Baghdad Cafe

The architects of the latest, enduring Iraq War--neocons and their allies--have had plenty of time to refine their recipe for Middle East peace. Therefore, I thought we might drop them off on a road outside Baghdad and let them fend for themselves, fixing any minor troubles that remain.

They should prosper in the circumstances they created. But, I am a compassionate and understanding man, so I thought we would stake them to a little cafe--maybe Feith's, or Wolfowitz's or Rumsfeld's, by name. I wish them well and will recommend them to anyone traveling there.

Americans in Paris

The time has come to employ the Nazi analogy. Everybody says you are screwed if you do but I don't care. No rational, national observer can doubt that it would mean nothing to Donald Trump if he got millions of people killed. Hell, George Bush got millions of people killed, destroyed the world economy, and he still thinks history will remember him well.

Behind the scenes, economic voodoo and racist and eugenic attitudes prevail. Trump's most enduring and apparently effective close adviser, his resident racist Stephen Miller, is a professional troll and a wealthy young parasite. These "principles" of economic atrocity--parasitism--and racial oppression, exclusion and indecency inspire fanatical devotion. 

No matter that they are observably false, treasonous, inconsistent with our actual laws and traditions, and unsustainable. Hate is presupposed. Resentment is a given. The practitioners of Republican politics have a grudge. How can they have a grudge? Where is our Versailles? There it is, out in the open, an enormous insult and crippling, post-war conclusion.

The Civil War left a huge wound from which the United States has never recovered. I can't in some compelling way argue this view into acceptance, syllogistically or by dialectic, but Reconstruction is our Versailles, the injury and abominable insult requiring retribution. Witness it in the loathsome, reptilian, treasonous spectacle of Mitch McConnell. 

Mitch's distortions of reality have an underlying, unifying drive and cohesion--projection. Mitch accuses others, typically Democrats, of doing what he does. He gets reelected because he is sticking it to the Yankees. He is a purified vehicle of southern revenge--the homespun, folksy, but cunning guy having it over on and outwitting the smart people.

We were all at Versailles in spirit but ours is deeper, more chronic and enduring. American southerners--the older generation, anyway--will die before they will abandon their racism and resentment, vital components of their psyches. Republicans gave their party over to these insane, destructive individuals. It is now the party of the Confederacy.

No Other Niche

In diversity there is stability. Even Republicans know this. They know it about the stock portfolios they aspire to live off of--Republican nirvana. Still, they don’t care.

Republicans want there to be only one viable niche left—theirs. That is the imaginary niche of apex predators a generation or two removed from actually having to hunt.

They inhabit a restaurant where they are served endlessly for doing nothing. Productivity only soils the hands of losers. Republicans underpay, exploit and revile them.

Working niches are no longer viable. Therefore, none of it is viable. That is the Republican myth--that neverending exploitation, of people and resources, is sustainable.

Not that they really believe it. There is no "long run" for them. Religious conservatives hope for the end times. Rich capitalists think or hope they can weather anything. 

None Dare Call It Treason

Trey Gowdy and Robert Goodlatte are worried about Hillary Clinton’s email irregularities.

The 2000 presidential election was stolen and decided in a disgraceful, partisan Supreme Court ruling. That election’s negative mandate didn’t keep a Republican administration from using a national tragedy to implement a laundry list of bad Republican ideas, including destructive tax cuts, deregulation and deprofessionalizing the federal bureaucracy. They lied and cajoled us into starting wars which have resulted in over a million deaths and squandered trillions of dollars. They rendered America’s respect for international standards of justice meaningless.

But Gowdy and Goodlatte are worried about those emails. 

Similarly, we are looking at another presidential election stolen by Republicans in 2016 and another negative mandate. Unfair tax cuts have again been enacted and justified by lies. Sinister, illegal, racist policies have been promoted against the will of the people but mostly halted by the courts. Crooks and scoundrels occupy many high, including cabinet-level, positions. Other important jobs remain unfilled and their duties neglected. Budgets are irresponsibly and punitively slashed. The weakening of the civil service, begun by Republican ideologues under Reagan, runs rampant.

Gowdy and Goodlatte, partisan hacks, hucksters and shills, don’t care. 

Donald Trump’s entire career turns out to have been rooted in fraud and illegality. His administration is rooted in fraud and illegality. Paul Manafort’s inability to conceive of the possibility of accountability is instructive. He can’t stop lying even when he is certain to be caught. Other Trump associates have done the same and some are under indictment. The president systematically undermines the nation's laws and encourages illegal behavior. He incites citizens to violence and racial, religious and ethnic resentment. He refuses to condemn racist behavior when it occurs. 

God riddance, Gowdy and Goodlatte. You are scumbags who will not be missed. 

Huge Shocker

Here's a huge shocker. Republicans are turning out to be criminals. Criminals and suckers. Suckers need criminals and criminals need suckers. They are co-dependent.

Among the suckers some are circumstantial. They believed the lies that Republicans stand for fiscal responsibility, righteous living, patriotism and everything good and decent.

Those people might be able to be saved but it won't be easy. Decades of denial won't be easily overcome.

Making Adultery Great Again

Catholics who voted for Trump must be thrilled with his choice for ambassadress to the Vatican. She spread her legs for Newt and—voilà!—she’s qualified to represent America and American Catholics before the pontiff. Newt himself is waddling around there and, no doubt, feasting his ass off at the finest restaurants in and around Rome.

Callista taped a nice Christmas greeting. To me, her appointment is an astonishing insult to Catholics but I will trust that the Trump voters among them knew what they were doing and that they rejoice at the wonderful humanitarian policies Trump is implementing and the Christian charity, humility and good works he evidences every day.

It testifies to the great American economy and to the honor and generosity of its citizens that we can afford to pour pasta down the throat of Newt Gingrich. Callista, too! They must be making invaluable contributions to intercultural and culinary understanding and furthering the principles of chastity, decency, and care for the poor.

And, thank God, Newt is finally too hideously fat, ugly and out-of-shape to pursue another affair. Or, so we assume. How many would that be? I lost count.

Trump's Wa-Wa

Little Donnie Trump wants his wa-wa. Donnie is throwing a huge tantrum over his wa-wa. But Donnie is super rich and a racist running a country so this isn't just any wa-wa. And it isn't just any tantrum.

Donnie is lashing out in every direction, as oblivious to the results as any spoiled child. His world is himself. For fuck's sake, somebody find a viable pacifier. The wail is hard to bear. And he's dangerous.

No Exit

There are so many layers in the Republican house of lies even its creators can't find their way out. We are stuck in there with them, not buying the bullshit but subjected to its effects.

They are the lying versions of alcoholics, nearing the end of a forty-year bender. Like any addict they have ripped off everyone while spiraling downward. Will it end in death or the gutter?

Not only for them, is the point. We are all going down. But how far? Will we and ours be wrecked forever or still able to function and recover? Call your Republican representatives today.

Ask them what they have in store for us now that their leader and example of patriotism and virtue, Trump, is in charge. Ask them how he represents their standards of democracy and decency.

A Geneology of Immorality

Southern Baptists sold their souls to Satan over African slavery. They forced black people to carry the burden of that sinfulness, which you can do, under the rules of Satanism. 

Republicans then mortgaged their souls as well, second-hand, to Southern Baptists to get electoral victories, political power and wealth. Those short-term goals were realized. 

Satan is now calling in the debt and sowing hatred, confusion, divisiveness and violence everywhere through his agents and underlings, Republicans and social conservatives. 

People can no longer tell good from evil. Evil masquerades as righteousness and those calling themselves followers of Christ prey on his children. Satan is having his way in America.

The Circle is Unbroken

I have accused Republicans of circular reasoning, employing the term broadly to describe arguing not TO conclusions but FROM them--using conclusions as a starting point. For example, the likelihood a Republican "think tank" will announce that tax cuts for the rich are bad policy is about nothing.

Therefore, what they do isn't reasoning but providing a rationalized home for various primal drives--like competitive urges, greed, lust, a need for domination, and sadism. What I haven't asserted is that I think everybody does this but they do. NOBODY engages in strictly logical, unbiased and non-prejudicial thinking.

Because people aren't capable of comprehending the universe, or even some part of it, in its totality--its true breadth and depth--they achieve a deeper understanding by narrowing their field-of-vision, a highly biased and prejudicial activity--choosing what to drill down and focus on. It's subjective as hell.

What separates people is the qualitative cast of their choices and, unfortunately, it appears that the sickest, most immature and fearful people are those most compelled to assert their subjective views because they are so fucked-up and fragile. Decent, more secure people can withstand uncertainty and suspend judgment.

Secure conditions make messed up people nuts because fear is a given for them. The justifications are a given--under every rock and in every dark place, nook and cranial cavity. This is projection. Everyone does it, but what do they project? Good people need to be especially vigilant in times of relative peace and security.

That's when the crazies come out of the woodwork. They aren't comfortable in the absence of conflict, competition and suffering, so they create it. Their current host in America is the Republican Party. They can't conceive of a world without conflict, enmity, fear and despair. "Merry Christmas" to them.

Republicans represent the real war on Christmas. They represent the opposite of everything Christmas means--love and sanity and a generous and welcoming heart to the entire world and all of creation. 

Let’s Get Real

We all know what’s going on with Donald Trump. He likes to be the center of attention. Who’s the center of attention at Christmas? Some loser who got crucified.

Donald likes leaders who didn’t get crucified. Granted, the so-called “savior” was said to have risen from the dead. Big deal. Donald survived a bunch of bankruptcies.

No doubt, the “resurrection” is nothing but fake news. It reeks of sentiment and liberal hype—more propaganda from the left. America already has its savior in Mr.Trump.

Sappy Holidays

America's sentimentalism about Christmas was more endurable when we weren't such murdering thugs and rapacious pigs. Now it is just really disgusting.

Free Stuff

At Christmas, we witness the true perversion of American culture. The real message of Christmas is about the bond between God and His creation--that creation is a reflection of God. Therefore, when Americans shit upon creation, thinking it theirs to exploit and abuse, they shit on God.

Don't worry, God can take it. But we can't. Americans were gifted an entire continent of unexploited natural resources, which they despoiled, then turning to other peoples and places whose resources were also obviously intended for us, we being the chosen people by virtue of the implications of that initial gift, divine right and fiat.

The myth of the resourceful, independent, self-reliant American--subduer of wilderness, civilizer of savages and tamer of beasts--belies the truth of the addiction to free stuff. Watch now as we scramble in a competition, unto death, to acquire and cling to as much free stuff as possible.

Merry Christmas, America.

Paul Ryan: An Incredible Fraud

People like Paul Ryan are plucked out of obscurity by rich corporatists and their political henchmen once identified as appropriately submissive, unscrupulous, meretricious and mendacious. Thereafter, the sky is the limit.

Ryan, however, has reached his own ass ceiling. A faithful servant, he is bowing out, as good a slave of greed as might be found in the kingdom. As a degraded ass-kisser and shill to corporate interests, he is possibly unparalleled.

His kind are usually not allowed to rise above the level of a suck-up. Waist high, he has reached his top tier of attainment, leaving fittingly with a huge butt-smooch of a tax cut for his wealthy friends. Farewell, you fraud.

How to Cook Wolves

The Wall Street brand of wolf is known to be incredibly tough, its fibers probably requiring a good soak in an acidic marinade before being blasted with the fires of the grill. Robert Mueller might have found the recipe, firstly identifying the crooks. Some sit in the acid solution as we speak, awaiting the purifying flames. 

DefCon Trump

I’m declaring “DefCon Trump” reflecting a crisis of impending American self-annihilation.

Are We “Great Again” Yet?

A status report on Trump’s hokum indicates the promises that his business acumen would translate (abracadabra!) into an American revival (hocus-pocus) are already failed and flaming wreckage. By hook or (gong!) crook, his time on this particular stage (trap door) must end.

Privilege for Everyone

I know I rail, spit and spout about privilege. For me, though, privilege doesn't need to be exclusive. I love privilege. 

I want everyone to have it. There's some Christmas spirit for you! What I reject is exclusion. Call it the "Santa Prescription."

Find fault with that, I dare you. Conservatives are surging up from their La-Z-Boys, anyway, their faces reddening in anger. 

"We can't afford it!" Oh, yes we can. It's them we can't afford. 

Huge Hissy Fight

Wow. American conservatives, representing dignity, restraint, cultural continuity, reverence for ritual and decorum, and fine tailoring in the face of the casual revival, are having a huge hissy fight. The founders and poobahs of the recently defunct Weekly Standard, who deemed Sarah Palin a great "second" for an aging potential president, are in it with Trump and Steve King, the current standard bearers for Republican intellectual attainment and responsible, sober, professional and competent representative government.

I won't relate the actual verbiage (you can find it online) but it is a real testament to America’s ruling class and their behavioral ideals in its rhetorical finesse. To an outsider, it's confusing because the Weekly Standard boys seem to me to have encouraged voters to support their brand of imbecility forever and even after it failed in practice. How can they complain when the same voters shift to a new brand of boneheadedness? It's enough to make you wonder if the ”principles” they carry on about incessantly aren't just a lot of hooey and a smokescreen for an enormous power grab. But, what do I know.

Hate, Actually

I worry there isn't enough hate to go around in the world, keeping it in balance and promoting human welfare. It was Judas, after all, who gave Christ the opportunity to realize His destiny. Without evil, there is no goodness. Goodness wouldn't mean anything without evil. It wouldn't exist without evil. 

Praise God, all I have to do is turn on the nightly news and there is an abundance of evil on view, enough to keep us all in anticipation of the kind of transformative experience Christ encountered on the cross. Yes, if we are fortunate enough, we might even die, from want of healthcare or whatever, ending our suspense.

Persecution and enmity are everywhere in the air this Christmas season. Nativism, bigotry and nationalism thrive and flourish. Innocent people, seeking asylum like Mary and Joseph, are spat upon—rejoice, be grateful, and sing songs and hymns of praise to the Lord. We may all see Him soon, the way it is going.

Extraordinary Rendering

I think the Khashoggi murder involved a mistranslation. The Saudis were very familiar with the American practice of "extraordinary rendition," having helped and participated to an unknown degree. It's an odd, legalistic use of the word "rendition" involving the Bush administration's habit of employing euphemisms and obscure terms to rebrand their crimes as acceptable practices. 

Consider this: the US and others talk about Islam as though it is a monolithic thing, assuming or asserting that the actions of fringe elements reflect on the entire religion. Similarly, Arab and Islamic cultures might look on certain western, Christian cultures, including Nazi Germany, as representative of European, Christian values. Viewing us the way we view them turns us into Nazis and possible terrorists.

The Saudis no doubt inferred from their observations of American and western practices that it was absolutely fine, acceptable and de rigueur to kill people, cut them up into pieces and possibly "render" them by boiling or immersing them in acids--a simple misunderstanding. How should the Saudis know that the standards we carry on about don't apply to us? It is admittedly very confusing.

From Russia With Predictable Intent

Shocking! The Russians are meddling in our democracy. 

Let's begin by noting that this is a given, that countries will try to bring other countries in line with what they perceive to be their interests, however unwisely, short-sightedly and inconsistently with their professed values and intentions--except for America!

America would never do that.

Then let's note that the Russians didn't storm those virtual walls and reduce them to rubble with vast expenditures of money and unusually aggressive tactics. Republicans did that for them, firstly undoing safeguards that were there to ensure the airwaves, public property, were used responsibly. Then Republicans refused to regulate new kinds of businesses, like Facebook. They always refuse to do anything at the expense of corporate profits. 

Then let's note that the Russians are doing exactly what Fox News has been doing openly for years--undermining elections, promulgating lies and sowing the seeds of division, animosity and polarization. Americans have supported that. Americans reward that.

Don't blame Russia. They didn't accomplish anything in notably forceful, evil ways. They didn't spend huge amounts of money by NSA standards. We gave our security away. And they are lightweights at destroying our democracy in comparison with Fox News. 

Oh, Glorious Day! Die, Americans!

Again Americans are threatened with the loss of their health insurance, and thereby affordable, appropriate healthcare--and by Texas Republicans, of all people! These jihadis, a judge and an attorney general, are thrilled to declare the ACA unconstitutional, the AG tweeting excitedly in glorious victory.

Death to America!

The judge, appointed by Bush, is another hideous hack, true believer and incompetent with the usual array of Republican fixations and obsessions but it all comes down to cutting taxes on the rich and screwing everyone else. It is so extreme they would rather put a match to the money than spend it on average citizens.

This they did very effectively in the Middle East, where trillions have gone up in smoke. They begrudge lesser people everything--jobs, voting rights and even life itself. Out of respect and decency, I ask only that they kill us without the gloating and celebration. Is it so much to ask? We are still citizens, after all.

All About Eve

I believe the greatest flaw of humanity might be taking things for granted. That's what Eve did in the Garden of Eden. She lost perspective and got obsessed with the one thing she was told she couldn't have. The moral is if you take things for granted you lose them forever.

Fast forward to now. Americans, the luckiest people in the history of humanity, compulsively drill holes in their own boat and wonder why it sinks as a crew of pirates, mutineers and traitors--Republicans--navigate us off a cliff, drunk on greed. We take a lot for granted.

We will lose it forever, and all for nothing.

Broke It

Last night I made a point of trying to fall asleep in a peaceful state instead of worrying myself sick about the Republican destruction of America and their attempts to spread greed and irresponsible living around the world. 

It worked! I fell asleep quickly, slept well and had interesting dreams of the days when lunatics and assholes didn't run everything. But then I woke up, sad as hell, remembering the mess we're in. You can't win with these people.

The Liar in Winter

Things are looking bad for Trump and Trump, a vain man, is looking bad--old, haggard, stooped and spent. His eyes are vacant and his jaws seem ready to unhinge and fly away with him, Donald dangling below like flying monkey-prey. He strikes out and struggles to maintain his power. 

His world is ending. Hairy, hoary, bloated and boastful, Donald still thinks only of himself. He tries to keep control out of habit and instinct, maybe fearing his successor will be a tyrant as well or expose him as a loser, exacting justice for his crimes. Republicans fear justice more than anything.

Kanye for Chief of Staff

Trump should promote racial diversity in his administration and make Kanye his Chief of Staff. Already the executive branch is a reality show and guaranteed the good ratings any respectable trainwreck gets. Forget about running the country--a hopeless aim with Donald as president. 

Opt for a better spectacle. We'll get a better spectacle with Kanye. Kim will certainly stir things up and maybe have a rivalry with Melania. It should be entertaining as hell and Americans only seem to care about not being bored. To hell with living responsibly. To hell with the future.

Oh, My God! The Emails!

Republicans have bankrupted the government, nearly destroyed the world economy, started endless, cowardly wars in the service of commerce killing over a million people, eviscerated the American middle class and reduced farmers to fodder. Still, Hillary Clinton's emails make them crazy with a zeal for investigations and prosecutions.

John Kelly Heads for the Door

There's no way to make a dignified exit spattered and covered with the effluvia of Donald Trump's intestines but let's watch John Kelly try. Like Pence his constipated countenance seems to mask or reveal an attempt to make up for their master's excesses. 

Trump, however, is such a regenerative shit-bomb there is no escaping unsullied and for this association his underlings will be remembered forever. They were Trump's hacks and lackeys. Give them a twelve-step program but, for God's sake, get them out of there. 

Antics Roadshow

We have to begin with the obvious, that Donald Trump isn't even trying to do his job and should be fired. I, however, think Trump is especially egregious when he is away from Washington, the further the more so. 

Credit this to cowardice. Donald gets nervous and acts up even more when out of a comforting, secure, womb-like environment, ideally owned by him. He's a strange kind of control freak. It explains his penchant for attacking anyone at a pin-drop.

Fear-aggression, it is called, and Donald is full of it. Try that on for comfort, America. Your president is the worst person you could have chosen for the job. Ask yourselves, why? Why the fuck would we put this hopeless goon in charge?

Trump acts as though he's escaped from parental supervision when he's off somewhere. Daddy will ride to the rescue when he screws up. Who's going to ride in now? We all are, cleaning up another Republican catastrophe.

Trump is Toast

Donald is going down, one way or another. Make ready the lifeboats. I doubt that Donald's pride will allow him to abandon ship without scuttling something. Bigger will be better, to show the world what a nice dick he has after all. That's all that matters. 

You Could Be a Roux

Like a lot of people I've been thinking more about death lately--both my own and death in general--because of the influence of Donald Trump. I'm trying to get comfortable with the idea of cremation but it seems awfully arid to me and dehydrating--not my style.

I'm more of a cream sauce kind of guy. Maybe I could be made into that somehow. Or a roux. No, I think I will opt for natural burial, like a Trappist monk, with a pine box, a hole in the ground and nothing more. These are strange thoughts but Donald will do that to you. 

Perverse Mueller Outcome

We all know Donald Trump declares bankruptcy when he's in too deep and heads for the hills reinventing himself along the way. He could do that now and blame it on the Democrats for insidiously interfering with his presidency, returning to his life of private crime. But then he loses his immunity from prosecution.

Perversely, I think Mueller might keep Trump in office. Trump needs the protection. 

Rogue Species Threatens Planet

A rogue species, Homo Sapiens, is threatening the Earth with imminent destruction. When asked about this the titular head and representative of the world’s most powerful political entity, the United States of America, said “fuck you” and called the interviewer a “flaming loser” and threatened her with investigation and prosecution by the Department of Justice and other entities assumed to be under his control.

The representative then commented on her ass and tits and asked her to accompany him to a hotel owned by him and bragged about his greatness and immense wealth. When further pressed about planetary annihilation he said he would be dead anyway and that his heirs and family would have enough money to save themselves and who gave a shit about a bunch of bugs, beasts, birds and poor people anyway.

Dying is for Losers

Donald Trump, always the center of his own attention, paid his disrespects to former president Bush (41) at his funeral, scowling his way through it and failing to utter the Apostle's Creed. He forgets how Bush helped him by raising up the Atwaterites and assorted College Republicans in preparation for the end-times in our country.

No Atwater, no Newt Gingrich. No abhorrent slimefest and national dissolution. No moral bankruptcy. No endless wars. No Great Recession. No government insolvency. No outrageous polarization and bureaucratic meltdown. Deprofessionalizing everything is a Republican trademark. It frees up the free market for enhanced exploitation. 

Without the Bushes there would be no President Donald Trump. Honor your roots, Don-Boy. The Bushes, with their arrogance, exaltation of obliviousness and win-at-all-costs political tactics paved the way for your hideous candidacy and rule of incompetence and ruin. Bushes embraced their depravity and mass murdering with some decorum.

Where's your decorum, Donald? Don't worry, there's no problem being a self-centered, self-serving schmuck and flaming dirigible of incompetence while appearing gracious. For that pioneering insight we credit Reagan and the Bushes, fuming their way into into the hearts of hordes of budding American sociopaths, a precedent for Donald.

What Child is This?

Watch Donald Trump walk off the stage... Yes, it happened again somewhere, our impetuous, impulsive, pretender president failing to meet the most minimal standards of propriety, decency and respect. At what age is he arrested? 

A contest should be held for the best answer to that. There are layers of it, I believe, but nothing exceeding, overcoming or surpassing adolescence. Is he regressing? We keep asking unanswerable questions about Trump in our fear and frustration. 

Some genius chose Pence as Trump's running mate and evangelical sidekick, ensuring a horrific end to fantasies of removing Trump from office and, I hope, the unincarcerated share of the population. HE belongs in jail, not those he threatens.

Juvenile detention. Reform school. Walk off the national stage, big boy! We'll take care of Pence, with our Democratic Congress. Impeach his ass. Fire his ass and hold his ass to the fire. Besiege him with gays, heathen, immigrants and apostates.

Normalcy? Who aspires to that these days? A rebirth of our nation is needed, this Christmas season, starting by expelling all the money lenders and smarmy-mouthed hypocrites, parading their self-righteousness, from the temple of democracy.

In the Spirit of Donald Trump...

I blame Trump for the death of Anthony Bourdain. For me, Bourdain represented the love of authenticity. Trump represents the ascendency of sham everything--celebrating shit. 

As American culture penetrates to every corner authenticity is threatened with extinction. I don't think Bourdain could take it. Trump is the elevation and reverence of garbage.

Fuck Trump. Screw Trump and banish Trump. Drive Trump into exile and bury him on a golf course when he dies, stuck under a sand trap and entombed in tartan and gaudy plaid. 

Golfing is Donald's virtual thing, an aimless romp in an artificial environment of a lunar level of unreality. I'll take Bourdain. May he rest in peace and Trump be forever reviled.

The New Usual

Republicans in Wisconsin are employing an old and favored tactic of their party, sabotage, in a new way pioneered in North Carolina—salting the fields of democracy. Elections, fair play and the will of the people no longer matter.

China Syndrome

Donald Trump is trying to put the blame for the sinking American middle class on China or anyone but the real culprits, Republican politicians and their wealthy patrons who have, for forty years, done everything to screw working people and enrich themselves.

Americans can fix this by undoing evil Republican legislation and deregulation, beginning with Trump's own tax cuts. Rich people like Trump don't like to be told what to do. They don't want to be responsible for anything. But it's their fault. Don't blame China.

George H. W. Bush and the Roots of Sociopathic Rule

To understand Bush “41” watch the movie Boogie Man. There you will see how Lee Atwater got Bush elected. You will see the link between evangelical Christians and American old-money mobilized. You will see how those groups are united in the assumptions of privilege—one by believing in their innate, unmerited salvation, the other their inborn superiority and excellence. They were arbitrarily, irrevocably and unjustifiably endowed.

By this they are instilled with a lack of circumspection and conscience. How they behave doesn’t matter, the issue having been decided definitively by higher authority. Evangelicals can't imagine that they are wrong in their beliefs. God tells them they are right. Blue bloods like the Bushes also can't imagine that they aren’t infinitely deserving, existentially correct and incapable of materially significant error, by fate and cultural conditioning.

Not that this is ever consciously doubted or questioned. That’s the point. It leads to Trump, in whom the quality of action is so severed from reality behaving horribly is a good thing. Trump’s depravity and incompetence are signs. He was in some way chosen. He has never soiled his hands with work but his soul was blackened with corruption from birth. Let’s remember the real role George H. W. Bush played in the destruction of America.

And that, before we even begin to consider his son.

Gateway to Hate

Trump and the Republican Party, his opportunistically chosen vehicle of ambition, are now the gateway to hate for millions of Americans. Their message rings out this holiday season: hate has a home here.

Trump Presidency Gas Bags Its Way to Calamity

Donald Trump’s blimped-out administration is going all Hindenburg. Oh, the humanity!

The Man with the Bag

Trump is playing "Bad Santa" this holiday season, persecuting people right and left. His bag of gifts includes cruelty at the border, continuing sabotage of Obamacare and slinging insults at everyone. Merry Christmas, America. Behold what you have become in the era of Trump, the opposite of everything Christmas represents. And fuck you, Donald Trump, and the evil, racist sleigh you rode in on.