Interestingly in America today shooting your dog is more damaging to one's political career than rape, fraud, leading an attempted coup, stealing nuclear secrets, pathological lying and playing a role in the excess deaths of hundreds of thousands during a pandemic.
Judge Merchan fines Trump $9,000 for violating gag order. Jail time coming soon? --
A judge warned Donald Trump that he could be jailed for future violations after finding him in contempt of court for violating a gag order in his hush money case.
The Malignant Loser's unbiased "legal scholars" --
Trump says every single legal scholar thinks this is a disgraceful case. The ‘legal scholars’ he names are all frequent Fox guests. One is a Fox host pic.twitter.com/YbgpkAxNlL
Students "liberate" Columbia's Hamilton Hall (armed with Blue Books and backpacks?) --
Declaring parts of a campus to be "liberated zones" is not only inane but an insult to people throughout history who have to fight to reach an *actual* liberated zone. But for many adolescents, drama is catnip, and "liberated zones" sound awesome.
The urgency of rushing anti-missile defenses to a Ukraine under criminal Russian attacks --
Just appalling: Russia's strike on recreational zone in Odesa with Iskander missile packed with cluster munitions. Designed to kill personnel, its bomblets blanket areas as large as a football stadium. 5 people were killed in this attack. pic.twitter.com/8HdqiGql7Z
Demagogue Sen. Tom Cotton, another blatant MAGA liar and hypocrite --
Tom Cotton likes to cite violent crime in Baltimore and Philadelphia, but Little Rock — the biggest city in Cotton’s state — is the nation’s 5th most dangerous metro area. Baltimore and Philly aren’t in the top 25. Why doesn’t Cotton fight Arkansas crime? https://t.co/3dbTPKfExy
TIME's Eric Cortellessa conducted a wide- ranging interview of the Malignant Loser/ Don Snoreleone that's out today. As you might expect, the sociopathic narcissist had a plethora of bizarre, un-American, un-democratic views bolstered by lies and his deranged, disordered "thinking." One paragraph, which touches on the likelihood of Coup 2.0, is as illustrative as any:
"... Trump does not dismiss the possibility of political violence around the
election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he tells TIME. “It
always depends on the fairness of the election.” When I ask what he
meant when he baselessly claimed on Truth Social that a stolen election
“allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even
those found in the Constitution,” Trump responded by denying he had
said it. He then complained about the “Biden-inspired” court case he
faces in New York and suggested that the “fascists” in America’s
government were its greatest threat. “I think the enemy from within, in
many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside
enemies of China, Russia, and various others,” he tells me..."
"Former President Donald Trump has reportedly expressed disappointment in South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem after she revealed that she killed her puppy.
In the upcoming book, Noem wrote about how she was forced to shoot Cricket, her dog, because of its aggressive personality. [snip]
Noem, a Republican Governor, has reportedly lost her opportunity to be Trump's Vice President pick.
The loss comes after an excerpt from her upcoming book, "No Going Back: The Truth on What's Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward" was released.
Sources close to Trump revealed to the New York Post that the ex-president's team was shocked to hear of Noem's detailed story about how she shot and killed her dog in the book.
An insider said, 'She was already unlikely to be picked as VP, but had a shot. After this, it's just impossible.' Noem was rumored to be an option for Trump's Vice President position.
Another source told the publication that the former US president 'likes Kristi a lot' but was very 'disappointed' to hear the story about her dog." (our emphasis)
When the zealous, lying loser Kari "Shallow" Lake was banished from Merde O'Lardo (story below), the cruel governor of South Dakota must have thought her chances of being on the Malignant Loser's ticket were improving. Her abject sycophancy was on display a few years ago when she presented the Malignant Loser with a four foot replica of Mt. Rushmore with his face added. Until her "political suicide" over killing an unruly puppy was published, she was appearing in numerous venues as a Malignant Loser surrogate. The story has outraged most people across the political spectrum, and the fact that she's out defending it tells you everything you need to know about this horrible person.
Former president Donald Trump
has long had a soft spot for his acolyte Kari Lake, the expected GOP
Senate nominee in Arizona, joking that Lake would pivot to his false
claims that the 2020 election was stolen even if she was asked about the
weather.
But
since Lake jumped into the race, Trump has repeatedly expressed
skepticism about her political prospects in a state he sees as key to
his bid to return to the White House, and has shownannoyance
with her frequent presence at his Florida resort, according to five
people close to him, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe
his comments.
At one point last year, after grumbling for months that she was at his Mar-a-Lago Club too often,Trump
gently suggested to Lake that she should leave the club and hit the
campaign trail in Arizona, according to a person with direct knowledge
of his comments. Trump has also asked others if she can really win in
Arizona and if she might drag down his own poll numbers as he seeks the
presidency again in 2024, advisers said.
So
far, there has been no public schism between Trump and Lake, and the
Senate candidate was at Mar-a-Lago again this month for a fundraiser.But
Trump’s frustration with Lake has only increased over the past year,
heightening the tension between the presumptive GOP presidential nominee
and one of his most prominent followers — casting doubt on whether
Republicans can present a sufficiently united front to win a key U.S.
Senate contest and a presidential battleground state.
Trump
has now all but ruled out Lake as a vice-presidential pick, remarking
to multiple advisers that he would not choose her as vice president
because she lost the 2022 gubernatorial race in Arizona, which he
believed was winnable. “She didn’t win,” he told one political ally over
dinner at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year...
Spoiler alert: she won't win again (and neither will the Malignant Loser -- you heard that right).
Overstaying her welcome at Mar-a-Lardo like an impoverished distant relative, Lake was likely hoping for lots of face time to convince the Malignant Loser to pick her as his VP running mate, so she could avoid losing again in Arizona. Bad gambit!
With South Dakota's psycho MAGAt Gov. Kristi Noem's self- inflicted wound over the puppy- killing admission in her book, the Malignant Loser's options for a female running mate are running low. Who next? Incompetent lawyer Alina Habba (who would prefer to be wife #4)? Parodied puerile drama queen Sen. Katie Britt (Alabammy)? Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (um, she supported Bootsie -- no loyalty!)? Melania and Ivanka are avoiding him like grim death.
He may have to run with the next best thing: Sen. Lindsey "Huckleberry" Graham.
(Photo: a love affair gone sour -- hey, watch those hands!/ Antranik Tavitian, The Republic via USA Today Network)
New ad from Republican Voters Against Trump highlights some of the spineless enablers that the Malignant Loser / Al Caporn is counting on to cave and boost his campaign, and put party over country:
"Democrats ought to be planning to make Smith’s unseen evidence public before the election, in the event that the court tries to hide any of it behind a fabricated veil of presidential immunity."
The craziest thing in politics is Trump getting credit for Obama's economy that he totally squandered and Biden getting blamed for the economic disaster that Trump left him
That’s of course assuming that the word “hypocrisy” has been removed from our vernacular. pic.twitter.com/KAD1prspl2
— Libby Whittemore💙🟧🟦🇺🇦 (@libbage55) April 28, 2024
... or shitstains like Bill "Low" Barr --
Bill Barr's explanation of his decision to back Trump over Biden comes down to his belief that Trump's efforts to undermine democracy are OK because his politics are OK. https://t.co/RBwo2Chj6M
The MAGAt mindhive is alive and well in Georgia and New Jersey --
Notable moment in today’s @atlpressclub debate in the GOP race for Georgia’s open 3rd District: All five Republican candidates raise their hand when @russfox5 asks if they believe Trump was the “rightful” winner of Georgia’s 2020 race, which he lost to President Biden. #gapolpic.twitter.com/mBOg7ynvWv
Salon.com's Chauncey Devega has collected some observations as the second week of the Malignant Loser / Don Snoreleone / Rip van Stinkle's trial in the hush money / election interference case begins. Some excerpts:
Cheri Jacobus, ex-Republican strategist:
"Trump seems small, shriveled, old, pathetic, and weak, falling asleep, (among other things), and whining in pressers and on Truth Social to the point where anyone else would have been tossed in the slammer for violating the gag order. He has no family with him, no friends, and mistakenly thought the streets around the courthouse were blocked because the streets were void of pro-Trump protesters. In fact, the main street was open and only one Trump supporter showed up. [snip]
Trump's cartoonish image of "strength" fed to the unwashed masses at his rallies and who watch FOX News does not hold up in the harsh reality of a Manhattan courtroom. His makeup is gaudy and weird, he doesn't get the special lighting, there is no music for his "entrance", and no sea of MAGA red hats." (our emphasis)
Dr. John Gartner, psychologist and author of "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President":
"Trump's trial in Manhattan is providing more evidence of his apparent cognitive decline. Trump fell asleep 4 out of 6 days of his own trial. Falling asleep is not in and of itself particularly specific to dementia. I fall asleep at dinner parties, because I’m old and work too hard. Bill Clinton was famous for it. But can you remember a criminal defendant repeatedly unable to stay awake at his own trial? I can’t. It’s obviously very rare. [snip]
However, dementia patients frequently pass out during the day. And come to think of it, this may be the first criminal trial I’ve been aware of where the defendant appears, in my opinion, to have dementia. Is it a coincidence that it’s also the only one I’ve ever known where the defendant can’t remain awake most days? Trump appears to be losing control of his basic biological functions. One is sleep-wake. The other may be excretion.Twitter blew up when both Ben Meiselas and George Conway reported they had heard from multiple credible sources in the courtroom that Trump was loudly passing gas, and the smell was overpowering.This was judged by Snopes to be unconfirmed. But, personally, I happen to trust the people who reported it. I don’t believe they would make that up. There have been unconfirmed reports of Trump using adult diapers.
Normally, this would be a personal matter, but America really needs to know if Trump is incontinent. His apparent disease is progressing rapidly before our eyes and yet we’re being gaslit that this is 'Trump being Trump.' That’s true, but it is also Trump appears to be dementing, and the mainstream media doesn’t seem to want to report on that story." (our emphasis)
There are more observations from David Rothkopf and Brynn Tannehill, so please read Devega's entire article.
As protests and counter protests appear to spread at campuses over the dire situation in Gaza, college and local officials are presented with the problem of allowing protesters the right to demonstrate while not allowing hate speech and intimidation of students to occur. Calls for involving the National Guard are extreme, as are some protesters' genocidal call for "free Palestine" / the elimination of Israel. A steady and patient approach on the part of officials is what's needed at this point, but may not hold given the heated and volatile environment.
A history professor whose
formula has successfully predicted the outcome of all but one
presidential election since 1984 has indicated that President Joe Biden is tracking to win in 2024.
Allan Lichtman, who has been teaching at American University for five decades, uses a system of 13 “keys” to the White House to make his call.
In a recent interview with the Guardian,
Lichtman noted that Biden has already got two keys under his belt: the
incumbency key, and the contest key, after he faced no serious
contenders for the incumbent party nomination.
“That’s
two keys off the top. That means six more keys would have to fall to
predict his defeat. A lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose,”
Lichtman said.
He will likely make his final prediction in August, according to the Guardian.
The
other keys, which are structured as true or false questions, include
whether or not the incumbent candidate has been tainted by a major
scandal, whether there has been social unrest during the term, whether
the incumbent has achieved major military successes or failures, and
whether or not the challenging candidate is charismatic or a national
hero.
The only blemish on Lichtman’s record is in 2000, when he predicted that Al Gore would defeat George W. Bush.
But
Lichtman claims that call was nonetheless correct, since Gore won the
popular vote. He contends that Gore would have won the election was he
not wronged in Florida, which Bush won by a razor thin margin, prompting
a recount dispute and highly controversial Supreme Court decision.
He was among a select few who predicted former President Donald Trump’s win in 2016...
As with polls six months out from an election, take this with more than a ton of salt, and keep doing the necessary hard work to win (volunteer, donate, vote). But, let's face it: he does have a better record than any polling outfit we've ever seen.
“I’m profoundly disturbed about the apparent direction of the court,”
J. Michael Luttig told me. “I now believe that it is unlikely Trump
will ever be tried for the crimes he committed in attempting to overturn
the 2020 election.”
I called Luttig, a former federal judge with extensive
conservative credentials, to solicit his reaction to this week’s Supreme
Court hearing
over Donald Trump’s demand for absolute immunity from prosecution for
any crimes related to his insurrection attempt. On Thursday, Luttig posted a thread
critiquing the right-wing justices for their apparent openness to
Trump’s arguments—but that thread was legalistic and formal, so I
figured Luttig had a lot more to say.
And did
he ever. Luttig lacerated the right-wing justices for harboring a
“radical vision” of the American presidency, and pronounced himself
“gravely” worried that Trump will never face accountability for alleged
crimes committed in attempting to destroy U.S. democracy through
extensive procedural corruption and the naked incitement of mob
violence.
Luttig’s
fear that Trump may very well skate centers on the lines of questioning
from the court’s right-wing majority about Special Counsel Jack Smith’s
ongoing prosecution of Trump. As many observers noted,
those justices appeared largely uninterested in the question before
them—whether Trump’s alleged crimes related to the insurrection
constituted official presidential acts that are immune from prosecution
after leaving office.
Instead, the justices dwelled on the
supposed future consequences of prosecuting presidents for crimes, and
seemed to want to place some limits on that eventuality. That suggests
the justices will kick the case back to lower courts to determine
whether some definition of official presidential acts must be protected
(and whether Trump’s specific acts qualify).
The corrupt Republican Supreme Court already showed its hand by accepting an appeal on what was a slam-dunk finding by the appeals court, then dragging out hearings until the end of its term in April. That they appear at best to be headed toward a mixed bag of opinions and possibly remanding it back to the trial court means more delay and judicial obfuscation in service to one Malignant Loser.
Dueling
demonstrations on the UCLA campus Sunday resulted in skirmishes between
groups showing support for an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters
and counter-protesters rallying around the university's Jewish students.
A
group of demonstrators "breached a barrier that the university had
established separating two groups of protestors on our campus, resulting
in physical altercations," according to a statement from Mary Osako,
vice chancellor of UCLA strategic communications. "UCLA has a long
history of being a place of peaceful protest, and we are heartbroken
about the violence that broke out."
The
Westwood campus protests followed similar demonstrations on the campus
at the University of Southern California, amid a controversy over the
school's decision to cancel the valedictorian's speech. The USC protests
also experienced some minor clashes in the crowd, along with dozens of
arrests.
It's unclear
if anybody was arrested at UCLA on Sunday. Video showed most of the
confrontations involved pushing and yelling. Some minor injuries were
reported...
When legitimate protests turn violent, the reaction is for police to be called in and start cracking heads. That serves no one except some police who like to beat up people and some people who like being beat up for the cameras. All that is needed is for someone, somewhere to be seriously injured or killed and the fat will be in the fire. The evil Hamas terrorist attack and Netanyahu's unrestrained response now have consequences that have washed up on our shores.
From NAASA/ESA, April 23, 2024: In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of the legendary
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers took a snapshot of the
Little Dumbbell Nebula (also known as Messier 76, M76, or NGC 650/651)
located 3400 light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation
Perseus. The photogenic nebula is a favourite target of amateur
astronomers.
M76 is classified as a planetary nebula. This is a misnomer because
it is unrelated to planets. But its round shape suggested it was a
planet to astronomers who first viewed it through low-power telescopes.
In reality, a planetary nebula is an expanding shell of glowing gases
that were ejected from a dying red giant star. The star eventually
collapses to an ultra-dense, hot white dwarf.
M76 is composed of a ring, seen edge-on as the central bar structure,
and two lobes on either opening of the ring. Before the star burned
out, it ejected the ring of gas and dust. The ring was probably sculpted
by the effects of the star that once had a binary companion star. This
sloughed-off material created a thick disc of dust and gas along the
plane of the companion’s orbit. The hypothetical companion star isn’t
seen in the Hubble image, and so it could have been later swallowed by
the central star. The disc would be forensic evidence for that stellar
cannibalism.
The primary star is collapsing to form a white dwarf. It is one of
the hottest stellar remnants known at a scorching 120 000 degrees
Celsius, 24 times our Sun’s surface temperature. The sizzling white
dwarf can be seen as a pinpoint in the centre of the nebula. A star
visible in projection beneath it is not part of the nebula.
Pinched off by the disc, two lobes of hot gas are escaping from the
top and bottom of the ‘belt’ along the star’s rotation axis that is
perpendicular to the disc. They are being propelled by the
hurricane-like outflow of material from the dying star, tearing across
space at two million miles per hour. That’s fast enough to travel from
Earth to the Moon in a little over seven minutes! This torrential
‘stellar wind’ is ploughing into cooler, slower-moving gas that was
ejected at an earlier stage in the star’s life, when it was a red giant.
Ferocious ultraviolet radiation from the super-hot star is causing the
gases to glow. The red colour is from nitrogen, and blue is from oxygen.
The entire nebula is a flash in the pan by cosmological timekeeping. It will vanish in about 15 000 years.
[Image description: A Hubble image of the Little Dumbbell
Nebula. The name comes from its shape, which is a two-lobed structure of
colourful, mottled glowing gases that resemble a balloon that has been
pinched around a middle waist. Like an inflating balloon, the lobes are
expanding into space from a dying star seen as a white dot in the
centre. Blistering ultraviolet radiation from the super-hot star is
causing the gases to glow. The red colour is from nitrogen, and blue is
from oxygen.]
We already posted a quote from last night's White House Correspondents' Association dinner (a.k.a., "nerd prom"), but we wanted to share two clips of emcee Colin Jost of SNL that also spoke truth to the assembled "journalists." Worth a look:
Jost: The Republican candidate for president owes half a billion in fines for bank fraud and is currently spending his days farting himself awake during a porn star hush money trial and the race is tied? The race is tied. Nothing makes sense anymore. pic.twitter.com/59FRR2Hc3S
Colin Jost: "My grandpa voted for decency and decency is why we're all here tonight. Decency is how we're able to be here tonight. Decency is how we're able to make jokes about each other and one of us doesn't go to prison after..."#WHCA#WHCD#nerdprompic.twitter.com/ti5bTkHQP7
Right-wing egomaniac and our would-be overlord Elon Musk has a big problem at Tesla. It's not only that the company's stock value is falling, and sales are dropping. His company is being sued in multiple venues for the car's Autopilot failures, which have resulted in numerous serious crashes. From the Washington Post:
"At least eight lawsuits headed to trial in the coming year — including two that haven’t been previously reported — involve fatal or otherwise serious crashes that occurred while the driver was allegedly relying on Autopilot. The complaints argue that Tesla exaggerated the capabilities of the feature, which controls steering, speed and other actions typically left to the driver. As a result, the lawsuits claim, the company created a false sense of complacency that led the drivers to tragedy.
Evidence emerging in the cases — including dash-cam video obtained by The Washington Post — offers sometimes-shocking details: In Phoenix, a woman allegedly relying on Autopilot plows into a disabled car and is then struck and killed by another vehicle after exiting her Tesla. In Tennessee, an intoxicated man allegedly using Autopilot drives down the wrong side of the road for several minutes before barreling into an oncoming car, killing the 20-year-old inside." (our emphasis)
Meanwhile, Musk is arrogantly predicting AI will be the savior of his company, as he is staking much of his electric vehicle efforts on what he calls the "robotaxi":
"To allay investors’ concerns, Musk has made lofty promises about launching a fully autonomous 'robotaxi' in August. Soon, he said during Tuesday’s earnings call, driving a car will be like riding an elevator: you get on and get out at your destination.
'We should be thought of as an AI or robotics company,' Musk told investors. 'If somebody doesn’t believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company. But we will.'”
Musk's "lofty promises" are causing too many to put their lives in his greedy and indifferent hands, while he works on solving autonomy. It's hard to comprehend that this erratic mogul's SpaceX company also has a virtual lock on NASA's space flight program, and its subsidiary Starlink satellite system which Ukraine relies on. It's like giving a James Bond villain the the nuclear codebook, which may be his next goal.
"Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends." - from "Go Set a Watchman", the second and final novel by author Harper Lee (4/28/1926 - 2/19/2016). Her bestselling masterpiece "To Kill A Mockingbird" won Lee the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. She later went on to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Arts for her work.
"... I'm sincerely not asking you to take sides. I'm asking you to rise up to
the seriousness of the moment. Move past the horse race numbers and the
gotcha moments and the distractions, the sideshows that have come to
dominate and sensationalize our politics, and focus on what's actually
at stake..." -- President Biden at last night's White House Correspondents' Association dinner, admonishing our puerile media to recognize what's at stake in this election, even more so than it was in 2020 -- the preservation of our democracy. Sadly, this likely fell on hundreds of deaf ears in the audience. If you Google the dinner, you'll find the predominant top line coverage is of the President's "zingers" in describing the Malignant Loser, and of the pro- Palestinian protests outside the dinner venue. Sic transit gloria, America.
"The UAW’s successful unionization effort last week at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee—the first successful unionization effort at a car factory in the South since the 1940s—is breaking the brains of Republicans in that region. They’re truly astonished that workers might not trust their corporate overlords with their working conditions, pay, health, and retirement. [snip]
Southern autoworkers, though, aren’t listening to the GOP’s BS any more: A unionization vote is set for the week of May 13 at a Mercedes plant in Alabama, and more than half the workers there have already signed a card indicating their desire for union representation.
The problem for Republicans is that unions represent a form of democracy in the workplace, and the GOP hates democracy as a matter of principle. It’s why conservatives have opposed every effort to expand voting rights from the Jim Crow era, through fighting woman’s suffrage, to opposing voting rights legislation from 1965 to this day." (our emphasis)
The six MAGA Republican governors' statement that Hartmann reproduces is a reactionary, pre-New Deal screed that belongs in the 19th century, as does their corrupt party.
The UAW's successful fight against the major automakers last fall provided a big spark to union organizing, with President Biden walking the picket lines as the most pro-union President. The UAW got wage increases that reflected the wages and benefits they gave up when the industry was struggling, only to have the corporations deny them later.
NEWS --> Prominent conservative Michael Luttig excoriates the right wing SCOTUS justices as "radical," predicting that in the 1/6 case, they'll protect Trump entirely.
“I now believe that it is unlikely Trump will ever be tried," Luttig tells me.
Trump can’t be with Melania on her birthday because he’s on trial for arranging to pay off Playboy model Karen McDougal to keep silent because he had an affair with her during Melania’s entire pregnancy. That’s why he’s missing her birthday. pic.twitter.com/2SwSgasDdy
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem appears to have confirmed that she killed a family puppy that infuriated her by being “untrainable,” and she claims it only proves how “politically incorrect” she is.https://t.co/OQWjUeODSn
— Governor Gretchen Whitmer (@GovWhitmer) April 27, 2024
That is so sweet of you. Thank you, Jo. Although, honestly, I'm so tired and depressed after listening to the Supreme Court case on Presidential Immunity, I'm just about ready to go to Kristi Noem's house in a dog costume.
Kevin McCarthy Protege Under Investigation For Sexually Assaulting Daughter: Republican Kern County Supervisor Zack Scrivner is being investigated for sexual assault after his other child stabbed him in the chest twice https://t.co/IVnEokY8VE
We're offering this extended excerpt from Francis Wilkinson's op/ ed in yesterday's Los Angeles Times because it powerfully distills the essence of the rot pervasive in the cult of the Malignant Loser, most recently seen in the corrupt workings of the Republican Supreme Court:
I have badly underestimated Donald Trump. Thursday was the day that his justices — it turns out that they are indeed his justices on the Supreme Court, just as he claimed — got it through my thick head: Trump is not just competent but masterful. He is not just capable, he is supreme.
Because Trump is clumsy at his alleged crimes, surrounding himself with flagrant
thugs, telling obvious lies, leaving prolific trails of damning
evidence, offering ridiculous defenses for indefensible conduct, I had
long concluded that he is incompetent at crookery along with his other
manifest failings. That’s true as far as it goes. But for all his mad
greed and compulsive lawlessness, for all his sleaze and stupidity,
crime is ultimately not Trump’s game. Trump is nothing like a master
criminal. But he is a master of something far more sinister and complex:
corruption.
Crime is a largely private endeavor. Corruption is public. It seeps into
the muscle and sinew of democratic society and institutions; it devours
from within. The Supreme Court, drunk on arrogated power, cut loose
from rudimentary ethics,
has been eaten alive by it. But the court is just one plot of a vast
terrain that Trump has conquered — not with crime, but corruption. [snip]
Trump has already succeeded at corrupting much of what’s corruptible.
Government. Elections. Foreign policy. Democracy. Religion. Above all,
people, and mostly men. Truckloads, boatloads, tiki-torch-parade-loads,
courtloads of weak men all standing in the shadow that Trump casts.
The
Republican Party has been corrupted absolutely. House Republicans have
combined McCarthyism with Larry, Moe and Curlyism to twist Congress to
comically corrupt ends — all to serve the greater degeneracy of Trump.
In the Senate, the young hyenas, Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Josh Hawley
(R-Mo.), study Trump’s demagogy and lick their chops, hoping for a turn
at democracy’s carcass.
The establishment has utterly caved.
Former Atty. Gen. William Barr’s endorsement of Trump this week, after
having called Trump unfit, a psychologically damaged incompetent who
cares only about himself, was barely newsworthy. What is Barr but
another in the long line of weak men, one more debased Republican
offering fealty to the grease king? Trump thanked Barr by humiliating him again.
But it was the Republican Supreme Court — mostly men again — that put
the shiv a little deeper in democracy’s back this week. Originalists or
textualists, all sounded more or less Trumpist as they seriously
entertained Trump’s argument that his assaults on the constitutional
order are protected by the Constitution itself. There is no way to make
honest sense of such a liar’s mash. But Larry, Moe and Curly aren’t just
chairing committees in Congress. They wear robes and furrowed brows
now, too. And they seem eager to pretend that crimes are just
constitutional exercises of power, and that one ex-president is a king.
Richard
Nixon, a self-made, and self-corrupted, man who studied geopolitics and
government assiduously, never achieved such a broad subjugation of
American values and institutions. Trump, the ignorant, n’er-do-well heir
to his father’s crooked
fortune, has achieved so much more. Trump hasn’t just captured the
trenches of conservative America, he has taken the commanding heights.
He owns all of it, from the most racist backwater saloon to the
Federalist Society clubhouse. They are his corrupted subjects. He is
their corrupt and demented king. If he can somehow get through the next
few perilous months, he may yet render corruption sacred, and the
republic irredeemable.
We may yet be irredeemable as a democratic republic, whether or not the Malignant Loser succeeds in winning the election. Rot this pervasive isn't eradicated by one or two elections. Does anyone doubt that if he loses he will call for a violent reaction? Does anyone doubt that if he wins he'll forever change our country into the dystopian authoritarian regime he so admires in Russia, China, North Korea and elsewhere? Institutions? We've seen Masha Gessen's timeless warning that our institutions will not save us repeated over and over again. For now, we need to hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.
(Photo: Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 6, 2020, following the Senate's acquittal of him in his first impeachment trial / Evan Vucci, AP)
