York University, but N.Y.U. couldn’t find any proof he ever existed. 

He said he was a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor” who worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. He further claimed he was “an associate asset manager” in the Citigroup real estate division. 

Both firms told the Times he had never worked for them. 

A spokesperson for Citigroup said the company had never had “an associate asset manager” position, even if Santos had been employed there.

 

Santos said he started a charity, Friends of Pets United, to rescue dogs and cats, and saved 2,500 animals. He organized at least one fundraising event for a New Jersey animal shelter. The head of that organization told the Times that Santos had never forwarded a dime to her shelter, but had supplied her with plentiful excuses for his failure. 

Santos – who says he’s gay – also claimed that a company he founded “lost four employees” in the tragic massacre at the Pulse nightclub in June 2016. All sympathy to victims of that tragic crime – none of whom, whoever, actually worked for any company that Santos ever operated. 

For good measure, he claimed his maternal grandparents fled Nazi persecution in the 1930s and settled in Brazil. A close investigation by the Jewish newspaper Forward indicates that both Santos’ mother’s parents were…um…born in Brazil, and were never at risk of ending up in the gas chambers. 

Finally, let’s just say that Congressman-Elect Santos was the very kind of immigrant we might want to build a wall to keep out if we were inclined to build walls on our borders. According to the Times, when he was a teen in Brazil, he was charged with stealing checks from a man his mother, a nurse, was caring for, and making fraudulent purchases. It would appear that he skipped out of a court date and headed for America just in time to avoid prosecution. 

A lawyer for a Republican consulting group that helps party candidates, accused the Times of “smearing” Santos, and called these allegations “defamatory.” But that was last week.

 

Today, Santos was out, admitting he “embellished” his resume, but said he’s ready to buckle down to work in Congress once he takes the oath of office. He excused himself, saying, “We all do stupid things in life.” 

Which is true. This blogger joined the United States Marines, and in the summer of 1969, volunteered to go to Vietnam. 

Twice. 

(He lucked out both times, as he now realizes, and two other schmucks got sent.)

 

But Santos is the kind of guy Samuel Johnson had in mind, c. 1760, when he said if someone like him visited your home for dinner, you had best be sure to count the silver spoons after he left.

 

* 

IN EVEN WORSE NEWS, Americans keep piling up guns to make themselves safer. And don’t end up safer. 

According to the Gun Violence Archive, we set a record this year for children killed and injured by gunfire in the U.S. According to analysis of all available records, 6,023 young people, seventeen years old or younger, were killed or injured in 2022 (with the year not complete). 

That tops the old record set in 2021, when 5,708 American children were hurt or killed. 

(In 2014, the first year the Archive began compiling numbers, 2,859 children were injured or killed.)

___ 

 

12/28/22: If you haven’t been paying attention, because you had Christmas shopping to do, and irritating relatives to invite over for gift-giving, December has been a month full of bitter courtroom defeats for Team Trump – continuing a nearly unbroken streak of losses over the last two years. 

 

Like children believe in Santa Claus. 

Here’s a partial list of recent defeats, with a running total of wins and losses for Donald and his misfit crew: 

First, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out a case filed by eight Trump-friendly voters. They claimed that Dominion Voting Systems and Facebook illegally “influenced or interfered” with the 2020 election. 

The Supreme Court was the last best hope of delusional Trump fans, who believe, like children believe in Santa, that their hero won in a landslide two years ago. The nine members of the court – three of whom Donald selected himself – could not be bothered to ask Dominion or Facebook to respond to the petition filed by the “aggrieved” voters. 

Not even Justice Clarence Thomas cared – and his lovely wife Ginni is a full-time election denier. 

So, another challenge to the results of the 2020 election landed in the dumpster, not worth the paper it was printed on. 

Team Trump: 0 wins, 1 loss.

 

We should also mention the high court’s decision to allow a congressional committee to get its hands on Trump’s tax records (which he fought for years to keep out of reach of Congress). Trump had previously lost a case in a federal district court, and another in a court of appeals. 

Trump decided the best way to “Make America Great Again,” would be to question the motives of the nine justices. “The Supreme Court has lost its honor,” he howled on Truth Social. 

What Trump had lost were three more legal battles. 

0 wins, 4 losses. 

Down in Georgia, an investigation into real election fraud is wrapping up – with members of Team Trump in the crosshairs of the Fulton County District Attorney. Sen. Lindsey Graham was handed a subpoena and asked to show up before a grand jury. He fought the subpoena in court. And the law won. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, got another subpoena, and also tried to dodge testifying. The courts ordered him to show up too. Remember Gen. Michael T. Flynn? He was Trump’s first choice for National Security Advisor – until he couldn’t resist talking to Russians in secret. He didn’t want to testify, either. A judge demanded that he do so. 

How about Dr. John Eastman, who authored the last desperate plan to keep Trump in office, despite the fact he lost to Joe Biden by seven million votes? Yeah. He was told to appear. 

0 wins, 8 losses. 

The roster of fools included Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who worked closely with Giuliani, to overturn Biden’s victory. Then there was Cleta Mitchell. She was the Trump lawyer who joined a call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. It was during that call that the president insisted that state officials “find” the 11,780 votes he needed to win Georgia’s electoral votes. 

Also asked to talk before the grand jury: Kenneth Chesebro, who emailed Eastman during the runup to the January 6, 2021 attack. It was Chesebro, another shady gentleman, who suggested that the U.S. Supreme Court would be more willing to act on a last desperate legal challenge to election results “if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.” 

0 wins, 11 losses.

 

We know Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News and assorted Fox talking heads for defamation. No one from Fox wanted to testify, but the courts insisted – said it would be fun. Rupert Murdoch was ordered to appear in court. Also forced to give depositions: Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, and Lou Dobbs, to name just a few. Dobbs had been so nutty in spouting claims of election fraud, and directing them at Dominion, that Fox had to fire him to shut him up. 

0 wins, 16 losses. 

To be fair, Fox News could still win their case. But if you’re not noticing a trend, you need to visit a cult deprogrammer. 

Members of Team Trump break a lot of laws, or try their best to, and get nailed in court in all kinds of ways. Steve Bannon refused to testify before Congress and got hit with a charge of contempt. A jury convicted him on two counts, and he’s currently fighting to avoid spending four months in jail. 

0 wins, 17 losses. 

This case is not related to the fraud case – involving Bannon – where two of his business partners were convicted by another jury and face years in jail. Bannon avoided time behind bars, because he got a Golden Pardon from Trump just before Don exited the White House, hopefully forever. 

0 wins, 19 losses. 

(For Team Trump a pardon is a win – just not in court.)

 

Flynn, et. al. avoided getting charged with contempt, by showing up to testify before Congress – but then taking the “Fifth.” Flynn, Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, and Roger Stone, among others, took the Fifth hundreds of times. 

Each. 

Don Sr., Don Jr. and Eric Trump all plead the Fifth hundreds more times in a separate court battle. 

0 win, 26 losses. 

Stone? He was a seven-time convicted felon – in service to Donald J. Trump – back when Donald J. was president. 

He also got a pardon. 

In another case, a federal judge ordered Trump lawyers to pay the State of Michigan and the City of Detroit $175,000 for filing a “frivolous” lawsuit in an attempt to challenge voting results in the 2020 election. 

It is never a good sign to have a judge describe your work as “frivolous,” but that’s the kind of talent Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell bring to the table. 

0 wins, 27 losses.

 

A jury in New York delivered an additional kick to the former president’s nuts when it found the Trump Organization guilty of seventeen counts of felony tax fraud. Trump wasn’t charged in that case. He simply founded the crooked company – and along with his sons, Don Jr. and Eric, and daughter Ivanka, helped run it – so that no one who has watched the Trumps in action should have been surprised. A fine of $1.6 million is likely – peanuts to the former president. Still, even Trump fans might admit, seventeen felonies for one business are quite a lot. 

Then we had the other case involving the Trump Organization. In that matter, the top executive in charge, Andrew Weisselberg, plead guilty to fifteen felonies he committed all by himself. 

0 wins, 29 losses. 

I’m going to miss some cases because it’s hard to keep track. Trump did get a rare win not long ago. That came when a judge he appointed slowed down the process by which the Department of Justice could examine documents (including many that were highly classified) recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago abode. 

1 win (temporary), 29 losses. 

Then an appeals court overturned that decision, on a 3-0 vote, with two votes coming from Trump appointees. 

Team Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and save Donald. And once more, the high court refused. 

0 wins, 31 losses. 

 

“Lawsuits without factual basis or any cognizable legal theory.” 

“But wait,” as they say in those late-night commercials, “there’s more!” Out in Arizona, where election deniers are as thick as cacti, Kari Lake, who lost the race for governor kept insisting she won. She was going to prove it in court! She was going to reveal some massive voter fraud. By god, she was going to convince the judge to declare her the winner and maybe wax her car too. 

First, the judge dismissed eight counts in the lawsuit Lake filed, even before the case went to trial. 

That left Lake with two counts to prove. The judge ruled against her again. Lake’s not going to be governor anytime soon. 

Mark Finchem, who lost the race to become Arizona’s next secretary of state (by 120,000 votes), also filed a challenge in court. I’m not a lawyer, but I think he wanted to be declared winner, and also be awarded $1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in damages, because losing made him sad. 

Finchem’s case also got tossed. 

That left Abe Hamadeh, who ran to become the state’s next attorney general but also lost – by a very narrow margin. Not content to wait for a recount – which is automatic in a race as close as his – he also filed in court, asking to be declared victor. The judge let the case go to trial, and then ruled against. “The bottom line is you just haven’t proven your case,” he told Hamadeh’s lawyers.  

0 wins,  35 losses. 

(Hamadeh also lost in the recount – but that wasn’t a legal matter.)

 

You get the idea. So let’s wrap up and go find some leftover Christmas cookies. Mike Lindell, the Trump-loving CEO of MyPillow got sanctioned in court for filing a supposed voter fraud suit, which a judge described as a “fishing expedition,” one in which, this blogger should note, no fish are ever caught. 

Kari Lake got socked with a bill for $33,000, to be paid to the victor in the race for governor, after she lost again in court. 

Another case, filed by Trump, seeking damages from Hillary Clinton – because she accused him of being a Russian agent – went nowhere in court. The lawyer who filed it, Alina Habba, had the fun of being sanctioned herself. 

In that lawsuit a gentleman named Charles Dolan had been described by Team Trump lawyers as “a Clinton campaign official and a chairman of a national Democratic party organization.” The judge found that Dolan was a humble “door knocker” and described the suit filed by Habba and others as an effort “to advance a political narrative through lawsuits without factual basis or any cognizable legal theory.” 

Team Trump must now pay Dolan’s legal fees. 

Sanctioned, along with Habba, were Team Trump lawyers Michael T. Madaio, Peter Ticktin, and Jamie Alan Sasson. 

And we can toss in an ethics charge filed by the D.C. bar, against Jeffrey Clark, an official at the Department of Justice, who was in cahoots with Dr. Eastman, in his plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election. That matter is still pending. 

0 wins, 44 losses.

 

We could easily run this tally out to fifty or sixty recent losses; but the blogger is hungry, and an iced Christmas Tree cookie is calling. 

Let’s end with the suit filed by E. Jean Carroll, who claims she was raped by Trump back in the 90s. The statute of limitations had passed in that matter – but she filed against him, claiming defamation, after he called her a liar. Last the blogger heard Carroll was seeking a court order to have Donald’s DNA submitted in evidence. 

That matter is also pending. 

So, 

0 wins, 45 losses. 

And much more legal peril ahead.

 

* 

SINCE TEAM TRUMP is always looking for voter fraud, and finding nothing but dust bunnies under the beds, we should mention the “fine work” of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Some weeks back, he touted his success in rounding up twenty illegal voters. 

To this point, at great expense, Team Ron has secured one (1) conviction. Massive. Unfortunately, Team Ron has had to drop three (3) cases, because the supposed criminals hadn’t actually committed fraud. 

Most of those arrested had been issued voter registration cards by officials of the State of Florida. 

Which Ron runs.

___ 

 

12/29/22: If you’re worried about criminals sneaking across our southern border, you might want to consider all the criminals lurking in the bowels of the international banking sector. The Department of Justice has announced that it has sued Danske Bank, a Danish institution, for money laundering. Such as bankers doing the dirty work for drug cartels, Russian oligarchs, etc. 

Danske has agreed to forfeit $2 billion.

___ 

 

12/31/22: We know how much Republicans loathe renewable energy, cancer-causing windmills, and transgender persons refusing to use the nearest outhouse. You may also recall that bitter cold February, in 2021, when the Texas electrical grid froze solid and right-wingers tried to blame the problem on green energy, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and liberals with an amiss for flatulent cows. 

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) now estimates that Texas – yes, Texas – will get the largest share of its electricity in 2023, from solar and wind power. The Lone Star State “is likely to experience the largest shift in generation mix” next year, the EIA said, with natural gas falling to 36 percent, from 42 percent in 2022 — and solar and wind power rising to 37 percent, from 30 percent in 2023.  

Overall, the U.S. is expected to generate a sixth of its electricity from wind and solar next year. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Rejected-President Trump closes out 2022, exactly as he began, lying about winning the 2020 election, and hating all kinds of Americans. In a rant he posts on Truth Social, he insists, “The Failing New York Times is Fake and Corrupt News. Their motto should be, ALL THE FAKE NEWS THAT’S UNFIT TO PRINT. They are the Enemy of the People!” 

He’s mad because they did a story about how he doesn’t pay anything in federal income taxes. Which they reported some years back – and which story has now been validated by release of his records. 

For details, see our post, “President Trump Buys Some Bullets.”

____

January 1, 2023: A New Year dawns. Americans everywhere are polishing their Christmas present guns.

 

With ammo as stocking stuffers.

 

An estimated 25 million AR-15 style assault weapons have now found their way into private hands. That would be enough to arm every U.S. soldier, sailor, Marine, and Air Force member twenty times over.

 

The gun companies love it. They’ve piled up $1 billion in sales in the last decade, pushing this kind of military-grade weaponry. They even encourage what they like to refer to as a “tactical lifestyle.” Put yourself “at the top of the testosterone food chain,” says one gun advertisement. Some of the loot then goes into paying lobbyists. From 1989 to 2022, the gun manufacturers donated $50.5 million to politicians, with 99% of that pile going to Republicans.

 

Month after month, Americans add close to two million pistols, rifles, and shotguns to the private arsenal.

 

And we’re still not safer.

Congressman Thomas Massie and his heavily-armed loved ones.

___

 

 

1/2/23: On this blog, I often note that the former president who resides at Mar-a-Lago is the only person ever elected to our nation’s highest office, who ended up hating more than half of the people he was elected to serve. Today, he decided to hate on other Republicans.

 

 

“I think January 6 really disqualifies him for the future.”

 

“Josh Hawley is 100% right about Mitch McConnell, who is a Complete and Total Disaster for the Republican Party and our Nation,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The only one worse may be his wife, Coco Chow, whose relationships and subservience to China is a catastrophe for our Country.”

 

That last line is particularly amusing – save for the racism – since “Coco” was his Secretary of Transportation – and served in his cabinet from January 31, 2017 until January 6, 2021.

 

In other words, Donald would be partly to blame for any catastrophe that Elaine Chao might unleash.

 

(Speaking of catastrophe, Ms. Chao resigned in protest over the violence that President Trump helped fuel on Capitol Hill, just two weeks before he got the boot from the White House.)

 

*

 

THIS MORNING, former GOP Governor Asa Hutchinson made an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” He made it clear where he saw the real danger to America, at the start of the New Year.

 

“I do not believe that Donald Trump should be the next president of the United States. I think he's had his opportunity there,” Hutchinson said. “I think January 6 really disqualifies him for the future. And so, we move beyond that. And that’s what I want to be focused on.”

FUN FACT: The New York Times runs a lengthy piece on Elise Stefanik, now one of the ranking members of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives. As part of that piece, they acquire an email in which Stefanik refers to then-President Trump as a “whack job.”

 

In that story, former GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan warns, “It’s crystal, crystal, crystal clear. We lose with Trump if we stick with Trump. If we dump Trump, we start winning.”

 

Among other “issues” Stefanik now stands for: chocolate milk. After the Democratic mayor of New York City suggested banning chocolate milk in schools – because it’s more fattening and one out of every four American kids is obese – Stefanik was ready for battle. “I’ve been proud to be the leader standing up for chocolate milk,” she told constituents.

 

Also: more obesity!

 

In the meantime, Stefanik and her party have endorsed fine candidates for Congress, like Sandy Smith in North Carolina. In a post-election tweet, after Trump got sent packing by voters in 2020, Ms. Smith called for Trump’s reinstatement as president. She wanted the Dominion machine impounded – and – we suspect – blown up. And she called for “trails and executions” for those responsible for cheating Trump out of a victory. Yes. “Trails.”

 

In order to rise in the GOP, Rep. Stefanik had to go to the dark side. On Twitter, she started attacking journalists and political opponents as “sick” or “sickening,” just like Donald. As the 2020 election approached, ProPublica noted that she had delete two tweets praising Dr. Anthony Fauci. One from March 2020, had read, “America loves Dr. Fauci!”

 

A year later, she was tweeting, “Fire Fauci. Save Christmas!”

___ 

 

1/3/23: The sun rises over Washington D.C. Lawmakers meet to organize the two houses of Congress. Matters go smoothly in the Senate, where Democrats have a one-vote majority. 

In the House, Republicans try to pick a new Speaker. Kevin McCarthy is so confident of victory that he moves all his files and personal items into Nancy Pelosi’s old office. He gets 212 votes. 

Six short of a majority.   

A second vote. He still doesn’t have the 218 he needs. 

A third vote – still not enough. 

Republicans keep stepping on their own wieners, so to speak (including the women). No Speaker is elected for the day. This kind of ineptitude and dysfunction has not been seen in more than a century.

___ 

 

1/4/23: Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives try again to elect a Speaker of the House. 

They vote once. And can’t do it. 

They vote twice. 

They vote thrice. They still can’t do it. In fact, they only barely manage to get enough votes late in the day to adjourn. 

Watching this fractious crew actually govern over the next two years is sure to be amusing. Expect the vaunted GOP healthcare plan, promised as a replacement for Obamacare in 2016, to be passed on the fifteenth day of Never.

___ 

 

1/5/23: The comedy in the House of Representatives continues – and all that’s missing is a laugh track. On the seventh vote, Kevin McCarthy again fails to get the required 218 votes. Rep. Matt Gaetz actually casts his vote for Donald J. Trump. 

An eighth vote fails. A ninth fails. A tenth. Finally, they vote again – eleventh time is a charm. 

And fail. 

Personally, when they try again on Friday, I am hoping to see fisticuffs. Even a challenge to a duel!

Congressman Preston Brooks attacked Senator Charles Sumner, 

and beat him with a cane, in an argument over slavery.

May, 1856.

___ 

 

1/6/23: The jobs report is out for December, and it’s another good one for Joe Biden: 223,000 jobs added. 

Unemployment drops to 3.5%, as good as Trump ever did, during his four impeachment-festooned years in office. 

We now have nearly two years of records on which to judge Mr. Biden. From February through December of 2021, the U.S. economy added 6,223,000 million jobs. 

This year, with November and December figures subject to revision, the Biden economy has added:

 

4,117,000 jobs.

 

That’s nearly twice as many as Trump added in his best year (of four). During his entire time in office, the economy suffered a net loss of jobs. 

The Labor Participation Rate – 62.3% – ticks up only slightly, as new hires are matched by a continued wave of Baby Boomers hanging it up at work. 

In an average year, more than two million Boomers hit retirement age and pull the plug. In 2020, with COVID rampaging, 3.2 million called it quits, according to the Pew Research Center.

 

* 

MEANWHILE, Day 4 of GOP “control” of the U.S. House of Representatives opens with a walloping bang. No doubt, all kinds of great bills are being passed for benefit of constituents …such as tax cuts for suffering billionaires. 

Nope. 

Republicans try to get out of their own way and elect a Speaker of the House. They vote a twelfth time. 

Can’t do it. Vote #12 fails. Also vote #13 and vote #14. 

I almost get my wish for fisticuffs, as Rep. Mike Rogers has to be held back from punching the eminently punchable Rep. Matt Gaetz. 

And then you had this dick, who played a joke on his Republican colleagues (watch on Twitter).

With the clock approaching midnight, and Kevin McCarthy’s coach about to turn into a pumpkin, the party gets its act together – as much as you can say any group of misfits ever does – and elects…

___ 

 

1/7/23: …Kevin! The vote comes, finally, at 12:29 a.m., Saturday morning. Kevin gets to grab the gavel, and play Speaker. 

Yay, Kevin! 

Speaking of Kevin, this blogger is always going to remember the times Kevin told the truth – but then thought better of his blunders. 

There was, of course, the time Kevin rightly blamed President Trump for the rioting on January 6, 2021. 

Truth seemed so unnatural to Kevin, that almost as soon as the words spilled from his lips, he relented and decided Trump was the best leader America ever had – assuming you couldn’t win elections the old fashioned way, by counting ballots. 

But my favorite truth, told by McCarthy, back in the day when Trump was first campaigning for office was when this occurred: 

 

Led by Trump, the most colossal liar in American political history, the GOP is now guided in the U.S. House of Representatives by a man who lies simply because he lacks courage to stand by the truth and hopes you’ve forgotten he ever told it.

 

* 

IN OTHER NEWS, Donald the Loser has been diddling away his days at Mar-a-Lago,  ranting about mail in voting, and battering the “caps” button on his phone. 

On Truth Social this week, he posted:

 

All Republican Governors should immediately begin the process of ENDING MAIL IN BALLOTS (which are fraught with corruption, and always will be!) EXCEPT FOR FAR AWAY MILITARY AND PEOPLE WITH A PROVEN ILLNESS, GETTING VOTER I.D. AND SAME DAY VOTING WITH ALL PAPER BALLOTS. This effort should be all out and start immediately. Governors have the power and authority to do this. GET IT DONE, or we will never have honest elections in our Country again!

 

Apparently, Donald forget he voted by mail in Florida, and that worked out fine. 

And here in Ohio, we could vote by mail, and millions of Ohioans did, and Donald won the state with ease. 

(He only hates voting by mail in states where he loses.)

___ 

 

1/9/23: If you missed it, the longtime partner of Officer Brian Sicknick, who died of a heart attack, the day after being assaulted by rioters on January 6, 2021, has filed a lawsuit seeking damages. 

The sum in question, sought by Sandra Garza: $10,000,000. 

The three defendants: Julian Khater, George P. Tanios, and former President Donald J. Trump. 

 

Trump, “100% responsible,” needs “to be in prison.” 

The suit accuses “Defendant Trump” of endorsing and ratifying “the violent actions of the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol, including Defendants Khater and Tanios.” The president – who had been lying about a stolen election every day, leading up to the riot – and still is – instructed supporters to “fight like hell” and declared that “you’re allowed to go by very different rules,” calling upon them “to show strength,” the complaint alleges. Defendant Trump clearly intended these words to be “taken literally.” According to lawyers for Ms. Garza, then-President Trump “intentionally riled up the crowd and directed and encouraged a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol and attack those who opposed them.” The injuries that resulted to Officer Sicknick and others were, therefore, the “foreseeable consequences of Defendant Trump’s words and conduct.” 

Sicknick was a Trump supporter, when not on duty, and so was Garza. Now, she says Trump has never spoken about his death. “He knew that Brian was devoted to him,” she said, but Trump “did not once reach out to me ... he didn’t even send a letter of condolences.” 

Even more bluntly, Garza said, “He did absolutely nothing.” 

Garza told “PBS NewsHour,” as the first anniversary of the riot approached, that she holds Trump “100% responsible” for her partner’s death. She later insisted that he needed “to be in prison” for his role in provoking the deadly assault.

 

* 

Khater and Tanios have both plead guilty for their parts in the riot, and both have admitted they came to D.C. to support President Trump. 

On a separate list of rioters, this blogger has created, their cases are briefly explained, as follows: 

 

Tanios brings the bear spray – and Khater sprays it! 

243. Julian Khater:  Khater, 32, was charged with using some unknown toxic substance – since identified – to spray at least three police officers in the face. His targets included Officer Brian Sicknick, who experienced a debilitating reaction, and died the next day. According to one report, in days following the attack, Khater touted the virtues of then-President Trump, criticized Capitol security – ballsy for sure – and referred to President-elect Joe Biden as an “idiot.” 

When not rioting and spraying police officers with chemicals, Khater runs (or did) a smoothie shop near the campus of Penn State. 

(In September 2022, he reaches a plea agreement, and admits to assaulting and injuring police with a deadly weapon – namely bear spray. He was scheduled for sentencing in December 2022, and faced between 78 and 97 months in prison. He had already been incarcerated for 17 months at the time. 

As of January 12, 2023, however, this blogger can find no report of his sentencing, not even on the DOJ database.)

 

244. George Pierre Tanios: Tanios, a friend of Khater, operates a sandwich shop in Morgantown, W. Va. On social media he calls himself the “Sandwich Nazi” and the “King of the Fat Sandwich.” 

When a dissatisfied patron left a one-star review, Tanios proudly posted it because he liked the comparison. His critic noted: “If Donald Trump was a restaurant manager, this is who he would be.” 

To Tanios, such words were praise to right-wing ears. “To [sic] epic not to share,” he said on Instagram. 

In the indictment against the pair, Department of Justice officials charge them with working in concert on the day of the riot.

 

During the investigation, law enforcement discovered open source media video of the incident from January 6, 2021. On the video, KHATER is seen making his way towards TANIOS. KHATER then states, “Give me that bear shit,” and reaches into the backpack on TANIOS’ back. TANIOS then states, “Hold on, hold on, not yet, not yet… its [sic] still early.” KHATER is then seen emphatically telling TANIOS, “They just fucking sprayed me,” and KHATER is seen holding a white can with a black top that appears to be a can of chemical spray.

 

Video evidence shows Khater spraying three officers, who “retreat” to wash out their eyes, including Sicknick. 

Tanios pleads guilty in July 2022. 

In evidence to support a finding of guilt (which Mr. Tanios admits), prosecutors note that prior to their trip to D.C., Tanios “purchased two cannisters of Frontiersman brand bear spray, and two additional cannisters of pepper spray.” One cannister of pepper spray, he turned over to Khater before their arrival in Washington. 

Only Khater used the bear spray on officers. Tanios is likely to spend no more than two years in jail.

Trump later insisted people were "hugging and kissing" police that day.

___ 

 

1/10/23: Yay!!! According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, experts say the year just ended was only the fifth hottest on record. 

See! We’re cooling off!! Last year wasn’t as hot as 2021. Nothing to fear, Trump fans, but fear itself. 

 

“Ignorance is the softest pillow.” 

And science. Science is a bitch. Also logic. Logic is a real bitch! Experts predict that by 2034, the earth will have warmed by 1.5° Celsius, or 2.7° Fahrenheit. At that point, major disasters are cooked into the books. 

Last year, the oceans of the world warmed to their hottest level ever. Yeah. Hottest ever. And did you know that oceans have been absorbing 90% of the excess heat generated since the dawn of the Industrial Era? 

Otherwise, we’d all feel like we were living in Florida – only without Governor Ron DeSantis peering over our shoulder, and waiting to give us a wedgie if we try to discuss racism. 

Listen to what climate scientists had to say this week, when The Guardian, a British newspaper, interviewed them. 

Reporters! “Fake News!” Am I right, Trump fans? Ignorance, profound ignorance, that’s the ticket. “Ignorance,” as someone (but definitely not Mike Lindell) once  said, “is the softest pillow upon which to lay your head.” 

So fluff the pillows, Trump fans. 

As The Guardian explains:

 

The international team of scientists that produced the new ocean heat analysis concluded: “The Earth’s energy and water cycles have been profoundly altered due to the emission of greenhouse gases by human activities, driving pervasive changes in Earth’s climate system.”

 

Prof John Abraham, at the University of St Thomas in Minnesota and part of the study team, said: “If you want to measure global warming, you want to measure where the warming goes, and over 90% goes into the oceans.

 

“Measuring the oceans is the most accurate way of determining how out of balance our planet is.

 

“We are getting more extreme weather because of the warming oceans and that has tremendous consequences all around the world.”

 

Prof Michael Mann, at the University of Pennsylvania, also part of the team, said: “Warmer oceans mean there is more potential for bigger precipitation events, like we’ve seen this past year in Europe, Australia, and currently on the west coast of the US.”

 

He said the analysis showed an ever-deeper layer of warm water on the ocean surface: “This leads to greater and more rapid intensification of hurricanes – something we’ve also seen this past year – since the winds no longer churn up cold sub-surface water that would otherwise dampen intensification.”

 

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association also served up fresh warning. Eighteen climate-related disasters struck the U.S. in 2022, causing $165 billion in damages. That doesn’t mean some of those disasters wouldn’t have hit, anyway. It does mean they were all more likely to hit and were all going to be worse when they did. Or, as NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said at a press conference on Tuesday, “With a changing climate buckle up. More extreme events are expected.”

 

In a recent CBS poll, 71% of Americans said they supported efforts by their representatives to fight climate change. 

Naturally, young people, who have the most to fear, are most anxious – with 55% saying they hope Congress will make fighting climate change a “high priority.” 

Still, we can count on one everlasting roadblock. Blockhead Republicans. Like Donald Trump. Across the nation, 64% of Democrats, and 46% of independents want Congress to take the threat seriously. Among self-described Republicans, that number falls to 23%. In fact, when the question was posed another way: Did respondents want lawmakers in Congress to even fight climate change, 53% of Republicans said they would oppose such efforts. 

F**k. This explains how so many fools can still support Rejected-President Trump, and want to give him another shot in the White House.

 

POSTSCRIPT: Scientists at NASA also released their climate findings today. The year just ended was tied, with 2015, for “hottest year” ever recorded. The last nine years are the nine hottest. 

And hotter years are still to come.

 

“The reason for the warming trend is that human activities continue to pump enormous amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and the long-term planetary impacts will also continue,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of GISS, NASA’s leading center for climate modeling.

___

1/11/23: Paula White-Cain (I am not making that name up), Donald Trump’s former “spiritual advisor,” has been accused of dipping her sticky hands into the bank account of the rock band Journey. 

(She is married to one of the band members, but is not authorized to access that account – but allegedly has.) 

Two cease-and-desist letters have been sent. 

FUN FACT: Paula and her second husband (doesn’t it figure that Trump’s one-time spiritual advisor would have been married three times) were accused of bilking church members, and investigated by the IRS. 

Paula has also been of having multiple affairs – sometimes with other married Christian pastors.

___

 

1/12/23: Republicans have been celebrating control of the U.S. House of Representatives this week, by gearing up for an investigation into Hunter Biden and his laptop. Also, they want to criminalize abortion nationally and send doctors who perform such procedures to prison. 

Or maybe bring back the guillotine!

 

 

Fresh lies by Rep. George Santos revealed by…the free press. 

Newly elected Rep. George Santos, however, may not have long left to enjoy his career in the U.S. House of Representatives. It is now reported that among his many sins, he paid a staffer $100,000 for, among other duties, during fund-raising phone calls, impersonating the chief of staff of then-Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. 

Fresh lies have been revealed by The New York Times and now reported widely. We already know Santos lied about how his mother died (supposedly during the 9/11 attack). Now we learn he said he compiled a 3.89 GPA at Baruch College, and finished in the “Top 1% of class,” despite – ahem – never technically attending. 

Other fun claims: That while working at Goldman Sachs he doubled a revenue stream for the firm, by hundreds of millions, from “300m to 600m.” Which is quite the feat – since he never actually worked there. 

Of course, you would expect this kind of amazing success from a man like Santos, who claimed to have scored a 710 (in the top 9%) on the Graduate Management Admission Test. It turns out, Santos’ imaginary friend must have taken the test for him. Because there is no evidence Santos ever took the test himself.

___

1/13/23: Yesterday, our topic was Republican liars of the epic style. Today we pick up on the topic – and focus on Donald J. Trump. In a deposition released today, we learn that Donald can’t remember what he said during the infamous Hollywood Access tape that should have sunk his first bid for office. 

You remember: Trump said he just started kissing women, and they let him get away with it because he was rich and famous. That tape helped fuel a rash of accusations from more than twenty women, alleging that Donald had done to them just what he said he had – if not more. 

Under New York law, E. Jean Carroll, is now suing the former president for defamation, because he had called her a liar, when she first brought up a story that he had raped her in a dressing room on Fifth Avenue. Trump was forced to give a deposition. And it did not go well. The accusation, he claimed, was a “hoax.” A lawyer for Ms. Carroll asked Trump, for comparison purposes, about climate change. Trump said, yes, that too “was largely a hoax.” (In recent news, we learned that scientist have found that large parts of Greenland are the warmest they’ve been in at least a thousand years.) 

Trump also suggested that he wouldn’t have raped the plaintiff – because she was “not his type.” Then he mixed up a picture of Ms. Carroll, which also featured Donald himself, and identified her as Marla Maples, his second ex-wife – who most assuredly was his type, until Melania came along. 

Then, to top it off, a lawyer for the plaintiff asked Donald if he had ever kissed or touched a woman without her permission. 

“The answer is no,” he replied. 

Here, at this fine blog, we have already provided a list of the more than two dozen women who have accused Donald of inappropriate touching, kissing, and worse.

___ 

 

1/14/23: For those of us on the liberal end of the political spectrum, Rep. George Santos is the gift that keeps on giving. 

He has now been accused by a former roommate of showing up for a “Stop the Steal” rally, wearing a scarf he stole from said roommate.

Santos in the scarf!

By the way, at that rally, Santos claimed, “They did to me what they did to Donald J. Trump, they stole my election.” 

The roommate – and a second former roommate of Rep. Santos – provided screenshots of a conversation in which the two men discuss Santos’ theft of phones, dress shirts and checks from a checkbook. 

In a recent poll, 60% of constituents in his district want Santos to be ousted from Congress, even though he has hardly had time to warm his seat. That includes 34% of voters who supported him. 

The other 66% apparently like liars.

 

* 

MEANWHILE, the dedicated blogger has spent the last two years, looking high and low, and under the beds for evidence of election fraud great enough to change the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

Or, frankly, any other U.S. election. 

So far: Nothing but dust bunnies. Under pressure to prove that Donald J. Trump defeated Joe Biden in Pennsylvania, Republican officials in Lycoming County decided to spend a pile of taxpayer cash and conduct a recount. For three days, ten two-person teams of county employees sifted through 59,374 ballots, hand-counting them all. And how much massive fraud did they find? 

At a cost of – basically – sixty days’ wages? 

In a beet-red county, where Trump garnered 69.8% of the vote, the incumbent was found to have received seven (7) fewer votes than initially reported. Mr. Biden’s tally dropped by fifteen (15). If we figure an error of +8 for Joe Biden, that would be an error rate of .000013 per cent.

 

* 

THIS BLOGGER does his best to report honestly. But if you can find verified proof of massive voter fraud, you are doing better than him. He was excited (in the sense he wants to be fair) to read a headline about a Democratic official in Alabama convicted for voter fraud last week. 

How many votes were we talking? Maybe 50,000 for Joe Biden? 

Sadly, when the blogger clicked on the story, he learned that the dastardly Albert Turner Jr., of Perry County, was accused of voting multiple times in a Democratic primary. And then harvesting votes in the midterm general elections. Turner has denied the charge – but if he were to be found guilty, lock him up a while. As for massive fraud, the Alabama Attorney General reports that there have been seven (7) convictions for voter fraud in that state in…the last eight (8) years. 

And that would be spread across multiple elections, national, state, county, and even school board elections. 

So, the blogger keeps checking. Out in Iowa, a worse case turned up, but, sad to say, if you were hoping to prove Democrats were scumbags, the alleged perpetrator was a Republican. Kim Phuong Taylor was arrested and charged with 52 felonies,. Authorities say she filled out dozens of false forms, and submitted illegal ballots in an effort to help her husband win a primary race to be elected to Congress. 

That would indicate that if vote fraud does occur, it’s not just Democrats who try it, and that it is almost never significant enough to affect the outcome of an election. The blogger is getting desperate for proof of massive fraud – even if it were to be the work of aliens from another planet. He decides to google, “Texas man convicted of voter fraud” and “Texas woman convicted of voter fraud.” (Should I do “Texas person,” to adjust for transgender norms?) 

I mean, if Democrats wanted to steal an election, Texas in 2020, would have been the biggest prize of all. 

First, I get “Hervis Rogers,” arrested for voting while on parole. That scuzbag! No. Wait. His case was dismissed. 

Monica Mendez got nailed on 26 felony counts – after harvesting votes to influence the outcome of…a utility board election. She was sentenced to five years busting up rocks in the state peniten… No. She was sentenced to probation. 

Then there was the case of Crystal Rogers, who thought she had the right to vote, and cast a provisional ballot in 2016. She had voted before, at the same voting place, but had just been released from prison on a tax fraud case. She was charged and convicted and sentenced to five years more in prison. 

Next, I saw that KXAN television in Austin was reporting that 150 people in Texas had been charged with voter fraud. That sounded promising if you wanted to prove something big about American elections. But that was spread over all the elections in Texas, starting with 2004. 

The story of Rogers led me to the story of an Iowa woman, Terry Lynn Rote, who voted twice, absentee, for Donald Trump, in the same election. She explained that she broke the law because she believed the election was going to be rigged – and she decided to do her part (I guess) to boost Donald’s chances. She got two years’ probation, and had to pay a $750 fine. 

Of course, she was white, and lived in Iowa. And Rogers was black, and lived in Texas.

 

Then you had the case of Justice of the Peace Russ Casey, called a “rising star in the Republican Party,” of Tarrant County – also in Texas. After he became ensnared in an office sex scandal, he had trouble garnering support to run for reelection in 2018. So he forged more than a hundred signatures on a petition in order to be able to run. And lost anyway. Punishment: Five years’ probation, community service, and a $1,000 fine. Another white guy gets off easy. 

Finally, I found a story from this past October: “Verify: 171 People Have Been Investigated for Voter Fraud in Texas since 2018.” KHOU 11 in Houston decided to do a little checking. So I won’t have to. They asked the Texas attorney general to provide records – and got the 171 cases. 

Those could be reduced to 61 convictions, with 41 cases pending. (That would mean 69 cases were dismissed in some fashion or resulted in “not guilty” determinations.) The reporter for KHOU gets a bit lazy, noting that ten million Texans voted in 2020. She calls that level of fraud “far less than 1%.” I decide to be more precise. Even if the state gets 41 more convictions, you have only one hundred and two (102) convictions in 11,000,000 votes (The reporter had the total vote wrong.)  That would = 1 illegal vote for every 107,843 ballots. 

Only the math would be much worse. We’d have to add in all the votes cast in the 2018 midterms. We’d have primary elections, and elections for sheriff, and county elections, too. Texas has a lot of counties: two hundred and fifty-four (254), to be exact. People could cheat while voting for county coroners, and mayors of cities, and members of village councils. The attorney general – who guards against election fraud – is elected for god’s sake. Let’s see how the vote turned out in that race. Ken Paxton won a second term in 2018 (he won again in 2022), and another 8.2 million votes were cast. And we’re not even counting primaries in 2018. If we counted all the elections for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018, that would be another eight million chances for a voter to cheat (and I’m not figuring in voters who chose neither a Republican or a Democrat). Then we can toss in all the votes from Loving County, Texas (pop. 117!) In 2018, 66 voters turned up at the polls, with that figure rising to 79 in 2020. 

Now we’re up to 27,200,145 chances to cheat – and we’re not done. 

Sometimes I just can’t help myself when it comes to revealing how absurd claims of massive voter fraud have been. Theoretically, you could commit fraud in any election for any office. So, I decide to try Midland, Texas, because that’s where George W. Bush lives. (I think.) To name just a few, you get votes for city and county positions, including the Eleventh Court of Appeals, Place 2 (66,293), Railroad Commissioner (19,019), District Attorney (19,251), County Commissioner, Precinct 1 (4,198), and County Sheriff (15,855). 

That gives Texans 27,324,761 chances to cheat. A Republican voter in Midland could cast a bogus vote for County Sheriff. A Democrat in Loving County could try to mail in a fraudulent ballot in the race for governor. So, we have 61 proven cases of fraud, and at best 102 cases that will be proven. Now the math shows, at most, 1 (1) illegal vote for every 267,890 votes tallied.

___

 

1/19/23: Election denial has become a Republican sport, but no denier has been quite so dedicated as Solomon Pena. His political career was snuffed out by New Mexico voters in the 2022 midterms. 

And it wasn’t close, either. 

In the battle for a seat in the New Mexico House of Representatives, from District 14, Pena tallied a measly 2,005 votes – or 26.4%. His Democratic opponent piled up 5,558, or 73.6%. 

Pena didn’t take losing well. He’s alleged to have paid several accomplices to shoot into the homes of Democratic lawmakers , and election officials who certified his loss. In one case, bullets broke up plaster in a 10-year-old girl’s room. And Pena is said to have complained to the shooters – asking them to strike earlier in the evenings when people were still up and about. He also wanted them to shoot lower into the homes. Now police are also looking into the possibility that drug traffickers donated to his campaign. José Trujillo, who invested $5,155 in the Pena campaign, was recently arrested – and is thought to have done some of the shooting. When busted, police found 893 fentanyl pills in his car, two guns, and $3,036 in cash. According to police, one of those guns was tied to the shooting at a Democratic lawmakers’ home.

 

* 

IF PENA was dangerous with guns, Donald Trump ended his sixth year in politics, doing damage with his thumbs. 

On Truth Social, the man inclined to fascism made plain his anger after the U.S. Supreme Court failed to uncover the person responsible for leaking the rough draft of the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade.

 

For Trump fans, let’s spell this danger out: 

1.     Trump is adept at dehumanizing those he hates – and those he wants you, his loyal followers, to hate (above: “slime”).

2.     Dehumanizing others is a tactic favored by, for example, Hitler and his crew, who referred to Jews as “vermin.”

3.     At no point in history has dehumanizing one’s enemies led to more humane treatment of those enemies.

4.     Reporters often make good use of information gleaned from leaks. For example, rightwing outlets say they have leaks providing evidence against Hunter Biden. If any president – or man who wants to be president again – can start jailing people to stop leaks – then you have handed excessive power to the politicians currently in power.

5.     If Trump could plug leaks by arresting publishers and editors, along with reporters, then so could Joe Biden.

6.     Nixon could have done it, too. So could presidents A, B,C, and X, Y and Z, in the future.

7.     Many “leakers” are protected by whistleblower laws – and you couldn’t arrest them, or their editors and publishers, without trampling on the First Amendment.

8.     If you are too dumb to understand any of this, you are definitely too dumb to be voting.

9.     Or to be running again for the presidency.

___