Today, Shitbag-Elect Donald Trump used a photo of himself and Jill Biden in an advertisement on Truth Social to sell his shit perfume call “Fight Fight Fight”.  Yes, he used WITHOUT PERMISSION a photograph of Jill Biden taken in a CHURCH, to sell fucking perfume. The photograph was taken prior to the Notre Dame reopening ceremony.  Much thanks to the French government for putting Jill in such close proximity to a convicted felon and sexual abuser.  More proof that he doesn’t give a flying fuck about anyone and feels free to use any and all people to his own advantage.

To reiterate: Donald Trump doesn’t give a flying fuck about anyone or anything but himself.  He has such disrespect for others (especially the Bidens) that he’s happy to use them for his own gain.

Yesterday, I witnessed the most shocking and yet amazing transformation in political history.  Donald Trump, adjudicated sexual abuser, defamer, and fraudster, convicted felon, indicted for felony espionage and election interference, admitted sexual abuser, prolific liar, and all-round shitbag was invited by the French government to sit on the front row of the reopening ceremony of Notre Dame and placed ONE SEAT AWAY from the First Lady, Jill Biden, and BETWEEN Emanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte.  He dominated NBC News coverage as other world leaders normalized him by kissing his ass before and after the ceremony.  He soaked up the adoration, but about an hour and a half into the Catholic service, he demonstrated his trademark attention span of a 6 year-old boy forced to sit through church on a Sunday morning.  He also made a point of exercising excessive manspread, forcing Macron to sit sideways in his seat.  The entire spectacle made me want to vomit.

This drama from going to jail to global spotlight has been like watching a slow motion train wreck crossed with an old episode of The Sopranos.  You don’t want to see, but you can’t take your eyes away.  Trump’s ever present strategy of continuous lying and denial, character assassination, childish name calling, threats to public officials, perpetual judicial appeals, and public defamation of the DOJ, FBI, District Attorneys, jurists, jurors, and all who spoke ill of him succeeded.  Period.  With the assist from the SCOTUS, he ran out the clock.  Add to that strategy the incompetence, institutional rule following, and foot dragging by Merrick Garland, as well as said abject corruption in the SCOTUS, here we are again, facing an existential threat to US and world peace.  This reinvigorated, disgusting excuse for a human being is once again in the global spotlight, inflicted on decent people the world over.

The one term we need to stop using is “guardrail”.  There ARE NO guardrails.  Period.  All three branches of the US government have utterly failed at maintaining the rule of law.  Worse, there are no laws to keep this from happening.  Centuries-old rules and traditions don’t mean anything to those who don’t give a shit about rules and traditions.  The courts have also bent reality to protect one individual, Trump.  The laws we have that apply to everyone else don’t apply to Trump.

The news media also failed. It failed to accurately report the threat, preferring to only focus on the horse race, and a new ecosystem, funded by billionaire oligarchs, has arisen, choking off the Fourth Estate.  It focused on Trump’s attacks on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s age while almost completely ignoring Trump’s age, cognitive decline, and the massive corruption that pervades his entire family including Jared Kushner’s multi billion dollar deal with the Saudis and his own daughter’s capitalization on her last name.  Even now, it’s going apeshit over Hunter’s pardon while completely ignoring Trump’s legion of pardons of criminals, shitbags, and personal friends.  Convicted felon Charles Kusher’s nomination as Ambassador to France was given passing coverage before the media returned to Hunter.  You thought Fox Noise was bad?  Spend 30 seconds on Twitter X, and it will shake whatever is left of your belief in humanity.  Owned by Musk, X is a literal open sewer of bullshit, lies, hate, Russian and Chinese propaganda, and advertorials for Dogecoin, SpaceX and Tesla.

We’re in deep shit, and most Americans can’t see it or even care.

Like George Clooney, I love me some Joe Biden.  With decades of experience in the Senate, then as Obama’s VP, and then as President who pulled us back from the TFG and Covid abyss in 2020, Biden has been in the right place at the right time for years.  I supported him strongly in 2016 when Hillary boxed him out and handed the White House to TFG the first time.  I backed Biden in 2020 because he was the only Dem candidate running who had a chance of unseating TFG.  He succeeded magnificently and has done a great job shoveling out the manure that TFG piled into the White House the previous 4 years.  However, the Biden of 2024 is clearly not the Biden of 2008, 2016, or 2020.  Like many others whose opinions count for a lot more than mine, I agree that Biden cannot beat TFG, period.  Clooney says that, three weeks ago when he was with Biden in NY for a huge fundraiser, Biden was the same Biden we all saw on national television who totally and completely fumbled THE debate.  The orchestra is playing, and it’s time to gracefully exit the stage.

I know this is not a popular opinion among many of the party faithful and a lot of customers of the Salon, but the numbers support my opinion.  Though Biden is statistically tied with TFG in national polls, he’s LOSING EVERY SINGLE SWING STATE by an average of over 5 points.  At this point in the cycle, that almost guarantees, barring a miracle, a Biden loss.  To believe Biden can win the electoral college in 2024 requires complete suspension of disbelief and blindness to facts.  In a word, if Biden doesn’t drop out, and I mean RIGHT NOW, we’re all fucked in 2024, because we’ll not only lose the White House, but likely the House and Senate.  That means, especially with a packed and corrupted SCOTUS, that there will be no guard rails to stop the goons who will be running the entire federal government and most of the states.  That, my dear readers, is unacceptable risk.

Like LBJ, Biden must graciously withdraw and then actively support a plan to replace him as a candidate.  Carville published a great plan a couple of days ago that outlined a short, transparent primary process moderated by 42 and 44 to select a new candidate.  This opinion will also piss off some of our customers, but I disagree that Biden should just endow Harris with the nomination.  Her numbers are almost as bad as his and won’t garner the support of undecideds like an open process.  This needs to be thrown open to other very strong candidates like Witmer, Newsom, Buttigieg, Moore, AND Harris in a process that is public, transparent, and fair.

I don’t want to hear the bullshit argument that the “primary voters have already spoken”.  That’s nonsense.  There was no real primary process; no debates, no real alternatives (including Dean Philips), and no active process, so the voters have NOT spoken.  There must be another alternative and that needs to happen NOW.

Americans should have one goal, and one goal only for 2024: soundly thrashing TFG at the polls.  We have to kill the cancer of MAGA and the cult of personality and that needs to happen now.  The DOJ has failed us; the federal and state courts have failed us; the SCOTUS has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the majority is profoundly corrupt and ruling for their actual constituents (the billionaires and extremists) and not for the rule of law.  None of our guardrails are working.  To save the US and our almost 250 year old form of government, we have to save ourselves.  And we, as voters, need someone to coalesce around, and that ain’t Joe Biden.

So there.

Let’s just say it right up front – the current majority of the Supreme Court doesn’t give a flying fuck about the Constitution, the Rule of Law or you.  Given opportunity after opportunity to be the last line defense of The People against a continuous onslaught on the rule of law and common decency the Court has failed miserably time after time.  John Roberts has presided over the biggest abortion (no pun intended) of jurisprudence in US history, and appears to have lost what little control he had over what can now only be termed the Trump-Thomas Court of Law by and for the Highest Bidder, bought and paid for by Leonard Leo and the billionaire class.

Over the last two decades the Court has unraveled decades (sometimes centuries) of well established constitutional precedent, ruling that money equals speech (for billionaires and corporations), money doesn’t corrupt, gun safety laws are inconvenient to criminals and gun manufacturers, the EPA is a waste of time, political gerrymandering that destroyed state and federal legislatures is OK, unions that protect workers’ rights are tiring for corporations, separation of church and state is a quaint concept, state funding of religious schools is fine, public health policy to protect the health of the nation is unconstitutional, law enforcement can’t be held accountable for abusing the rights of the accused or wrongly convicted, access to reasonable healthcare is not a right, and state funding of campaign to counter billionaires’ money is illegal.  Added to this long list of disasters are the most damaging rulings, which were the gutting of the Voting Rights act and the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which is the first time in United States History that a personal right was taken away.  As I write this, the Trump-Thomas Court is now actually considering reversing the long established principal that US agencies can implement US law (Chevron Rule) and if a bump stock, which turns a rifle into a machine gun actually turns a rifle into a machine gun.  During oral argument Alito remarkably mused that bump stocks should be allowed so people with arthritis can easily fire off 400 rounds a minute.  Finally, Alito and Thomas have already sent the signal that marriage equality and contraception are on the chopping block as abhorrent as that idea is.

On top of all that, the Court is now actively helping TFG avoid prosecution by slow walking his ridiculous claim that a US president has absolute immunity from any criminal prosecution, even for murder.  So get this – in December, US Attorney Jack Smith, so he can get the election interference trial before the People before the next election, begged the Court to hear TFG’s claim that he has absolute immunity .  Oh, NO, says the Court, being all law and order, let it go through the appeals process first.  OK, so Smith does that and the DC Circuit quickly handed down a unanimous ruling that Trump’s claim is nonsense with an opinionthat legal experts say was “masterful”.  Of course, TFG then appeals to the Court, and then, after sitting on it for 16 days, decides that oh, we want to hear the case anyway, even thought there are no legal issues left undecided, pushing their hearing off to late April.  In other words, the Trump-Thomas Court is actively running cover for TFG to get him through the election for the highest office in the land without going to trial for trying to overthrow the US government.  If TFG is elected, it’s then game over for all the federal cases including the one for election interference and the stolen classified documents case.  It’s not just likely, but damn certain that the Court will then step in again and stay the state court cases against him until they carry him feet first out of the White House (whenever that happens) since he’ll never voluntarily leave office if ever handed it again.

And there you have it.  The United States Supreme Court, which is supposed to be the last line of defense against corruption, criminals, bad law, insurrection, and the stripping of constitutional rights is doing just the opposite, throwing The People to TFG and his goons.  And they’re doing it while failing to police themselves against blatant corruption.  As Steven Colbert put it last night, for the election case hearing, Thomas will put his tip jar out for that one. And Sam will be whining about how unfair Americans are toward him.  I mean, he’s just doing his job taking away rights and pandering to religious zealots and gun nuts, right?

If you have any doubt about what the US would look like under a second TFG administration, just look at Israel.  The parallels are uncanny.  Think about it – Bibi Netanyahu, the country’s totalitarian leader, is under indictment for corruption, bribery, and breach of trust; sound familiar?  Despite these charges, he was re-elected in 2022 with a tiny 4 seat majority in parliament; sound familiar?  Despite this tiny majority he’s rammed through a number of “reforms” which are nothing but power grabs.  Since Netanyahu controls both the executive office and parliament, the only check on his power has been Israel’s supreme court, which has made life inconvenient in his takeover.  He fixed that yesterday by ramming through a very unpopular bill stripping the court of much of its oversight authority; Israelis are now rioting in the streets.

Netanyahu is backed by ultra-right and ultra-religious radicals who are protecting him; sound familiar?  Since 2022 they’ve been consolidating their power and are now in the process of taking over the West Bank and expanding Israeli settlements by stripping land from Palestinians, limiting the civil rights of Palestinians, inserting religion and limiting the rights of secular Israelis, and limiting LGBTQ rights.  The military has stepped up persecution of Palestinians with violent attacks on their settlements and refugee camps, claiming to be rooting out “terrorists”.

TFG’s henchmen are already laying plans should he take office again; their intent is to consolidate all government power under the president, stripping independence of the DOJ (especially the FBI), the IRS, the EPA, the FCC, FTC, and all functions independent of the White House.  They also plan to strip government employee protections, purge the agencies and install loyalists throughout the government.  It’s exactly what Netanyahu is doing in Israel, but on a much larger scale.  Both plans are the same, and that is to institutionalize corruption.

The only real difference between Netanyahu’s takeover of Israel and TFG’s plan?  He already controls the SCOTUS.  That should send cold chills down your back.

After yesterday’s news that Ken Paxton has been referred to the full Texas House for impeachment, my only question was, which crime was finally bad enough to finally tip the scales of justice against him?  Did Republicans finally awake from an 8 year coma?  Did they finally turn on the news?  Identifying crimes and conduct that have been obvious to normal Texans for years, the House General Investigating Committee filed 20 articles of impeachment against Paxton listing crimes and corrupt conduct such as bribery, misuse of funds, abusing employees, using the power of his office to help a friend in a private lawsuit, lying on the record, and dereliction of duty, among other acts not generally associated with a state’s top law enforcement officer.  Paxton’s defense?  It’s rich – you can’t impeach me for any crimes I committed BEFORE the last election.  His argument is that each election washes away any prior misdeeds from previous terms.  This  claim not the only issue, though.

Paxton has been under felony indictment for securities fraud, among other crimes, FOR EIGHT YEARS.  He has successfully buried that case for that extended period after the legislature passed a 2015 law at Abbott’s urging to dismantle the Public Integrity Unit run by the Travis County DA and move cases against statewide officials to the Texas Rangers and local prosecutors in officials’ home jurisdictions.  Paxton’s felony case was moved from Austin to Collin County and was buried and remains bogged down to this day.  In fact, since that law was enacted, prosecutions of state officials have virtually disappeared.  90% of investigations result in no charges, and the people who are charged are generally low level employees.  This is not a flaw in the law – it’s a feature; the legislature and Abbott successfully blunted the only tool Texas had to prosecute corruption by taking away the only independent watchdog in the state.  Paxton’s unchecked corruption and criminality is the logical (and obvious) result of dismantling the existing justice system.  And it’s not just Paxton – high level officials in Austin can pretty much do what they want as long as their local DAs protect them, and that is exactly what’s happening.

What kicked off this entire episode this session was a request by Paxton that WE, the taxpayers, pay $3.3 million to settle one of the lawsuits against him that had been filed by his former employees for abuse and retaliation.  House speaker Dade Phelan had opposed the payment and the investigation into this settlement was begun.  That investigation then turned into an impeachment inquiry as the evidence against Paxton became so mountainous that not even Republicans could ignore it.

So the question is, which crime tipped the scales of justice?  Was it one crime, or did the collective weight of them all finally do the deed?  In my view, any of these well known crimes should have resulted in Paxton’s removal and jailing years ago.  That it hasn’t happened is a direct result of Republican corruption and the Texas Rangers looking the other way while local prosecutors selectively charged other low level officials.

I’ve believed since Rick Perry that Texas was lost.  It’s still lost, but have we finally reached bottom after 30 years of decline?  I’m a long way from popping champagne and tossing babies in the air, but maybe we’ve finally gotten there.  There’s no way but up from here.