Alabama has elected a moron to replace Doug Jones in the Senate, and let’s be frank; Jones only won Jeff Sessions’ seat because his GOP opponent was a documented pedophile.  Said moron is former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, known on the football field as “Tubs”.  Tubs may have been a good football coach, but apparently that’s all he knows.  Tubs thinks that the three branches of the US government are the Executive, House, and Senate.  That’s right, the new Senator from Alabama doesn’t understand how the government is even organized.  He also thinks that God creates climate change, that heroin is not an opioid, and that the healthcare system should be “capitalist” (rather than a protected monopoly).  In short, Tubs is a typical knee jerk, rock rib, GOP ignoramus.

It actually gets worse, if that’s even possible.  Tub’s considering as his first act to aid Trump in his planned coup attempt to steal the election from Biden and Harris.  Objections to any state’s electoral slate have to be sponsored by at least one Congressman and one Senator.  McConnell has already warned his caucus to not go there, but Tubs is apparently ignoring that.  The effort will fail, of course, but if Tubs actually does something so stupid, it will be the shortest political honeymoon in Senate history.  There will be some entertainment in that, though.

Yesterday I talked about how Trumpists flocked to their latest article of faith that Trump isn’t really impeached because the House hasn’t transmitted the articles of impeachment to the Senate.  There is no basis in law or fact for that belief, but it’s there anyway, virally spreading throughout Trumpland.  During our Trumpist infestation we experienced yesterday that was the recurring theme.  These trends often start as a joke or a hoax, sometimes on satire sites, but quickly morph into viral proliferation by those who desperately cling to anything that supports their predisposed beliefs.  Here’s the Google trend line for searches this week on “Trump not impeached”:

And, as you would imagine, the regions that have the most searches are the red states.  There’s new viral rumor now growing in Trumpland and that is, now that Trump is impeached, he’s automatically eligible to run 2 more times.  That is REALLY stupid, and is completely unsupported both in the Constitution including the 22nd Amendment.  It started as a “joke” in October, but really took off this week, spreading across right wing pages by Trumpists.  Here’s the Google trend line for “Trump can run for third time”:

This kind of proliferation is what makes brainwashing so nefarious.  Many of the Trumpists’ comments during our infestation yesterday were repeating absolute nonsense, Russian propaganda, boasting, taunting, and personal insults.  None of the dozens of comments we received were based in any kind of fact; all taunted; none were even reasonable.

With rampant propaganda proliferated over social media facts or truth no longer matter.  Worse, Trump’s Twitter account amplifies these lies.  Every time he tweets one of his insults, childish taunts, threats, or lies,  it goes out to millions or users, retweeted thousands of times.  In the hands of an immoral politician like Trump, social media is weaponized for the dark side.  You can see it, but can also measure it.  Here’s the search terms “Burisma” and “Hunter Biden”:

These trends follow Trump’s twitter feed and those who support him.  Nobody ever even heard of Burisma, and few were even aware of Hunter Biden until Trump, Giuliani, and the Noise Machine started repeating it.  And, they almost got away with it; were it not for the whistleblower, Ukraine would have announced an investigation of the fabricated Russian story that Ukraine was the bad actor in 2016, and Biden’s chance to become the Democratic presidential nominee would have been destroyed.

Integrity matters, but evil can easily run over integrity because brainwashing works really well.  And THAT threatens our republic more than any outside force.

Today in DC, even among the Senate Invertebrates, backlash was swift and loud after Trump announced that he was unilaterally pulling out of Syria and handing it over to the Turks, Assad, and, of course, the Russians.  Even Little Lindsey Graham found his voice.

Responding to the uproar, Trump tweets:

“In my great and unmatched wisdom…” Yes, he really said that.  Who the hell talks like that.  It’s bad enough that he unilaterally decides, against ALL advice, to hand Syria over to the bad guys, and bad enough that he threatens to “totally destroy and obliterate” the Turkish economy; but he actually used the words “great and unmatched wisdom”?  It’s like he’s hired Kim Jong Un’s speech writer.

Hey, Moscow Mitch, are we DONE yet?

In a conference call with House Republicans yesterday, Trump characteristically reasserted he’s been “perfect” in all things Ukraine, but then threw Rick Perry, of all Trumpists, under the bus saying that the Zelensky call was HIS idea.  Nevermind that all of the text messages between State Department diplomats about the call and the extortion of Zelensky all point to Rudy Giuliani, Perry is apparently the next victim to be thrown under the Trump bus.  Surely, I’m not the only one to figure out that Perry was set up as the patsy to protect Giuliani, who set the whole thing up.  In May, Mike Pence suddenly couldn’t go to Zelensky’s inauguration, so Perry was tapped to represent the US government for the event.  There was no plausible explanation for this move and no one had tagged Perry with having to do anything with the growing scandal until the last 48 hours, and it’s pretty apparent that Trump has pinned the whole thing on him even though there is zero evidence that Perry even knew what was going on.  Over the last couple of days, word has leaked out that he’ll be stepping down at the end of this year.  Now we know why, and I predict it will come a lot sooner than that.

This is classic gangland style character assassination.  Don’t get me wrong – Rick Perry is a dumbass and a shameless suck up, and he deserves everything he’s going to get here.  He hitched his wagon to Trump, the Reverse King Midas; everything he touches dies, and now it’s Rick Perry’s career.

UPDATED BELOW:

We all heard Trump’s inane ranting this week from calling himself the “chosen one” to him saying he’s going to cut payroll taxes (never mind) to escalating his trade war with China that was doomed from the start.  The outrage of the week, though, after China retaliated by slapping a 5% tariff on crude oil (crushing US oil prices), Trump appointed himself “Emperor of All Commerce” and tweeted out:

“Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.”

The response on Twitter was EXACTLY what you’d expect:  Republicans ran for the exits and were virtually radio silent, and Democrats as well as Trump critics pounced, and #iherebyorder started trending.  Adam Schiff tweeted:

“As long as we are claiming constitutional powers we don’t have, I hereby order the President to stop tweeting.”

George Conway got into the act, hilariously tweeting:

“I hereby order everyone on Twitter to hereby order something. #Iherebyorder” and “I hereby order Republicans to get real about Trump’s mental state.”

The hashtag is extremely entertaining, but let’s be clear – President of the United States is president, not king, emperor, or dictator.  It’s the most powerful position in the world (I shuddered as I typed that), but it’s limited.  He can’t order private business to do ANYTHING. That’s why they call it the private sector.  What he could do, though, is lead by example, and get his own goddam businesses out of China.  Both he and Ivanka’s cheesy crap is made in China as well as his 2020 campaign banners.

Trump is completely off the rails, driving the global economy in the ditch with his idiotic trade war.  His latest tantrum is only an attempt to control what he has no authority over, and I expect this to get worse and worse.  Think about it – when he was campaigning, he said over and over that only HE could fix what was “wrong” with America (even though the economy was fine, thank you very much). He also repeated that he knew more about the economy, warfare, ISIS, technology, and trade than ANYONE when, in fact, he didn’t know shit about any of those things.  All Trump knows about is reality television and that’s how he’s running the government, with his daily episodes of out of control tweeting and stupefying chaos.

We’re in this pickle because a huge portion of the electorate is stupid.  That’s a given.  However, we remain in this pickle because the Congress is broken.  Over the years it has ceded its Constitutional authority over to the Executive branch.  Trade policy is the Congress’s, not the president’s.  Trump is using national security as his reason for driving his personal vendetta against allies and trading partners, and Mitch McConnell is sitting on his fat ass letting it happen. McConnell has blocked every effort to stop the wrecking of the US and global economies and for this reason, is actually worse than Trump, since he actually DOES know better.

Enough of this is enough.  Get off your ass, Mitch, and do your goddam job.  Either do that, or get out of the way and let someone else do it.

UPDATE:  Trump asserted on Twitter early this am that he indeed CAN order companies to leave China.  He quoted the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 as his authority, but, of course, he’s wrong.  This law was passed to provide a framework for dealing with criminal regimes and terrorists organizations and was enacted to LIMIT a president’s authority to unilaterally act without proper declarations of emergencies that affect immediate national security.  It has NEVER been used for commercial trade disputes.  My feeling is that, per usual, Trump shot off his Twitter and some law library rat has been scurrying around trying to find some legal thread to tie it to, just like the Muslim ban and his “zero tolerance” policy that has created one of the largest human rights crisis in US history at the southern border.

This one, like all the others, won’t end well for either Trump or the US’ standing in the international community.

Remember earlier this month we were talking about John Bolton banging on the war drum and Trump moving military forces into the Persian Gulf?  There were ominous warnings about Iran’s aggression and our bases being put on high alert in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Remember, too, how no other country saw the threat and dared to say so? Well, just as quickly as the threat appeared, it also disappeared, ending when Trump, standing in the West Wing door, said, “I hope not,” when a reporter shouted the question about going to war with Iran.

Now we know what all that was about – arms sales to Saudi Arabia.  Trump has made some backroom deal with MBS and the House of Saud to sell weapons to them, along with the UAE and Jordan.  The trick?  By declaring a another fake emergency, Trump can bypass Congress, which approves arms sales to other countries.  Since MBS had journalist Jamal Kashoggi brutally murdered (and Trump didn’t do anything about it) Congress has refused to support the Saudi attacks on Yemen or to approve arms sales to them.  So, Trump just ignored Congress, again.

This is how Trump operates.  When the invertebrates in Congress occasionally stand up, or when the courts step in, Trump just disregards the law and acts unilaterally to do what he wants.  The strength of our system of government is also its greatest weakness.  The Founders designed a system of checks and balances to keep power in check.  The problem with that system is that they never dreamed that each of the branches of government would be simultaneously corrupt; they anticipated a Trump-like president, so gave the Congress co-equal power to control or remove him/her if necessary.  If the Congress is also corrupt, the system collapses, and this is exactly what’s happening.  Trump does what he wants, lines his own pockets, destabilizes entire regions of the world, and is making the US an unstable oligarchy with widening social injustice and gaping income inequality.  When Congress does makes some lame effort to slow his corruption, His Orangeness just doubles down and does what he wants.  McConnell and company just shrug, since they’re busily packing the courts with radicals and weirdos while Trump infests the WH.

At least we now know why the fake concern over a fake threat from Iran so Trump can declare a fake emergency to funnel weapons to his fellow oligarchs who are differentiated from him only by their garb, language, and hair style.