The Orange God of Mar-a-Lago: November 2022

UPDATED 6/15/23 

November 1, 2022: As an inveterate poll-watcher, I admit Tuesday is looking grim for Democrats. They’re facing a real possibility of losing control of both the U.S. House of Representative and the U.S. Senate.

 

Pressured to throw out legal votes.  

One GOP senator who might not be celebrating, however, is Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected his attempt to avoid testifying in a Georgia investigation into efforts (by Team Trump) to steal that state’s sixteen electoral votes and hand them over to Donald. 

Who didn’t deserve them. 

If you haven’t been following the story, Sen. Graham’s problems began when he decided to make a few calls after the 2020 election. He wanted to check on how Republican officials in Georgia – a  state where he had no more legal standing than this left-handed blogger – were doing, when it came to counting votes. No one knows exactly why he called. Perhaps he offered to come and help count. 

The Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican, but with an actual spine, has said Graham pressured him to throw out legal votes. 

After Raffensperger and his wife were subjected to death threats, he made clear how he felt at the time. “Other than getting you angry,” he told the Washington Post, “it’s also very disillusioning, particularly when it comes from people on my side of the aisle. Everyone that is working on this needs to elevate their speech. We need to be thoughtful and careful about what we say.” 

Nearly two years have passed, and Donald J. Trump is still lying about a “stolen election” today.

 

* 

The senator from South Carolina is not the only member of Team Trump to have a bad day in court. 

Rudy Giuliani had been seeking to have a defamation suit filed against him by two low-level Georgia poll workers thrown out. His request was blown to bits in a 27-page ruling today – a ruling which even a reasonably intelligent Trump fan could read for him- or herself, and probably figure out was very bad news for Rudy. 

 

Poll workers in Georgia subjected to death threats. 

At issue was a suit filed by Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, Freeman’s daughter. In their court filing the longtime poll workers claim that repeated accusations made by Giuliani and other members of Team Trump – that they had been involved in counting tens of thousands of illegal ballots during the 2020 election – had been made with “reckless disregard” for the truth, and repeated with “actual malice.” 

These accusations of crookery in the counting resulted in both Freeman and Moss (who are African American) facing countless death threats, and fearing for their lives if they were seen in public. 

Moss’s 14-year-old son was also a recipient of threats, with one caller stating that he “should hang alongside [his] nigger momma.” 

You could almost smell Judge Beryl A. Howell’s anger when he issued his ruling, denying Rudy’s request. 

If you’re too busy to read it all, the key findings are clear. In the plaintiffs’ original suit they also named “One American News Network, its owners and its chief White House correspondent” as defendants. Howell notes that those defendants were dismissed from the current suit in May 2022, after “reaching an undisclosed settlement with Moss and Freeman.” 

He continued, “As election workers across the state worked long hours carefully ensuring the accuracy of the election [emphasis added] the Trump Campaign and its allies, including Giuliani, engaged in a media offensive that at best questioned, and at worse condemned, their work.” 

With results in Georgia too close to call, right-wing types fostered “outlandish paranoia,” insisting against all credible evidence that the vote had been rigged. Freeman and Moss, Judge Howell said, were victims of a “false narrative.”  

 

“Shows normal ballot processing.” 

He laid out the facts: The original computer tally of votes in Georgia, once complete, showed Joseph Biden pulling off a narrow win. 

The “largest hand count of ballots” in American history confirmed computer results. Biden won again. 

A third recount was demanded, which by law was fine. Again the tally showed Biden beating Trump. 

Unfortunately, Mr. Giuliani did not care about recounts. Nor did President Trump. Both men accused Freeman and Moss of pulling a hidden “suitcase” of votes out from under a table late at night. Then, Rudy claimed, they counted them, but only after checking to ensure that no Republican poll watchers remained at the vote-counting site at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. Rudy insisted, again and again, as did Trump, that he had video proof that tens of thousands of votes were “stolen.” Giuliani figured it was at least “30,000.” In a call made by President Trump, on January 2, 2021, he would tell Raffensperger and two other officials that there had been 18,000 votes inside the mythic “suitcase,” and claim they were run through scanners three times. 

Presto: 54,000 illegal votes. 

The Georgians shot those claims down. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), they assured Trump, had found no evidence of voter fraud. Hours of video from the purported scene of the crime had been reviewed. The video Rudy claimed proved fraud had been heavily edited, GBI found, to support a false case. 

Judge Howell explained:

 

After “review[ing] the security videotape in its entirety” and “interview[ing] all witnesses who were present at the time of the alleged misconduct,” officials “found no evidence whatsoever to substantiate any of the claims,” and in the early morning hours of December 4, Georgia’s statewide “Voting Implementation Manager” tweeted, “The 90 second video of election worker at the State Farm arena, purporting to show fraud was watched in its entirety (hours) by @GaSecofState investigators. Shows normal ballot processing.

 

Howell focused next on the plan put together by Giuliani and other members of the Trump legal team. This plan had one goal. Getting to the truth was not that goal.

 

“Strategic Communications Plan[,] Giuliani Presidential Legal Defense Team” (the “Strategic Plan” or “Plan”). A section of the Plan was dedicated to exposing the alleged voter fraud schemes in Georgia. Freeman was named in the Plan as being “under arrest” and part of “coordinated effort to commit voter/election fraud.”  Giuliani specifically accused Freeman and the other workers in the Edited Video of “ballot stuffing” by rolling out “suitcases” filled with ballots when “press and all third parties were required to leave the premises” – an event the Strategic Plan calls “Suitcase Gate.”

 

Yet, we know that Georgia officials had already torched such claims. Rudy knew, too. There was no “suitcase,” but only a regular bin to hold ballots. 

There was no “stuffing.” The recounts showed that. The GBI had already proven this claim false. 

Freeman had never been arrested at all. 

 

Truth didn’t matter to the president. 

Trump’s legal team didn’t care. Truth was never a factor. The plan was to sow as much doubt as possible. They wanted to stir up the president’s supporters – to encourage them to pressure officials (and threaten their lives) in several battleground states to overturn fair election results. 

Howell supplied a long list of claims Giuliani made, none supported by fact. A few examples will suffice:

 

On December 23, 2020, Giuliani, on his podcast, named Freeman as someone with “a history of fraud participation,” and claimed that she, with the help of other election workers, counted the same ballots “eight times,” “cheating” in manner that “look[ed] like a bank heist.”

 

On December 25, 2020, Giuliani, again on his podcast, accused “Ms. Freeman and her crew” of attempting to scan ballots multiple times, likening them to “crooks spr[i]ng[ing] into action.”

 

During that videotape [which the GBI had debunked], that we can all see right in front of our eyes, we can see them stealing the votes. We can see them throwing out the people [the Republican poll watchers]. We can see them counting it four and five times. We also have the statistics during that period of time, 120,000 votes for Biden, couple hundred votes for Trump, no observers, makes it totally illegal. That alone changes the election. . . . For a hundred years, this film will show that the, the 2020 presidential election, there was an attempt to steal it.

 

A reasonably observant person might note that Trump and Giuliani couldn’t even get the idea of how many times the votes were counted right. Rudy says “eight,” then changes to “four and five times.”

 

In his call to Secretary Raffensperger, Trump insisted the ballots were counted “three” times.

 

Howell cited another claim made by Rudy G.:

 

(Giuliani explaining that Freeman and the other election workers in the Edited Video “make sure there’s no one around, they make sure the doors are locked so nobody else can come in, and then at a certain point they look around again, and they go under a table covered by a black, like a black blanket, and they start pulling out ballots”). This podcast episode remains on Giuliani’s website, and he further disseminated the episode on social media.

 

On January 2, 2021, as mentioned, Trump placed a call to Mr. Raffensperger. That call lasted an hour and two minutes. During that call Trump made numerous claims of “stolen” votes, claims multiple officials from his own Department of Justice had repeatedly told him were untrue. Truth didn’t matter to the president. As Howell explains, “He stated Freeman’s name ‘no less than 19 times,’ calling Freeman ‘a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler,’ ‘known scammer,’ ‘known political operative,’ and ‘ballotteer[.]’” 

Raffensperger cautioned the president. “You’re talking about the State Farm video,” he said. “And I think it’s extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context.” 

None of this stopped Trump – and none of this stopped Giuliani, who was toiling in his service. 

Rudy appeared on multiple occasions on OAN, during the following year, and repeated his claims – that the video of the two women counting votes was “clear evidence” of massive fraud. 

He was still repeating the claim in January 2022, when during a podcast he said the two women had been in clear “violation of the law.” 

 

“Ample circumstantial evidence of a civil conspiracy.” 

Even though authors of the “Strategic Plan” knew there was no truth to the allegation that Freeman “had been arrested/had a criminal record regarding voting fraud” Rudy kept repeating that claim too. Not because it was true, but because it fit the narrative he and others wanted to spread. 

Howell pointed to evidence to suggest “that Giuliani fabricated Freeman’s arrest and criminal record out of whole cloth.” 

Even worse, as the judge wrote, the existence of the Strategic Plan, and other conduct on the part of Giuliani and other actors “provide ample circumstantial evidence of a civil conspiracy between Giuliani and members of the Trump Campaign. The stated goal of the Plan was to engage in a ‘[n]ationwide communications outreach campaign to educate the public on the fraud.’” 

But there had been no fraud. 

To make such claims, Judge Howell ruled, could well lead a jury in a civil case to believe defendants had acted with “reckless disregard” for the truth, and with “actual malice” toward the plaintiffs. 

In summing up the request to dismiss the defamation suit, Judge Howell was blunt. In legal terms, he was saying Giuliani, Trump (and others) were lying:

 

A reasonable jury could accordingly infer that (1) Giuliani, Trump, and the “[k]ey [t]eam [m]embers” listed in the Strategic Plan (2) created a plan to sow doubt in the outcome of the 2020 election by (3) launching a misinformation campaign, which included accusing Freeman, Moss, and others of participating in schemes of electoral fraud, and (4) injuring plaintiffs in the process. Plaintiffs have pled a plausible civil conspiracy.

 

For the reasons set forth above, Giuliani’s motion to dismiss is denied and the entirety of plaintiffs’ claims may advance to discovery.

 

This ruling means that both sides can plan to present any evidence they can find. And I’d bet you all the Halloween candy I still have left. Rudy and his pals are going to get torched in court.

___

 

 

11/2/22: The former Republican governor of New Jersey, Christine Todd Whitman, said on Wednesday that she hoped “all the crazies do win,” in next week’s election. And by that, she meant all the election-denying Republican “crazies” backed by the former president, election-denying Donald J. Trump. 

Then she caught herself. 

 

A “cult” with “no set of central principles.” 

She told reporters that while she wanted Americans to understand the drastic consequences of electing this sorry-ass crew before the 2024 election, it might make for disaster in the end if they did win power next week. 

“But then I realize no,” she explained, “I don’t want to live in that world, and I don’t want to leave it for my grandkids either, the damage they can do.” Whitman warned that her beloved Republican Party had become a “cult,” adding, “there’s no set of central principles on which it’s based.”

 

* 

SWITCHING TOPICS for a moment, the blogger – a retired teacher – well remembers all the times conservative pundits talked about how schools would be better run if run like businesses. 

Or as businesses. 

If that had been true (and it wasn’t) I suppose schools could do what Dollar General stands accused of doing. A first grader comes through the lunch line. A lunch lady tells him two chocolate chip cookies cost a dollar. The student gets to the cash register, and the second lunch lady rings up $1.20. 

The child doesn’t notice and the business thrives. 

This week the Ohio attorney general charged Dollar General, which operates 943 stores in the state, with doing just that, violating consumer protection laws and consistently charging more at the register than the price marked on shelves. Inspectors from Butler County, for example, found pricing errors at all twenty stores in their jurisdiction. The “best” store had errors on 16.7% of items. 

The worst: a mind-boggling 88.2%. (To meet state standards, stores are allowed an error rate of no more than 2%.) 

The company is thinking about changing its name (but not on store fronts) to “Dollar and Twenty Cents.”

 

* 

ONE OHIOAN who might not be shopping at Dollar General anytime soon would be Aron McKillips. The Sandusky man, 30, is a well-known member of the anti-government, extremist, right-wing Boogaloo Bois. He was arrested Tuesday. He’s charged with threatening to kill or maim F.B.I. agents, and allegedly bragged online that he had quite the arsenal to use when the moment to unleash mayhem dawned. That included a…grenade launcher. 

When not talking about removing badges from the corpses of federal agents, McKillips enjoyed talking about guns. That included boasting about turning semi-automatic firearms into fully automatic weapons and claiming he was up in Michigan one day, “literally handing out machine guns” to other Bois.

 

* 

ON FOX NEWS today, the big cause for worry: Transgender athletes competing in women’s sports!

___ 

 

11/3/22: At breakfast this morning my wife pointed out that Mehmet Oz, GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, is a Muslim. 

“For real?” I said with astonishment. 

 

“White replacement” and other right-wing paranoias. 

I hadn’t noticed. Whereas I had noticed that President Obama wasn’t a Muslim, but that Republicans tried for years to insist that he was. I remembered Sarah Palin saying that Obama was “palling around with terrorists,” as if he and Osama bin Laden were drinking buds. I remembered Sean Hannity making sure to refer to Obama as “Barack Hussein Obama” any time he mentioned his name. 

And who could ever forget President Trump trying to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S.? 

Or Trump trashing a Gold Star mother, whose Muslim son, Humayan Khan, was killed in combat fighting for this country? 

Or the time Judge Roy Moore – later endorsed by Trump for a seat in the U.S. Senate, said Keith Ellison, a practicing Muslim should be barred from serving in Congress. 

There was nothing subtle about any of this. The message to the Republican base was always simplistic – but clear. You couldn’t trust anyone who didn’t hold up the Bible and smack you on the pate. 

Let me say quite clearly. I have no problem with a Muslim being elected to the U.S. Senate, unless that Muslim is an asshole – which Oz is. Still, I am trying to imagine how Rush Limbaugh would have reacted were he still alive, to learn that Oz did serve in uniform. 

So: “Thank you for your service?” 

Well, not so fast. When he was young, Oz joined the Turkish army, to keep dual citizenships rights alive. 

Oz was born in Cleveland, in 1960, of immigrant parents, and by Turkish rule was still considered a citizen of that nation. 

It struck me as humorous, too, when I noticed that the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate from my state, J.D. Vance, had a wife that looked surprisingly un-white. Usha Vance is probably a lovely person – but she too was born of immigrant parents, her mother and father coming from India. And we know that J.D., when he attended Yale, organized a group that focused on the “social decline in white America.” 

(Which, by the way, is real – and is a problem both parties should address.)

 

Who helped him with this work? Usha Chilukuri. Now his wife. 

The New York Times, doing what the free press does best, checked out Ms. Vance’s background.

 

Ms. Vance was, according to an online database that includes voter registration records, a registered Democrat until at least 2014 [which makes this blogger like her more]. She has clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and works at Munger, Tolles & Olson, a California law firm whose website describes its corporate culture as “radically progressive.”

 

Again, this blogger would point out that immigration has almost always meant a net gain for this country, as his Irish ancestors would attest. 

Good for the Oz family, and the Chilukuri family, then, to come here, and work hard, and make better lives for themselves and their children. 

I just have a hard time forgetting all the right-wing attacks on people who look exactly like them. I remember that “glorious” moment when President Trump, in a meeting with lawmakers from both parties, said we didn’t want immigrants from “shithole countries,” like Haiti and Africa, coming. But Norway? Yeah, he said. Immigrants from Norway would be fine. 

As far as your average dark-skinned immigrant goes, a significant subset of the Trump base is known to rail against “white replacement.” Which, if you are a racist, is a spooky, dystopian social theory. It’s like QAnon, only with even more racism. According to those who believe in this nonsense, Democrats want to allow an influx of non-white immigrants. They will be subservient to the party that allowed them to enter, eventually become citizens, or have children who are. Soon they’ll outnumber white voters and Democrats will use them to reduce us unlucky white folk to serfdom. And also the white race will be “polluted” and “destroyed” by mixed blood! 

How f**ked up is this kind of thinking? The shooter who went to Buffalo to slaughter innocent, dark-skinned people in a grocery store had been howling about “white replacement” before he opened fire. 

So, as a liberal, let me say, “Good luck, Mr. and Ms. Vance, and to your son.” I don’t doubt you will be good parents, and applaud anyone who is, Trump fan or not. 

Certainly, I don’t care who marries whom or what color (or gender) their children turn out to be. 

I do find it grotesque, however, to hear J.D. criticize the “elites,” since he and his wife both attended Yale. (The blogger’s oldest daughter was accepted at Columbia, another Ivy League school, but chose not to go. His second daughter did go to Yale, and her mother and I love what her education has allowed her to do.) 

Unfortunately, the Vances showed up on Newsmax during the campaign, to talk about why J.D. should be sent to Washington to save America and make it great again. Not long before, Newsmax had run a series of stories with scary headlines like: “Whatever They’re Teaching at Yale Law School, It’s Frightening.” That would be the school J.D. and Usha both graduated from. 

Nor can I get past the memory of Stephen Miller, perhaps the only advisor to President Trump who managed to keep his ear during his full tenure in the White House. Miller no doubt still fills his ear with racist drivel. 

In 2019, a series of leaked Miller emails sent to a Breitbart reporter surfaced. Miller made clear his affinity for the “white replacement” bugaboo. He suggested a wide array of racist materials the writer might consult when composing her stories. For example, he suggested she read Camp of the Saints, a novel about “white genocide” and the destruction of Western civilization by waves of dark immigrant peoples. In one scene Indian men (like Ms. Vance’s dad) repeatedly rape white women in France. 

What other types of individuals and groups subscribe to this “white replacement” manure? You may have heard of the Proud Boys – who fantasized about serving as Trump’s storm troopers during the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill. 

As the Anti-Defamation League notes:

 

The Proud Boys are a right-wing extremist group with a violent agenda. They are primarily misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigration. Some members espouse white supremacist and antisemitic ideologies and/or engage with white supremacist groups.

 

Or, if you don’t trust the ADL, the BBC explained:

 

A Proud Boy must declare that he is “a Western chauvinist who refuses to apologise for creating the modern world”.

 

Their platform, such as it is, includes Trumpian ideas (“glorify the entrepreneur”, “close the border”), libertarianism (“give everyone a gun”, “end welfare”) and traditional gender roles (“venerate the housewife”).

 

In the final analysis, more power to Vance and Oz – and isn’t this a great nation where the children of immigrants can aspire to be elected to the U.S. Senate, or marry those who might?

Always sinister: Stephen Miller.

One of Trump's main advisors, and a big believer in the "white replacement" myth.

___ 

 

11/4/22: Election polls continue to look grim for Democrats. To President Biden’s credit he hasn’t whined about “fake suppression polls” like his fat-headed, fat-assed tangerine-tinted predecessor. 

Meanwhile, Bureau of Labor Statistics show that 261,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in October, down slightly from September, which may signal that inflation will soon abate. 

That brings the total of jobs added this year, with preliminary results subject to change for the last two months, to: 

4,068,000.

 

This would be a far better record than Trump produced in any year of his presidency, when he was putting up good numbers, and claiming that the Bureau numbers were finally real, not “fake.” Which is what he insisted they were when Obama was putting up even better job numbers, during his last six years in control. 

Really, you don’t have to be a dumb ass and deny the truth. Obama inherited a mess in 2009, got it straightened out, and added jobs to the U.S. economy for 76 months in a row. 

Trump didn’t inherit a mess, whined, and insisted he had, and put up a good run himself, which lasted 36 months. Then the pandemic hit. Not his fault. True. But Trump said we needn’t worry, because COVID was only the flu. A million Americans died – and continue to die every day – and the economic doodie hit every fan in every corner of the country and splattered in every direction. 

Biden took charge, and led a recovery that added, in just the final eleven months of 2021: 

6,223,000 jobs.

 

Meanwhile, the labor participation rate (number of persons with jobs + number of persons actively seeking work) has continued a long, slow decline, fueled in large part by continuing retirements of the Baby Boom generation. 

That participation rate is currently 62.2 percent – even with more than 10,000,000 job openings posted and unfilled. 

As for the unemployment rate, it stands at 3.7 percent, up slightly from 3.5 percent last month. 

That’s as good as Donald himself ever did. 

Who has a better jobs record than Trump?

This guy.

 

* 

IN A RARE COURT VICTORY for Team Trump, Donald’s inaugural committee chair, Tom Barrack, was acquitted on all charges, after he was charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Barrack had allegedly used his connections with Trump to advance the interests of the United Arab Emirates. 

Barrack immediately expressed appreciation for the jury, saying, “I’m so thankful for this system.” 

His victory, however, can be contrasted with a stinging blow to leaders of the inaptly named “True the Vote” organization. That group has been trying (and failing) to prove that Trump won the 2020 election – partly by spreading unfounded stories about corrupted voting systems. 

In this case, as the Washington Post explains,

 

Founder Catherine Engelbrecht and former board member Gregg Phillips were escorted by federal marshals out of a Houston courthouse and into a holding cell following the judge’s decision.

 

The order marked the latest twist in a defamation case brought last month by Konnech, an election software company that True the Vote claimed allowed the Chinese government to have access to a server in China that held the personal information of nearly 2 million U.S. election workers. Konnech has vigorously disputed the claim.

 

At issue was the court’s demand that True the Vote reveal the name of their “confidential F.B.I. source” who helped them access Konnech’s computer systems. 

It’s hard to get sent to jail in a civil case – which this is – but Engelbrecht and Phillips managed. 

Back in 2016, Phillips also claimed to have proof that more than 3,000,000 non-citizens had voted in the election. In days, and months, and years to follow, and no doubt until the day he dies, Donald Trump fixated on that claim. To this day, he insists he won the popular vote both times he ran.

 

* 

“It’s like a giant grift in some ways.” 

SPEAKING OF WHICH, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, has come out and called election deniers running for office in his state “clowns.” 

That would include Kari Lake, GOP candidate for governor, who has Trump’s backing. Brnovich has labeled her claims that the Arizona election was rigged against Trump two years ago “horseshit.” 

“Horseshit, and that’s what it is, most of it’s horseshit, and I’ve been trying to scrape... scrape it off my shoes for the last year,” he said during an interview on 60 Minutes. 

Brnovich, who was defeated in the Republican primary, by another election denier (also backed by Trump) explained that he had voted for Trump himself. He wanted Trump to win. He said he looked hard for proof of election fraud – but found basically none. Twelve Arizonans, one fraudulent vote per, were charged as a result of investigations into the 2020 election. 

Twelve. 

In summing up the problem of election deniers, who have no proof, Brnovich said, “It’s like a giant grift in some ways.”

 

* 

I LIKE FACTS, as I often say. So I like to check up on all the evidence piled up so far, indicating that at least eight billion fraudulent votes were cast in the 2020 election, and the 2016 election, and all the other elections Republicans have lost, going back to the birth of Christ. 

 

All these voter fraud cases don’t equal one big case in Georgia. 

So, let’s start with beet red Texas, where Ken Paxton is in charge of hunting down Bigfoot the Illegal Voter. It turns out there have been 534 successful prosecutions related to voter fraud – but that includes cases from every election, and every office up for grabs in Texas, since 2005. And only 155 individuals were involved. This blogger has no problem with prosecuting individuals who double vote, or violate election law in other ways. But when you look for big cases – like someone harvesting a hundred ballots, or a thousand, you come up empty. 

The lone exception I have found involved a GOP lawmaker in North Carolina. While he did manage to squeak out a win in his bid for reelection, he was later found to have cheated so blatantly that a new election had to be called. 

In Texas what you mostly find is a person like Crystal Mason, who voted in 2016, thinking she was eligible, but was not, as a result of a previous felony conviction. Small potatoes, considering that election deniers insist millions voted illegally, and will again – unless we make voting harder for everyone. 

In Ohio, a state where mail-in ballots are readily accessible, you figure the red state election police must be locking up thousands of scofflaws. Actually, Frank LaRose, the Secretary of State, says illegal voting is “exceedingly rare.” 

The tally of illegal voters, as of last month: 75 individuals who allegedly voted in one state, then voted a second time in Ohio in 2020. LaRose, who is endorsed by none other than Donald J. Trump, and running in next week’s election, says the total number of possible cases his office has uncovered since 2018 would be 630. 

In Florida, a tipster turned up evidence of 282 potential double-voting state residents, and then another batch of 45. But how many actually voted illegally remains to be seen. We do know – and this is kind of fun – that in several proven cases, the illegal voters were big Trump fans. 

As for prosecutions, Gov. Ron DeSantis was proud to announce recently that his Election Integrity Unit had vacuumed up twenty illegal voters, many of them convicted felons, who thought they were eligible. That included several who had been issued voter registration cards by the State of Florida. 

This, DeSantis promised, was only the “opening salvo,” of what this blogger suspects will be a grand fizzle in the end. 

Nevertheless, for the sake of argument, let’s say all of these cases prove out in court. We add up the 155 individuals in Texas. We count the possible 630 in Ohio, and the possible 282 in Florida, and the other possible 45. That gives us 1,112 cases – and even if we figure each of those individuals cast two illegal votes (and most of the suspects cast only one) then we have 2,224 illegal votes in all. That’s not even close to the one big case of alleged voter fraud in Georgia. 

You know: Where Trump calls on state officials to “find” 11,780 votes, just enough to “win.” 

In other words, if some Trump or Biden fan voted twice or even three times in 2020, and it can be proven, lock them up – but do the math. And if Crystal Mason is going to jail, maybe Donald should too.

___ 

 

11/5/22: Suppose you read a headline that says a shot was fired into the home of the grandparents of a politician in North Carolina. At the time, his children were sleeping inside. 

 

America is becoming a “free fire” zone. 

Do you need to know what party the politician represented before you condemn this attack? 

If you are a normal human being, you do not. 

You ruminate: 

1.     Shot fired into the grandparent’s home.

2.     That shot could have killed grandma, grandpa, or one of the kids. 

That’s all you need to know. You condemn the attack. You don’t delve into conspiracy theories. 

In this case, the shot was fired last month, into the home of the parents of Pat Harrigan, a Republican candidate for Congress. 

You condemn it and move to the next story. 

This is not hard.

 

* 

Too many guns in too many hands. 

Here’s a second test. The headline: “Oregon Mayor Faces Attempted Murder Charges after Alleged Road Rage Incident.” 

If the suspect did open fire – and police say he did – does party matter? Dowen Jones, the mayor of Rufus, Oregon is alleged to have fired several shots into an automobile carrying two adults and two children. 

Luckily, none of the occupants were struck, and the family managed to call in Jones’s vehicle make and license number. 

(Jones ran unopposed in his last election, and got 76 votes, with four others cast for write-in candidates.) 

Out of curiosity, I try to find out what party Jones belongs to – because right-wing pundits love to talk about crime in “Democrat-run cities.” One story notes that the children in the car he allegedly shot up were five and eight. The Hood River County Sheriff’s Office is investigating. 

No one from the City of Rufus seems to want to comment. 

I check voting. Hood River County went for Biden by a 2-1 margin in 2020. So could Jones be a Democrat? 

I can’t find out. So I decide to do some checking regarding crime, generally. Oregon has had significantly less violent crime than most states, every year, since 1985. (Figures for the link above end in 2018.) 

I keep checking. Oregon had 125 murders in 2020, and the murder rate in this country was up 30% over 2019. It was the largest annual percentage increase on record. In Trump’s final year in office, 21,570 murders were committed. 

So, I wonder. 

If a mayor is to blame for murders in a city, is a governor to blame for murders in a state? And is a president to blame for murders in a nation? I know, if Biden had seen the murder rate explode while he was in charge, that all the gun-toting Second Amendment absolutists would have blamed him. 

Oregon, with a Democratic governor running the show, had 2.9 murders per 100,000 people in 2020 – vs. a national rate of 6.5 per. 

Republicans love to blast liberal mayors for crime in cities because crime stories scare voters. Politicians will always scare voters if they think they can get more votes from those scared voters. 

(Think of what Republicans could do with a story about a mass shooting, if the shooter were transgender!!!) 

Or you might argue that the real issue is way too many guns in way too many hands – for example Mayor Jones’s. It appears he may have been drunk when he started blazing away. If you take the gun out of his hand – out of the daily American mix – less shooting!

 

* 

AND since our discussion is focused on “shots fired,” we can report yet another senseless killing. This time, possible shoplifting at a Giant store in Oxon Hill, Maryland is involved. A woman is stopped for stealing. 

She pulls a gun from her purse and shoots the male security guard – who returns fire – and both individuals are killed. 

Every year, Americans buy millions and millions of guns. So far, collectively, we all end up less safe. 

America is becoming what the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War would call a “free fire” zone. (See: 11/20/22, 11/22/22 and 11/26/22.) 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: When I check on 11/11/22, I learn that Mr. Harrigan went down to defeat in his race for office. 

But at least his children were safe.

___ 

 

11/6/22: Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband Paul is recovering, after being attacked by a man who broke into their California home and started hitting him in the head with a hammer. 

“Law and Order” Republicans have poured out sympathy – and called for the attacker to face the full force of law. 

Okay, no. (See: 11/7/22.) 

___ 

 

11/7/22: One day remaining to make up your mind. Who is it you will be voting for tomorrow? 

I know I won’t be voting for anyone recommended by Donald Trump, because I consider him to be a disgusting human being. At a rally in Ohio today he decided to pull out another in his bottomless bag of dehumanizing tricks. 

He started with a blast from the past, stirring up fear of immigrants again – and let rip on crime. His focus was on the notorious MS-13 gang, which got its start in Los Angeles among Salvadoreans who had come to the U.S. both legally and illegally. Noting the recent murder conviction of one of its leaders, he riled up the crowd, assuring them, “This was an animal.” Then a twisted thought formed in his twisted mind and spilled from his twisted lips. He brought up Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and sneered, “I think she’s an animal, too, to tell you the truth.”  

For good measure, he called her “Crazy Nancy.”  The crowd responded with laughter and howls. 

And – like father – like son. Don Jr. has spent his time in the days leading up to the midterms, posting a series of “humorous” videos and memes on Twitter (see below) in reaction to the hammer attack on Pelosi’s husband. Because what is not funny about an old man being struck in the head by a hammer-wielding attacker, having his skull fractured, and ending up in a hospital? 

Makes you laugh, right! 

Right-wing media jerks have tried to portray the attack as a hoax, because everything they don’t like or understand is a hoax. Or they imply that there was a hammer fight between Pelosi and the attacker, both men armed like jousting knights, and that both were in their underwear. 

Meaning: Paul Pelosi had been outed as gay! 

Last week, Don Jr. labeled this particular tweet (since deleted): “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.” 

 

Now, Don Jr. is focused on the voting. Ever classy, he suggests you should vote for Mehmet Oz for the seat in the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania. Oz’s opponent, John Fetterman, has “mush for brains.” This was Junior’s take on a candidate who suffered a near-fatal stroke just six months ago.

 

* 

A FOOL in Houston hurled two cans of hard seltzer at Sen. Ted Cruz during a victory parade for the World Series-winning Astros today. The hurler immediately admitted he was “an idiot,” and apologized. 

He’ll be charged with a misdemeanor or two, as he deserves. Any violence aimed at politicians should be condemned – or any violence aimed at anyone, of any race, religion, gender, etc., who might be an innocent victim. 

See, Don Jr., how easy this is? 

FUN FACT: If you’re still having trouble deciding who to vote for tomorrow, and you’re still laughing along with Don Jr., because you are devoid of empathy, maybe Russians can help you decide who you want to choose. 

As PBS explains, for some reason the man known as “Putin’s chef” has acknowledged that he and his friends did interfere in the 2016 election in this country. They’re still interfering in any way they can.

 

Kremlin-connected entrepreneur Yevgeny Prigozhin admitted Monday that he had interfered in U.S. elections and would continue to do so – confirming for the first time the accusations that he has rejected for years.

 

“We have interfered, are interfering and will continue to interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way,” Prigozhin said in remarks posted on social media.

 

As you may recall, this was exactly what the Mueller investigation discovered. That the Russians interfered, to help Trump win:

 

In 2018, Prigozhin and a dozen other Russian nationals and three Russian companies were charged in the U.S. with operating a covert social media campaign aimed at fomenting discord and dividing American public opinion ahead of the 2016 presidential election won by Republican Donald Trump. They were indicted as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference.

 

Prigozhin got his start operating a hotdog stand, caught Putin’s eye when both were young and rising to power. He went on to restaurant glory, and helped Vladimir rip off the Russian people for hundreds of billions of rubles. 

Now, when not busy interfering in U.S. elections, Prigozhin likes to visit local prisons and recruit inmates to put on Russian army uniforms, go to Ukraine, and rape and kill innocent people.

___ 

 

11/8/22 – ELECTION DAY: I’ll be honest. I expect Democrats to take a whipping, although I have hope. 

Turnout is huge. That almost always helps our side. 

Young people are voting in record numbers, too, and they tend to believe in climate change, unlike the Trump base. They’re definitely more accepting of gays, lesbians, and transgender peers than are folks in red MAGA hats. So you can’t scare them with lurid tales of strange people watching them pee. And abortion rights have been the norm in the world where they grew up. 

Still, I study the polls almost every day – and know that in national elections, the polls are rarely off by more than two or three percent. That’s why I was sure the Republicans would get smoked in the midterms in 2018 (they did), and positive, in 2020, that Donald Trump couldn’t win the popular vote – he didn’t – and almost sure he’d be sent packing (except he’d have a chance because of the way the Electoral College system works) – and, thankfully, he was. 

Still. It may be close. This morning experts at FiveThirtyEight have Republican candidates in key U.S. Senate races up with voters in Georgia (+1), Pennsylvania (+1), Wisconsin (+3), North Carolina (+4) and Ohio (+6). 

In the only other close Senate races, Democrats have slender leads in Arizona (+1) and New Hampshire (+2). 

If those polls prove correct, our side is going to lose control of the U.S. Senate, and the dumbest candidate for a seat in that august body in U.S. history, Herschel Walker, will represent Georgia, starting in January 2023. 

As for the U.S. House of Representatives, I don’t see how Democrats can avoid losing control. 

A little after 10 a.m. I drive up to the polling place, flash my photo I.D., sign the monitor, pick up my four-page ballot, and cast my votes. 

When I return home, I notice that the folks on Fox News are already celebrating the “red wave,” and the “red tsunami,” or, for variety, the “red hurricane” that they insist is about to hit. 

I spend most of the afternoon raking up giant piles of leaves. We have a lot of giant trees on our property, and they dump truckloads of leaves.

___ 

 

11/8-9/22 – ELECTION NIGHT – EXTENDED: Having nearly killed myself raking the yard, I finally cross my fingers and sit down to watch voting returns pour (or trickle) in. I want J.D. Vance to lose in Ohio, and Mehmet Oz to get rejected in Pennsylvania, and I can’t imagine people voting for Herschel Walker in Georgia – who announced recently, “I’m not that smart.” 

That’s kind of like the surgeon who’s about to perform heart surgery on your wife saying, “I’m not that good.” 

I also hope the biggest election deniers go down to defeat. I believe that people who lose elections and deny they did – and convince tens of millions of supporters they were cheated, and tell them that they can’t trust election results – unless their side wins – represent a real threat to democracy. 

Just like Joe Biden said. 

As polls close and results begin coming in it doesn’t take long. Ohio will be sending Mr. Vance to Washington to give more tax cuts to billionaires. Or so I suspect. If Rejected-President Trump is right, and J.D. is going to be willing to kiss his orange ass, I’ll be disgusted for sure. 

If Vance remembers his roots, growing up poor in Middletown, Ohio – and turns out to be a true voice devoted to helping the white working class, and all the other colors of working class folks, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. 

 

A really terrible night for at least one terrible man. 

The hours tick past. 8, 9, 10 p.m. In New Hampshire, Sen. Maggie Hassan scores an easy win, 53.4% to 44.6%, and holds onto a seat in the U.S. Senate that Republicans believed they had a real chance to take. Donald Bolduc, an election-denier endorsed by Donald J. Trump, slowly sinks below the not-very-red waves. 

As the results continue to come in, Donald Trump is growing restive. On Truth Social, he posts:

 

In at least one key race, where “the people will not stand for it,” it didn’t take days to find out who would win. The Democratic choice for governor in Pennsylvania routs Douglas Mastriano, another candidate endorsed by Mr. Trump. Trump assured voters that Mastriano was his boy, that there was “no one in Pennsylvania who has done more, or fought harder, for Election Integrity.” 

Which meant, if we put it plainly, that Mastriano had done his best to overturn the results of a fair election in 2020, which, as Attorney General Bill Barr has said, his old boss did in fact lose. 

Today, Josh Shapiro defeated Mastriano by fourteen points. 

I might be a liberal, but I love the constitution as much as, if not more than any self-proclaimed “patriot” in a MAGA-style cap. So I was happy to see two Georgia Republicans win reelection. Both Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had stood up against Trump when he tried to get them to say votes were stolen in 2020 in their state. 

With results finally rolling in, it became clear something unexpected was happening. Democrats were winning a good share of competitive races for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Trump-endorsed candidates for governorships were being destroyed. The Democratic candidate won in Maine by 12 points. 

In Maryland, the Republican candidate, Dan Cox, enthusiastically endorsed by Mr. Trump, lost by 23 points. 

It didn’t help when the outgoing governor, Larry Hogan, himself a Republican, refused to campaign with Cox, and called him a “whack job.” So another election-denier went down to defeat.

 

By midnight, it seemed likely that John Fetterman, the Democrat running for an open seat in the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, would knock out Mehmet Oz. 

And in Georgia, where Kemp (a man Trump had called on voters to defeat in the GOP primary) won by eight points, Herschel Walker, his fellow Republican, couldn’t get traction, and Senator Ralph Warnock edged him out. 

(Since neither candidate seemed likely to get over the 50% threshold, according to Georgia law, a run-off election on December 6 would be required.) 

In fact, as the hours passed – midnight – 1 a.m. – 2 a.m., and I finally tried to go to sleep – back up at 3 a.m. to check more results – I couldn’t help notice. It was a really terrible night for at least one terrible man. 

Donald J. Trump.

___

 

__________

 

   “I find the people strangely fantasized,

   Possessed with rumours, full of idle dreams,

   Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear.” 

William Shakespeare

__________ 

 

11/11/22: The “idle dreams” of Republicans of the red-hat-MAGA-variety have been cruelly dashed. 

The “red tsunami” they fantasized about crashing over Biden & Co. in the midterms, brought on by the gravitational pull of the Moon of Mar-a-Lago, came and went. Nary a sandcastle was disturbed. 

 

Across the country, sanity triumphed. 

In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (once labeled “Half Whitmer” by the Moon himself) cruised to a second term. She defeated Tudor Dixon, a Trump-anointed election denier, by 11 points. 

Other Moon-backed dopes went down with whimpers, and sighs, and moans. Democratic candidates for secretary of state in Michigan, Minnesota, and New Mexico faced Trump-backed deniers who dreamed of controlling the vote in future contests. (Motto: “Trump 2024 – This Time He Can’t Possibly Lose.”) None of Trump’s choices – because they were Trump choices – had a chance. In Michigan, Jocelyn Benson won a second term by 13 points. In Minnesota, Steve Simon won by 9. Maggie Toulouse Oliver thumped Trump’s pick in New Mexico, 54.4% to 42.8%. 

Oliver’s opponent, Audrey Trujillo, had parroted the Moon’s “stolen election” line during her campaign. “The core of a strong nation is free and fair elections, which we don’t have anymore – Republican or Democrat,” she warned. 

Like any denier, Trujillo made plain. She would not concede if she lost – unless in a landslide. 

“Definitely, if it’s a close race, we will definitely not concede and make sure we contest it,” she promised. “But if it’s a blowout, and [Oliver] totally wins then yes, definitely I would concede and respect that.” 

A blowout it was! 

In Nevada, there was good news for normal Republicans, with Joe Lombardo winning the governorship. 

Sadly, for Trump fans, during the campaign Lombardo was asked if he believed the Moon had been cheated out of a win two years ago. No, he said, adding that Trump’s rhetoric “bothers me.” 

(The blogger would concur.)

 

In Michigan and elsewhere, sanity triumphed. Normal Republicans, like Gov. Mike DeWine in Ohio and Gov. Chris Sununu in New Hampshire, cruised to victory. Neither had resorted to coining childish nicknames for their foes. In Maryland, Trump’s chosen candidate prevailed in the GOP primary, over a choice backed by popular outgoing Governor Larry Hogan. Dan Cox, Trump’s boy, was so extreme Democrats had spent good money to help him win the primary. Then in the general election they annihilated the chump. Cox lost by 23 points. 

Logan Patmon, 30, a Detroit voter, spoke for many sensible Americans, who cherish free elections – but never fell for Trump’s “bullshit.” Speaking to a reporter for The New York Times, he explained, “I don’t feel like you can have a democracy where it’s like, ‘Either I win or you cheated.’ Sometimes you win,” he continued, “sometimes you lose, but when people have that ‘Our winner was cheated,’ that’s like a developing, barely democratic country to me. I don’t like that.” 

Patmon was not alone. In Michigan, voters gave Democrats control of both houses of the state legislature for the first time in four decades. The winners plan to get right to work, protecting abortion rights. Their victory in that state was facilitated in large degree when an independent commission was created to untangle a system of gerrymandering that had been in place for forty years.

 

Voting districts were also changed under court order in New York, and Democrats lost several seats they had expected to hold. And I’m sorry. If you’re an American voter, and you don’t understand that gerrymandering always plays into the hands of politicians who love representing safe seats, just look at Ohio and Texas, where Republicans have elections all but locked up. 

So. Too bad, New York Democrats. Do a better job of running your state and country in the next two years. 

In Wisconsin, another election denier, Tim Michels, promised, if elected, that the GOP would never lose another election once he took charge. 

Wisconsin voters decided that sounded ominous and incumbent Gov. Tony Evers scored a 3 point win. 

And Michels did concede graciously, once he faced defeat. “Unfortunately, the math doesn’t add up,” he told a gathering of supporters on Election Night. “I just called Governor Evers, I wish the Evers family well.” He went on to say, “We love this state with all our hearts. I hope that some of the problems that were identified  will be taken very seriously by the Evers administration.” 

Normal. Another bit of hope. 

(Since Republican gerrymandering has allowed them to seize near-total control of the law-making duties in Wisconsin, Gov. Evers has had to wear out his veto pen, nixing 150 different bills during his first term in office.) 

 

“I had the privilege to concede this race.” 

I think one of my favorite moments may have come in the wake of a loss for our side. After Tim Ryan, who earned my vote for a seat in the U.S. Senate, was defeated, he stood up and swallowed his bitter pill like a man. He didn’t complain about “rigged” mail-in voting – which Ohio uses extensively whenever people vote. Said Ryan, with wife Andrea wiping away tears at his side: 

As someone who was the Democratic nominee, I had the privilege to concede this race to J.D. Vance. Because the way this country operates is that you lose an election, you concede. You respect the will of the people. We can’t have a system where if you win, it’s a legitimate election, and if you lose, someone stole it. That is not how we can move forward in the United States.

 

As for Republicans, generally, who had planned to celebrate the “red hurricane” smashup of Joe Biden and friends, they were left casting about for someone to blame. 

Rupert Murdoch, the Emperor of Fox News, finally had his fill of Donald J. Trump and the rope-a-dope losers the former president had backed for office. The New York Post, also owned by Emperor Rupert, ran this front page story the day after the election: 

In a similar vein, if you missed it – going on two years ago – Gov. DeWine had landed high on Trump’s Shit List after the January 6, 2021, attack in Washington D.C. As the Associated Press reported at the time, DeWine blamed the president for the violence. He said Trump “poured gas on the fire.” 

Unlike other cowards in the GOP, he never retracted his words. DeWine was clear – and correct:

 

The president’s continued refusal to accept the election results, without producing any credible evidence of a rigged election, “has started a fire that has threatened to burn down our democracy,” DeWine said.

 

“This incendiary speech yesterday, the one he gave preceding the march that he gave to the protesters, served only to fan those flames, encouraging the mob behavior that ensued.”

 

DeWine went on to label the actions of the Trump-loving rioters shameful. “All Americans must denounce them, even those Americans who feel, incorrectly, that Donald Trump won.” 

John Husted, Ohio’s Lieutenant Governor, who had served two terms as Ohio Secretary of State, expressed the same kind of disdain. In his previous office he had had oversight of state elections as one of his duties. “The presidential election of 2020 was not stolen,” he explained. 

 

FUN FACT: If you weren’t paying attention, after DeWine blamed Trump for the January 6 riot, the soon-to-be-ex-president hinted darkly that the governor needed to be “primaried” in 2022. 

Ohio voters paid no attention, either in the primary or the general election, and DeWine won a second term, prevailing by 26 points.

 

FUN FACT #2: Here in Ohio, my wife and I could have voted by mail. We’re retired and had all day, so we doddered off to the polls and did our civic duty. More than a million other Ohioans asked for mail-in ballots, and at least 850,000 turned them in. Another 550,000 voted in-person early. 

And this kind of system continues to work.

 

FUN FACT #3: If you listen to angry voices on the right, you will hear the howling about how elections should be settled and done on Election Night. 

When I check to finish this post, only 99% of votes in Ohio have been tallied – but it doesn’t make headlines because we don’t have any razor-close races that might affect control of state or federal government. 

Certainly, the “patriots” who cluster round Trump like flies on feces, must want to count military ballots that come from overseas? 

Our servicemen and women in foreign lands, and their spouses, and any adult children living abroad, always vote by mail.

 

FUN FACT #4: In 2015, and again in 2018, Ohio voters, by majorities of 70% or greater, passed measures, calling for creation of a bipartisan commission which would have the sole job of redistricting the state. Voters wanted new state legislative and congressional maps drawn, to curtail extreme gerrymandering – which in Ohio keeps Republicans locked in control. 

Republicans have blocked implementation of new maps drawn up by the commission, and have stalled change for…seven years. 

Because they’re in control. 

And, so far, they can.

 

FUN FACT #5: You probably missed it, but Gov. Sununu, who easily won a fourth term in New Hampshire on Tuesday, mocked Trump at the Gridiron Dinner this past April. 

“He’s f***ing crazy,” Sununu joked, adding that if Trump were ever committed to a mental institution, “he ain’t getting out.”

 

___

 

* 

On Veterans Day, Ambassador Cindy McCain posts this picture, in honor of those who serve this nation in uniform.

McCain men serve. Trump men don't.

___

 

11/12/22: The fat guy down at Mar-a-Lago isn’t taking the latest election news well, as one election denier after another goes down to ignominious defeat. And, when in doubt (that is: anytime the people you favor lose) don’t wait for proof of election fraud. Demand a new election! 

Trump thumps the denier drum on Truth Social: “Idiot, and possibly corrupt, officials have lost control of the tainted Election in Arizona,” he howls. Then he screams in an all-caps rant: “MACHINES BROKEN IN REPUBLICAN AREAS. A NEW ELECTION MUST BE CALLED FOR IMMEDIATELY.”

___ 

 

11/13/22: Imagine that you are a faithful MAGA Republican – and stand for family values, law and order, and election denial. 

 

“It takes courage to uphold the law.” 

When you hear former Vice President Mike Pence call former President Donald J. Trump’s actions leading up to and including the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill “reckless,” you must come to a decision. 

Pence goes on to tell ABC’s David Muir that Trump’s actions “endangered me and my family and everyone at the Capitol building.”  

“It angered me,” Pence explained during a recent interview, “but I turned to my daughter, who was standing nearby, and I said, ‘It doesn’t take courage to break the law. It takes courage to uphold the law.’” 

If you are one of the red-hatted faithful, you must choose one of the following: A 

A)    You start shouting about Hunter Biden’s laptop, until you forget about everything else, including the fact you had to pick up your child from daycare two hours ago.

B)     You decide the entire interview is “Fake News,” and David Muir is working for the Deep State, and probably a pedophile. 

C)    You tell your spouse that Mike Pence is a “traitor” and deserves to be sexually abused by a large transgender “woman.” 

D)   You turn to QAnon for solace, because QAnon is a perfectly trustworthy source of information, and decide Jews are responsible for everything bad that has occurred in America since at least 1787. 

E)     You face up to a hard reality. You finally admit to yourself, and tell friends, that Donald Trump has always been a threat to other Americans, including Mike Pence, Mrs. Pence, and their daughter. And you finally realize he’s a truly terrible human being. 

(Correct answer: E.)

___

FOR A DETAILED LOOK AT ELECTION RESULTS, CHECK THIS LINK.

 

11/16/22: Yesterday, we learned that the Orange Blimp of Mar-a-Lago is refusing to float away. Donald J. Trump announced – warned? – that he would run again in 2024, in hopes of becoming President of the United States again. 

 

“You act like a little elementary schoolchild.” 

What nearly every observer understood was that Donald knew he was going to badly need the presidential power to pardon himself. 

Sadly, one top aide from his first term in office will not be along for the funhouse mirror trip. 

As Ivanka explained today:

 

I love my father very much. This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics. While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena.

 

Nor was Ms. Trump the only supporter to decide to ditch the Blimp before it was too late. Mike Evans, a leading Evangelical, issued a warning to his flock. “Donald Trump can’t save America,” he said. “He can’t even save himself.” 

In fact, Pastor Evans sounded like a guy who had just figured out that his girlfriend was a lying, cheating grifter. “He used us to win the White House,” Evans told the Washington Post. “We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us. I cannot do that anymore.” 

(This blogger couldn’t do it anymore, starting with the down escalator ride in 2015.)

 

James Robison of Life Outreach International, a faith advisor to Rejected-President Trump, hasn’t closed the door to supporting him. But he’s frustrated. “If Mr. Trump can’t stop his little petty issues,” Robison wondered, how was he ever going to be able to deal with major issues? (Hint: He can’t. And he won’t.) He says he told Trump: “Sir, you act like a little elementary schoolchild, and you shoot yourself in the foot every morning you get up and open your mouth! The more you keep your mouth closed, the more successful you’re gonna be!” 

In the wake of GOP disappointment over a midterm “red wave” that barely left a puddle, Everett Piper, writing for the Washington Times, was equally blunt. “The take-home of this past week is simple: Donald Trump has to go,” he wrote. “If he’s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed.”

 

* 

ON THE SAME DAY that Attorney General Merrick Garland announced he was appointing a special counsel to lead two investigations of Donald J. Trump, Trump’s former Attorney General weighed in. Bill Barr said he believed DOJ was getting close to having enough evidence to indict his former master. 

He said he hoped an indictment wouldn’t be coming, because it would mark a “bad precedent.”

 

“Which I think they probably were.” 

Nevertheless, he added,

 

If the Department of Justice can show that these [documents seized in the raid at Mar-a-Lago] were indeed very sensitive documents, which I think they probably were, and also show that the president consciously was involved in misleading the department, deceiving the government, and playing games after he had received the subpoena for the documents, those are serious charges.

 

* 

IN THE FACE of disappointing midterm results, even Candice Owens (who  once called Trump the “savior of the world”) admitted that she had come to realize her savior was a rude asshole. After she did a story that then-President Trump didn’t like, she now says, he was mean to her. 

For the first time it made her question him as a person. 

(Clearly, Owens is a slow learner.)

 

Trump, she said, had talked about vaccine mandates, as if they were good. Owens loathed mandates, and said at the time that he was old and didn’t understand. And then he got mad. On her regular podcast this week, she explained, as if talking to the savior: “And you somehow transformed that into something I did wrong. That’s unacceptable. That is not being a leader, that is not owning things that you did wrong. … That’s not growing, that’s not developing.”

Owens, left, the dope, right.

She began to wonder if “he was becoming too angry.” In 2016, she said, Trump was “having fun, naming people, giving them fun names.” Even in 2020, you “could feel the energy. It was electric,” she said. Now, she says he’s in “an angry space,” and he’s having “a lot of ego.” Now, she worries he’s “holding on to this vengeful spirit.” Is “a paranoia setting in,” she wondered. 

(Dear Candice: There’s always “a lot of ego” with Donald.)

 

She thinks Donald can still win in 2024, but insists he needs to take a good look around at the people who are “inspiring the paranoia.” 

Finally, she said he needs to exercise “a tiny bit more humility.” “There’s still a period where he could transform,” she says at last, but the results of the midterm elections “show that we aren’t sure, that he’s not sure, so we aren’t sure [that he can]. And that’s all I have to say about that.” 

The blogger would like to have the final word. First, Trump can’t exercise humility because he’s a warped human being. 

Second, he’s always going to display a “vengeful spirit,” because that’s who he is. He’s an adept and practiced hater. 

Third, he has always been paranoid – but his fans didn’t notice as long as he won. Donald Trump suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder. My wife (who doesn’t even like politics) had that figured out back in early 2017. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Candice Owens isn’t the only voice on the right to express concern about the former president. Former U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan warns that any Republican “not named Trump” can defeat Biden in 2024. “With Trump we lose, with somebody else we’re going to win,” he says during an interview on Fox News. “We lost the House in ‘18. We lost the presidency and the Senate in ’20. We didn’t get the Senate [in the 2022 midterm elections], and we got a small majority in the House, largely because of Trump.” 

(Fox News, which has sucked up to Trump shamelessly for six-and-a-half years is clearly trying to figure out how to jettison his losing orange ass, without also jettisoning red-hat MAGA viewers.)

___ 

 

11/19/22: Saturday night, Larry Hogan spoke at the annual Republican Jewish Coalition dinner. With the orange bull in the china shop in mind, the former Maryland governor warned, “Excuses, lies and toxic politics will not win elections or restore America. Only real leadership will do that.”  

Hogan tells his audience the party should have witnessed a “huge red wave” in the midterms, but instead saw “barely a ripple.” Voters rewarded “commonsense conservatives,” he explained. “But, frankly, swing voters took a look at some of our less-than-stellar nominees and decided that it was just not what they were looking for.” 

Hogan did get a shot in at Democrats, but continued to stress his own party’s need to move on from Trump. “If you repeatedly lose to a really bad team, it’s time for new leadership,” he concluded. 

(Trump is the Zach Wilson of Republican quarterbacks.) 

 

“A three-time loser.” 

Big Money donors are also ditching the dope. Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, the second leading GOP donor in the midterms, says he’s backing Ron DeSantis from here on out. “I’d like to think that the Republican Party is ready to move on from somebody who has been for this party a three-time loser,” Griffin said. 

Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, announced Wednesday that he too would support a challenger to Trump in 2024. “America does better when its leaders are rooted in today and tomorrow, not today and yesterday,” he explained. “It is time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries.”  

Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the top donors to Donald’s 2016 campaign, are also washing their hands of The Donald. The ultra-right couple has told reporters they are done backing their old hero. 

And you know you’re in deep doodie when one of the leading sycophants in your own first term administration is ready to move on. “We were told we’d get tired of winning,” former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted on Friday. “But I’m tired of losing. And so are most Republicans.” 

Mike then gazed into the funhouse mirror and smiled at his own funhouse reflection. That’s the guy, right there, he said to himself. That’s the guy Republicans need. 

 

FUN FACT – UNLESS YOU’RE A TEACHER: The blogger, who spent 33 years teaching young adults (and loved it, and loved them) stumbled across another recent story about Pompeo. It turns out Mike, who met all kinds of heinous individuals (such as Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin, and Donald J. Trump) during his time as head of the State Department finally pinned down the identity of the worst person he ever encountered. 

It turns out, at fat cat banquets, he likes to tell the following story:

 

I tell the story often – I get asked, “Who’s the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Chairman Kim [Jong-Un], is it Xi Jinping?”

 

The most dangerous person in the world is [American Federation of Teachers president] Randi Weingarten. It’s not a close call. If you ask, “Who’s the most likely to take this republic down?” It would be the teachers’ unions, and the filth that they’re teaching our kids, and the fact that they don’t know math and reading or writing.

 

These are the things that candidates should speak to in a way that says, “Here’s the problem. Here’s a proposal for how to solve it. And if given the opportunity, these are the things I will go work on to try and deliver that outcome that fixes that problem.”

 

FUN FACT – UNLESS  YOU’RE A NORTH KOREAN: Premier Kim – who rules without challenge – as did his father and grandfather before him, in what has now become a 75-year-dynasty – was estimated in 2017 to have between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners locked up in labor camps. The prison population would have been much higher, save for the fact that summary executions and starvation tended to thin out the ranks of Kim’s incarcerated opponents.

FUN FACT #3: Pompeo is an ass. And just about every person in North Korea could explain why.

___ 

 

11/20/22: Americans keep buying more and more guns to make themselves safer. And, in the very definition of insanity, it still keeps not working. So, today, we fill in the blanks. Again. 

We’ll fill them in again soon – and unless the power of the Second Amendment absolutists can be broken – until the Second Coming of Jesus, and probably beyond. (Even Jesus will probably need to carry a gun.) 

Late last night there was another mass shooting in 1. ____. 2.____ people were killed, and 3. ____ injured or wounded. The attacker/s was/were 4. ____. The killer’s motive is/was 5. ____.

 

1.     LGBTQ bar. Colorado Springs, Colorado

2.     Five

3.     Eighteen

4.     Injured and taken into custody

5.     Is unknown 

 

Five human beings are dead this Sunday morning and lawmakers have no idea what to do, except (if Republican) to keep taking lobbyist cash from the N.R.A. and the Big Gun manufacturers. 

In 2021, Americans bought an estimated 19.9 million pistols, shotguns, and rifles. This did not top the record, set in 2020, when 22.8 million guns were sold in this country. Still, it was the second “busiest” year for gun stores, etc. The pre-pandemic record, set in 2016, was 16.7 million sales. (See: 11/22/22.)

___ 

 

11/21/22: In a New York Post op-ed today former Attorney General Bill Barr warned fellow Republicans there was a lunatic on the loose. 

 

“He will burn the whole house down.” 

Namely, Donald J. Trump.

 

Unless the rest of the party goes along with him, he will burn the whole house down by leading “his people” out of the GOP. …Trump’s willingness to destroy the party if he does not get his way is not based on principle, but on his own supreme narcissism. His egoism makes him unable to think of a political party as anything but an extension of himself — a cult of personality.

 

Or, as we have been saying for years, “No, duh.” The guy is the very picture of a person suffering from a Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

___ 

 

11/22/22: Americans keep buying more and more guns to make themselves safer. And it just keeps not working. 

So, today, we fill in the blanks. Again. (See: 11/20/22.) 

Tonight, there was another mass shooting in 1. ____. 2.____ people were killed, and 3. ____ injured or wounded. The attacker/s was/were 4. ____. The killer’s motive is/was 5. ____.

 

1.     Walmart, Chesapeake, Virginia

2.     Six

3.     Six

4.     Found dead, of a self-inflicted wound, at the scene

5.     Angry with co-workers

 

*

 

SINCE our topic today is “dangerous people with guns,” let’s not forget to mention Herschel Walker – who really wants to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. On Fox News today, he talked about why it was so important he be elected. “This election is about more than Herschel Walker,” he assured his hosts, and the portion of the American people dumb enough to watch Fox News. 

“This erection is about the people.” 

Yeah. That’s what he said. And his host and the host’s other guests didn’t even bat an eye. Because: This was Herschel Walker. 

The guy doesn’t even support his own children. (See: 11/24/22.)

 

* 

IN OTHER NEWS, Governor Ron DeSantis, the new darling on the right, went fishing this summer for voter fraud tarpon. So far, all he’s brought home in his boat is kelp snagged by his anchor. 

DeSantis did boast initially, telling reporters that his crack Election Integrity Unit had netted twenty big fish. In reality, the only fraud the Unit had uncovered involved felons who had supposedly voted illegally – most of whom erroneously believed that new Florida law allowed them to vote. In fact, Florida officials issued voter IDs to several of the “fraudsters.” So you can understand their confusion. Charges were promptly dropped against one victim of the fishing charade. 

Today, charges against Tony Patterson, 44, were also dropped. Expect to see even more charges dropped in weeks to come.

___ 

 

11/23/22: Some poor dope is having a hard time today, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that said dope must hand over his tax records as part of a congressional investigation. 

That poor dope? 

It’s Donald J. Trump! The former president responded to the news, as always, by attacking the people who failed to do his bidding – this time including three members of the court that he picked himself. 

“Why would anybody be surprised that the Supreme Court has ruled against me,” he whined on Truth Social, “they always do! It is unprecedented to be handing over Tax Returns, & it creates terrible precedent for future Presidents. Has Joe Biden paid taxes on all of the money he made illegally from Hunter & beyond.” 

We don’t know about Joe Biden or Hunter Biden – although Joe did release his taxes when he ran for office. 

Still, if someone has evidence against them let them take it to court.

 

As of right now, we do know Trump claimed losses on his federal income tax forms for ten years in a row (2009-2018). 

Recent court testimony supports earlier reporting by The New York Times, which indicated that in 2016, during his first run for president, Donald paid a whopping $750 in federal income taxes. 

Then, during his first year in the White House he paid $750 again – barely enough to keep the lavatory off the Oval Office supplied with toilet paper.

___ 

 

11/24/22: Herschel Walker – who really, really wants to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Georgia is in the news again. 

Which means the poor oaf has stepped on his wiener once more. Safe to say, his latest blunder will not advance his chances of winning the coming “erection” (see: 11/22/22). It turns out Mr. Walker has been claiming a tax break on his “primary residence” in… um… Texas. Since Walker can’t even locate all of his children, it should not surprise us to learn that he can’t remember which state he lives in. 

So, if Herschel can triumph in the December 6 runoff election, we might argue that Texas will have three U.S. senators. 

And Georgia will be reduced to one.

 

* 

SPEAKING OF ERECTIONS – Donald Trump may be having trouble raising a boner, after his nemesis, Sen. Lisa Murkowski from Alaska deflated his “red wave” party balloons, and won another six-year term. She defeated the former president’s hand-picked candidate, Kelly Tshibaka. 

(Trump had promised to go to the ends of the earth to ensure Murkowski’s defeat, after she voted to impeach his ass in 2021.) 

Naturally, Tshibaka went on to declare her defeat the result of election “shenanigans,” such as more people preferring Murkowski over her. 

For even more fun, Sarah “Momma Bear” Palin was sent back to hibernation by Alaska voters, despite Trump’s can’t-miss endorsement. Palin will not be heading to D.C. to represent the state in Congress, and shout, “Drill, baby, drill,” at random passers-by on the capital’s streets. 

In a hotter corner of America, defeated Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (also a big fan of Trump, and he of her) has commenced wailing about how she was robbed (by a majority of voters) who elected her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs. Lake has refused to concede – and never will – warning that she’s going to take everyone who voted against her to court. 

Alas, outgoing Governor Doug Ducey, also a Republican, brushed off Lake’s claims of election-time cheating, and congratulated Ms. Hobbs on her win. Ducey met with Hobbs on Wednesday and offered full support during the transition from one administration to another.

Trump and Lake - the win every election! Or claim they do.

___ 

 

11/25/22: Donald Trump confirmed Friday, that he had dined with white supremacist Nicholas Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday. Then he tried to claim he had no idea who Fuentes was. 

According to Mr. Trump, Fuentes was just some “friend” of Ye (formerly known as Kanye West), who brought the guest along, a guest, insisted the host, “whom I knew nothing about.” 

 

“One of the greatest Americans that has ever lived.” 

If this blogger was a Trump aide – a horrible thought – he might have helped him out – because he has long known who Fuentes is. But the question would have been: Did the former president really want help? 

To begin with, no decent candidate for president – which Trump has now said he once again is – should have broken bread with Ye. Ye has made a name of late, not for music, but for antisemitism. 

As for Fuentes, he’s a Holocaust denier, and worse. According to Forward, a Jewish newspaper,

 

On his show, Fuentes espouses a wide range of extreme views including opposing women’s voting rights and LGBTQ rights at large, as well as arguing that the First Amendment right to free speech does not apply to Muslims. He also identifies himself as a “proud incel” — short for “involuntarily celibate,” a subculture dominated by extreme misogyny and violence – and urges his followers to abstain from sex, saying “dating women is gay, having sex with women is gay. And having sex with men is gay,” adding, that “having sex in itself is gay, I think.”

 

If you’re thinking to yourself: Yeah, I can see why this guy is having trouble finding a girlfriend, you’re not alone. 

The Forward continues.

 

Fuentes attended the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville [in 2017], where marchers chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” He also spoke at the Capitol on Jan. 6, urging followers to “take this country back by force if necessary.”

 

His antisemitic statements and beliefs are so extensive they are hard to list comprehensively. He has denied the Holocaust, comparing dead Jews to making cookies. He derogatorily referred to Daily Wire columnist Matt Walsh as a “shabbos goy race traitor” because he works for conservative talking head Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish. In his keynote speech for AFPAC in 2022, talking about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he quipped, “They compare Putin to Hitler like it’s a bad thing.”

 

Fuentes has repeatedly endorsed the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which alleges that Jews and other minorities are attempting to wipe out white culture.

 

(This blogger only wonders why Ye failed to bring Kyrie Irving along to share in all the Mar-a-Lago delights.)

 

* 

TRUMP TRIED a second line of excuses when critics torched his first. Sure, he dined with Fuentes and Ye. “We got along great,” Trump said. Ye “expressed no anti-Semitism, & I appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on ‘Tucker Carlson.’ Why wouldn’t I agree to meet?” (See: 2/27/22 and 3/7/22 for more information on who Nicholas Fuentes really, really is.) 

If the former president was hoping to dig himself out the deep hole he dug for himself and then pitched headfirst into, Fuentes’ post-dinner comments weren’t at all helpful. On his podcast, Fuentes told fans (yes, he has plenty of fans) that he told Trump at dinner: “Mr. President, you are one of the greatest Americans that has ever lived ... I love you. I supported you all these years.”

 

Trump “really has been a hero of mine,” Fuentes added. But he also indicated Trump – whom he referred to as a “moderate” – has to step it up if he has any hope of winning the presidency in 2024.

 

The fourth member of the dinner party, Karen Giorno – a veteran political operative who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign – confirmed to Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post that Trump “was impressed with Nick and his knowledge of Trump World.” But the president didn’t “initially seem to know” who he was, Giorno said.

 

So, let that sink in. A white supremacist believes Trump is one of the greatest Americans that ever lived. 

He loves Trump. 

A political operative who worked on Trump’s first campaign did know who Ye and Nick were and still thought they’d be welcome at Mar-a-Lago. And Trump was impressed with Nick and “his knowledge of Trump World.” 

That’s the problem. Fuentes is a white supremacist, but he understands the dark underbelly of Trump World. 

That’s where Fuentes, and some depressing portion of the Trump find real comfort. They listened to what the president said, and what the former president still says. And they find comfort. Validation, even. This dinner wasn’t an aberration. There’s a through-line from Trump’s birther lies, to his attacks on Mexican immigrants, to his attacks on Muslims, to his attacks on countless individual Americans, with his attacks on a free press added to the toxic mix, right up to the moment when he and Nick and Ye sat down for a little dinnertime conversation. 

After more than a decade spent observing Mr. Trump, and parsing his words and analyzing his actions, this blogger still isn’t sure Trump is a racist. What is certain, however, is that hatred courses through the man’s veins. Hatred of others, for Trump, is his magic elixir. And he thrives by fostering all kinds of hate in others. He’s happy to spread hate so long as it serves his purposes. 

Is he a racist? His hatred is so broad-based, it’s hard to be sure. 

Is Trump a horrible human being? 

He assuredly is.

___

 

11/26/22: Let’s catch up today on a few more of the recent mass shootings in America. Again, this is the country where more guns supposedly make us more and more safe! So we’ll just fill in the blanks. 

In Texas,  on Thanksgiving, a man entered the home of his ex-wife and opened fire on a group gathered for dinner. This mass shooting event took place in 1. ____. 2.____ people were killed, and 3. ____ injured or wounded. The attacker/s was/were 4. ____. The killer’s motive is/was 5. ____.

1.     A suburb of Houston

2.     Two

3.     Two, one critically

4.     Identified as the ex-husband

5.     Anger at his ex, and possibly her new boyfriend, who may be one of those killed or critically wounded.

 

* 

THIS IS NOT to be confused with the shootout at a party in Nebraska. This took place in 1. ____. 2.____ person/people were killed, and 3. ____ injured or wounded. The attacker/s was/were 4. ____. The motive is/was 5. ____.

1.     Omaha

2.     One

3.     Seven

4.     Identified, initially, as two people attending the party

5.     Alcohol, drugs, easy access to guns, generalized stupidity?

 

*

 

WE SHOULD ALSO INCLUDE the “execution style” murder of four last Sunday. This mass shooting took place in 1. ____. 2.____ people were killed, and 3. ____ injured or wounded. The attacker/s was/were 4. ____. The motive is/was 5. ____.

1.     Hennessey, Oklahoma, at a legal marijuana growing facility

2.     Four

3.     One, critically

4.     A Chinese national

5.     Possibly business-related

 

*

 

SO MUCH BLOODSHED, so little reason – save for easy access to guns by people who shouldn’t even have them or aren’t thinking clearly. If you’re not safe eating Thanksgiving dinner, or partying in Omaha,  you’re not safe riding a bus back from a field trip organized by the University of Virginia. This mass shooting took place in 1. ____. 2.____ people were killed, and 3. ____ injured or wounded. The attacker/s was/were 4. ____. The motive is/was 5. ____.

1.     Charlottesville, Virginia

2.     Three

3.     Two

4.     A UVA student, now in custody

5.     Unclear

 

We just keep filling in the bloody blanks, story, after story, after story. So, if you’re eating Christmas dinner with loved ones – or walking the dog – or maybe sitting on the toilet at this point – always keep one gun (or more) handy.

___ 

 

11/27/22: If you missed the story, Sam Bankman-Fried, head of a collapsed cryptocurrency operation, FTX US, donated a cool $1 million to a super PAC linked to Sen. Mitch McConnell just before the collapse. 

And if you missed that story, you probably missed this: When FTX US collapsed, clients lost at least $1 billion. 

And if you missed both stories, you surely missed this: Bankman-Fried was the second leading donor to Democratic campaigns during the midterm cycle. In 2022, he funneled at least $37 million to Team Blue. 

Now, if you’re missing all of those, you need to pay close attention. Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Citizens United, that donating money to politicians and political causes is a form of “free speech,” the floodgates have been blasted off their hinges. Now Big Money drowns the rest of us out. 

(I should note that that decision in Citizens United went 5-4, in favor of the people with all the dough, with the five conservative justices all voting yes, and the four liberal justices all voting no.)

___

 

11/28/22: You might think a person who had run for office twice, and planned to run again 2024, might understand how election actually work. 

But if that person is Donald J. Trump, you’d be wrong. 

When the last votes were tallied in Arizona, and the smoke cleared, his preferred candidate for governor, Kari Lake, came up short. 

Katie Hobbs, the Democrat piled up 1,287,890 votes. 

Lake, the Trumplican, came in close, with 1,270,774 votes. 

Since Hobbs got the most votes, she wins. And since the margin was .6 of a percent, her win is outside the margin in Arizona to trigger an automatic recount.

 

Donald, of course, has his own ideas about how to determine who won. That is, to whine, because his candidate lost. “Massive numbers of ‘BROKEN’ voting machines in Republican Districts on Election Day,” he writes on Truth Social – although he presents no evidence to back his claims. “Mechanics sent in to ‘FIX’ them made them worse. Kari had to be taken to a Democrat area, which was working perfectly, to vote,” he claims. “Kari Lake should be installed Governor of Arizona.” 

Yeah, who cares if Lake lost by 17,116 votes. 

In Don’s book, it’s as good as a win!