UPDATE: Politico is reporting that the DHS is taking the August reinstatement conspiracy theory seriously in terms of stepping up efforts to follow discussions of extremists on social media, concerned about potential violence caused by disinformation pouring our of right wing media and lunatics like the Pillow Guy and other nonsense peddlers.  This story is coming from those who are familiar with a private briefing by DHS to members of Congress.

ORIGINAL POST: Seth Abramson, a defense attorney and author, has been after Trump for years.  His latest work is digging into how Trumpland planned and directed the insurrection on January 6, but he also has posited the only theory I’ve heard that makes any sense about one of Trump’s most outlandish lies, and that is how he’s going to be reinstated to the presidency in August.  Now, you know, and I know that there is simply no mechanism to restore someone to the presidency, even if an election was stolen, which this one most certainly was not.  Once the Congress certifies the Electoral College vote from the states and the new president is inaugurated, it’s over, game, set, and match period, end of story.  No one outside of the line of succession to the presidency can become president unless he/she is elected in the next national election.

So what the hell is Trump and his loudmouths doing?  Why is he repeatedly asserting he will be reinstated?  Abramson says that is all a dodge to avoid indictment in NY.  Abramson says that Trump believes that with his rallies starting back up and his incessant repeating of The Big Lie, he can keep his insurrectionist based whipped up and the threat of violence would be so great that prosecutors wouldn’t dare indict him for fear of major social unrest.  This is the only thing that makes any sense to me, that Trump believes he can keep the grift going long enough to run and win the presidency again in 2024, which will hold back the prosecutorial wolves from the door another 4 years.

https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1400470960587816961?lang=en

Sounds crazy, right?  Of course it’s crazy and I don’t think the NY AG or NY DA give a good goddam about Trump’s fantasies.  If they can nail him, they will, and they most certainly owe it to all of us Americans who suffered through over 4 years of the Trump Shitshow to protect our democracy by prosecuting that son of a bitch.  I do think Abramson is onto Trump, and having written about him for years, most certainly knows him well enough to have an informed opinion.  Besides that, NOTHING else makes the slightest bit of sense.

The Washington Post has published a harrowing account by insiders of Trump’s case of Covid19 last October that was downplayed and lied about since the day he got sick.  As we all assumed, Trump was a LOT more ill than his staff or doctors lead us to believe, and he left for the hospital only when convinced how bad it would look if he waited so long that he would be taken on a gurney rather than walking to Marine One.  The story also confirms what we all assumed, that he lived ONLY because he was president.  WH doctors poured every known treatment to him as he got more ill, including the experimental therapy, the monoclonal antibody treatment.  And then HHS secretary Alex Azar pulled strings so Trump could jump the line in front of others.  At the time Trump received the treatment, only 10 people had received it.  That treatment, and the others performed at the same time (which was unprecedented) undoubtedly saved his sorry life.

Trump’s contempt for science, human life, and common sense is well known.  He forced aides to remove their masks in his presence, even while complaining to them that WH visitors would often get too close to him during events he insisted on holding.  Covid19 outbreaks became so common that then CDC director Robert Redfield labeled 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as “not safe”. Because of Trump’s defiant ignorance, untold numbers of staffers, their families, and visitors were exposed and fell ill.  Almost 900 Secret Service employees contracted the infection, HALF of them special agents who protected Trump, his family, and Pence.  God knows how many fell ill from exposure during Trump’s idiotic Hitleresque rallies.

The worst part of this story, though, was that the gargantuan effort to save Trump actually backfired.  Everyone had assumed that Trump having a near death experience would change him and he would reverse himself on the Coronavirus response, encouraging mitigation measures and preparing for the vaccine.  Doctors were trying to decide when they would start speaking their mind about the disease.  Staffers were preparing for a reversal of Trump idiocy.  They were all wrong.  Literally dead wrong.  Trump insisted on returning to the WH early, and when he did return he was still very ill, but even more defiant.  He insisted on climbing the stairs on the South Portico and barely made it.  He then turned to the cameras and yanked off his mask revealing his heavy orange stage makeup, turned and stalked back into the WH.  Nothing changed.

That was the day that hope died because Trump didn’t.  And that’s the truth.

Facebook announced today that Trump was banned from Facebook for two years from the January 6th insurrection to overturn the results of the election in his favor.  He will be considered for reinstatement at that time if the danger for violence has subsided.  That’s bullshit.  Everyday since January 6 Trump has publicly made statements perpetuating The Big Lie, amplifying the lies from his surrogates and the entire Republican Party.  The appropriate decision would have been to ban him for life from the platform because he’ll never change.  Alternatively, I would be OK with the two years AFTER he repudiates his lie and stops telling it as well as all of his sycophants stop repeating the lie.  Two years from THAT action would be appropriate.

I’m not holding my breath, though.

Republicans are flogging their latest fake outrage about “critical race theory”, turning a long used academic term into a boogeyman using their normal tactic, which is accusing others of doing precisely what they’re doing, which is dividing people by race.  In recent years, they’ve weaponized academic terms to politicize any thought that might vary from their narrow views, like “critical thinking”, last year’s boogeyman.  We’ll talk about critical race theory in a future post, but for now, let’s talk about their latest focus, critical FLAG theory.  During Trump’s 2016 campaign, he sold all kinds of cheesy crap from China with his name plastered all over the items, but there were two big sellers: MAGA hats and Trump flags.  Both really caught on, but the flags were the item that Trumpists LOVED.  They would put them on their trucks and race around in what they termed “Trump trains”, blocking traffic and doing their best to piss off everyone around them, which is usually the goal for most of them because “owning the libs” is a key tenant of Trumpism.  They also do Trump Boat Parades, which famously sank more than a few boats on Lake Travis last summer.  They seemed to believe that the more flags they have on their truck or boat, the more likely he would win the election, so Critical Flag Theory was born which translates as: Trump’s electoral win probability is directly correlated to the sum of the flags flown per vehicle multiplied by the number of said vehicles.  I’m not making this up.

This year, as Trump speaks of being “reinstated” to the Oval Office in August and Mike Flynn talks at a QAnon conference of a military coup to do that, the TRUMP WON flag parades have already started in an effort to increase the probability of it happening.  Trump’s reinstatement has been predicted through the latest devised Critical MyPillow Theory, promulgated by none other than Cheap Chopped Foam in a Bag founder, Mike Lindell.  Lindell announced last week on Steve Bannon’s HateCast that he has evidence that the election was stolen and when he takes it to the Supreme Court they will oust Biden and reinstate Trump.  Never mind that there is no mechanism to actually do that, even if it was remotely true; all the Trumpists have jumped on board:

Clearly based on the photo above, Trumpists are attempting to raise the value of Critical Flag Theory by squaring the total of flags flown.  Yep, that’s the ticket.

We had a quiet holiday weekend at home this year, similar to last year’s, but most certainly not as fearful as that one.  We binge watched television series, cooked, and went on walks with our dogs, even sans masks since we’ve both been vaccinated and continue social distancing from people we don’t know are vaccinated.  Ignoring the nonsense going on in Austin, we had a relaxing and less stress-filled holiday and I realized yesterday the main reason – no Trump Show.  One of the most infuriating intrusions Trump made into our lives for the last 4 years was his constant co-opting of holidays to draw attention to himself.  Besides his incessant tweeting, childish insults, and rambling press gaggles, he LOVED the self aggrandizing rallies he organized at every opportunity, especially national holidays.  For those 4 years, I couldn’t watch Memorial Day, 4 of July, and other national events because Trump turned them all into rallies for himself.  Not during a holiday, but he even turned the White House into a 3 ring circus during the GOP national convention which was an assault on everything from the senses to federal laws to common decency.  He was a one man shit show.

The pain of watching Trump turn the entire government apparatus into his own personal plaything has now been replaced by Biden’s quiet and steady leadership.  He has returned us to our traditions of wreath laying and serious speeches about public service, the courage of our armed forces, and the keystone of our country, democracy.  He never talks about himself, his personal grievances, or his political enemies.  He restarted the WH daily brief with a competent press secretary who answers all questions truthfully without the personal attacks on the press that were commonplace under Trump.  He’s played golf one time since becoming President as compared to Trump who had played at least 25 times at this point in his term.

What this weekend really drove home for me is that we must make goddam sure that Trump, or any of his Mini-Trumps, get anywhere near the Oval Office, ever again.  The toxic waste of the Trump presidency came within inches of actually destroying our government and our way of life and continues to corrode our institutions, even from his lair at Mar a Lago.  We must never let that happen again.

UPDATE: Just yesterday, the Texas House made it mandatory for professional sports teams to play the National Anthem before all games.  This pressing issue was a legislative priority of Radio Disc Jockey Dan Patrick, along with voter suppression and bathroom access supervision.

ORIGINAL STORY: This year, Texas has faced historic challenges – the global pandemic, the Big Freeze, and The Big Lie.  Add that to existing problems like a teetering education system, a failing healthcare system, crumbling infrastructure, and now a housing crisis, the governor and TXLege had their plates full.  So let’s have a look at that they did to address these issues:

• The Global Pandemic – Abbott, urged on by the Know Nothing wing of his party, played down the risk.  Abbott took away the authority of local leaders to protects their citizens, lifted science driven guidance for social distancing and quarantine recommendations way too early, and slashed recommended unemployment payments to Texans who were suffering.  He also dumped distribution responsibilities for PPE, and later vaccines, on local authorities in his own version of The Hunger Games, making cities/counties compete against one another.  All this caused untold sickness, suffering, and death.  What did the TXLege do this session?  Nothing.
• The Big Freeze – Over 20 years ago, Texas decided it was a good idea to have a “free market” for powering its grid, so the TXLege unwound the state’s regulatory framework, making the power regime in Texas “voluntary”, with no deliverability requirements and no penalties for failing to deliver power.  State air quality standards were also made voluntary.  This system was put in place on a grid that was already mostly disconnected with the grids in other parts of the country, so when it failed in February, no one could come to our aid by delivering power.  Over 200 people died and billions of dollars were lost.  What did the TXLege do to solve the problem and prevent it from happening again?  Nothing.
• The Big Lie – We all saw what happened after months of Trump’s ridiculous lie that an election that he had decisively lost was stolen from him.  When the US Capitol was stormed, hundreds of people were injured and 5 people died.  Trump actually attempted to overthrow the US government in order to stay in power.  Everyone with a hint of insight knows The Big Lie is false is corrosive to our democratic system.  What did the TXLege do to address The Big Lie? They amplified it, repeated it, and used it to pass the most restrictive voter laws in the US to make it harder to vote and to protect their minority power.
• Failing Healthcare System, Crumbling Infrastructure, Teetering Education System– Texas ranks 48th among the states in access to healthcare. Our education ranking is similar. Our crumbling roads, and poor public transportation systems rank among some of the worst in the country.  Under more than two decades of single party rule, our state has steadily declined in a number of measures, but especially healthcare.  Today, race, economic standing, and geographic location are predictors of healthcare outcomes, and the suffering from the pandemic followed these predictors.  The poor and minorities suffered greater infection rates and worse outcomes from the virus which compounded the other issues caused by lack of access to competent healthcare.  What did the TXLege do to address these inequalities?  Nothing.

So, what did the TXLege spend its time on this session? Here’s its list of accomplishments:

• As stated above, pushing the most restrictive voting measures in the US supporting Trump’s Big Lie.
• Passing a new abortion law that bans virtually all abortions, ignoring health, rape, or incest.
• Pushing criminalizing healthcare treatments for transgender kids.
• Passing unqualified carry legislation, making it legal for any idiot to carry whatever firearm said idiot wants to carry, making it virtually impossible for law enforcement to protect citizens from mass killers.
• Abbott criminalized mask requirements which imposes a $1,000 fine on any public official requiring masks, no matter local health conditions.

This is what you get when a minority party has cemented itself into power, taking away accountability to the public.  The GOP has had an iron grip on Texas for over two decades, aided by radical gerrymandering, lack of term limits, lack of spending limits, and lack of ethics laws.  The governor and the TXLege are now totally corrupt and pledged fealty to a criminal who so far has evaded prosecution and continues attempts to overthrow our democratic system of government.  Until The People wrest power away from such corruption, this state, among many other red states, are lost for the foreseeable future.