Another instance of the affinity of Trump and Putin. Trump habitually accuses enemies of the very crimes he himself commits. So Vladimir Putin is denouncing the explosion on his signature Russia-Crimea bridge as a terrorist attack. He is seeing in this explosion a reflection of himself, for he is at this time the world’s leading terrorist.
8 X 2022: Putin’s models
Horrors perpetrated by the Russian occupiers in Ukraine are a weak imitation of earlier Russian practice. See the Wikipedia article “NKVD prisoner massacres.”
7 X 2022: “Former House Speaker” at his best
I’ve read a report about Newt Gingrich’s dodge for Herschel Walker. The report begins, as do all reports about Newt, “Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich ….” The story is “Speaking on Fox News, Gingrich hailed Walker as ‘the most important Senate candidate in the country’ due to his ‘deep commitment to Christ.’” “deep commitment to Christ” Really? Newt would gild a turd.
3 X 2022: Let’s enforce the Federal Code
I took a look at the Federal Code as it bears on recent and current efforts to destroy the government in the United States. I find that our democracy does, in fact, have the means to defend itself. All that is required is the ruthless enforcement of the law on all offenders.
§2383. Rebellion or insurrection
Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrectionagainst the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
§2383Is applicable to all who participated in any way in the Jan. 6 Rebellion.The small fry are being prosecuted, but there seems to be a reluctance to prosecute the big bugs, the politicians and their camp followers who instigated, abetted, and perpetuate the Rebellion.
§2384. Seditious conspiracy
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
§2384 seems applicable to those who tried to interfere with the lawful transition of power, to those who conspired up to Jan. 6 as well as those who continue this conspiracy by promoting the Big Lie. Support for the Big Lie is not a mere difference of opinion. For some of Trump’s jihadists this may be due to invincible ignorance, but for more it is complicity in support of a pernicious falsehood that is in an attempt to hinder the lawful processes of government.
§2385. Advocating overthrow of Government
Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United Statesor the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence … Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
§2385 is applicable to public figures, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, slap-stick politicians, et al., and to organizations like the various militias, clubs like the Proud Boys, and to politicians who lie to these people, encouraging their belief that they have a right and duty to rebel against the American government.
2 X 2022: Ginni Thomas, a case of wishful thinking?
Ginni Thomas continues to proclaim the Big Lie. Why? I think she really believes with all her heart that the election was “stolen.” If so, what a pity and what an embarrassment to her “best friend”! But Ginni lives and moves, has her being and public persona in the reactionary fantasyland. So, whatever she may believe, she needs to keep asserting her belief in the Big Lie if she’s going to maintain her position of leadership among right-wing conspiracyholics.
As to her denial that she talked about the Big Lie with Clarence, I cannot believe that an unrestrained motor-mouth like Ginni would not have discussed her idée fixe with her Best Friend.
29 IX 2022: Second payment from Judge Aileen Cannon
Judge Aileen Cannon has made her second payment for the patronage of Donald Trump. She’s interfering with the work of the Special Master she herself appointed and is facilitating Trump’s delaying tactics. I suppose it is wonderful to see gratitude in action. Is anyone interested in impeaching Judge Cannon? Or, a less radical suggestion, will people contribute to her tuition for a redo in law school?
19 IX 2022: De Santis, Abbot, gubernatorial monsters
Mr. De Santis and Mr. Abbot, governors of two of the more barbarous states in America, have resorted to the old-time dictator’s tool of forced migration. Their supporters in the voting population have been tricked into believing that immigrants are a threat to their supposed way of life and so are expected to be gratified by the governors’ tyranny. Antisemitism, racial fear and hatred, anti-Catholicism, and anti-feminism are the oldest devices in the G.O.P.’s bag of deceptions, xenophobia and anti-feminism being now the ones most in favor.
De Santis and Abbot seem to think that their inhuman treatment of the immigrants is a good old boys’, haw! haw! haw!, owning the liberals, stunt. Their treatment of the immigrants is simply nazi-esque, with substitution of air liners for cattle cars. But I think that maybe, in the end, Il Duce De Santis and Oberstürmfuhrer Abbot may have done the immigrants a favor by getting them out of the political and moral abysses over which these two monsters rule.
17 IX 2022: No courtesy to the wrong-headed and treasonous
Republicans are moaning that criticism of “MAGA Republicans” is insulting to all the wonderful, wonderful people who voted for Trump. It is no insult but the simple truth that these voters and the Republican politicians who control them have been dupes. The voters, driven by their fears, and the politicians, driven by their lust for power, have embraced as their messiah a truly satanic figure who promotes satanic behaviors.
Would it have been an insult to Nazi voters to tell them that they have been conned? Would it have been too severe a measure to force the SA to disband? Would it have been over-reach to thwart and bring to justice Nazis in government who were trying to subvert it from within? Would it have been a vendetta to display all of Hitler’s crimes and craziness, and prosecute him according to law?
To try a less extreme hypothetical example: What if prominent politicians entered into a conspiracy to claim that law requires that not the candidate who gets the most votes, but the candidate who raises the most money wins the election. If public figures keep repeating this lie without forceful contradiction and the gullible masses believe them, then we will be told that this falsehood must be treated as an alternative truth in order to prevent trouble hitherto unseen. Does freedom of speech really allow so great and so constant a deception. Must we refrain from showing citizens how wrong they have been in order to avoid insulting them, in order to prevent a violent outbreak of their anger and class hatred?
America is drifting towards destruction. Inaction, delays, and the passage of time are all the liars need to make America a playland for grifters and brigands.
16 IX 2022: What’s in it for her?
Of course, Judge Aileen Cannon is receiving no monetary payment from her buggering the law. Does showing gratitude to her creator give her, perhaps, a warm feeling inside. Or does she think that because she shelters Trump she will get a high position in the judiciary of the new fascist regime?
Or, as seems more likely, she has no clear motive, but simply does not know what she’s doing, a situation foreseen by the American Bar Association and others who opposed her appointment.
15 IX 2022: Trump Threats
The criminal Donald Trump has told an interviewer that if he is indicted for stealing and endangering classified documents “… I think you’d have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before.” Trump must have been watching Birth of a Nation, for “never seen before” put me immediately in mind of the parade of the Ku Klux Klan down Pennsylvania Avenue on 13 September, 1926. You can see a photo of this parade on the Library of Congress site (https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b39318/). I don’t think the Trumpies could organize a parade like the KKK’s. We saw their idea of a parade on Jan 6.
Now Trump said about his prediction “That’s not inciting. I’m just saying what my opinion is.” I think that in place of “opinion” one should insert “heartfelt wish.” Lindsay Graham, Trump’s punk and senator from South Carolina, the Birthplace of the Confederacy, was more precise last month in threatening “riots in the streets.”
These “predictions” or “opinions” are, of course, dog whistles — they are a call to action addressed to Trump’s crazies and a warning to the government and the American people that indicting Trump means war. Our overly lax understanding of freedom of speech perhaps does not allow us to prevent incitements to violence like this, but we can take them as the warnings they are intended to be and get ready for the “problems the likes of which” and the “riots in the street.” These are threats of recourse to violence if the law is enforced, not unlike the case with the Mafia in Sicily. If you jail the mafiosi, the Mafia will declare war on the government.