21 XII 2024: Prosecutorial indolence, irresponsible behavior, complicity in evildoing

There are manifold explanations for Trump’s success in the late election, lots of criticism of Biden for delaying his exit, criticism of the Harris campaign for lack of dynamism, criticism of the Democratic Party for misunderstanding the American people, and so on.

I’ve not seen anyone complain about Merrick Garland’s delays in prosecuting Trump for insurrection and about Fani Willis screwing up the Georgia case. Am I naive to think that if these two had done a better job Trump might really have been on his way to jail? 

Of course, there’s Judge Aileen Cannon’s contribution to Trump’s escape from prison. Am I the only one who thinks she is simply corrupt?

And the Supreme Court and their gift of immunity! If a sitting president murders his wife, is he immune from prosecution if he claims that the murder was required by his presidential office?

And I would complain also about the American judicial system. We have had a dramatic manifestation of what we’ve known all along, that if you have enough cash and connections you need never go to jail. 

And who would not call insurrection a grievous crime, one that can’t be blown off like more routine offenses like statutory rape, accepting bribes, or gross nepotism? But I guess so many well-placed people were complicit in the insurrection that the powers that be decided to obfuscate and downplay the greatest crime to occur in my lifetime.

12 XII 2024: Do we have enough cattle cars for mass deportations??

We are hearing more these days from Trump’s creatures and from the Archcriminal himself about the mass deportations they intend of illegal aliens. These sociopaths mean business. They can’t wait to start spending the $86 billion that is said to be “the minimum” required for their project, and they mean to employ police, ICEers, the U.S. Army, and, of course, a private army of “contractors” to carry it out.

They haven’t said much about their detailed plans for the mass deportation. Do they know if we have enough cattle cars, box cars, and livestock trailers to transport all these criminals back to …  Yes, back to where?? Anywhere over the border, to Canada or Mexico? To their countries of origin? Do we have concentration camps large enough to house this horde of aliens while they wait to be shipped out?

And do we have much practice in mass deportation? We surely do. We deported the Indians, murdering most of them in the process. We deported the blacks from Africa and made slaves of them. We rounded up the Japanese and “relocated” them to prison camps. Do we, in our time, have enough brutal and thoughtless men who can measure up to the brutality and mindlessness of mass deportations of the past? Just listen to Mr. Homan.

1 XII 2024: Terms for the Trump government

The second Trump regime is taking shape. The following are some first attempts at descriptive names for his cabinet-to-be.

Though some of them are wealthy, they are so garish and tasteless that they could be called:

         THE CHEAP STATE

They are none of them qualified, so maybe the Trump Cabinet is 

              A DE-MERITOCRACY

Trump and some of his appointees ought to have done jail-time. So they might rename the White house

           THE DISMAS HOUSE

Trump and his former cabinet used to be described with term that will suit Trump and the new cabinet equally well

              A KAKISTOCRACY

28 XI 2024: Musk, Citizen of the World, Trump’s hero

I read that Elon Musk was a citizen of South Africa until age 18 when he became a Canadian citizen until 2002 when he became a citizen of the United States. Therefore, he too is an immigrant. How do the Trumpites feel about that?

But Musk has a lot to recommend him. For Musk has something of Putin about him, and a little bit of Kim Jong Um, and a hint of Xi Jinping, and this makes him Trump’s kind of guy, that is, one of Trump’s aspirational models. Oh sure, Trump will again be the President of the United States. So what more does he want? He wants wholly unrestrained power, to be a latter day absolute monarch.

23 XI 2024: Euro-trash and Patriot Predators

I read that Trump wants to appoint Sebastian Gorka as czar of counter terrorism. Trump had hired Gorka, a protege of Steve Bannon, some sort advisory capacity at the beginning of his first term. Gorka did not last very long and disappeared into the creepy far right circles whence he came. This time maybe he will last longer. Gorka can make a real contribution to the Trump cabinet by balancing the home-grown incompetents and crack-pots with some Euro-trash.

The term “patriot” is everywhere I look. The accumulated low-lifes of our several “militias” all call themselves patriots. Trump calls the rioters of Jan 6 patriots. And a firm in Kirkwood MO calls itself Patriot Sunrooms and Windows. The old-time firearms company Mossberg had called their latest .22 rifle “Patriot.” But I see now that “Patriot” is now to be called “Patriot Predator,” with the intent, I suppose, of making it even more appealing to the bigoted boys in our militias.

20 XI 2024: An anti-competent cabinet of cronies

Trump has purposely selected for his cabinet people who seem unprepared by prior experience for the jobs assigned to them. J.D. Vance is, as the saying goes, one heart-beat away from the presidency, and brings to his work two whole years in the Senate. Pete Hegseth is, like Trump, a TV star with apparent sexual irregularities in his past. Matt Gaetz has had a lot of experience, but his experience suits him better for the presidency of a degenerate fraternity. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is famous, or, rather, has a famous name. He is himself infamous for his own sexual irregularities and his whimsical ideas about medicine. Linda McMahon is the tsar among professional wrestling impresarios. Pro wrestling is Trump’s favorite sport. Kristi Noem is a dog-shooting woman. That is her sole qualification. Elise Stefanik is a more moral and a little less grossly offensive version of Matt Gaetz, but is afflicted with an enormous “attitude” problem.

These and other cabinet members who can boast of what we might call a non-traditional background or lack of preparation, and in some cases, a record of Trumpian sexual misbehavior, will accomplish Trump’s ambition to disassemble the Government, this in keeping with Steve Bannon’s advice to “Blow everything up and then seize power.”

18 XI 2024: American peace crimes

I’ve visited a number of websites that offer explanations and examples of what is a war crime. A common rudimentary list of these is as follows:

murder

extermination

enslavement

deportation

torture

sexual or gender-based violence.

The United States could well be charged with commission of most of these crimes, not in war time, but in what the people in power agreed to call peace. 

The more obvious: 

The U.S. made repeated efforts of exterminate American Indians.

The U.S. encouraged the enslavement of blacks.

The U.S. caused the mass deportation of vulnerable populations, sc., the kidnapping and deportation of Africans as slaves and the deportation of Indians from property coveted by white America.

And now the Trump regime is plotting the mass deportation of a large part of the population of the United States. Of course, these likely deportees are not citizens of the United, but neither were the native inhabitants of America. This mass deportation will not be a response to pretended wartime necessity, but will be an indulgence of the fanatical racism and crippling selfishness of a mob of descendants of onetime immigrants to the United States.

15 XI 2024: No one smarter than Trump

One characteristic of trump-base voters is that they distrust and despise anyone who seems more bright, more clever, more competent than they. It has always been this way. The “people” don’t like folks who use big words or complex syntax. They assume that folks who do are city slickers out to deceive them or sneer at them.

I wonder if there is something similar at work in Trump’s selections for his cabinet and staff. Trump too does not want to have around him people who are smarter and more capable than he, experienced and intelligent people who might “show him up,” who might show their contempt for him, as have so many in Trump’s earlier staff.

There is, of course, a lot more to it. It’s easy to undermine the United States. Just appoint belligerent and incompetent people to positions of great importance and let things fall apart.

Appointment of trump-types will require bypassing the required Senate approval, but that approval, required by the Constitution, is to the trumpian mentality a mere legalism.

Indeed, I think we’re going to see Trump trying to govern without legislative approval or cooperation. He will do it through “executive orders” and “emergency decrees.” There is precedent for this. The Nazis manufactured an emergency in which the Chancellor, Hitler, could govern by decree. The emergency became permanent and Hitler never ceased governing by decree.

9 XI 2024: Very good question

See on CNN the editorial by Smercornish “Did Trump change America or reveal it?” 

Ever since the rise of Trumpism I’ve been scratching my head, asking “Who knew? Who knew that the American electorate is so ignorant, sub-rational, amoral?” But the question cited above is the answer. People like me have been clinging to the hope that America still means what it says, remains committed to the values it has professed. But it is now clear that the majority of Americans have abandoned, indeed, probably have never accepted these values. This fact has been evident all along, but our hope and self-deception blinded us to it.

8 XI 2024:  Shouldn’t let the children vote

Well, Trump, known to his friends as Shitler, has been elected. It’s wonderful how so many people can be convinced to act against their best interests. It reminds me of the hypothetical situation described by Plato (Gorgias): In a trial, the opponents are a Physician and a Pastry-cook, the jury is made up of children. Who are the children likely to support? The point is that politicians do not try to do what is best, but only to humor the many. And we see how well this works.