QOTD: War Costs And Lies

 

Heather Digby Parton writes in Salon.com today that testosterone-obsessed Whiskey Pete Hegseth's math for the Iran war and the eye-popping Pentagon budget don't add up, but will get little push back from the supine and cowardly MAGAt Republicans in Congress.  Her article's coda:

"As usual, Hegseth behaved like a teenage bully during the Senate hearing. He argued with senators, blamed Biden and insisted that America has won the war in Iran while simultaneously requesting many more billions to win it. Since the GOP is attempting to push this supplemental package through using reconciliation, they won’t need Democrats to pass it, so one can probably expect that he’ll get what he wants. The firehose of money flowing to the Pentagon and all the insiders who are making massive bank from it isn’t going to dry up any time soon.  

Hegseth ended the week with a gratuitous gesture to his commander in chief, who spent a good part of his time explaining that the 18 deaths in the Iran war are nothing compared to all the deaths in previous wars. To make Trump feel better, Hegseth removed from the tally four troops who were killed in renewed fighting, bringing the official death toll back down to 14. Military officials told the New York Times that 'one reason behind the change was . . . because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.'

Nonetheless, Trump attended the dignified transfer of the four fallen soldiers’ remains and concocted a story to burnish his war lust. “All of them said very strongly, ‘We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.’”

Sure they did." (our emphasis)

Lying about fallen men and women of our armed forces is on brand for the dishonorable, draft-dodging narcissist felon Malignant Fascist. 

 

QOTD: The Malignant Fascist's Luck

 

Salon.com's Heather Digby Parton looks at the havoc the deranged Malignant Fascist has wreaked in his life, with the luck of the incompetent and a healthy bankroll supplied by his monstrous father. He's squandered his luck often, yet manages to get away and to enrich himself further:

"Trump has always been very incompetent and very lucky, and his luck may hold out once again. He is likely to survive the disaster he is making of the country by the skin of his teeth, and will probably leave office with a massive fortune derived from his presidency. There will likely be no accountability for the vast corruption and abuse of power for him personally; his friends and allies have seen to that.

"Up until now, America has been an equally lucky nation, blessed with vast resources and resilient people who came to this country with lots of energy and ambition. But it’s entirely possible that our fortune has run out and we won’t be lucky enough to survive Donald Trump. After all, his good luck almost always leaves nothing but carnage for the people he leaves behind."

Let's work to make sure his luck runs out this time. 

 

Advice to Dem Congressional Candidates

 

The estimable Heather Digby Parton, writing in Salon.com, gives some timely advice to Democratic Congressional candidates for this fall's mid-term elections. It's advice that the constipated Dem consultant class and leadership should follow, but so far it appears they're content to fight the last war:

"There is a great temptation, as happens so often in politics, to fight the last war. Working under the assumption that because voters said they voted for Trump in 2024 because of the economy, too many strategists still seem to ignore the fact that the country had just gone through unprecedented national trauma with the Covid-19 pandemic and, like virtually every country in the world, reacted by tossing out incumbents. It’s not that people weren’t reeling from the economic upheaval; they were also reeling from five years of death, disruption and despair. It was never just about the eggs.

American voters inexplicably thought that Trump could restore the relative tranquility that existed before that maelstrom. Instead, he has created even more chaos and fear. 

However Democratic congressional candidates ultimately decide to approach this, they simply cannot behave as if we are living through a time of politics as usual. A Republican majority that is allowing Trump to use tariffs as a weapon that hurts average Americans, occupy American cities with paramilitary forces, brutalize immigrants, depose foreign leaders, threaten allies, blackmail law firms and universities, defund science and education, and essentially tear up the Constitution, all in order to appease a tyrant, is simply not something they can ignore. Democrats can’t pretend the only thing that matters is the economy." (our emphasis)

The Times/ Siena poll below also indicates a broad understanding that the Malignant Fascist has something existential to fear in the Epstein Files.  In addition, the scale of corruption of the mentally ill MF, his family and regime is staggering, and that should be drummed into the voters as they struggle while the MF pads his bank account using his position to dispense favors.  If these issues are too much for Dem leadership to get behind, then we obviously need new leadership. 

 

QOTD: The Secret Police Force

 

Writing in Salon.com, Heather Digby Parton looks at the history of the "homeland security" apparatus in the U.S., since the 9 / 11 attack, and observes that the threat to our democratic republic was there from the start just waiting for a monster like the Malignant Fascist to exploit it to its fullest:

"Donald Trump, with the guidance of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, has now unleashed this huge police force on the entire country to terrorize cities and towns all over the country with faces covered, dressed in military gear and armed to the teeth. ICE forces are not only brutalizing immigrants (and anyone they think looks like they might be one), they are aggressively confronting protesters and citizens who are filming them doing what they’re doing. Last week they shot and killed one such citizen activist, Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis. 

As feared from the moment DHS was given a name that echoed authoritarian governments of the last century, these secret police are being used for political purposes. Trump has sent them into Minnesota to target a specific Black, immigrant and Muslim community, and to exact vengeance on his perceived enemies, Gov. Tim Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar, both Democrats. Now they are calling that young, liberal, white, female protester who was shot in the face at close range by an ICE officer a domestic terrorist. It ticks all the boxes of their agenda. 

The danger was clear from the beginning. If you build a giant police organization and give it virtually unlimited money and unlimited power, they will use it. To paraphrase Trump, if you create a secret police force you won’t have a democracy anymore. We are perilously close to losing ours." (our emphasis)

Any Dem worth our vote and a position of trust has to put an end to this tool of the MF's police state.  Whatever the original intent, it's now a lawless operation under the control of a demented and reckless MF and his cultists.

 

QOTD: "A Gangster For Capitalism"

 

From the always readable Heather Digby Parton, writing today in Salon.com. Please read the entire article:

"Since 1898, the United States has attempted to overthrow governments in Latin America at least 41 times. The legendary Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler participated in several of those operations, and he grew increasingly disillusioned by how American troops were being sacrificed for imperialism and the interests of big money and the corporatocracy — a ruling class that rarely, if ever, sacrificed its own children.

In his famous 1935 book 'War is a Racket,' Butler described his career without illusion or self-deception: 'I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.'

Trump’s military misadventure in Venezuela fits squarely within that tradition. While he brags, it is others who have to carry out his orders and, far too often, make the ultimate sacrifice. 

Despite his certainty, the outcome of Trump’s gambit in Venezuela — and potentially beyond — is very much in doubt. Swagger often dissolves when it encounters reality. The question then becomes, will Trump pivot, or will he instead let himself continue to be possessed and flattered by his own version of MAGA machismo on the international stage?" (our emphasis)

We're betting that the depraved Malignant Fascist (a.k.a. Cadet Bone Spurs) will continue in his narcissistic bubble, strutting and bullying other nations as the gangster goon he's always been, destroying what remains of the international good will and support we once had.

 

QOTD -- A Criminal Maniac Escaping Justice

 

"The president of the United States is in bed with a money launderer for terrorists and sex traffickers to the tune of multiple billions of dollars. And he gave him a pardon which he says he doesn’t know anything about.

"And there isn’t a thing anyone is ever going to do about it.

"And, by the way, it isn’t just because he is a tyrant, although he is. It’s because a vast number of our fellow Americans to whom we are required to show respect and generosity because they are so misunderstood, love this criminal maniac. If they didn’t, he wouldn’t get away with all this."  -- Heather Digby Parton, Hullabaloo, on the Malignant Fascist's pardon of crypto billionaire and money launderer for terrorists and sex traffickers Changpeng Zhao, whom the MF claimed to know nothing about during the unchecked lie fest on "60 Minutes" yesterday.  We are in this utterly corrupt state run by an utterly corrupt MF and his crime family for the very reason Parton points out.  They and the enablers in the media and other institutions would, in a sane world, be excluded from civilized society.  Maybe we'll get there someday if we can pull off another Reconstruction/ de-Nazification more effectively than the last one.

QOTD: "Swinging For The Fences"

 

Heather Digby Parton writes in Salon.com about villainous DHS Secretary Kristi "ICE Barbie" Noem's ambitions for the White House in 2028, her over-the-top photo ops in various costumes, and the team she's formed with rumored lover and advisor Cory Lewandowski. It's a sobering article about a ruthless climber willing to trample on people's rights and to help the Malignant Fascist build a police state:

"With her famous shiny pout and long dark tresses, Noem is the public face of Donald Trump’s emergent police state. And she is everywhere. At nearly every immigration hotspot, the secretary stages photo shoots demonstrating her hands-on leadership of the administration’s crackdown, all while sporting attire that she (mistakenly) believes fits the moment. In one surreal instance, Noem posed in front of prisoners in the notorious El Salvadoran gulag wearing a $50,000 Rolex.

DHS has spent more than $50 million filming television commercials of Noem thanking Donald Trump for securing the border, and the agency recently distributed a public service announcement of the secretary informing passengers in Transportation Security Administration lines that Democrats have shut down the government and are to blame for any delays. (Many airports are refusing to air it.) The low-rent Leni Riefenstahl social media propaganda campaign, in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and street theater are meticulously documented, has the effect of inuring the public to the idea that troops are invading American cities and no one who opposes the regime is safe. [snip]

But in the meantime, Noem and Lewandowski are working night and day together, preparing for the next step in her political career. She’s clearly swinging for the fences, and is almost certainly planning a run for president in 2028. 

When Noem was confronted about the reprehensible story of her shooting her dog, she responded that she told the story to illustrate her willingness to do anything 'difficult, messy and ugly.' In that regard, Noem is certainly proving her capability, and she is evidently counting on the fact that her image as the cold, remorseless executor of the plan to rid America of foreigners will launch her into the White House. They don’t call her ICE Barbie for nothing."

 

QOTD -- Blowing Everything To Smithereens

 

"...Trump never really developed intellectually and clings to ideas that came to him 40 to 60 years ago. Some fragment he learned in high school or a segment he watched on Larry King in 1989 form the entire basis of his understanding of how the world works.

"But I think it’s clear that as president he’s developed a shorthand for making decisions which simply comes down to: whatever they did, I will do the opposite. It’s the laziest possible way to make decisions and perfect for someone with a mind like Trump’s — all ego, no intellect.

"The good news for him is that his henchmen and accomplices in 2.0 have long wanted to do exactly what he’s doing — reverse everything Democrats have done for the past 80 years or so. (And quite a bit of what Republicans have done as well.) But they have a real vision for the future as well, something that Trump only vaguely sees as a restoration of some Leave it to Beaver fantasy.

"There are the tech-bros wanting to create an AI Valhalla on earth, the racist hatemongers wanting to rid the country of immigrants and put Black Americans back in the back of the bus, the 'Christians' who want to dominate the country with their throwback, fundamentalist, patriarchy just to name a few examples. What they all have in common is a belief that the nation as we’ve known it must be blown to smithereens so that their enemies can never rebuild it the way it was.

"That’s the project. Trump is just their tool. As he babbles about 'the golden age of Trump' and fiddles with the White House rose garden, his minions hand him the royal edicts to sign that will make their dreams come true." -- Heather Digby Parton, Hullabaloo, on "Putting America Into Reverse." Parton elaborates on a column by the NYT's Peter Baker, which posits similar reasons for why the Malignant Fascist's strategy is to simply (literally) reverse everything his political enemies accomplished or stood for, and how it's being advanced by his far more sophisticated, ultra-reactionary minions.

The current example of this is the rescission package being jammed through the MAGAt Republican Senate, which would claw back $9.4 billion in funding agreed upon in March for global health programs, peacekeeping efforts, and PBS and NPR, among other activities and programs.  It also would undercut any future faith in making deals if agreements can be reneged upon before the ink is barely dry.  Good times!

QOTD: Vengeance

 

Writing in Salon.com, Heather Digby Parton looks at the Malignant Fascist's driving force, and his use of South African fascist co-President Elon "Dick" Musk as his tool:

"Yes, he originally wanted to become president again to stay out of jail but the Supreme Court took care of that last summer so it became a moot point. And of course he wants to accumulate as much money as possible and is quite successful at doing that as president. So far, he's shown that he no longer cares at all about the appearance of corruption and is openly trading in Crypto schemes and foreign investment partnerships as president. So it's not making money that's making him do what he is doing and it certainly isn't ideology because he has none. No, the motive that is driving him to do everything he's doing is simple: vengeance.

That was the one issue that Trump never failed to bring up on the campaign trail and it's the one, I believe, that motivates everything he is doing today. I've written about his philosophy of retribution extensively over the years because he's never tried to hide it and it clearly is one of the single greatest clues to his character. But it's now gone far beyond his desire to hurt individuals — he's intent upon seeking revenge against the country itself, maybe even the whole world.

Trump is seething with anger and resentment at having been officially exposed as a sexual predator, a fraud, a coup plotter and a thief. He's still upset about the Russia Investigation, which he even brought up again on Thursday, explaining that he and Vladimir Putin were bonded over it so he feels he can trust the Russian dictator. Imagine the fury and frustration he feels at people knowing, no matter how much he says otherwise, that he lost the 2020 election and couldn't admit it. The damage to his fragile psyche is overwhelming and all he wants now is to wreak revenge on his enemies." (our emphasis)

The existential crisis America faces is that he has no qualms about taking us, our allies, and even his cult down to ruin to satisfy his quest for vengeance for those who, real or not, wounded his disturbed psyche. 

 

QOTD -- Polls And Pollsters

 

"...They are all fighting the last war in this election season and we don’t even know which war it is! Most are re-fighting the last presidential campaign in 2020 but consider that it was one of the most unusual races in history with a global pandemic that had tons of people not working or working from home, glued to their TVs and computers and mass voting by mail. 2024 is nothing like that. Others are apparently using a method that combines 2020 results with 2022, which was not only a mid-term and therefore very different from today, but also one which came after the cataclysmic Supreme Court decision in Dobbs which may have actually realigned the electorate. (We’ll see about that.) Now we have the weird circumstances of a former president who was fired running again, against the first Black woman candidate who wasn’t even in the campaign until late July. It’s a little unusual!

"You can see why fighting the last war might not be exactly accurate. Or it might. We just don’t know." -- Heather Digby Parton, on pollsters and polling in 2024.  Her comments are in response to an interesting essay from historian Rick Perlstein on the last 100 years of polling in this country (link here). The bottom line is we don't know how accurate or not polling is today (much like we haven't known for certain in the past), because much of the polling methodology relies on data and results from the past. As Perlstein puts it, "They adjust their methods—but to fight the last war. What else can they do?"

So, even if your a poll junkie (we have to fight the urge every day), the banal maxim still applies:  the only polls that matter are the ones where you vote on Election Day!  So VOTE!

QOTD: If He Wins...

Heather Digby Parton, writing this morning in Salon.com about the main promise the Malignant Loser is sure to keep if we let him back into the Oval Office.

"'I love getting even when I get screwed by someone,' Trump famously wrote in his book 'Think Big':

'Always get even. When you are in business you need to get even with people who screw you. You need to screw them back 15 times harder. You do it not only to get the person who messed with you but also to show the others who are watching what will happen to them if they mess with you. If someone attacks you, do not hesitate. Go for the jugular.' [snip]

If he loses, Trump will once again try to rile up his disappointed followers and who knows what will happen then. But he's not president anymore and it's unclear how that will help him do anything but salve his ego.

If he wins all bets are off.

He may or may not follow through on his inane tariffs or impractical mass deportation, but he damn sure believes in vengeance and there is no doubt he will follow through with that if he happens to eke out another win, especially now that he's been granted immunity by his friends on the Supreme Court. Nothing matters more to him than getting even. He means it." (our emphasis)

This twice-impeached, convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, business failure and life long con man has a lot of vengeance to deal with in his sick mind. Given the tools of a MAGA cult Congress and a supportive, Republican- majority Supreme Court, he'll spend his time in office devising and implementing retribution against his opponents for enforcing the law and merely opposing him politically. He's a mortal threat to our democracy and the rule of law, and he and his cult members running for office need to be soundly defeated. 

BONUS: The Harris - Walz campaign responds to the Malignant Loser. 

NEW >> @KamalaHQ responds to Trump's dangerous threats

“As we head into the debate, an extreme and unhinged Donald Trump is further ratcheting up his dangerous threats of revenge and retribution. https://t.co/dqgSBrAzqz pic.twitter.com/WZaSr3QyIh

— Ammar Moussa (@ammarmufasa) September 9, 2024

QOTD -- Flogging Negative Polls

 

"... [I]t’s helping to set Trump up to challenge the results of the election if it doesn’t go his way. If the country is programmed to believe that Trump is way ahead in the polls and Biden is in much deeper trouble than he is after months of this kind of press coverage, his people (and probably others) will be predisposed to believe Trump’s lies about a rigged election.

"If these polls are correct then we will have bigger problems but if Biden wins, there will be regrets for flogging these negative polls so hard to the exclusion of the others that showed it was much closer. The media needs to be careful of how they talk about the horse race in light of this. And the Democrats should take heed too and stop their perennial pearl clutching over every bump in the road. It is always detrimental on some level but it’s downright dangerous now." -- Heather Digby Parton, Hullabaloo, describing the danger of the relentless press coverage on negative polls like the recent, flawed New York F-ing Times/ Siena poll that paint a likely skewed picture of the race 6 months out.  We've also noted the Malignant Loser's habit of claiming "the polls" showing him "winning by a lot."  Begging the question of whether polls this early in a campaign are of any value, giving this lying fascist ammunition to claim (as he has frequently since 2021) that flawed polls show that the election was stolen (if and when he loses) is playing directly into his hands.  

Polls, even close to an election, can be wrong.  If you must poll, poll better, report better and yes, Dems, keep calm and carry on.

 

QOTD: Another Shutdown Looms On MAGA Mike's Watch

 

Heather Digby Parton, writing in Salon.com, calling for House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson to put on his big boy pants and fund government operations, which are about to shut down soon:

"Here we are again looking right down the barrel of a government shutdown because one-half of one of the three branches of the federal government is completely dysfunctional under GOP leadership.

We're talking about the Republican House of Representatives of course. They are simply incapable of passing legislation. 2023 was the least productive year since the Great Depression with Congress passing just 27 pieces of legislation that became law. In 1948 President Harry Truman famously called the legislative branch the "Do Nothing Congress" because they only managed to pass 511 bills.

This is the third time in six months that the country has been on the brink of a shutdown because the hard right in the House is holding their breath until they turn blue. It's not clear what they want except perhaps to cause more chaos. The last time it cost Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., his job as Speaker of the House and the same fate may very await current Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., as well. There's nothing in his performance so far that suggests he has the skill or the desire to finesse this situation." (our emphasis)

Of course, many of the nihilistic clowns in the MAGA / Putinist caucus thrive on chaos, just like their cult leader the Malignant Loser, and won't do anything he doesn't want them to do (including shutting down the Veterans Administration, cutting food safety inspections, and a thousand other functions of government). When Johnson met with President Biden and Congressional leaders yesterday, all pressured him to let the Ukraine / Israel / Taiwan aid bill go to the floor for a vote, and true to form Johnson used the southern border situation as a counter -- a situation that the Malignant Loser wants to fester in order to use as a bogus election issue.

 

QOTD -- Selective Amnesia Is Going Around

 

...[F]or all the horse race coverage there was virtually no mention of the most interesting aspect of Trump’s emergence back onto the campaign trail: He seems to have forgotten the Big Lie.

What was once the dominant theme of every speech, sometimes in tedious detail that would go on for hours, has all but disappeared. One has to assume that this is the result of the thrashing his election-denialist candidates got in the November elections. Even Trump seems to have realized that the message had penetrated as much as it was going to penetrate and nobody wants to hear about it anymore.

Perhaps most disturbingly, all that breathless horse race coverage also omitted the most salient fact about Trump: He planned a coup and incited an insurrection.

It doesn’t appear that the media considers that to be particularly relevant to his candidacy, which is a stunning development. How quickly they have decided that today Donald Trump is just another Republican, standing in front of a crowd, asking them to love him. --  Heather Digby Parton, writing on the emergence of the clearly deranged Malignant Loser on the campaign trail over the weekend, and how the media is once again assisting in his effort to elide history and the basic, evil nature of the grifter and his grift.  Say it with us: Sic transit gloria, America.

BONUS:  More commentary in the same vein here.

QOTD -- Stick A Fork In It, Even Before It's Done

 

"... [RNC Chairperson Ronna Romney] McDaniel announced that the panel will be packed with Trump-friendly right-wingers, including longtime Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, Trump-endorsed tech-bro Blake Masters — who just lost his Arizona Senate race — and Christian-right lobbyist and anti-abortion zealot Tony Perkins, along with newly-elected Trump endorsees like Sen.-elect Katie Britt of Alabama, Rep.-elect Monica De La Cruz of Texas and Rep.-elect John James of Michigan.

"Anyone who thinks that particular group will be 'charting a new path' needs to have another think again. This autopsy will almost certainly find a way to affirm that Republicans lost because they weren’t Trumpy enough. To reach any other conclusion would amount to repudiating the party’s base voters and the slightly tarnished Dear Leader they still worship." -- Heather Digby Parton, on the "autopsy" commissioned to tell them why, other than about 35% of the population, nobody likes them and how they can change that [spoiler alert: they can't].  (They could start with the question of why the greedy Malignant Loser withheld $94 million from his chosen candidates). This "autopsy" should meet the same fate as the 2013 "autopsy," which is currently sitting on former RNC Chairperson Reince Priebus's shelf nourishing bookworms.

QOTD -- The Republican/ Media Strategy

 

"We’re in a new landscape these days with election denial prominently featured on the menu. (Karl Rove is actually getting booed as a RINO sellout at GOP rallies.) The bandwagon effect is still in play but they now have a back-up: the Big Lie. It’s not overly cynical to suspect that a whole lot of the happy talk coming from Republican strategists whispering in reporters’ ears about how great their private polling looks is just a set-up for the possibility that they won’t do as well as they would like. As we already know, their voters are fully indoctrinated to believe that Democrats can only win if they cheat, and Republicans have created a full-scale election denial operation to challenge any negative results they don’t like. In some instances, they have challenged election systems in counties Trump won by double digits! Election denial has become the party’s primary organizing principle.  [snip]

"None of this is accident or coincidence. The strategy is clear: In a close race, pretend you’re winning in hopes of enticing voters to jump on board. If that doesn’t work, claim the election was stolen and deny the legitimacy of your opponent’s victory. This is just what they do. Why the press allows itself to be manipulated this way, year after year, is another question. Media folks can’t possibly fail to understand what’s going on, after all this time. On some level, they fall for it because they like it." --  Heather Digby Parton, on the way Republicans manipulate the polls and the media in order to get maximum turnout and maximum excuses for claiming "election fraud."  Ignore them and, if you haven't already, vote.  (our emphasis)