April 1, 2022: Did you miss the thrilling news that Rejected-President Trump has carded a hole-in-one? If you were busy agonizing over the slaughter in Ukraine, Donald wanted you to know. He drilled the perfect shot!
(His pal Vlad was spending his day ordering Ukrainians shot in the back of their heads.)
Meanwhile, Republicans of varying shapes and sizes, but each and all of them morons, wanted us to know that they were holding back the tides of transgender folk who want to “destroy” America.
In fact, one astute Florida lawmaker wanted us to know he’s not a porcupine!
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First, Trump.
With Russian forces battering Ukraine, with thousands dead and dying, and millions in flight, you just knew Donald would have his priorities straight. He took time to issue a formal statement, announcing that he had sunk a hole-in-one at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Why he felt the need to brag (and claim he wasn’t) is for the professional psychologists to ponder.
Trump went into detail, explaining he hit the ball “magnificently into a rather strong wind, with approximately 5 feet of cut, whereupon it bounced twice and then went clank, into the hole.”
He added, in all his magnificence, that he wouldn’t reveal who won the game with three pros in his foursome, “because I am a very modest individual, and you will then say I was bragging ― and I don’t like people who brag!”
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Ukrainian children in a bomb shelter. Trump got a hole-in-one. So he doesn't care. |
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4/1/22: The U.S. House of Representatives passes a bill to cap the cost of insulin at $35 per month. An estimated 1.9 million type-1 diabetics in this country must have insulin daily to survive, but costs increases have far surpassed inflation in the last twenty years.
The vote is 232 in favor, 193 against.
Every “no” vote is a Republican member of Congress.
Rep. Matt Gaetz suggests that diabetics should “lose weight” rather than ask Congress to cap insulin costs.
He is too dumb to realize that type-1 diabetics can’t “lose weight” and solve their problem. No matter what they do, they will require daily injections of insulin for the rest of their lives.
Gaetz is apparently thinking of the 37 million Americans who suffer from type-2 diabetes. True, if they lost weight, most would need less insulin.
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The blogger's daughter, Emily, is a type-1 diabetic. She's needed insulin to live for more than 17 years. (With one of her twins.) |
That doesn’t mean Big Pharma should be able to charge a fortune for insulin, which has been around for almost a century. Estimates vary slightly, but a 20-millileter bottle of insulin which cost $234 in 2012, was selling for $450 in 2016. Another type of insulin went for $20 in 1996, rising to $275 in 2019.
Price gouging is the rage.
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Speaking of rip-offs, we learn today that Brian Kolfage, a badly-wounded Iraq War veteran, may reach a plea deal soon. Kolfage, who lost both legs and much of his right arm in a rocket attack in 2004, has been indicted for fraud in the “We Build the Wall” scampaign. Poor dopes were convinced to donate to build the famed Trump Border Wall. Then, prosecutors allege, Kolfage and others, diverted a hefty chunk of change from donations into the “We Build Our Personal Bank Accounts” campaign. (At least they never claimed Mexico would pay.)
Who else was involved? Steve Bannon. Bannon is not standing trial. He got a pardon from Donald J. Trump.
Two other defendants in the case, Timothy Shea, and Andy Badolato, are also said to be close to plea deals.
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Since the topic is “April Fools,” you might enjoy listening to the Trump fan who says Space Force is going to overturn the 2020 election. Her 89-second-long spiel will help you understand how hopeless it can be trying to dent the thinking of the dopes who still love Donald J. Trump.
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4/2/22: After a two-year hiatus, due to COVID-19, the Gridiron Dinner was back on Saturday, April 2. The Republican speaker for the evening was New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu. According to Microsoft News, he offered this take on the former President of the United States.
“He’s f---ing crazy,” Sununu said to laughter and applause — and, notably, no booing.
“I don’t think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution,” he added. “But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out.”
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If Robert Foster (see: April 1, 2022) sounds like a blood-thirsty psychopath, he still sounds smarter than GOP lawmaker Bruce Bostelman of Nebraska. Rep. Bostelman heard recently that schools in his state were putting litter boxes in bathrooms. The better, he said, to provide for children who identified as “animals.”
The Daily Beast perfectly captures the idiocy that passes for “culture war” concern in today’s right-wing world:
“They meow and they bark and they interact with their teachers in this fashion,” Bostelman said during the debate, over a bill meant to provide help to students with behavioral problems. “How can schools allow this to happen?”
His comments quickly drew scathing derision on social media, as well as emphatic denials from Nebraska school officials, who called such remarks “ridiculous” and “ugly.”
Hours later, Bostelman said that he had looked into the matter, and confirmed that the debunked story was in fact untrue. “It was just something I felt that if this really was happening,” he said, according to the Associated Press, “we needed to address it and address it quickly.”
Or address it never, since the problem was a figment of twisted, paranoid right-wing imagination.
(You can listen to Bostelman express his righteous, albeit ill-informed indignation by clicking this link.)
Bostelman may be completely clueless when it comes to litter boxes in the schools, but at least he knows he’s not a porcupine.
For more reading on this complex and painful issue, go to the website for the American Urological Association.
You’ll come away chastened if you have a soul.
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4/3/22: Herschel Walker, former NFL star, and Trump-anointed candidate in the race for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia, has been telling everyone an inspiring story for years. A poor boy, with a stutter, rises above his problems. Studies hard. Ends up valedictorian at his high school. Goes on to gridiron fame at the University of Georgia. Studies hard. Finishes in the top 1% of his class.
Now problems arise. First, there is no evidence he was ever valedictorian of his high school class. Second, he said in a 1982 story that he maintained a “B” average at the University of Georgia. Not quite “top 1%.” Then, in a story in 1985, he said he maintained a “B” average “before his grades dropped.”
Even less of a “top 1%” kind of performance. Also: Mr. Walker did not, technically, graduate from college at all.
As a “family values” kind of Republican, of course, we can be sure Mr. Walker, like Mr. Trump, has always taken his responsibilities as a husband seriously…
Ah, ha, ha, ha. I jest. Trump has been a serial cheater. Now that Walker is a candidate for high office, his past is open to renewed scrutiny. The Associated Press decided to take a detailed look. For starters, he has admitted that he has long suffered from mental illness, and had to deal with at least a “dozen” different personalities before he got professional help in 2001. It doesn’t help, either, to know that Walker currently resides in…Texas…and would have to move back to Georgia to run.
Then, you have the O.J. Simpson kind of vibe. As the Associated Press explains:
Four years later, in December 2005, Cindy Grossman, Walker’s ex-wife, secured a protective order against him, alleging violent and controlling behavior.
Grossman has said she was long a victim of Walker’s impulses. When his book was released, she told ABC News that at one point during their marriage, her husband pointed a pistol at her head and said, “I’m going to blow your f’ing brains out.” She filed for divorce in 2001, citing “physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior.”
In seeking protection from a judge in Dallas County, Grossman filed an affidavit from her sister, which described Walker as unwilling to accept that his former wife had begun dating another man.
Grossman told the court she got calls during that period from her sister and father, both of whom had been contacted by Walker. He told family members that he would kill her and her new boyfriend, according to Maria Tsettos, Cindy Grossman’s sister.
In an affidavit, Tsettos claimed Walker once called looking for his ex-wife while she was out with her boyfriend. Tsettos took the call and said Walker became “very threatening” when told of Grossman’s whereabouts. In Tsettos’ recollection, Walker “stated unequivocally that he was going to shoot my sister Cindy and her boyfriend in the head.”
On another occasion, Tsettos said she talked to Walker “at length” after he’d reached out to her online. He “expressed to me that he was frustrated with (Cindy) and that he felt like he had ‘had enough’ and that he wanted to ‘blow their f------ heads off,’” she recalled of the Dec. 9, 2005, exchange.
Two days later he called again and told Tsettos that he possessed a gun and planned that day to act on his threats, which he repeated in graphic language, she said.
Later that day, Walker confronted his ex-wife outside a mall when she was picking up their son from a party, according to her petition for a protective order.
In her account, she said Walker “slowly drove by in his vehicle, pointed his finger at (her) and traced (her) with his finger as he drove.”
When officers in Irving, Texas, contacted Walker, he denied that he’d made the threats, according to a police report the AP obtained through a public records request. But the sister’s account was concerning enough to police that they took for “safe keeping” a gun Walker had on the floor of his car, the report states.
A judge agreed, finding “good cause” to issue a protective order. He also barred Walker from possessing guns for a period of time.
Sympathy to anyone with mental disorders – and great sympathy to Walker’s ex-wife and child.
Sadly, Trump’s favorite candidate has continued to make claims that the A.P. found were untrue. Walker said he was a huge success in the chicken business. Said he employed “hundreds.” The correct number seems to be “eight” employees. Said he owned a chicken processing plant. He doesn’t own any. Most recently, Walker and another business partner have been sued by a Texas bank over an unpaid $200,000 debt related to their attempt to start a pizza parlor.
In other words: Trump’s kind of guy. (See: 6/16/22)
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4/6/22. A Russian oligarch under U.S. sanction since 2014, when Crimea was invaded was indicted today. Konstantin Malofeyev, 47, “remains at large and is believed to be in Russia. He’s beyond the reach of law – but not his money.
The Justice Department has seized a $10 million investment he made in a U.S. bank and tried to transfer to Greece. Malofeyev is also accused of hiring an American citizen, Jack Hanick, to help him operate TV networks in Russia and Greece.
What makes this story a bit more interesting is that Hanick used to be a news director at Fox News. He was arrested in March, himself, and charged with ignoring sanctions and lying to the F.B.I. He could face up to twenty-five years in prison.
Rolling Stone places him in context, to start their story:
On election night 2016…Hanick was in Moscow – attending a pro-GOP party, where the organizers unveiled a larger-than-life portrait of Donald Trump, with a piercing blue-eyed gaze, painted on a stark black canvas.
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Weirdly cult-like. |
Hanick sat for a video interview at that party, facing the heroic visage of the soon-to-be 45th president – a man who cheated on his third wife with an adult-film star. Hanick used his camera time to criticize an American candidate he insisted had betrayed traditional values: Hillary Clinton.
“Even though Clinton professes to be a Christian,” he said, “all of her policies are actually moving away from those positions.”
The United States was “losing its moral core and fiber,” Hanick continued. By contrast, he praised the moral awakening in the land led by Vladimir Putin. “Russia has been embracing Orthodox Christianity. This has been a major change. Russia is moving toward Christianity; America is moving away from Christianity.”
In other words, Hanick in Russia, sounded exactly like Fox News, where he had worked for fifteen years, covering the 2016 election.
And Putin?
Yeah. The man is the epitome of Christian values.
POSTSCRIPT: It can be hard to keep track of all the Russian oligarchs – so don’t mix up Malofeyev with Viktor Vekselberg.
Vekselberg is the oligarch who used to hire former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to clean up all his dirty laundry. Two days ago, U.S. authorities in Spain managed to seize his yacht – also as part of sanctions – this time related to the more recent invasion of Ukraine. The Tango is a humble vessel, as Russian oligarch’s yachts go, a mere 255 feet long, worth an estimated $90 million.
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4/7/22: For the second year in a row, life expectancy dropped in the U.S. in 2021, to 76.60 years, from 76.99 in 2020.
Overall, life expectancy during the pandemic had now declined by an average of 2.26 years for every American.
Yeah.
It was never “just a flu.”
BLOGGER’S NOTE: A check of CDC records shows that while vaccines have greatly reduced the death toll, the number continues to rise. Since the last week of April, the daily toll from COVID 19 has hovered somewhere above 325 deaths per day, dipping briefly into the high 200’s, and rising again to a seven-day average of 357 per day on July 28.
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4/8/22: Of course they did. Of course they did. President Trump and his minions failed to provide the State Department with a list of gifts they received from foreign governments. As required by law.
To guard against bribery, the president, vice president, and other top officials are required to report any gifts with a value of more than $415. So, if the president of Brazil gave you a yo-yo, you need not report. If the military leaders of Myanmar gave you a Rolls Royce, however. Yes. You must report.
“It’s flagrant and it looks terrible,” said Richard W. Painter, the former top ethics lawyer for George W. Bush’s administration. “Either it was really stupid or really corrupt.”
According to The New York Times, the Department of State “said that its Office of the Chief of Protocol, which was run by a Trump appointee until Jan. 20, 2021, had failed before Mr. Trump left office to ask the White House for a list of the gifts it received, and that Mr. Trump’s White House left office without providing one.”
As for Mr. Trump, he was no doubt too busy planning for the January 6 insurrection to think about gifts.
POSTSCRIPT: The Inspector General for the State Department reported last November that tens of thousands of dollars in gifts given to Trump administration officials were missing. For example: a 30-year-old Suntory Hibiki bottle of Japanese whiskey given to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, worth $5,800.
One suspects, that went down Secretary Pompeo’s gullet.
Also: a 22-karat-gold commemorative coin valued at $560 given to another State Department official.
And, despite the fact the G-7 meeting in 2020 was canceled, gifts intended for the leaders of the other countries, including “monogrammed commemorative pewter trays, marble trinket boxes and leather portfolios” had all disappeared.
Leaving taxpayers with nothing but fond memories.
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4/10/22: Did someone say “campaign finance violations” and add “Trump” in the same sentence?
Yes, we did. The Federal Elections Commission has fined Canadian billionaire Barry Zekelman $975,000 for illegal donations, totaling $1.75 million to America First Action, a pro-Trump political action committee. America First must either refund the money, or hand it over to the U.S. Treasury.
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4/12/22: In case you might miss this story, we should report that Trumplicans in Arizona are rejoicing at recent news. Voter fraud in that state has finally been discovered.
Strike up the marching band. Schedule the real presidential inauguration. Maybe arrest the lovely poet, Amanda Gorman, who spoke at Joe Biden’s “Fake News,” pedophile-themed swearing-in ceremony.
Donald J. Trump is still the 45th president…because, according to Arizona Trumplicans, there was “widespread FRAUD in the Maricopa County 2020 election.” (Maricopa includes Phoenix, and is where more than 60% of Arizona voters reside.)
As the Arizona Republican reported: “State GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward was practically orgasmic” over a report released by the Arizona attorney general’s office.
In a tweet, she predicted, “Perp walks & prosecutions on the way! #ElectionIntegrity.”
The folks who work for the free press were kind enough to provide a link for anyone who wanted to READ about the “widespread FRAUD,” and see how wide and tall and fat it really was.
I’m a former history teacher. As I often say, I like facts. So I decide to dive into the report from the office of Attorney General Mark Brnovich. I notice right away that he reports his investigators have “collectively spent thousands of hours” digging into the muck of the Maricopa County election. Taxpayers, then, have been paying a good deal of money for this effort.
But there’s that “widespread FRAUD!!!”
If it’s uncovered, this could mean DONALD J. TRUMP will soon be RE-SEATED in the OVAL OFFICE.
And he can go GOLFING every third day as PRESIDENT again!!! (I am CAPITALIZING, like the excited REPUBLICANS who got their mitts on this story. HOLY SHIT! This is so THRILLING!)
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WELL, to be honest, I kind of start skimming the document (twelve pages is a lot to read, more than Rejected-President Trump will finish – and clearly more than GOP Chairwoman Ward could be bothered to complete.) Still, I like facts. I get interested and decide to go back and read everything. And what I learn is that there was a great deal of paperwork involved in conducting the 2020 election and then as part of this investigation. And sometimes the paperwork wasn’t filled out perfectly, and that means there might have been serious fraud problems.
We learn, for example, that on November 4, 2020,
the Maricopa County recorder verified 206,648 early ballot affidavit signatures, which resulted in an average of 4.6 seconds per signature. There are simply too many early ballots that must be verified in too limited a period of time, thus leaving the system vulnerable to error, fraud and oversight.
Also, when challenged on the validity of their election results, those rat bastards in Maricopa County – who were Republicans – “chose a combative and/or litigious approach” and they were MEAN and didn’t give investigators all the paperwork they needed to PROVE “massive FRAUD.”
It was almost as if they didn’t care about a “posture of transparency!”
I find myself fighting the urge to CAPITALIZE “posture of transparency,” but it’s NOT capitalized in the report.
The authors of this massive REPORT want us to believe they are all about transparency, and regular bowel movements, and note that maybe 100,000 drop-box ballots – maybe 200,000 – were transported “without a proper chain of custody.” So procedures “for handling and verification of early ballots” must be strengthened.
Because Donald J. Trump would STILL BE PRESIDENT.
Call me a cynic, but I am thinking, if you can’t be sure whether you are talking 100,000 or 200,000 ballots, maybe you need to improve your investigation.
Anyway, I’m hooked. I decide I will have to read this whole MESS because there are serious “election integrity concerns and recommendations” to be made. I keep looking for the evidence of “massive FRAUD,” which the bimbos and bozos have claimed MUST HAVE transpired.
Part of Page 2, all of Page 3, and the first paragraph on Page 4, have to do with all kinds of requests sent by investigators to Maricopa County officials. The “Arizona Attorney General” notes that he would like Senate Bill 1475 to be passed, so that he will henceforth have a “civil subpoena power.”
Then he can demand all kinds of information – from any counties where people don’t vote for Republicans in large enough numbers. Because there could be “massive FRAUD!” If anyone can find it. Because the AG’s report… um… doesn’t actually say anything about FINDING IT.
Rather, we are told that “investigations of this magnitude take substantially longer than the present six months to complete.” Which is interesting, since thousands of hours have already been devoted to finding the millions of fraudsters who purportedly stole the election from Donald J. Trump. To put it bluntly, Mr. Blogger is sure that if you gave him thousands of hours to check ballot signatures, he could find all kinds of bogus signatures – if IN FACT they existed.
I keep plowing through the report looking for all that fraud. I learn that 79% of Arizona voters cast early ballots in 2018, with that figure rising to 89% in 2020. So voters like early mail-in voting. That meant signatures on over “3 million early ballot affidavits” had to be verified “during a five to six-week period in 2020.” This could – if the process were not “administered diligently,” result in “election officials accepting early ballot affidavits that should not otherwise be approved without further verification.”
So, in Republican-dominated counties you’d face the same problems? And Trump fans could have forged ballot signatures, too?
Correct?
But this report comes from a Republican office holder – who wants to hold onto office in the next election. Page 5 is chock full of large numbers. Maricopa County, for instance, handled 1.9 million mail-in ballots, but rejected only 1,455 for missing signatures and 587 for mismatched signatures. “To be sure,” the AG’s report notes, “Maricopa County has explained that the number of early ballots rejected for mismatched signatures during the 2020 General Election was impacted by the Legislature’s creation of a 5-day post-election cure period for mismatched signatures.”
What about a DRAMATIC decline in the number of ballots with missing signatures in Maricopa?
Well, “one possible explanation,” and “the AG acknowledges there could be others,” would be that the rat bastards in Maricopa “became less diligent with signature review beginning in 2018.”
Yes…and there could be OTHER explanations.
Okay, maybe Page 6 will be better. A hundred ballots from Maricopa were chosen at random. Two experts tried to verify signatures; but it was hard in some cases. One expert said six matches were “inconclusive.” The other said “eleven.” Yet the AG report goes on to add: “Neither of the forensic experts found any sign of forgery.”
Okay, no evidence of forgery.
Doesn’t matter!!! According to Mr. Brnovich these findings suggest “that improvement is needed.”
This brings us to a second conclusion in the report: that the “affidavit signature verification system in Arizona, and particularly when applied to Maricopa County, may be insufficient to guard against abuse.”
Well, egg on my face for not believing in “massive FRAUD” which may exist, but which the Attorney General has not uncovered.
On to Page 7, and Page 8: More big numbers. Maricopa County officials failed to fill out all the required paperwork for handling mail-in ballots, including those 100,000 to 200,000 ballots deposited in drop-boxes.
So, could it be they were all fraudulent votes? No one knows, for sure. But the paperwork involved was sometimes INCOMPLETE!
On Page 8 and Page 9, we learn that election officials in Maricopa and Pima counties, and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (a Democrat) used $8 million dollars in “private, nongovernmental grant monies” for “various election purposes.” But you can’t put anything past the folks at the AG’s office – who have had six months to uncover “massive FRAUD” in the 2020 election.
“We are carefully reviewing” another report they explain, “to determine if any election laws were violated through the use of these funds.”
At the bottom of page eight, however, you will be relieved to learn that Arizona lawmakers have passed a law to bar the use of such monies to perpetrates such “crimes” as “registering voters.”
Who might vote FRAUDULENTLY – even though nowhere in this report, so far, is there proof that anyone voted FRAUDULENTLY.
Page 9 is about REMEDIES!
Such as: increasing penalties for those who vote FRAUDULENTLY (if they are ever found in the droves Trump supporters believe must have VOTED.)
Finally, the AG says he wants all Arizonans to know that “defending the integrity” of state elections is one of his “top priorities.”
Attorney General Brnovich adds a promise: That Arizona will “ensure that it is easy to vote and hard to cheat.”
“With each passing election,” he continues, “Americans on all sides of the political spectrum have less confidence in the integrity of our elections. This is a crisis that should be addressed immediately with bipartisan solutions grounded in the rule of law.”
In his final conclusion, on Page 11, spilling over to Page 12, he insists, “Public confidence in the fairness of elections is paramount.”
Brnovich doesn’t mention the fact that his favorite tangerine-tinted former president has spent the last seventeen months howling about the STOLEN ELECTION.
And you can tell how much bipartisan effort went into this fine report, which took six months to write, with another coming in six months more, when Attorney General Brnovich concludes,
This dilemma is not relegated to Republicans and the 2020 election. Democrats spent year in uproar over the 2000 election after George W. Bush defeated Al Gore. And they viciously questioned President Trump’s election in 2016. Congressional Democrats also challenged the Electoral College count several times over the past two decades when their candidate lost the race. It is dishonest to pretend that the 2020 election concerns are unprecedented. Both sides have had their share of issues with elections processes and procedures, and it is time for America’s elected representatives to put aside political differences and do what is necessary to reassure their constituents that every legal vote counts.
So, I read the report. And I saw plenty of conjecture. And there MIGHT have been significant voter fraud.
Only Brnovich can’t prove it – and – if you read carefully - doesn’t claim that he did.
True. Big numbers were tossed about in impressive, random fashion. Nowhere does this twelve-page report mention that Maricopa County election officials were almost all Republicans – and their own investigation showed that the original vote tallies they released were accurate. AG Brnovich didn’t seem worried to know that President Trump had called Georgia election officials (also Republicans) and asked them to “find” 11,780 votes he needed to defeat Joe Biden in that state. In Georgia, the Republican Secretary of State said he took Trump’s call to be a threat. Nor did Brnovich mention the Cyber Ninjas recount done in Maricopa County – after Trumplicans, including Kelli Ward demanded it – because they KNEW there had to have been massive criminality involved in Trump getting his ass kicked.
That recount, done by hand, showed that Biden gained 99 votes, whereas Trump lost 261 in Maricopa, which is IRONIC.
(I am now capitalizing for FUN.)
I scratched my noggin’ after perusing the AG’s report. I suppose I could read it again; but I might have to shoot myself in the head if I did.
I decided to cheat a little, and simply mention that the Arizona Republican had looked into the story. They noted that Brnovich cites another report on all the VOTER FRAUD he has so far uncovered.
How many fraudsters were out there, stuffing the ballot boxes and running amok? Well, six felons (6), already locked up in Pima County, managed to cast ballots.
And there were these three women (3), who returned recently deceased mothers’ early ballots.
So, yes. Nine cases (9), including one of those three from Cochise County. Or: “Massive FRAUD” by any measure.
Then, I think, better check out the AG’s other report. Because I like facts. As of March 28, 2022, we had 35 cases of voter fraud and possible voter fraud identified in Arizona. Cases 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33 and 34 were “ongoing.”
Only ten of the cases (by my count), so far resolved originate in Maricopa, with an eleventh completed, save for sentencing, and two pending.
None of the defendants in any of the counties have been sent to jail; fines and requirements for community service have been levied.
I guess, when the “massive FRAUD” finally surfaces, I will let my loyal readers (both of them know)
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FOR NOW, I would be remiss if I did not remind everyone that on November 5, 2020, just two days after the presidential election, Donald Trump Jr. was pushing a plan to steal the election for his father, if the voters rejected his bid for a second term in the White House.
Junior couldn’t yet know the outcome. The votes in North Carolina wouldn’t be completely recorded until November 13. And Don Jr.’s dad would win that battleground state. The president and his allies were also insisting on November 5, that all the votes should be counted in Arizona – where Don Sr. trailed. And in Nevada. But it was an outrage to keep counting votes in Georgia, where he had a lead.
And Pennsylvania.
In weeks to come, there would be recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin, and Georgia too. None of those proved anything new. Biden still won – although a hand recount in one Michigan county gave Trump eleven more votes, and took one of Biden’s away. In Wisconsin a partial recount demanded by Team Trump showed Biden gaining 87 votes. Whereas the biggest mistake uncovered in Georgia’s three vote counts (costing Trump 686 votes in Floyd County) was the work of a Republican official’s blunder, which was kind of fun for those of us who voted for Biden to see.
So, you had to ask, if you had any sense of decency, when Don Jr. texted White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on November 5, and said his dad could ignore the vote totals, throw the election into the House of Representative, or find some other route to a second term in the White House, what he was thinking? “It’s very simple…We have multiple paths,” to victory, Don Jr. claimed and “We control them all.”
What did he mean when he continued, “Republicans control Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina etc we get Trump electors”? What was he thinking when he added, “We either have a vote WE control and WE win OR it gets kicked to Congress 6 January 2021”? What was his intent when he assured Meadows, “We have operational control Total leverage”?
One former White House aide tells Jake Tapper of Fox News, that after it was clear that the votes were going against the president “there was a level of desperation among those closest too [the president] to hang onto power in any way possible.” This text, she notes, shows that Trump’s loyalists were going to use “every lever,” state and federal, to “cling to power.”
What they didn’t control, however, were the fair vote counts, which were running against poor President Trump.
And this story isn’t “Fake News” either. Don Jr.’s lawyer admitted the message was sent; but he claimed that “given the date, this message likely originated from someone else and was forwarded.”
Which would mean Don Jr. was moronic at best, and not intent on breaking any laws and stealing an election, at WORST.
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With votes still being counted, Don Jr. was already talking about not accepting results. |
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4/13/22: Almost without exception, when Loser Donald opens his mouth and speaks, drivel spills out. Other times, the Rejected-President hurls insults. And you can always be sure that lies will spew.
In a Wednesday interview with Sean Hannity, Donald J. Trump told the credulous Fox News dope that he had urged then-Attorney General Bill Barr to get himself impeached. Trump explained – and Hannity didn’t dare question. Trump said he wanted Barr to launch an investigation into the “Stolen Election” of 2020. He said Barr wouldn’t do it because he feared impeachment.
Trump wanted him to start the investigation – get impeached – and then watch his own opinion polls surge. If Barr said the election was rigged, the American people would awaken. They would realize Joe Biden cheated his way to victory. Everyone would love Donald and vote for him again.
Or maybe a mob would descend on the White House and drag Joe and Jill and the Biden pets out.
A French Revolution kind of vibe.
There were several problems with Don’s tall tale. As he explained it, Barr had been “so afraid of being impeached that he refused to do his job.” For good measure, Trump called Barr’s book about his time as head of the Department of Justice “crummy.”
Problem #1: I think we can all agree that there’s no way on earth that the former president read it.
Problem #2: Barr has said repeatedly that he did not believe the election was stolen. He has said that DOJ investigated every accusation Trump and his sycophants made about a “rigged” election. No evidence of significant fraud could be found.
That would mean someone was lying. Barr or Trump.
Problem #3: Hannity failed to do journalistic due diligence. He didn’t question Trump’s assertions. Hannity is a partisan hack – but a partisan hack with a huge nightly audience. You could make the argument that watching his show makes the average viewer dumber five nights a week.
Problem #4: The following members of the Trump administration have all said Trump was a danger – and these were all men and women he selected for their jobs. Barr says his boss “went off the rails,” after he lost the 2020 election. Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis called Trump “a threat to the U.S. Constitution.” His longest-serving White House Chief of Staff, Gen. John Kelly, called the president the “most flawed” human being he had ever met. Gen. Mark Milley, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was forced to say at one point that the U.S. military would play no role in deciding the election – and that there was a plan in place, if Trump ordered the military to interfere. All the chiefs of the services would resign, by order of rank.
Problem #5: People who watch Fox News will remain blissfully unaware of how close we were to having a President of the United States, defeated at the polls, manage to overturn the results of an election he claimed was stolen – and that they, in their profound ignorance came to believe was stolen.
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4/14/22: The more guns the merrier. A store owner at a mall in California is arrested after he fires at shoplifters he is chasing. A stray bullet hits a nine-year-old girl, who is shopping with her mother.
So: “Only a good guy with a gun…and really bad aim…can shoot an unarmed bystander.” I think that’s how the N.R.A. likes to put it.
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4/15/22: Today, I sent this letter to J.D. Vance, who wants to be my next U.S. senator from Ohio:
Dear Candidate Vance,
I heard today that you have been endorsed by former-President Donald J. Trump in your quest to be Ohio’s next U.S. senator. I know you must be excited to join the company of such esteemed endorsees as Herschel Walker, for a seat in the senate from Georgia, and Judge Roy Moore, who had hopes of being elected from Alabama in 2018 – until his candidacy was torpedoed when multiple women accused him of sexual abuse when they were teens.
Mr. Walker, too, has run into headwinds now that his ex-wife’s request for a protective order against him, filed in 2005, has hit the news. Not to mention a second police report, from another woman – who said Walker threatened to “blow her head off” after she ended their romance.
I know you went to Yale, like one of my daughters. So you must have some brains. You also enlisted in the Marines, as I did back in 1968, so you must not have bone spurs, like Donald says he did.
In any case, I realize you must be thrilled to carry the Trump- imprimatur into the GOP primary. I know you once called Mr. Trump “reprehensible.” Not to mention “noxious,” “offensive,” and an “idiot.” Back in 2016, I know you said you voted for Rep. Evan McMullin, a Republican congressman from Utah, who ran as an independent, instead of for Trump.
I would love to chat with you at your convenience, because I have a few questions I’d like to pose. I have a great deal of respect for Rep. McMullin – even though I vote almost exclusively blue and pulled the lever for Hillary that year. I wonder. Did you ever listen to the tape of a June 2016 meeting made by Rep. McMullin, during which Rep. Kevin McCarthy said he thought there were two people Putin paid – Trump and Dana Rohrabacher?
Did you know Rep. McCarthy said he never said that? Then the free press said they had a tape. Then he said, okay, he said it, but it was all a joke?
Anyway, a few questions, sir. Do you think Putin paid Trump? Do you think McCarthy was lying when he said he never said what he said? I do. And you went to Yale. Surely, you must be smarter than me!
How about all the voter fraud Mr. Trump keeps whining about? Do you ever get tired of all that whining? As for fraud, have you seen any evidence of significant voter fraud, yourself? If so, I would love to talk about it.
We both know (or should) that Ohio’s attorney general has uncovered only 27 possible cases of voter fraud regarding the 2020 election. Do you think, if all 27 individuals voted for Biden – and I doubt they all did – that that would indicate voter fraud played a important role in Joe Biden’s win?
I think people who vote twice should be punished. Don’t you agree? Still, 27 possible cases out of nearly six million votes does not strike me as a real threat to democracy. Does it you?
By comparison, does it worry you that Trump’s own former Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis, who spent 44 years in the Marines, described the man who just endorsed you as “a threat to the Constitution?”
I definitely do!!!
Do you find it amusing, that your new hero, Donald J. Trump, insists he was cheated out of a second term – but in an Arizona recount, demanded by his allies, his opponent, Mr. Biden, gained 99 votes? And Trump lost 261? How about the recount demanded in two Wisconsin counties, where Mr. Biden also gained votes – 45 in Dane County, 132 in Milwaukee County?
I also wonder. Have you listened to the phone call then-President Trump made to GOP election officials in Georgia, asking them to find 11,780 votes, just one more than needed for him to “win” that state’s 16 electoral votes? I urge you to listen, sir. If you want to be Ohio’s senator, you must be informed. The recipient of that phone call – a member of your very own party – has stated that he took it as a threat.
Do you believe elected officials should threaten those in charge of the elections on which their futures depend? Would you threaten Ohio officials if you lost? I hope you would not.
Finally, I know we both had to take an oath on the day we enlisted. You may recall, it went like this:
I (STATE YOUR NAME) DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR (OR AFFIRM) THAT I WILL SUPPORT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC; THAT I WILL BEAR TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE TO THE SAME; AND THAT I WILL OBEY THE ORDERS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE ORDERS OF THE OFFICERS APPOINTED OVER ME, ACCORDING TO REGULATIONS AND THE UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE. SO HELP ME GOD.
So, when Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, and other zany Trump aides were suggesting he send in the military to rerun elections in several states that voted blue, what would you have done if Trump gave that order?
As I well remember, we were often reminded that we were required to follow only lawful orders. Did you worry, then, in October 2020, when Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, found it necessary to promise that the military would play no role in deciding the coming election? Did you ever ask yourself who Gen. Milley thought might order the troops to interfere?
Well, sir, good luck on your run for office. I trust I’ll be hearing from you soon. I can at least say, I am relieved that no one has accused you of sexual harassment or smacking around your wife. So keep up the good work!
Semper Fi.
John J. Viall
___
4/16/22: Mr. Blogger continues his search for massive voter fraud. For example, did Hunter Biden vote fifty times for his dad? It turns out one Trump aide did vote twice. Matt Mowers, who would like to earn a seat in Congress in the 2022 election, cast two ballots during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. First, he voted absentee in New Hampshire. Then, because he had so much fun, he voted a second time, using the address of his parent’s home in New Jersey.
Maybe Mowers has multiple personalities and got confused!
Even more amusing, Rejected-President Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and his wife Debora, have now been kicked off North Carolina’s voter rolls. This is what happens when you register your voting address as a run-down 14 x 62-foot trailer up in the mountains – and never actually live there.
This should be no surprise, since the trailer offered only 900-square feet of living space, whereas Mr. and Mrs. Meadows had previously lived in a 6,000-square foot mansion, and then spent most of the last few years in Washington D.C.
And if you are looking for possible voter fraud, as President Trump says he still is, you can read about all the laws Mark and Debora likely broke in the Washington Post. Cue up the “Fake News” chants if you want, Trumplicans; but the Post has evidence. Numerous attempts to reach out to lawyers for the couple went unanswered – because those lawyers know they don’t have a case. This is quite amusing, since Meadows moaned in his recent book, The Chief’s Chief,
If we could get a few more Republicans to show up in places like Minneapolis and Bemidji in November, we would be able to win not only Minnesota, but the whole election — assuming, of course, that everyone else who votes was alive, a real person, and an actual resident of the state they were voting in. That last part turned out to be a little harder than we thought.
Well, kudos, Mr. Meadows! You allegedly solved that Rubik’s cube yourself. First, you didn’t own the trailer. Second, even if you did, you never lived there long enough to qualify to vote in North Carolina.
Third, you were registered to vote in Virginia in 2021, and have now been removed from the N.C. rolls.
Have fun voting somewhere, sir (hopefully from jail), possibly in South Carolina, where, in 2021, you and your lovely wife bought a home for $1.6 million. Or roughly fifteen times what the trailer you didn’t own was selling for at the time you “lived there,” according to the actual owner.
Next time you see Donald, tell him to keep looking for all the voter fraud he can possibly find.
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The Meadows home in South Carolina. |
FUN FACT – SLOW LEARNERS: Here in Ohio, Republican lawmakers are having the devil of a time, under court order, coming up with a new map of congressional and state senate and house districts.
They keep submitting gerrymandered maps that they really, really like. And the Ohio Supreme Court keeps knocking them down, and telling them to make fairer maps. Four times, Republicans have submitted maps.
Four times those maps have been rejected.
Now GOP lawmakers have a new and improved…map? No, no. A new plan. They want to impeach Chief Justice Maureen O’Conner, and tip the court in their favor, and then get those gerrymandered maps passed!
One of the leaders of the effort to oust Justice O’Conner is state Rep. Bill Seitz – last seen defending fellow Republican lawmakers who were still facing trial in a massive bribery scheme.
On the giving end of the bribes, FirstEnergy has already agreed to pay a $230 million fine. And the CEO has been fired. On the receiving end of the $60 million in FirstEnergy cash – to be determined in a court of law.
A plan to create a bipartisan redistricting committee was passed by 71% of the voters in the state in 2015.
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4/17/22: Nothing quite gets me in the mood to celebrate Veterans’ Day, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and even Easter, like a heartfelt message from the former President Donald J. Trump.
Today, in the spirit of Jesus, and the Resurrection, Trump sent out his best wishes to Letitia James, the New York D.A. in charge of investigating the Trump Organization. “Happy Easter to failed gubernatorial candidate and racist Attorney General Letitia James,” Donald wrote, by way of his Save America PAC. “May she remain healthy despite the fact that she will continue to drive business out of New York while at the same time keeping crime, death, and destruction in New York!”
Trump looked at that message, and felt the spirit of Christ move him to type yet again. This time he wanted to talk about the Son of God, who gave his life…
Oh, hell, no.
He thought it would be great to skewer Democrats. “Radical Left Maniacs,” he howled, are “doing everything possible to destroy our Country.”
“May they not succeed, but let them, nevertheless, be happy, healthy, wealthy, and well!” he added.
And maybe to “save America,” his loyal cult followers should get ready to start killing the people who want to “destroy our Country.”
Happy Easter to all!
*
WE’VE HEARD these kinds of inane greetings from Donald before. Like Thanksgiving, 2017, when he called American service men and women fighting ISIS and Taliban forces in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. He said, even though they were far away from home, that they could be thankful. “When you come back, you are going to see with the jobs and companies coming back into our country and the stock market just hit a record high,” he offered cluelessly. “Unemployment is the lowest it’s been in 17 years. So you’re fighting for something real, you’re fighting for something good.”
Yes, you were risking getting your face or limbs or other important body parts blown off so hedge fund managers could reap huge stock market gains.
Actually, I’m not sure I’ve felt happier to hear from Ex-President Blubber since he wished people on our side of the political spectrum a “Happy New Year” to start off 2019. To be exact, it was an all-CAPS juvenile screed:
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE, INCLUDING THE HATERS AND THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA! 2019 WILL BE A FANTASTIC YEAR FOR THOSE NOT SUFFERING FROM TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME. JUST CALM DOWN AND ENJOY THE RIDE, GREAT THINGS ARE HAPPENING FOR OUR COUNTRY!
As far as the nickname, “Ex-President Blubber,” goes, I was perusing some of the many nicknames Trump has slapped on foes – cheap shots, dehumanizing labels, juvenile attempts to bully.
I think it only fair to give him an apt identifier. If he thinks “Sleepy Joe,” is good for Mr. Biden, I think “Ex-President Blubber” is good title to add to “Loser Donald” and “Rejected-President Trump.”
*
In other news: We have another shooting at a shopping mall, this time in Columbia, South Carolina. Nine people are hit by gunfire.
Five others are injured in the ensuing chaos.
___
4/18/20: I missed a few details yesterday, but Ex-President Blubber was on an even daffier roll than I realized. Not only did he find time to insult District Attorney Letitia James! He also decided to issue an official statement blasting President and First Lady Biden for inviting children and their families to take part in an Easter Egg Roll on the White House South Lawn.
Trump grumbled:
Today, Easter Sunday, Christians such as Melania and myself celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is risen. Yesterday, in a press conference, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who does many great things for her state, said I rose every day to do big things for the American People. On the other hand, this morning, Joe Biden will rise and look for Easter Eggs with his wife, Jill Biden, whose basket has no eggs. Instead of looking for hidden eggs, they should look for the ballots hidden in boxes in many states in this stolen election.
True Republicans, not ones like Rhino DeSantis and Liz Cheney, know the MAGA agenda will rise again in Washington to do big things. So, while people like DeSantis, Cheney, and Biden are busy watching Jimmy Kimmel, Disney movies, and waiting for the Easter Bunny, we are busy planning to make America great again.
I am assuming, then, that Ol’ Blubber spent the rest of Sunday reading the Bible, and figuring out what will go into the Trump Affordable Healthcare Plan – kind of on the back burner, lo, these last six years.
I don’t see any pictures of Don and Melania in church, though, but we do get these. Sunny day in Florida, at least:
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Hard bodies and a human dumpling on Easter. |
4/20/22: Alex Jones, who worked overtime to push the “Stolen Election” lie, is in negotiations with prosecutors to gain immunity and spill the beans on various plotters, who were working (for real) to steal the election for President Blubber.
Not from him.
We can also report, if you missed it, that Jones is filing for bankruptcy protection – having been mangled in a series of civil cases filed against him by parents of children massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. The ghoulish Mr. Jones had accused them of playing key roles in a “false flag” operation and pretending to have had their six- and seven-year-old sons and daughters riddled with bullets in their classrooms one gory day. Piled on top of their agonies over the loss of loved ones, this lead fans of Jones’ Infowars program to barrage them with death threats and online attacks, and occasional threatening in-person visits.
*
IF YOU ARE WORRIED about the reptilian people, you have one bit of good news today. Dan Ball, who works a shift as host on One America News, made sure he explained to loyal listeners why he’s had his fill of the First Amendment – which also happens to protect his dumb, fascist ass.
During a recent segment, he exploded:
What the mainstream media has done is treasonous [he said], and we should take every single CEO that’s allowed it, every single host, and put them in a military tribunal, for treason to this nation, because they have constantly lied, and that’s just the last five years, since Donald Trump ran for president. We know they lied about the Russian hoax, and countless other things. But they’ve been lying, covering up, omitting facts to the American people, for decades now.
So f**k the Bill of Rights. Dan wants to send American citizens to trial before military tribunals.
Bring back firing squads, right?
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4/21/22: I’ve been working recently to reorganize my blog and make it easier to digest in smaller bites. I catch a few mistakes now and then, like misspelling Rep. Evan McMullin’s name in one post (“McMullen”). Otherwise, what I’ve been saying has held up nicely.
I always thought, for example, that Paul Manafort and Roger Stone were crooks. Both racked up multiple felonies.
Then that arch-crook, President Trump, pardoned them both.
Sometimes I add to older posts, as new information becomes available. Case in point: the young white supremacist who was hoping to kill African Americans and Jews with a machete. Since first mentioned, he has been sentenced to one year and a day behind bars.
*
TODAY, we start with the political resurrection of Ex-President Blubber. That’s my new descriptor – since we know Trump is fond of insulting terms – “Sleepy Joe” Biden, “Mini-Mike Bloomberg, “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz.
At least he got that last one right.
Did you realize poor, delusional Mike Lindell of My Pillow fame has his own TV show? On Tuesday, he explained to viewers how excited he was for today. If “everything goes right,” he exclaimed, he would win a “preliminary injunction” to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Like Jesus, only not nearly as fast, Trump would roll aside the stone at the entrance to Mar-a-Lago. He would rise again from the political grave and ascend to the White House.
“Now, I’m not going to give all the details,” Lindell said, but he assured gullible viewers, “there’s a lot of surprises. It’s going to shock the country, as a matter of fact.”
It’s going to shock this liberal blogger, for sure, if anything of substance transpires.
I don’t know. Call Lindell an optimist?
He went on to blast the mainstream media for not taking his claims seriously. I think I speak for all the reptilian people (explained next) in saying, okay, these Trump fans are f**king nuts.
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The grip of the cult is strong. |
*
If you’re not on Twitter, I can tell you it’s a real source of humor, often unwittingly. Some left-wing group has been interviewing Trump fans, and making them look like wretched fools.
I know we have fools on our side. I doubt we have anyone who believes President Trump was one of the “reptilian people.” Click this link and you can watch a member of the Trump cult explain how Mr. Biden and many of us on this side are.
(I run to the bathroom for a moment to look in the mirror. No scales. No forked tongue, either.)
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*
IN OTHER NEWS you likely missed, more guns in more hands, and more feet, have not made Americans safer.
Death by injury has long been the #1 cause of mortality for children, teens, and young adults, ages 1-24. For sixty years, car crashes were the top factor.
In the Trump Era gun deaths surged. They now account for more injury-related deaths of young Americans than car wrecks. So saith the New England Journal of Medicine. Since 2000, deaths of young people in auto crashes have fallen 40%, in large part due to new safety regulations.
According to the noisiest voices on the right we can’t have any sensible gun regulations because that would mean the reptilian people would take over the country and make MAGA loyalists their sex slaves.
*
WE DO HAVE bits and pieces of good news to report. Ex-President Blubber has lost a court case (again) and must pay former Apprentice star and White House Aide-with-No-Qualifications Omarosa Manigault Newman’s $1.3 million legal fees. She should never have been given a White House position in the first place, but Trump gave her one regardless. When she turned against him, President Blubs labeled her a “dog,” and tried to stop her from publishing a book about what she knew – about what a litigious, cheating creep he really is.
*
WE ALSO LEARNED (because President Biden revealed his taxes) that he and the First Lady earned $610,702 in his first year in office. On that, the couple paid $150,429 in federal income taxes.
That would be a federal tax rate of 24.6%.
By comparison, in 2017, during his first year in the White House, Ol’ Blubs paid a measly $750 to the feds. (The New York Times acquired a copy of Trump’s income taxes by some means.)
This happy blogger always thought there was irony in the fact Trump dodged taxes at every turn. He once complained, for example, that the U.S. military had no bullets to fire – until he took office.
That wasn’t true, but bullets cost money. If everyone paid taxes like Donald and Melania, and Ivanka and Jared, and the rest of their rapacious crew, U.S. pilots would still be flying biplanes. Mr. Blogger can also report that he and his wife paid $28,035 in federal income tax for 2021.
If Don Jr., for instance, would reveal his taxes, I will reveal mine. Something tells me I paid a higher rate than he.
(I also served in the Marines – so I’m a better patriot for sure.)
If nothing else, my wife and I pay our share to support the U.S. military, run the national parks well, and keep federal inspectors at work – checking the safety of the nation’s meat supply.
*
FINALLY, Monica Crowley, former Fox News dope, is having a much better week, now that she can celebrate a judge’s decision to strike down the Biden administration’s mask mandates on public transportation.
She said she had been “suffocating” wearing a mask – but now – let freedom ring! She could fly off and attend the military tribunals and not have to put on a “face diaper,” as those on the right like to call masks. (I am not aware of anyone pooping into their masks while riding planes.)
Here’s her tweet, and my quick reply:
Anyway, I was fiddling around with that story, when I came upon a “solution” for people who hate “face diapers,” but don’t want to catch COVID and go to the hospital – or infect grandma and grandpa at the next family celebration.
This story goes back to last December, but it’s worth noting that U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who is running for reelection, had a few COVID safety tips of his own. He told an audience that “there are things you can do, get Vitamin D, Zinc, keep yourself healthy, Vitamin C. By the way – standard gargle, mouthwash, has been proven to kill the coronavirus. Even if you get it, you may reduce viral application. Why not try out these things?”
In the wake of Johnson’s comments, Listerine felt a need to announce that its mouthwash was in no way intended to battle – let alone kill – the coronavirus.
This led Senator “Gargle” to complain that his comments had been taken out of context, and he was in no way the bonehead he sounded like on tape of his townhall meeting.
This past January, we know he hosted a panel discussion of some pretty impressive medical personnel – who pretty much said, f**k vaccines – we have better ideas for battling the virus.
Here, we should note, there are medical experts, sprinkled here and there, who oppose the vaccines. Still, some of the claims made by members of Senator Gargle’s panel were flatly incorrect. Others were dubious, at best. Let’s just say, Gargle is doing his part to confuse the people who listen to him for coronavirus-fighting advice. According to CDC, we have had 80.5 million cases in the U.S.
Almost 987,000 Americans have died.
That would be one death for every 82 infections – way, way, way worse than any ordinary flu.
This dedicated blogger is retired and has time to dig into stories and try to find the relevant facts. So: Why not go to the Wisconsin Department of Health, in Gargle’s own state, and see what they say? It turns out four percent of Wisconsinites who became infected with COVID ended up hospitalized. If grandma or grandpa were over 60, the odds ballooned to twenty percent.
Yeah, f**k those “face diapers.” Let’s send some flowers to grandma at her hospital room.
As for death rates from COVID, you were generally safe if, like Ms. Crowley, you were 53 years old. Had Ms. Crowley been infected, she would have had 99 out of 100 chances of surviving her case.
The risk of death for older Americans rose sharply, to 1 in 50, if you were in your sixties, 1 in 20, if you were in your seventies, 1 in 10 in your eighties, and 1 in 5 if you were older. We’ve tried to explain this a thousand times. You wore masks, in large part, to protect others – older Americans, but also immune-compromised individuals who might be seated next to you on planes or trains or ox-carts.
Shots, of course, were even better if you wanted to stay safe and help stop the rampant spread.
Last, but not least, I decided to check and see. Did the Wisconsin Department of Health – again, the experts in Sen. Gargle’s own state – recommend mouthwash as a way to ward off disease?
Ah, here we go: “Protect your loved ones, neighbors, and fellow Wisconsinites by wearing a mask.”
Then: “COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, free, and widely available. Everyone 5 and older is recommended to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. You do not need an ID or insurance to get a vaccine.”
By continuing to spread disinformation and offering disdain, Sen. Gargle and Ms. Crowley have been doing their part to get other Americans killed.
___
4/23/22: If you missed it, the free press, doing what the free press does best, kicked over a D.C. stone this week. All the little creatures scurried out, seeking new cool dark places to hide.
____________________
Kevin McCarthy Caught on Tape Telling the Truth Again.
____________________
Thursday, The New York Times reported that in the wake of the January 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill, Rep. Kevin McCarthy told top Republican leaders, including Rep. Liz Cheney, that he was going to call then-President Trump and tell him he should resign. McCarthy, Cheney, and others, spoke by phone on January 10.
The ink had hardly dried on the printed page before McCarthy was out with a claim that the Times story was “totally false and wrong.” His spokesman chipped in with a bonus Ninth Commandment-buster, insisting, “McCarthy never said he’d call Trump to say he should resign.”
*
The “Fake News” people happened to have tape.
The problem for McCarthy – but not the problem for anyone who values the truth – was that the “Fake News” people had tape. The New York Times countered McCarthy’s lie by making the tape available.
You don’t have to be a flaming liberal, as is this blogger, to quickly conclude that McCarthy was fabricating furiously (and as we shall see, this was not the first time he was caught telling the truth on tape). If you have eardrums that function, and a mind not clamped shut like a bear trap that missed catching the facts, I urge you to listen to the tape. If you love this country, for God’s sake, listen.
Rachel Maddow was kind enough to play the tape on her Thursday night MSNBC show, providing graphics so viewers could read along.
At one point, Rep. Cheney (who doesn’t lie – and has therefore been drummed out of the Trumplican Party) asks if McCarthy thinks Trump might resign.
He responds:
He continues:
McCarthy had already told his listeners that an impeachment resolution was coming – and might in fact be leveled against Trump, even after his time in office came to an end on January 20.
He explained:
He assured everyone on the line that he hadn’t discussed the matter with the “Dem’s,” then added,
*
On that fateful day, it sounded like the nation might have hope.
Let me beg you, if you are a good American, if you truly care about free and fair elections: Listen closely to the tape. Play it again and again if you fail to catch the significance the first time.
Four days after the riot on Capitol Hill, the House Minority Leader wasn’t trying to blame some “Antifa” crew for the chaos. He wasn’t fuming about a stolen election. He was hoping that the man who had fanned the flames of insurrection would resign. And he didn’t want to talk with Trump about getting a pardon from Vice President Mike Pence, if Mr. Pence were thrust into the presidential role.
Put yourself in McCarthy’s place – I mean before he starts lying. He believes the leader of his party, and the President of the United States, should resign. And he knows Trump may need a pardon.
When President Richard M. Nixon gave up his office in disgrace on August 8, 1974, he knew he had lost support of his own party members in Congress, not just Democrats who had worked to uncover the truth. He knew he was going to be impeached – and removed from office. So he quit. One month later, he was pardoned by newly-installed President Gerald Ford, putting a merciful end to a black chapter in U.S. history, and ending Nixon’s career for good.
In the Watergate era, when confronted with overwhelming evidence, Republicans of good conscience faced up to bitter truth. Their champion had repeatedly broken the law, and would have to go.
On January 10, 2021, McCarthy faced a similar situation. He knew Trump had no business holding high office. He knew he should go. Only this was not the Watergate Era. Nor was this the Grand Old Party of the past, a party that stood proudly for conservative principles and values.
The Trumplicans are a party of cowards – McCarthy – McConnell – Rep. Jim Jordan, Senator Lindsey Graham, and so many others. For a brief moment, that day, McCarthy felt the tug of conscience and honor. A light of truth flickered in his mind. In days ahead he snuffed it out.
On tape, on that fateful day, it sounded like the nation might have hope. McCarthy continued:
That’s what he said, speaking the truth, four days after the riot. The Times says they have more tape. “What he did is unacceptable,” McCarthy said, referring to the president who stoked the fire.
“Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it.”
Sen. McConnell’s cowardice is equally glaring. Reporters quote him, shortly after the attack, telling GOP allies, with a hint of relief: “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us.” He told supporters he expected members of the party to help pass articles of impeachment.
“If this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is,” he said.
Unfortunately, the GOP failed in the end. Mitch and most Republican senators lost their nerve. McCarthy went to Mar-a-Lago to grovel and grin. In February 2021, with many police officers battered by the mob still hospitalized, McConnell was asked in a Fox News interview if, should Trump run again in 2024, he would support him.
“Absolutely,” the coward said.
*
“I think there’s two people Putin pays.”
NOR SHOULD WE FORGET, this was not the first time McCarthy was caught on tape, speaking a critical truth.
In June 2016, during his first run for office, when Trump was still trailing in all the polls, McCarthy offered the kind of honest assessment this blogger might have made. “I think there’s two people Putin pays,” McCarthy told a gathering of Republican lawmakers, “Rohrabacher and Trump.”
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher was sometimes mocked with the identifier, (R-Moscow), and labeled “Russia’s favorite congressman.”
In any case, the Washington Post soon had the story. McCarthy was just as quick six years ago to deny it.
But the free press – doing its job, which is to hold the powerful to account – said, we’ve got tapes.
McCarthy replied, in essence: “Okay, I said it. But I was joking.”
It was a joke – and the joke was on all of us, and on this great nation, and some of us, more ill-informed, elected Donald J. Trump.
The problem was that on tape, McCarthy was telling the truth. Democracy is not likely to survive if he becomes Speaker of the House in 2022, if McConnell is returned to Senate Majority Leader, and Trump wins a second term in 2024. McCarthy believed Trump was in Putin’s pocket in 2016. Four years later, he and McConnell knew the election wasn’t stolen, and the attack on Capitol Hill was fomented by the president. They knew Trump deserved to be impeached – making him ineligible to ever run for office again. What they lacked was the courage to put their careers at risk to protect fair elections, the rule of law, and the U.S. Constitution.
It’s right there on tape.
BLOGGER’S NOTE: For a slightly more detailed description of what happened, see my original post on McCarthy’s comments about who Putin paid, and scroll down till you find the entry for 7/13/18, or click the link where I separated it out just for today.
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4/28/22: Following up on our post from five days ago, we can now report that Rep. Kevin McCarthy still lusts after the job of Speaker of the House of Representatives, should the Trumplican Party win enough seats in the midterms to recapture the majority. If so, we will be fools to believe anything Kevin might say, for this week we learned that Kevin is an unconscionable liar.
Once again, The New York Times has rolled tape – and it’s not “Fake News,” just because Trumplicans won’t like it. Trouble for Kevin began when the Times reported he had told other Trumplican leaders during a January 10, 2021, phone call that he was going to ask then-President Trump to resign. This was just four days after the attack on Capitol Hill, and Kevin understood who to blame. Yet, when the Times reported on what he had said, Kevin insisted reporters were lying. He would never have asked the president to resign! As noted previously, however, the Times rolled tape, which McCarthy did not realize they had acquired.
That made the score:
“Fake News” 1 Kevin the Liar: 0
Saturday, the Times was at it again, “Faking More News.” They quoted Kevin, from a January 11, 2021, phone call. This time, during a conference call, McCarthy told other Trumplicans that he had talked to Trump (as he had said he would the day before). He told everyone else on the line that the president had acknowledged he bore some responsibility for the violent attack.
No way, said the man who would like to be Speaker, putting him third in line for the presidency (second if a mob could get hold of the Vice President and lynch her). McCarthy said the Times was lying.
Once again, reporters rolled tape, proving that Kevin was dissembling:
“Fake News” 2 Kevin the Liar: 0
If we count the time in 2016, when Kevin said that he thought Putin paid then-Candidate Trump, and then-Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, then called it “Fake News” when the Washington Post reported his words.
And then the Post also rolled tape,
The score would be:
“Fake News” 3 Kevin the Liar: 0
*
With Trumplicans increasingly troubled by Kevin’s propensity for prevaricating, you had to assume they would talk about ousting him from their leadership team…
Ha, ha, Mr. Blogger amuses himself!
Rather, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma seemed to speak for most Trumplicans in Congress when he suggested a better approach. He hoped to stop the free press from running up the score, by teaching Kevin how to be an effective liar. Kevin, he intimated, was a dope for lying clumsily.
“You either say you don’t recall the conversation or that you don’t discuss private conversations and are disappointed in those who leak them,” Cole told reporters. He did add that he did not think McCarthy was otherwise in peril.
Lying? No problem.
Getting caught?
Big problem.
Expressing disappointment was the reaction Trumplicans had offered up after tape of then-President Trump begging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes was revealed. That would have been one more than needed to steal the Georgia election and pocket sixteen electoral votes Trump hadn’t earned.
You can listen to the entire call. Yet most Trumplicans couldn’t be bothered, or piled on more layers of lies. Glen Beck claimed the phone call had been selectively edited, whereas the free press put the whole hour and two minutes out there for your listening pleasure. Then-Sen. David Perdue and others expressed outrage – but not at Trump for suborning election fraud. Perdue said he was “shocked that a member of the Republican Party would tape a sitting president. It’s disgusting in my view,” he added.
Again, if you haven’t listened to the tape, I’ll warn you: Almost anyone with a level of intelligence you might expect in a can of stewed spinach, would realize what the president was asking was for three Georgia officials on the call, all decent Republicans, to sally forth.
*
SINCE OUR TOPIC today is lying boldly, impulsively, and shamelessly, we should also focus on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and give another shoutout to Rejected-President Trump.
Greene’s eligibility to run for re-election has been questioned on the grounds she helped foment “insurrection” on January 6. Mr. Blogger believes she will triumph in court, and be allowed to run again, and, if elected, continue to embarrass the nation. But she was forced to sit for deposition, which, because it was a civil case, in a state court, could be televised. I think it’s safe to say that Greene has perfected the kind of dumbshit performance that Rep. Cole hopes Rep. McCarthy will adopt in the future. Under questioning, Greene seemed to have forgotten pretty much everything that she had said or done, or that had happened to her in the last decade.
Still, she did have wits enough remaining to claim, on the stand, that Democrats had massively stolen the 2020 election.
Otherwise, Rep. Greene had forgotten anything she ever did that might have related to the attack on Capitol Hill, or even whether she was wearing clothes in January 2021, or had paid her water bills.
Saturday morning evidence surfaced, by way of text messages Greene had sent to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, on January 17, 2021, that she had had a few ideas regarding how Trump could remain in office. With less than 72 hours remaining in his presidency, the newly-minted congresswoman wanted to broach an idea for destroying the U.S. Constitution. She wanted Meadows to know that she and other Trumplicans believed Trump could still “win” the election.
With tanks.
“In our private chat with only Members,” she texted Meadows, “several [others in the U.S. House of Representatives] are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law [sic].”
Fortunately, if you would like to see liars destroy the U.S. Constitution, Rep. Greene found safe harbor on Fox News on Wednesday. Appearing on Laura Ingraham’s show, and fielding the usual “hard-hitting” questions Ingraham lobs at members of the Trumplican cult, Greene said she didn’t remember ever calling for martial law – or spelling it wrong, like a complete bozo.
Ingraham decided to comfort poor Greene, calling it an “unfair hit” to say she herself had advocated martial law, when it was really other members of the Trumplican cult who were saying bayonets and bullets would be a great option if we wanted to enjoy four more years of Donald Trump lying.
All Rep. Greene wanted was to suggest to Meadows that troops alone could “save our Republic.”
Ingraham could have asked, “Well, if you weren’t advocating for use of troops to deny President Biden his presidency, which members of the Trumplican Party were?” Only that would have been…journalism.
Rep. Greene tap-danced a little longer. And Ingraham allowed her. Then the host turned to focus on dangers at “the border,” and “crime” and “inflation,” and did her best to make Democrats look bad.
The real problem should have been clear to the most doltish viewer. The danger on January 17, 2021, wasn’t at “the border.” Peril was brewing in the bowels of Congress, and if Rep. Greene wasn’t stirring the pot, she was watching it bubble. “Crime” wasn’t in the streets of “Democrat-run cities,” as every host at Fox News wants viewers to believe. It was in Georgia, on January 2, when Trump called three Republican election officials and begged them to break the law. It was percolating in the minds of people like Rep. Greene, and other members of Congress, and in the mind of a desperate president, about to be booted from the White House.
If troops had been called out – if they had followed orders from the 45th President of the United States – that well could have been the end of free elections.
___
4/29/22: We now know that a group of Trumplican lawmakers were part of meetings on Jan. 5, and Jan. 6, 2021, where plans to finalize disruption of the counting of the electoral votes were refined. Ali Alexander, who helped organize the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 5, says three members of Congress helped him get everything set up. Those three: Rep. Andy Biggs (T-Ariz.), Rep. Paul Gosar (T-Ariz.), and Rep. Mo Brooks (T- Ala.)
All three have denied helping Alexander – though Gosar did previously label Alexander, a convicted felon, a “true patriot” on Twitter.
In days leading up to the Capitol Hill attack, Alexander was clear in discussing what could happen (and did) on Jan. 6. If the challenge to the counting of the electoral votes were to be blocked, he warned, “everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building,” he wrote on Twitter in December. As noted by the Daily Beast, he added: “1776 is *always* an option.”
 |
If this was "1776" again, who did these fools want to start shooting? One assumes: other Americans. |
In recent testimony, Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, also identified lawmakers who had helped plot to stop the wheels of a fair election. In December 2020, she says, Reps. Matt Gaetz (T-Fla.) and Jim Jordan (T- Oh.) participated in calls and meetings with President Trump after he got thumped in the election. The hit parade included Rep. Scott Perry (T-Pa.), Rep. Greene (again), and the perpetually unhinged Rep. Lou Gohmert (T-Tx.). In leaked testimony, Hutchinson told the House Select Committee on January 6 that planning involved ideas which “could potentially be a constitutional and viable option to either stall certification of the election or to delay the inauguration or to assert that Mr. Trump had actually won.”
Hutchinson also said Rep. Jody Hice (T-Ga.) was involved in Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 meetings, which came just four days after President Trump’s infamous call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Hice and all these other fools might easily have listened to the tapes, which were revealed on January 3.
Now, he’s running, in 2022, to take Raffensperger’s place, what one pundit has referred to as a contest between an election-denier, and an election-defender.
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