Any Doubt About SCOTUS Being Totally Corrupt? Silly you.

February 28, 2024 By: El Jefe Category: 2024 Election, Insurrection, SCOTUS

The SCOTUS just announced that, after slow walking a decision for weeks, that they will take on TFG’s claim of absolute immunity even though the Court of Appeals decision denying that claim was unanimous and has been called “masterful” by many legal experts.  They also continued the stay on his election interference trial, almost guaranteeing that he won’t go to trial before the election.  Trump wins again with his handpicked court.

Fuck me.

 

And the Pendulum Swings…

January 21, 2021 By: El Jefe Category: 2020 Election, Alternative Facts, Trump

Yesterday, the goofy and well-armed Qanon crowd woke up that they’ve been played for chumps for the last 5 years.  When the power grid didn’t fail, the military didn’t turn on Biden, and Trump actually fled Washington, they suddenly realized that the jig was up and they were the losers.  The Q bullshit not only drove a national insanity, it actually got people killed in the failed attack on the US Capitol 2 weeks ago.  Trump did not declare martial law; the military didn’t take over; Trump is no longer President.  Oops.

On top of the Q crowd getting disillusioned, the hard right social conservatives are not happy with their current lot.  During Trump’s term, he lost the House, then the Senate, and now the White House.  The religious right is now soul searching about how they betrayed their own faith to follow a fornicating, lying, corrupt, spray painted television game show host.  Oops.

Mainstream conservatives are also assessing the damage wrought by Trump.  One, Kevin D. Williamson, posted a scathing rebuke of those who followed Trump in the National Review today titled Witless Ape Rides Helicopter, Goodbye to Donald J. Trump, the man who wanted to be Conrad Hilton but turned out to be Paris Hilton.  It is a must read piece.  A few choice tidbits:

“They pissed that away like they were midnight drunks karaoke-warbling that old Chumbawumba song: In 2021, they control approximately squat.”

“You Trumpish Republicans sneered that Joe Biden was too corrupt and too senescent to win a presidential campaign, that he was one part mafioso and one part turnip.  That turnip just kicked your dumb asses from Delaware to DC. So you rioted. Real smart move, Cletus.”

“‘Trust the plan,’ the QAnon cultists say. Is this what you were planning? I know you are stupid, but you are not that stupid.”

This piece speaks for a lot of conservatives who may not yet be willing to admit Trump’s folly, but you know are thinking it.  Such are the smoldering ruins of the Rein of Trump; with any luck, he’ll get banned from holding office again.  If that fails, certainly his civil and criminal liability will keep him too busy (or incarcerated) to keep him from running again.

And the pendulum swings.

Note: For those who may have trouble reading the Williamson piece on NR, here it is on Yahoo News.

Leaked Recording of Trump Ordering GA Secretary of State to “Find” Enough Votes

January 03, 2021 By: El Jefe Category: 2020 Election, Trump

Here it is kids, in all of its glory, a recording made last night of Trump berating Brad Raffensberger for an HOUR, wanting him to “find” 11,780 votes so he could win Georgia.  Let’s be clear here – it is a federal CRIME for a federal employee or member of an agency to interfere in any way to change election results.  This is exactly what Trump did, LAST NIGHT.

Trump is desperate, couldn’t care less about the rule of law, and most certainly doesn’t care if you live or die.

Welcome to January, 2021.

“Rotten to the Core”

December 24, 2020 By: El Jefe Category: Corruption, Mueller, Trump

Trump is now in Mar a Lago for Christmas.  I can only hope they changed the locks on the White House and have started the deep clean and fumigation.  On his way out the door, Trump granted another 26 pardons, mostly for more of his allies, corrupt congressmen, and murderers who he really enjoys pardoning.  Included on yesterday’s list was Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, and Charles Kushner (Jared’s father) who plead guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, 1 of retaliating against a witness, and 1 for lying to the FEC.  Nice guy.  The congressmen were felons Steve Stockman (fraud and money laundering), Chris Collins (securities fraud) , along with Duncan Hunter along with his wife (misuse of campaign funds).  He also pardon George Papadapoulos and Alex Van De Swaan, snared by Robert Mueller.  He also pardoned the Blackwater mercenaries who killed 14 innocent Iraqis and wounded another 17.

During his time in office, Trump has turned the President’s pardon power on its head.  Envisioned by the Founders as a tool for mercy, to right wrongful sentences or false charges, the pardon power depends on the President actually using these powers for those purposes.  There have been some isolated abuses of this power, like when Clinton pardoned Mark Rich, but those instances are rare.  Trump has used the power almost exclusively to pardon his friends and fellow criminals, those endorsed by Hollywood stars, and criminals who committed their crimes against those who Trump doesn’t like.  They are overwhelmingly white and male.

These pardons are so corrupt that even a few Republicans have been able to stand vertically, sans backbones, to condemn them. Even conservative Been Sasse of Nebraska called these pardons to be “Rotten to the Core.”  That’s an understatement, way too little, way too late.

And Now We Know; and it’s Worse Than We Thought

October 24, 2020 By: El Jefe Category: 2020 Election, Corruption, Trump

MUST READ.  LONG, BUT MUST READ.

The Atlantic is reporting that the Trump campaign has been conspiring for MONTHS to steal the election, no matter what the will of the voters.  The plan is much like we’ve talked about before, but even worse. Trump’s nonsense is now starting actually make sense; his continuous ranting about mail in voter fraud has been a signal for loyalists to vote in person, because millions of mail in ballots will be declared fraudulent, justifying his refusal to concede an election he’ll clearly lose.  Trump has been coordinating with Republican lawyers and legislatures in the battleground states to ignore the popular vote (citing said alleged fraud) and appoint electors to vote for Trump no matter the actual vote in those states.

This report is bone chilling, but connects all the dots.  Michael Cohen was right; Trump will never leave office willingly, and is depending on corrupt politicians in the battleground states to violate their oaths to the Constitution and the people to keep him in office.

Spread this far and wide.

The COVID Death No One is Talking About

August 13, 2020 By: El Jefe Category: Congress, Coronavirus, Trump

Over the last 3 years and 7 months, Trump’s incompetence and abject corruption has laid bare many weaknesses in our democratic republic which used to be known as the leader of the free world.  5 million Americans have been sickened by it and over 160,000 have died because of it.  The one death we don’t talk about, though?  The myth that Libertarianism as a system of government works.  Libertarianism doesn’t work, has never worked, and never will work.  The problem is that a huge number of Americans and the majority of Republicans have bought into the myth, and that buy-in is literally causing one COVID death every 80 seconds.

Libertarianism now dominates the rhetoric of all Republicans, and many idiots like Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott spout bullshit in a continuous stream.  The ideology puts all responsibility on individuals, mistakenly asserting that the “free market” drives all aspects of society, therefore society will be most efficient in that free market.  That’s nonsense, of course, but that’s what they believe.  The problem is, though, that people who believe in this ideology have no actual understanding of markets and how they work.  Free markets require 5 factors to exist: The first two factors are parity between buyers and sellers where negotiations are on level ground.  There also needs to be active competition within the market.  The last two factors are readily available alternatives to buyers and low barriers to entry of new entrants.

These are the only conditions where a market can thrive and call itself “free”.  So, let’s look at a market, say, healthcare.  In the US, healthcare is employment based.  Your company determines your health care plan not you.  If you don’t have employment based healthcare, it’s worse; insurance companies have so much power that they dictate what you get and what you pay.  There’s no price negotiation as they wheel you in to the emergency room.  How about utilities?  Again, not a free market.  States like Texas claim to have an open market in electricity, but the choices are limited and larger power companies dominate AND own all the infrastructure to provide electricity.  Negotiation nibbles around the edges of a gigantic protected market.  I could go on and on, but you get my point.

So, any objective person who understands markets knows that Libertarianism is the snake oil of politics, and will NEVER work.  Ever.  And that truth is playing out daily in our lives as the US economy continues to stumble from one virus outbreak to the next, hospitals overrun and businesses destroyed because Libertarians stupidly believe that Trump is playing out their fantasies that global health risks will just solve themselves.  It’s the law of the jungle kind of thing, where only the strong survive.

Most other developed countries have figured out this problem.  Most of Europe is open and back to some level of normalcy.  Those countries, with functioning central governments, locked down early and longer (they listen to their scientists), beat back the pandemic, and are now open with some restrictions and rapid response to outbreaks.  Those countries also kept paying the payrolls of companies who were shutdown, preventing the grief and crisis created by our own non-functioning government of passing out short term pittance and sporadically ordering businesses closed with ZERO support.  It’s no wonder there is unrest among the unemployed and bankrupted businesses, but even those people tend believe the manure pumped out by Trump News Channel that it’s all somehow a hoax or the fault of the party out of power.

The actual fault for this continuing disaster lay in two places: Trump for sure, for his corruption, and incompetence; but worse, the Libertarians in the Congress and state governments who have abandoned their jobs and left individuals and companies to fend for themselves.  History will not be kind to the handling of this pandemic.