The Fugitive Wall Law

Republicans are obsessives. Obamacare was an unextreme law passed fairly. But it helped average people  and, to the extent it didn't, it was because of Republican obstruction and sabotage. Obstruction befrore it was passed and sabotage after. 

It raised taxes a little. On rich people. Did that destroy the economy as Republicans claimed it would? Of course not. On the other side of the equation, when Republicans want something they will do anything to get it. Fuck the law. 

So it is with the border wall which has huge symbolism and emotional, psychic investment. A symbol of division and hate, if it weren't obvious. But this is old news. They've been doing it for decades. It's more flagrant now.

More confrontational and aggressive. Take Doug Ducey. Sure he wants a wall. But it has nothing to do with anything real. It fulfills psychological personal, political needs. So he's gone combative and rogue because it's in vogue. 

Illegal, in other words. Daring the feds to come after him. Back in the day the Fugitive Slave Law showed what liars the racists were. States rights? Not for Yankees. When northerners tried not to enforce the law southerners went nuts.

They were always reactive. So Ducey is lining up shipping containers to make a wall that will not work but it will have bad environmental consequences. He doesn't give a shit. They care only about themselves, the crazy fuckers.

Truth Social Swamp

Truth Social is turning out to be such a handy indicator of conspiracism and criminal intent you have to wonder if it isn't an FBI front. Maybe Trump is the deep state. Or being manipulated as a magnet for all the worst elements and domestic enemies. 

God knows it is working. 

Stare Decisis No Carpe Diem Yo

The Supreme Court deemed voting rights protections no longer necessary. This unleashed a flood of activity proving otherwise. Oops! No matter. Among ideologues the ideas in your head are everything and all that matter, especially when the ideas are shared by people some of whom are enforcers. There was talk of impeaching John Roberts among Republicans when he failed to overturn Obamacare.

Like, the next day. They don't tolerate dissent well. All must be on their terms, democracy being a lot of sentimental and impractical woke nonsense. In that spirit the Court is about to rule against affirmative action, based on the same fantasy. Again, never mind that the whole recent history of the country has been of a struggle to undo civil rights and equal protection. They have access to higher reasoning.

From Catholic schools and traditions. Surely some of them had some Latin. All those mottos and stuff, et tu and all that, to say nothing of the Latin shorthand used among lawyers. Stare Decisis, for example. They've confused that one, though it came up in some or all of their confirmation hearings when they weren't being accused of sexual assault and such, with another that's not a legal term, I don't think.

Carpe Diem. They carpe all over, not wanting to waste time in case a couple of them suddenly croak. Croak away, I say. Alito and Thomas, especially. No redeeming qualities. Speaking of redemption, don't these authoritarian brutes believe in that? Some higher accountability? I don't think so. It's another lie and scam, their supposed piety, up there with rising tide. I hope there's a judgment day.

Are they in for a surprise. Sua culpa, boys. They have a lot to answer for.

Fame Retardants

Elon Musk has reminded us what a cruel and insatiable master the attention monster is. Being the world's richest man wasn't enough. Eyes on him. What else can it have been? An addiction to risk? 

Maybe. I don't know. The attention economy has no possible master. It's its own thing but the addiction to attention causes people to try to contol a void. To manhandle vapor. To contain the world.

Obviously, a vain hope but addictions demand the impossible. To be master and slave in the same relationship. To grovel in control. The addiction is a false facilitator or intermediary, not a thing.

It promises something but it has nothing to give. It is transactional. A lie disclosing a lack. You have this need. It promises relief. Fulfillment. But it's a lie. A projection and false hope. A scam. 

Attention can't make you whole but it preys on the craving. A craving for love. But there's nothing there to love in attention mode. All the energy goes one way and dissipates. Of course it's a market. 

As such, a public good. Subject to regulation. A bad word in some circles. But regulations allow markets to work. We must therefore apply fame retardants. Or have continuing massive dysfunction. 

Sanding Sponges

I'm going to take it for granted Republicans are big sponges, sucking off the government as a show of contempt, one of many, together with the sabotage, but it's the abrasive aspect I want to highlight. Is it necessary? I mean, is the asshole part productively destructive? 

This is a good question when we consider the apparent death wish of anti-environmentalism, their fiscal insanity and love of discord, and their religious faction's warm feelings about Armageddon and the end of the world. I think the asshole thing is tactical but not strategic. 

They are highly paranoid. Historically paranoia confers short term competitive advantages but results in a huge meltdown in the long run. Hitler and Mussolini turned around their economies with authoritarian edicts and political muscle. But we know how that played out. 

Murdered Chicken

One of my friend's chickens got massacred by a hawk despite being too big to carry away. The hawk ate her on the spot. This made me think of Newt Gingrich, who believes this is as normal and acceptable among humans as any other species. I disagree, thinking there's an alternative that evolved under the heading of 'civilization' but mightn't we honor Newt's views in his case and take his fat ass out? 

In any event, he's too big to carry away so he'll have to be dismembered, towed or otherwise extracted and he shouldn't mind since he's so obviously physically inferior, having sucked off the government he so despises his whole life. He is beholden to us and fair game to do with as we please, I believe, according to the principles he espouses, that power is its own justification and the rule of law relative.

Twat Buys Twitter

Seized by optimism or a bout of mania Elon Musk has a new toy. What a deal at $44B! I don't think Musk wants to create chaos or knows what he wants or intends to hurt people. But he doesn't exactly give a shit either and chaos might occur as a consequence of his fun, the flexing his money muscles and his doing whatever. He's rich, and purportedly a genius. 

We should stay the fuck out of the way. 

The thing to note and know is that the whims and desires of a handful of ultra-rich people matter more than the lives of the rest of us, even collectively, because they are better than us and were chosen by God. Most of them are in some way crazy but don't mind that and say your prayers because they are going to do whatever they want, no matter what. 

New Deal to Raw Deal (the Stacked Deck)

I think it's clear enough the 'New Deal' will be an age in American history but equally clear it ended with Johnson's attempts at its expansion. The ensuing Republican backlash could be called the 'Great Screwing' if it would fly in high school history classes. DeSantis and some Texans would need to be immobilized first, though, since they won't allow any criticism of their side's determination that privileged white people never be discomfited or caused to question or even perceive their benefits, the better to preserve them. 

Death of the Dream

We all know people for whom the dream was realized but an essential point was its accessibility. That part is dying. Republicans are killing it off because they believe in exclusion and privilege. 

Englishmen and BDSM

Let's not let the Truss launchpad explosion obscure that the Indian bloke is a certified Thatcherite sadist and possibly a promoter of caste. Again Britain and America reflect one another, with Trump making anyone who isn't a drooling goon look good and various Cheneys (take your pick, war criminal or reliable battle-ax) appear to be fans of responsible governance. Clearly the respective voting populations have a problem with pessimism and a penchant for pain -- up to a point. But when you hand over mandates for arbitrary punishment to fatalists and people of detachment and privilege with an enormous dollop of self-interested egotism the safeword might not work. Still, I recommend we start screaming it as loudly as possible. What was it now? Julie Andrews? Or do they think we're in a Gilbert and Sullivan thing, with 'he is an Englishman' resonating the rafters and a guy, a stand-in for the working class, in his undies on the rack? No, it's real life. And there might be a point of irreversibility in playing brinkmanship with doom. 

Catholic Crazy Fucks

Somebody help me out here. I can't determine if Catholic schools or Catholicism itself is responsible for all the crazy asshole Catholics in the conservative nutcase movement. Fox News, below the Ailes level, was highly Catholic. I mean, I don't have to go into examples, they come to mind so easily. 

What gives? The authoritarian bent of Catholicism itself is too facile an answer but it doesn't make it wrong. On the other hand, I look at the parochial schools and especially the sports and wonder if that isn't it. In a larger way, though, the fascists understand the to appeal to the masses of 'smoke and bells.' 

Glitter and obfuscation. Entertainment and deceit. Distraction and subversion. This is as Catholic as it comes, using the 'lower' things for 'higher' purposes. Screw abstraction. Make it concrete. Don't give the rabble explanations give them enemies. Give them relics and superstition. Give them a show.

Stereotypes can be somewhat true. They are in this case. People sold their souls for power. Sold them cheap. I read a sci-fi book years ago and hit a place where there was some amazing anti-Catholic bigotry. By John Calvin Batchelor, to show how clueless I was that it still took a while to sink in. 

Venomous bigotry, portraying Catholics as degraded drones and sheep. Who are the sheep now? Batchelor's Calvinists have farmed out the intellectual heavy lifting and rationalizations to Catholics, to look at the Supreme Court, but they're all corrupt and idolators of the golden Trump calf. 

Calf and ass. That golden ass, let's say, that they bow to so religiously . . .

Rise of the Super-Rats

I usually look at percentages. But in comparing historical rogues it doesn't work. What percentage of the population did some authoritarian get killed? One is too many. None is okay, but leaders and people with power are supposed to respect life. To save lives. To enhance lives. To enable rewarding, productive and fulfilling lives, and not to be vultures, parasites and crooks. If they are vultures, parasites and crooks we must disempower them. 

By any means it takes. The world is not for their exclusive enjoyment. It's not their playground, to trash it if it gives them pleasure. It belongs to all of us. Or, more accurately, we have it in trust. We are stewards and caretakers, or we should be.

It's All Relatives

Humanity is a family. I'm not kidding. If we don't care about one another, all of us, it's beccause we hate ourselves.  

When in Nome

It will be a cold winter in more places than Ukraine. The world is growing darker. Authoritarianism is the latest thing, it seems. Human ingenuity and resource exploitation have enabled better lives for many but, is it only that we have further to fall? Is that why people are so fearful, that some balance of insecurity is needed or people make shit up to be afraid of? I recall Bill O'Reilly raking in millions hawking the 'war on Christmas' to his followers. Fox News promotes a diet of fear. And people are eating it up.

West of Eden

The sun is setting on a lot of stuff. The worst is not knowing where it will end or how badly. The uncertainty. You can understand people want to get it over with, like addicts wanting to bottom out, craving the ditch or death. Existence for them endless suffering. Though they're not agents in this but victims, not masters of their lives but slaves. 

American Gothic

We're staring at the gargoyle. A face full of Goth. Why the hell? Republicans want it that way. More so, they're there and they insist we join them, in their horror show. We insult and demean their sense of salvific urgency by wanting decent lives for everyone. 

Screw that, they say. If God wanted it we'd still be in Eden. So it's an insult to God as well, a flaming heresy. Salvific urgency isn't fixable or ignorable, but existential, ending when we die and face God. They have a death wish. A craving for annihilation. For all of us. 

That's their religion. A religion of greed, suffering, death and endless insecurity. The country will be a haunted house with real threats, they demand, the latest an election that promises to end our lives as we know them and, with a little luck, life on the earth. 

Go 'Bama

The black players on the Alabama football team should take a game or two off to catch up on their criminality. Surely they're too busy with practices and all to uphold the levels of crime their native impulses drive them to. Tommy Tuberville knows this. He's coached many young black men. 

Tuberville is an expert at motivation like any highly successful coach. He's motivating people now. Bigoted white voters. To get out there and support the old-fashioned strong-arming and suppression of minorities. Especially black people like the guys who won him so many games at beautiful Auburn.

Among the Aborigines

Viewing the cast of Republican candidates and assorted establishment functionaries do you sometimes feel you're looking back in evolutionary time? Those eyes -- Kari Lake or Paul Gosar, maybe -- peering out of a cave. The indescribable anger, fear and irrationality. And they are driven to lead. 

We Been Cheated . . . Been Mistreated . . .

In my days of writing satirical skits I always had a chorus of southern white boys in drag. Hula skirts, boas, all kinds of kitschy clothing. Transvestite like. Hairy legs sticking out, bad socks and boots. Original music would be good but in lieu I imagined variations on popular songs. The one suggested by the title, for example, a takeoff on Linda Ronstadt . . .

Tubular Balls

I wonder about Republicans and physical malformation, if there are physical counterparts to their mental deformities that are somehow connected. Americans alive today are among the most fortunate people ever. Why, then, would you spend your life trying to destroy it or make it your mission to screw your fellow citizens? There's plenty to go around. 

Something must be bothering them. Something they can't put out of their minds. They're tortured in some way. So, I surmise, maybe a higher percentage of them have hidden physical defects, leading to nagging insecurities and persecutory fixations. They can't relax and enjoy life. They have to stir shit up. Maybe they have chronic existential worries. 

You know, unquiet minds over their fate after death or whatever. We know, statistically, recent trends favor ill-educated and possibly ignorant voters as a bigger share of their base. Brain deformation would straddle the physical and mental realms, adding in emotional instability for good measure. The problem, in any case, is all too apparent.

The Once and Truly Fucked

I know it's hard for Yankees to understand why lower-class southerners seem to want to fuck themselves. And why, then, they seem to want to fuck everyone else. I can fill you in. When you've been fucked by God you're really fucked. You're fucked with finality. 

This is why these poorer white southerners resent people who try to make their lives better. That, and since the idiot Yankees instituted desegregation, they can't be un-fucked without blacks being un-fucked, thereby increasing personal intimacy between the races which is against the will of God and stupid and anathema, for reasons that can't be explained. 

Calvinism did this to them, Extreme, fundamentalist Calvinism. They are sinners and God is pissed. God is always pissed because creation is imperfect and He made it which doesn't make sense but wouldn't you be pissed? I mean, what a mess! We're all stuck in it. 

So, Armageddon is the obvious way out and something to be desired. And that, friends, is the thinking of the people who are running everything. And you wondered why we're in trouble. It's a miracle we made it this far with such a cultural inheritance. 

Trump's Presidential Library

I'm thinking, where do we put this, Riker's or Bellevue?

Go Fuck Me

I'm starting a 'Go Fuck Me' service for Republican politicians, operatives, and right-wing hacks and functionaries generally to help them raise money the Trump way, by deceiving innocent people into supporting your corrupt lifestyle. Alex Jones, a remarkable but all too typical Trump supporter and astonishing piece of shit, gave me the idea by fundraising off a well-deserved conviction while he was being prosecuted and sentenced, and while he was continuing to bullshit everyone, deny his culpability, and attempt to hide his assets. I think that's fraud and another crime, but, never mind. 

Republicans Aghast at Biden Decency

Republicans, with moral exemplar and Trump humper Sean Hannity in the lead, are appalled at Joe Biden's caring and loving recorded message to his troubled son, which they aired as a matter of national security concern and caring Christian kindness. They want to snuff out every instance of empathy as it arises in case it should take hold and spread, knowing it is the sort of thing that destroys civilizations. 

The Constitution, á la Carte

Our Constitution is all á la carte or a smorgasbord. In Republican hands. And they control the High Court. Mostly foreign food now. Fascism, authoritarian religious cultism and racist, apartheid segregationism. 

They Bwoke his Bwidge

Trump and Vlad, what a pair. So sensitive to slights. Donald's grievances are everywhere, as it would be if you only think being king of the world is good enough for you. Vlad, on the other hand, is a bit of a badass. But a princess, at times, too. And they bwoke his bwidge. The Ukrainians bwoke his bwidge. So he's pissed and bombing shit in a tantrum. 

Wanker Media

Republicans today announced the formation of a new organization to coordinate the various dissolute strains of conservative media on thematic principles, Wanker Media, LLC. They acknowledged the problems with consistency that arise under a regime based on MSU, or Making Shit Up, which is their core tactical outlook and modus operandi. 

At most levels inconsistency is a good thing and has served them well by creating chaos and confusion not only about the interpretation of observable reality but observable reality itself using denial and distraction. The problem, they were finding, is that younger 'conservatives' were turning out to be legitimately insane after having been raised on bullshit. 

This is one thing with religions, which have evolved for the most part not to self destruct, but the new conservatives were exhibiting an identifiable death wish, and not just individually but for the culture at large. They were scaring the rich people who control the party, who of course were fine with eliminating the surplus population' generally.

But even that needed to be done with structure and discipline, as the traditions of starting wars because you have a bug up your ass demonstrate. There are ways of getting millions of people killed that leave rich people essentially unscathed. The new young conservatives don't seem to understand this, desiring an unheard-of level of social deconstruction. 

In Trump one can see how the means of deconstruction became an end, when he built those huge failed casinos in Atlantic City, for example, becoming king of a pile of rubble and debt. This is not what America's oligarchs have in mind, to be sure, to rule over a massive, money-eating failure along the lines of a Bush or Trump administration. 

Old Yeller

If Trump has to make such a nuisance of himself, issuing threats and hurling insults all over, couldn't he do it a little more quietly? 

Vlad Enablers

We'll never know where we might be without Bush's military adventurism and Trump's soft spot for autocrats. Explain it to me, and the rest of the world while we're at it, why Putin shouldn't think he can behave the way we do? We might believe we're exceptional. Why should anyone else think that when we behave like lawless idiots and spoiled, privileged amateur world leaders and dilettantes?

My Favorite Autocrat

Who's the Right's favorite dictator? Firstly we must consider if this means the Trump camp, or the lunatic business wing probably best represented by Tucker Carlson, or the religious nutballs whose leadership is more decentralized and diffuse. The last group breaks along Catholic and Orthodox versus insane evangelical lines. Evangelicals want the world to end in fire and fury, God's version of 'shock and awe' in Bushian terms. There's a cornucopia of crazies on the right these days. 

Among the MAGAs Kim Jong Un is the favorite because he's so entrenched and his family stands to rule North Korea forever. Did you notice how Trump's degraded followers fancy a multigenerational dynasty? So, there. Un it is. Putin wins among the corporate elite by familiarity. Though Carlson plays the religious card as well we know he's only using the troglodytes. For whom he has immeasurable contempt. Bankers and all love kleptocrats as much as they hate competition.

They want to print money. Nothing is better than having control over an ostensibly representative government. The favor of the religious elements is spread about. Help me out if I've miss an autocracy or two. They see aspects of what they love in Iran, Afghanistan, Hungary, Poland, Turkey and even Italy. The thrill they feel at the possibility of another Calvin-in-Geneva situation is almost sexual. My God, the repression. The sublimation. The projection. The cruelty and bigotry. A return to torture. Again we see how Bush was a harbinger of so much that was to come. 

Millions of lives destroyed and all in God's name. Too good to be true! I mean, these are hopeful times for power hungry madmen and their followers. So much to applaud and the possibility of nuclear annihilation increasing as we speak, just as God wanted it and ordained. 

How To Stop the War

Somebody shoot Putin in the head. And the rest of the world, especially America, should notice how high the costs are of unaccountable, irresponsible leadership. Presumably, it wouldn't take a bullet to stop Ayatollah Trump. But, in any case, his revenge tour must be stopped. In whatever way it takes.  

Fuck Florida

Let Florida clean up its own hurricane mess, as the price they pay for electing garbage like Ron DeSantis.

Trump Sabotages Pipeline

Think of how nice it is to not have Trump in power with so much crazy stuff going on in the world. He's capable of anything. Especially now that he's under the pig farmer's spell.  

Asshole Juice

Asshole juice is rising among Republicans. I don't mean stuff's leaking out of their anuses. Who knows, though, since buttholes are one of their many fixations. But that, with an election upcoming, they're going nuts with accusations and attacks. 

Cheapshots by the dozens. 

Once upon a Time in the Midwest

This is a story about how farmers became a crop. And it's instructive because the trend has continued. Farmers are famously individually powerless in the marketplace, being close to an example of 'perfect' competition. Historically they've banded together or been backed by the government since food is essential and agricultural markets are inherently unstable without some structural support.  

And farming is essential unlike whatever it is, let's say, that hedge funds do. Enter Republicans, who hate 'the little guy.' With typical arrogance and self-serving political motivations agriculture secretary Earl Butz reinvented modern farming under Richard Nixon. An 'oil shock' had threatened to send food prices up which Nixon didn't want for political reasons. Butz argued for agricultural consolidation. 

'Get big of get out' was his motto. He believed in big farms. Farmers weren't relevant in the equation. Electoral prospects were. And transferring profits up to the corporate level which Republicans akways do. Consumers are another, parallel, case, individually powerless but with massive influence in the aggregate. The competition for their allegiance, their purchasing power, is normally intense. 

But not when all choice is removed in a system that favors consolidation. Another arrogant Republican, Robert Bork, actually FOR monopolies, writing a book on it. Cheaper shit for everyone! But  the point wasn't cheaper shit it was disempowering consumers and higher profits. Businesses hate competition. Any rational business wants to print money. So they invest in influence. They kill competition.

If influence is available for sale they're buying. Under Republicans everything is for sale. Now consider Haley Barbour, who invented modern lobbying--the market for influence--as much as anyone. Consumers have lost their power and become a crop, milked for profits like cattle until they die. Fertilized and harvested like crops, powerless over their destiny, servants of corporations and slaves of capitalists.

A Modest Proposal

I'm concerned about the vulnerability of Washington to nuclear attack. Someone could set off a device in a truck or float it up the Potomac. We wouldn't even know who did it. The place is indefensible. President Biden should declare an emergency or martial law, especially given the problems Putin is having, and immediately move all the branches of government and essential bureaucracy into a remote area.

Representatives and the Supreme Court justices will have to live in tents, temporarily, until new infrastructure is built, but it's a small sacrifice to keep the country safe. And the military is well-practiced in setting up such facilities, notably in deserts, wastelands and rough country. Meanwhile, this will be an extraordinary opportunity to pass legislation outlawing lobbying and the buying of political influence.

No doubt our representatives will wail and cry the over the loss of their opulent dinners and high living. But that's not what they're there for, they should be reminded. Additionally some heroic Democrat could then divert the Potomac through the city after some rains to cleanse it of the stench of corruption. Wash it clean. We'll be left with Washington as a city of museums, monuments and educational centers.

A place where Americans can learn about our democracy and appreciate the extraordinary good fortune we have had. Especially since by then the survival of our republic will be ensured, unlike now when corruption rules everything. I don't see how Republicans can object to any of this. They say they're the party, above all else, of national security. Unless, of course, they've been lying about that too. 

Trump Signals Allegiance to Pig Farmer

In a recent speech Donald Trump has signaled adherence to the online QAnon Philippine pig farmer cult. QAnon casts the once and future president in the role of savior which apparenty appeals to him. Consider that, as far as protecting Americans from another Trump reign, and clipping his wings in the meantime, the Twitter ban has done more for us than Congress ever did. That's how helpless we are.

RINOplasticity

Remember, authoritarians normally purge their own ranks first, not that disloyalty is an issue or matters because it's about making clear the risks to those who are left once the cleansing is over. And it might be a Year of the Long Knives, instead of a Night, but you don't want to be on the receiving end of the kind of hurt they dish out. 

No way. Part of that is for it to be arbitrary. That way the fear never loses its hard edge. So Trump, the cunning piece of shit, is throwing 'RINO' around as though it means something. It does and it doesn't, since it's Trump's will or whim at any certain instant, and we know how consistent that is. That's why it's called authoritarianism.

DeSantis Squanders Tax Dollars

Ron DeDantis has squandered the money of Florida taxpayers by flying around immigrants in private/chartered planes. Rail with cattle cars would have been much cheaper. Or, tractor trailers like those used to move livestock and chickens. Ron's political progenitors figured this out so there's no excuse. Speaking of which, if Ron really hates these immigrants, many of whom are fleeing instability caused by us, a much as it seems he can dig huge pits and shoot them so they fall in or gas and burn them. 

Look to your roots, Ron. In the hate movements of the past. No need to reinvent it. And no wonder DeSantis wants to whitewash history. He has a friend in forgetting.

Disaster Comparedness

Let's compare Republican and Democratic ideas of disasters. Republicans think Obamacare is a disaster, though it has largely succeeded in spite of being compromised and sabotaged by Republicans. Noted humanitarian Marco Rubio, for example, who thinks he should be president, slipped something into a bill that defunded the 'risk corridor' and caused all kinds of problems for Obamacare.  

Heaven forbid we take care of people. Democrats, speaking for myself, think George Bush was a disaster, for lying us into wars which he then botched beyond belief because the only constituencies that matter to him, big money and evangelical nutcases, wanted to make a killing and witness the Second Coming, respectively, Bush exploded a whole region of the world, the Cradle of Civilization.  

He got hundreds of thousands of people killed and displaced over 30 million. I stand by my assessment. Mass murder and incalculable human suffering are disasters. Obamacare is not. 

In the Shit

Donald Trump is more scared than ever that his criminal days are numbered. He's more frantic and enmeshed in his delusions--old classics such as grandeur and, recently, the Philippine pig farmer drops, droppings or dung spread about under the QAnon brand. This pig shit postulates an upcoming 'storm' in which heroic Herr Donald declares martial law and stages a mass hanging of Democrats and maybe a Republican or two like Mitch McConnell who are deemed not to have been accommodating to Trump's demands to lick his anus which were so successful among Republican representatives.

Now, what is it with Republican fixations on anuses and shit? This is very primal and it has it roots in the American South where, if you think back, the northern victory in the Civil War and especially Sherman's March to the Sea were termed a form of rape. It's crucial to understand this is not about the old southern fear of big-dicked black men having sex with white women who had alway craved them 'some of that' but the homosexual rape of southern white men such as McConnell and Lindsey Graham. The word is Graham might not mind but that's another story. A light bulb should be going off.

The Republican obsession with homosexuality? Bathroom activities? They can't not graphically envision these private, constitutionally protected activities because of secret desires and fears. Remember, southern white men routinely raped black women. The black men, who were strikingly physically superior to the Boss Hogg characters of the Old South, were kept in check by violence and threats of violence where they were brutalized and bullied, to say the least. These are the origins of the incredible festering fear. And the need for total control and domination, especially of minorities and women. 

And now, through their persistent, behind the scenes, illegal activities to undermine the American state, we are all living in the land of nullification, the old southern dream of a lunch buffet of laws from which you pick and choose. This right does not apply to Yankees, since they didn't have slaves and don't need it, as we saw with southerners crying and wailing like babies when northerners tried not to enforce the (actually unjust) Fugitive Slave Act. Republicans get to improvise and do whatever they want, like the Confederate traitors. The 'rule of law' is meaningless. Unjust power is everything. 

The Barre Seid Institute

I don't understand, if he was proud of his intended legacy, why someone didn't name the new institute created entirely with a single massive bequest by Barre Seid after him. While they were at it, why not have the institute's name reflect its purposes? Something like, 'The Barre Seid Memorial Institute for Fucking Over His Fellow Citizens and Promoting Hate, Lies, Division and Minority Rule.'

I know, it's a little wordy. But at least it honors the organization's source of funding and the role it will play in further disenfranchising the majority of American citizens who don't want what 'conservatives' are offering and so are therefore being deprived of the right to have a say in their governance by a dangerous cabal of fanatical Republicans determined to have their way no matter what. 

Why Me?

Something I love about Trump is, since he's so infantile, he exposes the soul of conservatism, a philosophy of human variability that rejects pluralism, adaptation, and the idea of the existential value of human life. In the normal curve of populations they were born in the tail of excellence, they think, and already so fully evolved, so what good is change and what do we do with all these inferior people? 

They spent their lives trying to figure it out and expect us to support them while they do it because they are, well, so superior. The inferiors are also useful as cannon fodder, in addition to keeping food on the  table, which conveniently counteracts their propensity to reproduce recklessly.

The prolific and interminable wars started by righties, I mean.  

Trump, who slithered into existence very rich and whose only talent in life is belittling other people and defiling and desecrating everything he touches, is also a Social Darwinist but he's so incurious he doesnt't engage in their usual round table discussions dedicated to figuring out, why me? Why was I born so superior? There's an unanswerable question. And a roadmap to a life of circular reasoning. 

They beg the question, in the old sense, by assuming something not in evidence, that they are in fact better. Again, hail Trump!, because he assumes and asserts his superiority in clear proportion to his lack of it, so it's all about compensation for insecurity, feelings of worthlessness, and the disappointments of dealing with an imperfect world. Trump's 'why me?' arises from his sense of persecution. 

Of injustice.

How can they be so mean? So mean they don't instantly bow down and worship him and give him everything he wants? Any complexity Trump exhibits is in the multifariousness of his arrestedness. He's simultaneously a child, an adolescent, and everything in between, but nothing approaching adulthood. He's a gullet. A digestive tract, bellowing and shitting his way through life, the ultimate taker. 

Reign of Toads

It's still a shock to me. And, I think, to most Americans, how many of our fellow citizens were closeted criminals. Trump brought them out of the woodwork. We assumed there were shared values and a core commitment to the rules and a modicum of tolerance and good-will. But, no.

It was an illusion. Culpability becomes an issue. I'm against the 'insanity' defense because it muddies the waters and raises unanswerable questions. Someone who commits a crime should be found guilty. Then, competency, compassion and suitable consequences can come up in the sentencing. 

If there were compulsions or delusions in play it makes a difference. We are there now. We are there with an entire political movement openly engaging in illegal acts. Where to draw the line? If some Trump toady commits crimes for Herr Donald, by order or inference, how guilty is he? 

The Manson Family is the model. Which, it is to say, it's a judgement call. Various factors must be weighed and balanced. The 'scales of justice' analogy is apt, but it's harder with the Trump movement. Layers, and so many of the actors are insulated. Evil Stephen Miller had his own lesser crime cult. 

A professional racist and hate czar, he was responsible for terrible acts of cruelty, but couldn't have done it without Trump. It would be hard to hold him accountable, which counts. Trump must be held accountable. He and his close associates who committed obvious criminal acts must be jailed. 

The rest is a judgment call. Miller wasn't a drone. Many of Trump's underlings were. He was a separate locus of evil authorized and empowered by Lord Sauron, aka Trump. But most of the Trump movement consists of toadies. They'll do opposite things on different days if Herr Donald orders it. 

Fealty is everything. In that sense they are less guilty than Miller but practical aspects of the prosecution will win out. So, the toadies get busted and Miller goes free. Sorry, it's probably the best we can do. I know it's not right. It's irritating as hell. But Miller can be found guilty in the 'court of public opinion.'

Spat on in restaurants and such. 

He can be made the pariah he should be and scorned. If we come to our senses. Or if, I should say, the people who have any sense and care, who still constitute a (slimmer than we thought) majority, regain the power and restablish the rule of law, a term I don't even like but it's all we have. 

Deliberately Failed States

Let's say you're a person who only cares about himself. To an unbelievable degree. It's not that you want other people to die, necessarily, but they're just not real to you. There's no proportionality or balance. So, for example, it's more important that you get your way in every little detail of your life all the time and feel powerful and important than that other people have enough food to eat and aren't starving. 

Now. let's say, having extraordinary drive and maybe a bit of an inheritance from a driven daddy, you get rich as shit. You truly have more money than you can make sense out of. What entity is there remaining that is threat to your desires? The government. Only the government can possibly constrain you or require you ever comply with anything, notwithstanding you have the usual psycho adolescent egotist yacht, island, and planetary conquest fantasies. And by that I mean even other planets.

Your egotism is so infantile, boundless and regressive it results in a neediness that is never assuaged. You can never get 'there' because there is no there there. There is no sense of self independently of the neediness--the bottomless imperative to feel a certain way, important and significant, at every possible moment. What you hate the idea of, more that anything, is someone telling you what to do.

Nobody tells you what to do. Back to the state. The government. It has no legitimate function, in your mind, other than to serve your interests, which, politically, is not a particularly good selling point. But you have enough money and determination it doesn't matter. Even elected officials can be bought, it turns out, so you buy some. A dystopia ensues. A perversion of government. All based on (your) lies. 

Yes, it's all justified and rationalized. They want freedom. But they don't specify of what kind. They want smaller, efficient government based on business principles, a conveniently anodyne and vague objective. These are sorts of indirect lies. Because you're lying partly to yourself. But you win. You 'principles' become the norm because you pay for that to happen. And the freedom looks like slavery. 

It looks like slavery to average citizens because locking in your power requires diminishing theirs. Or so you think. But somewhere, deep inside, in your guts, you're frightened. Something in there knows security is impossible in isolation. Security is only possible through cooperation. We're looking at a deliberately failed state now, a perversion by any standard. It serves the long-term interests of no one. 

Welcome to the libertarian perversion of a free state, in which we're all slaves. 

Bad Moon

The issue of Trump's White House portrait will inevitably come up. I'm fine with it as long as it shows him ass-side up with his pants down. He should be represented, to Democrats, as mooning them for fun and to Republicans as expecting them to kiss his ass which they all did with such ease and alacrity.

No Surrender

Republicans will never surrender. They will have to be apprehended or expelled. 

Finally, "Mine"

Finally, coming from Trump, we have as concise a statement of the Republican ethos as we can get. "Mine." Whatever it is, if they want it they will claim it. Globalization? We knew American workers would get hurt, but also that there would be overall benefits. 

Where did the benefits go? 

Workers should have gotten Scandinavian levels of social benefits. But, "mine." So declared the financiers and corporate flunkies. And it all went to them. All and then some. They even plunder the future. They are the "takers." It's been the biggest scam in history.

The Anti-Trump Paradox

Anti-Trumpism normalizes Trumpism by trying to handle it within a system which it negates, invalidates and undermines by its authoritarian ideology and criminal behavior. Trumpists are not customary combatants but non-state, international actors like terrorists. Therefore, the systems don't work.

The 'rule of law' is useless against them. They are its antimatter. Luckily, we have suitable infrastructure and means in place, thanks to Republicans, to handle such an existential national threat. Facilities at  Guantanamo and elsewhere, and approved methods such as 'extraordinary rendition' and torture.

All legally vetted, approved and tested by Republicans. They are a massively bigger threat than al-Qaeda ever was. We see immediately the appropriateness and necessity of the detention, isolation and quarantine of MAGA Republicans and Trump himself, the worst threat the country has ever faced.

Hands Up!

Just wondering, what's the mouth version of 'hands up!' since it's Donald Trump's fucking mouth we have to deactivate? As long as the mouth is loose we are not safe.