Truth Cartoon

 

Womp, womp!!!

 Watching Trump's Goebbels, Stephen Miller, have a complete meltdown over Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for president is fucking glorious.

Tom on Poitical Shenanigans

  The foolishness in the House of Representatives continues, with no end in sight.  The Speaker's chair is vacant and the two leading contenders to replace the hapless Kevin McCarthy are Jim Jordan, the current chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who once described himself as like: "...David Duke, but without the baggage...".  David Duke is an avowed racist who once served as the Grand Wizard of the notorious Ku Klux Klan and unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Louisiana.  Back in the early 200s, Scalise was a featured speaker before a White Supremacist group headed by Mr. Duke.  He later claimed that he had no idea that Mr. Duke was actually the repulsive character that everyone knew him to be, which makes him, perhaps, as either the stupidest man in congress or the biggest liar.  No other explanation makes sense.   I knew who David Duke was and what he stood for, and I've never been within 1,500 miles of Louisiana.  

Mr. Scalise's opponent for the Speaker's gavel is the aforementioned Rep. Jordan.  Mr. Jordan is a bomb thrower and provocateur who specializes in pointless and unfounded 'investigations' of his Democratic enemies, such as the notorious Benghazi 'investigation' of then Sec. of State Clinton, as well as the  endless investigation into the affairs of Hunter Biden, (5 years and counting, including 2 years under the Trump Administration), as well as the nascent investigation into Mr. Biden himself. The man is a walking punchline, so it should come as no great surprise that Mr. Trump endorsed Rep. Jordan at 12:13 this morning.   While I find Mr. Scalise deplorable, at least he has the virtue of being an institutionalist, which is what the House needs at present.  

Meanwhile, I think that none of the current Republican candidates for President, with the notable exception of former NJ Gov. Chris Christie, has condemned Mr. Trump's veiled death threats against newly retired Joint Chief Chair, Gen. Mark Milley.  Admittedly, Mr Trump didn't make these threats directly, but he let it be known that Gen. Milley's execution would be a good thing, and some of Mr. Trump's more unhinged supporters are always alert for secret instructions from 'The Boss'.  If you think I'm making this stuff up, just consider the number of Jan. 6 insurrectionists who testified that they believed that they were following the Orange One's orders when they defecated in the hallowed halls of the nation's capital.  

And what of the ABC news report about Mr. Trump revealing secret information about the operation of America's nuclear submarine force to an Australian billionaire, who then shared this sensitive information with a few dozen other people, many of them foreign nationals. All because he wants to play the role of the 'Big Man' .

I've got to close this before my freaking head blows right off my shoulders.  I've followed politics closely for 60 years, (Jesus, am I really that old?), and I'm familiar with the broad arc of American history as it relates to political tomfoolery, and I've never seen anything like the clown show that the current House Republicans are putting on.

Tom on the GOP in 2024

 It seems that every Republican who has ever looked into a mirror and seen a potential president grinning back at him, (or her), has begun touring early primary states like so many 'Common Nightwalkers', (whores),in search of potential clients.

It's beginning to look like 2016, when a crowded primary field had the effect of handing the nomination to Donald Trump. Some pundits say that the result this year will be the same, due to Mr Trump's enduring popularity with his vaunted "base", combined with the aforementioned crowded field of presidential aspirants. 

But history doesn't really repeat itself, as the old adage suggests. Rather, similar themes tend to recur over time. In this instance, the Trump of 2016 was a relatively fresh face, (at least if you didn't read the New York tabloids). But the Trump of 2024 has been exposed as a grifter and narcissist who cares nothing for America and what it stands for. In addition, his legal problems are considerable. He's in the crosshairs of Fani Willis, the Fulton County DA, over allegations of electoral interference and fraud. He's facing charges in New York. And perhaps the most serious threat to his aspirations for a second term in office is the 2 headed investigation by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, who is charged with investigating Trump's potential interference with the orderly transfer of power (The events surrounding the Jan 6 insurrection), and the irregularities concerning the classified documents that he'd squirrelled away at Mar-A-Lago. 

And Florida Gov Ron DeSantis, who once appeared to be the inevitable successor to Mr Trump as the head of the GOP, has shown himself to be a small man who sells a message of mean-spirited disregard for anyone who is not White, Straight, or Christian, while engaging in battle with a cartoon mouse. He has the voice of a boy just now reaching puberty, and when he speaks, he vomits forth pearls of bumper sticker wisdom that are long past their sell-by date. When he grows up he wants to be Benito Mussolini. Our Ron will make the trains run on time, but they won't serve Black areas, nor will they pick up girls who are holding hands or young men who appear to be overly sissified.

The reasons for this exponential growth of Republican candidates for the presidency are twofold; the most important being the perception of the leading candidates as being seriously flawed human beings who bring to the table an inordinate air of perpetual grievance, and a fantastical ideation that largely rejects commonly accepted truths. 

Some candidates are banking on  people  longing for a "Return to Normalcy", rather than continuing down the path of discord and personal enmity that has characterized our recent political history. The phrase "Return to Normalcy", was the campaign slogan of Ohio Sen Warren G Harding in the 1920 presidential election campaign. His opponent, Gov James Cox, was also from Ohio. The third candidate in the 1920 race was the Progressive Eugene V Debs, who campaigned from prison, where he found himself sentenced on what were essentially political charges. The good news for Donald Trump is that someone has actually waged a presidential campaign from a jail cell. The bad news is that Debs only got about 3 percent of the vote. Harding won the election with over 60 percent of the votes cast. An interesting side note is that both major party candidates for the Vice Presidency later went on to become president themselves Massachusetts own Calvin Coolidge took office when Harding died after eating a Bad Oyster, although there are some who claim that he was murdered. Gov Cox's running mate was the former Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D Roosevelt of New York 

1920 was one of those elections that seemed bigger than life, largely because of the societal issues surrounding it. The incumbent president, Woodrow Wilson, had presided over a chaotic second term, in which he brought the US Into WWI, after winning the 1916 election on the basis that he kept the US out of the European War. Wilson suffered a disabling stroke in 1919, and Wiison's wife Edith and the White House physician, a Dr House, essentially ran the country for the remainder of Wiison's term. The economy had cratered in the wake of WW1, and unemployment rose to 12 percent in 1919.  As is the case today, Republicans have an instinctive fear of Socialism that may have had a basis in reality, since Russia's Communist Revolution had taken place only 2 years earlier.  Let it suffice to say that the months leading up to the 1920 election were tumultuous. Voters were sick of the never-ending drama that typified American politics. Sounds like what many people are feeling today 

Politicians seem to have the same ability that sharks have to detect trace amounts of blood in the water and to respond with aggression when they do so. Because Mr Trump is in great legal peril, and because Gov DeSantis's carefully constructed veneer of invincibility has not appeared strong enough to dissuade potential challengers who are detecting plenty of blood in the water off the Florida coast.

The Big Lie

 March 24, 2021 (Wednesday)

Last night, federal prosecutors filed a motion revealing that a leader of the paramilitary group the Oath Keepers claimed to be coordinating with the Proud Boys and another far-right group before the January 6 insurrection. 

After former President Donald Trump tweeted that his supporters should travel to Washington, D.C., on January 6 for a rally that “will be wild!,” Kelly Meggs, a member of the Oath Keepers, wrote on Facebook: “He wants us to make it WILD that’s what he’s saying. He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!! Sir Yes Sir!!! Gentlemen we are heading to DC pack your s***!!” 

In a series of messages, Meggs went on to make plans with another individual for an attack on the process of counting the electoral votes. On December 25, Meggs told his correspondent that “Trumps staying in, he’s Gonna use the emergency broadcast system on cell phones to broadcast to the American people. Then he will claim the insurrection act…. Then wait for the 6th when we are all in DC to insurrection.”

The Big Lie, pushed hard by Trump and his supporters, was that Trump had won the 2020 election and it had been stolen by the Democrats. Although this was entirely discredited in more than 60 lawsuits, the Big Lie inspired Trump supporters to rally to defend their president and, they thought, their country. 

The former president not only inspired them to fight for him; he urged them to send money to defend his election in the courts. A story today by Allan Smith of NBC News shows that as soon as Trump began to ask for funds to bankroll election challenges, supporters who later charged the Capitol began to send him their money. Smith’s investigation found that those who have been charged in the Capitol riot increased their political donations to Trump by about 75% after the election. 

In the 19 days after the election, Trump and the Republican National Committee took in more than $207 million, prompted mostly by their claims of election fraud. John Horgan, who runs the Violent Extremism Research Group at Georgia State University, told Smith that “Trump successfully convinced many of his followers that unless they acted, and acted fast, their very way of life was about to come to an end…. He presented a catastrophic scenario whereby if the election was — for him — lost, his followers would suffer as a result. He made action not just imperative, but urgent, convincing his followers that they needed to do everything they could now, rather than later, to prevent the ‘enemy’ from claiming victory.”

And yet, on Monday, Trump’s former lawyer, Sidney Powell, moved to dismiss the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against her. Powell helped to craft the Big Lie, and won the president’s attention with her determination to combat the results of the election and restore Trump to the presidency. In January, Dominion sued Powell for $1.3 billion after her allegations that the company was part of an international Communist plot to steal the 2020 presidential election. 

On Monday, Powell argued that “no reasonable person would conclude” that her statements about a scheme to rig the election “were truly statements of fact.” Eric Wilson, a Republican political technologist, explained away the Big Lie to NBC News’s Smith: “[T]here are a lot of dumb people in the world…. And a lot of them stormed the Capitol on January 6th.”

And yet, 147 Republicans—8 senators and 139 representatives—signed onto the Big Lie, voting to sustain objections to the counting of the electoral votes on January 6. 

So the Republicans are left with increasing evidence that there was a concerted plan to attack the Capitol on January 6, fed by the former president, whose political campaign pocketed serious cash from his declarations that he had truly won the election and that all patriots would turn out to defend his reelection. Those claims were pressed by a lawyer who now claims that no reasonable person would believe she was telling the truth.

The Republicans tied themselves to this mess, and it is coming back to haunt them. President Biden’s poll numbers are high, with a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last Friday showing that 59% of adults approve of Biden’s overall performance. (Remember that Trump never broke 50%). They are happy with his response to the coronavirus pandemic and his handling of the economy.

Rather than trying to pass popular measures to make up the ground they have lost, Republicans are trying to suppress voting. By mid-February, in 43 states, Republicans had introduced 253 bills to restrict voting. Today, Republicans in Michigan introduced 39 more such bills. In at least 8 states, Republicans are trying to gain control over elections, taking power from nonpartisan election boards, secretaries of state, and governors. Had their systems been in place in 2020, Republicans could have overturned the will of the voters.

To stop these state laws, Democrats are trying to pass a sweeping federal voting rights bill, the For the People Act, which would protect voting, make it easier to vote, end gerrymandering, and get dark money out of politics. The bill has already passed the House, but Republicans in the Senate are fighting it with all they’ve got. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told them: “This is infuriating. I would like to ask my Republican colleagues: Why are you so afraid of democracy? Why, instead of trying to win voters over that you lost in the last election, are you trying to prevent them from voting?”