Yesterday, the DOJ ruled that Alabama representative Mo Brooks, whose fiery rhetoric at the Trump rally that incited the attack contributed to the insurrection, is NOT immune from lawsuits for that rhetoric.  Brooks had argued that his rhetoric, which amplified The Big Lie spread by Trump, was part of his duty as a US Representative; the DOJ said no, this was campaign activity and not protected.  US Representative Eric Swalwell has sued Brooks and others accusing them of incitement to stop the Electoral College certification on January 6th.

Boom.

Not surprisingly, Trump has endorsed criminally indicted and federally investigated Ken Paxton for yet another term as Texas AG.  The irony is so thick that you can cut it with a knife.  Paxton belongs in the top law enforcement spot as much as beans belongs in Texas chili.  Uh, uh.  He has so far avoided trial on his original securities fraud charges for over 5 years and is now under federal investigation after his staff blew the whistle on him for everything from bribery to garden variety corruption.  With all of his troubles, it’s not surprising that he’s being primaried for the 2022 election.  What’s surprising is that George P. Bush, hoping he saw a weak target, threw his hat in the ring to do that.  Worse, he also decided it was a really good idea to humiliate himself and embarrass his own family by publicly kissing Trump’s ass to do it to earn the MAGA vote.

Well, that didn’t work.  Yesterday, staying completely in character, Trump endorsed Paxton probably because of his criminal indictments and his embarrassing performance in , rather than P, who’s just an opportunistic lightweight.  And according to a Trump confidante, Trump reveled in P’s ass kissing, saying,

“…George P. has played this exactly right, and he’s definitely more conservative than his dad, and Trump knows that,” said one Trump confidante who discussed the race with him recently. “But I can tell you the president enjoys the prospect of knowing how much it kills Jeb that his son has to bend the knee and kiss the ring. Who’s your daddy? Trump loves that.”

I’ve always thought that P was a lightweight and a cynical partisan taking advantage of Daddy’s last name. But I never thought he was just a dumbass, but a dumbass he most certainly is.  Not only has he humiliated himself, he actually allowed Trump to weaponize his weakness and stupidity to hurt himself, his father, uncle, and grandfather.  Hopefully the electorate will see these facts and send him packing back to Florida or wherever.  He definitely has no business holding any elected office, especially in Texas.

The FBI arrested Thomas Barrack today, who is a 30-year ally of Trump and chairman of his inaugural committee.  They got him on lobbying for the UAE without reporting it, then lying to the FBI about it.  The cover up is always worse than the original crime.  Apparently the indictment is well documented and damning.  They’ve got Trump on tape repeating Barrack’s rewrite of his speech about stopping Middle East terrorism (which was just a cover for filling Barrack’s pockets).

This one is going to be good, and signals that the DOJ is getting closer and closer to His Orangeness.

This is the second excerpt from “I Alone Can Fix It”: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, by Phillip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig, published in the Washington Post this week.  This excerpt is the account of events leading up to and including the insurrection on January 6, and it is chilling to the bone just how close we came to Trump and his goons taking down the government.  This is a must read.

Trust me.

Yesterday the NYTimes published an annotated video documenting in extreme detail the events of January 6, 2021, where thousands of insurrectionists attempted to stop the Electoral College certification in an effort to overthrow the US government and install FG as dictator.  It failed spectacularly, but, since one of our major political parties is trying to sweep this effort under the rug and continuing to pay homage to the criminal who incited the entire attack.  This is a must watch for the entire 40 minutes.  Send this link to everyone, especially those peddling the lie that this was “nothing”, because it most certainly not nothing.

God; Guns; Gays; Prayer in Schools; War on Christmas; Politically Correct; Death Tax; Illegals; National Anthem; ACORN; Benghazi; Massive Voter Fraud; Stop the Steal; White Genocide.  These, and dozens of other bumper sticker talking points are all fodder to whip up fake outrage in the base to keep them wound up and angry over non-issues.  The latest is Critical Race Theory.  Virtually unheard of before March of this year, it is now the key topic on Fox Noise, OAN, social media, and Hate Radio all over the country.

What’s going on?  What’s going on is what always goes on…whip up an issue to piss off the base, flog it until it becomes ingrained in conservative DNA, then find another fake issue to piss off the base, flog it until it becomes ingrained in conservative DNA, rinse, repeat.  They use the tactic to drive the base to the polls and for fundraising.

Media Matters has been following these tactics for years and have publish a new review to the Critical Race Theory outrage.  Now, to be clear, Critical Race Theory has been in academia for over 40 years.  It was developed back then, primarily in law schools, including Harvard, to frame the approach to legislation in an effort to understand how racist policies from centuries ago have become ingrained in our laws.  It’s not political and has not been taught in schools to children.  This issue was dredged up as Trump started flogging the fake issue by banning discussions of race in the military and in government agencies call it “sensitivity training” and other pejoratives as part of his campaign in the 2020 election.

To show how these issues are flogged, Media Matters tracks the number of mentions of certain key words.  Here’s their recent tracking of Critical Race Theory on Fox Noise.

Media Matters did a great exposé a couple of years ago about how Bill O’Reilly and Lou Dobbs whipped up the War on Christmas in 2004 which is now resurrected and marched down Bullshit Street every holiday season.  Bullshit is the proper descriptor for all of this, but it’s worse than that.  It’s corrosive and undermines people’s confidence in government, has destroyed all decorum between political ideologies and is a common tactic in totalitarian governments like Russia.  The proliferation of this bullshit makes truth unknowable.  Normally rational people spout said bullshit on social media in a continuous stream, destroying civility between digital and even actual friends.  This is how you get a HUGE proportion of Republicans actually believing Trump is still president and how whites are being systematically eliminated from society.  It’s all bullshit, but it’s also ingrained in the belief systems of millions of Americans.  Even in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary, people still believe this bullshit.

It’s tragic and seriously threatens our democracy.