Today was the second time that the US Capitol was assaulted in US history.  The last time was 1812.  Trump, along with his enablers, including Giuliani, Flynn, Gohmert, Hawley, and especially Cruz are DIRECTLY responsible for the violence today.  All of the major social media platforms froze Trump’s accounts today for “repeated and severe violations” of their Civic Integrity policies.  This action, which is way too little, way too late is at least something, but it is NOT enough.  The time is now long past for removal of Trump from office with the 25th Amendment.

There are 14 days now until the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.  We simply can’t trust Trump to preserve our republic for those 14 days, and it’s now time for Pence to lead the cabinet in a vote to immediately remove him from office before he does something REALLY stupid like starting a war or inciting more insurrection.  Do it now.  I mean NOW.

Then, the federal government should pursue, and arrest and charge, every single individual who trespassed into OUR Capitol building and defiled both chambers or our legislative branch.  This nonsense has to stop, and I mean NOW.

Years ago, retired Dallas Cowboys Quarterback turned Monday Night Football announcer, Don Meredith, would often sing “The Party’s Over” when a big NFL team had no hope of winning.  To wit:

Welp, I believe I can hear him singing even now.  The Supreme Court just denied to hear Paxton’s idiotic lawsuit to throw out millions of votes in 4 states, subvert democracy and install Trump as dictator.  Paxton, Abbott, Patrick, Cruz, and 17 US representatives from Texas sided with sedition rather than honoring their oaths of office.  SCOTUS said no. Alito, along with Thomas, dissented, of course.  Here’s the order:

Republican Rep. Dick Hinch was sworn in as the New Hampshire House Speaker on December 2.  One week later, Hinch was found dead in his home.  Cause of death?  COVID-19.  The swearing in was performed outdoors, but many Republicans present refused to social distance or wear masks.  Many Republicans in New Hampshire tend to be Libertarian, anti-government, and anti-science.  Democrats are calling for an investigation, and testing of all those present at the ceremony.  Even some Republicans are saying that behavior of many Republican representatives was “childish”.

Another one bites the dust.

Yesterday, over 100 members of Congress signed on to Paxton’s lawsuit seeking to disregard the elections apply for a pardon in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia and hand the WH back to Trump who was soundly defeated in the popular and electoral vote.  In addition to Ted Cruz’s offer to argue the case in the unlikely event that the SCOTUS took up the case, here are the pols from Texas who betrayed their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution, deciding to pledge fealty to Trump instead.  These clowns are safely gerrymandered in, so are not the slightest bit interested in upholding the Constitution or serving their constituents; they are only interested in staying in office.  History will not be kind to these guys.

Rep. Kevin Brady

Rep. Michael C. Burgess

Rep. Michael Cloud

Rep. Mike Conaway

Rep. Dan Crenshaw

Rep. Bill Flores

Rep. Louie Gohmert

Rep. Lance Gooden

Rep. Kenny Marchant

Rep. Randy Weber

Rep. Roger Williams

Rep. Ron Wright

First, here’s the good news – since the election, CNN is beating Fox News in average viewers.  Now the bad news – Fox and CNN both are losing to Newsmax.  Why?  Fox isn’t “Trumpy” enough for the red hats, but still unwatchable for normal people.  Newsmax and an even worse OAN have taken over the alt-right folks who are abandoning Fox in droves as more of their anchors have acknowledged that Trump has no chance of stealing the election from Biden.  If you’ve never watched Newsmax and OAN, don’t bother.  By way of description, if Fox News is manure, Newsmax and OAN are nuclear waste.  They have created a Superfund site of toxic and deadly conspiracy theories, gross exaggerations, and freeform lying.  And Trumpists lap it up. Since the election CNN has averaged 1.73 million viewers, more than double a year ago. Fox News Channel averaged 1.56 million and MSNBC 1.53 million viewers.  More important, Newsmax, a safe haven for delusional Trumpists to hide from gravity and arithmetic, Newsmax beat Fox for the first time ever.  Newsmax commentators, even today, continue to peddle the lies that Trump is going to prevail over Biden.

Newsmax and OAN (as well as some remaining Fox programming) engage in prodigious lying, creating toxic propaganda that has now made it impossible for normal people to engage their viewers in any kind of productive debate.  In recent days, I’ve attempted discourse with several people, and it’s like arguing with an audio recording that’s running backwards.  These folks have bought in to the Dominion fairytale, the suitcases full of ballots narrative, and even the new “Office of the President-Elect” story ignoring the decades of the use of that term.  Even talking to these folks is exhausting because you simply can’t make any progress.

Even though Trump will soon be hiding at Mar a Lago and fighting criminal and civil charges in New York, the damage he inflicted and made recovery of our democracy even more remote.  I personally don’t see a route to recovery.

Donny Deutsch, a former Trump friend, was on MSNBC’s Nicolle today giving his perspective on Trump’s inexplicable claims of massive non-existent voter fraud.  His take?  Business. Business, plain and simple.  And it makes perfect sense.  Deutsch says that the “Trump Revolution Network“, a new subscription channel, is in preproduction preparing to launch as soon as Trump storms out of the White House claiming that the election was stolen from him.  He also asserted that Trump has already trademarked the term”Telerally” and is trying to set himself up as Republican kingmaker, demanding that future candidates kiss his ring to avoid his Omniscient Twitter Attacks that would sink the campaign of anyone who dares cross him.  Later on The Beat with Ari Melber, guest and confessed felon, Michael Cohen, pretty much confirmed the same theory, that this is all staging for the next step in Trump’s toxic career.  Cohen claims that Trump has no remaining revenue left, and is going to attempt to establish himself as the gatekeeper to Republican Nirvana.

This makes more sense to me that any other theory for his idiotic claims of voter fraud, even going so far as sending out Trump Humper Mike Pompeo to assert that there will be a “peaceful transition of power to a second Trump administration.”  With all the opacity of current events, one thing is clear…Trump and all of his enablers, including Pompeo, Barr, Trump Jr, Ivanka, Jared, Eric, Miller, and other Trumpists MUST be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  It’s hard to overthrow democracy from a prison cell.  It might, though, be a good setting for Trump’s new reality series, Celebrity Felon, Cell Block C Edition.