Arlington must have Republicans taking care of the drinking water, y’all.

Lets go back in time, just a few months, to December of 2020. Representative Ron Wright (R), infamous for complaining that there is no federal protection for the ever-persecuted white American male, is the U.S. Representative for the 6th Congressional District of Texas. He believes that the 2020 election was fraudulent and votes against certifying the election results on the day of the Capitol riot, January 6.

Not long after Rep. Wright made it back to Arlington, he tested positive for COVID. And died. He had spent the entire last year battling lung cancer and tweeting that businesses and schools should re-open because COVID-19 isn’t all that dangerous.

Moving forward, 23 people have filed to run for his seat. Texans will be voting in a special election May 1. One of the candidates, former wrestler and current carpetbagger Dan Rodimer, has already had himself gossiped about at the beauty salon for being a fool. Not to be outdone, let me introduce y’all to one of the ladies running for Wright’s seat.

Sery Kim is Korean. Last week, there was a forum for the GOP candidates where they could out-stupid each other to try and win the Republican votes. Kim decided to play the race-card.

On the subject of Chinese immigrants, “I don’t want them here at all,” Sery Kim said. “They steal our intellectual property, they give us coronavirus, they don’t hold themselves accountable.” She said the racist part out-loud. Trump voters love that.

“And quite frankly, I can say that because I’m Korean,” she added.

She has refused to apologize, saying it’s the big bad liberal media’s fault and that she “will not back down from speaking the truth.” She lost the endorsements of the two Korean Republican Representatives in the House: Young Kim and Michelle Steel.

In a political climate where you’ve got to be a giant jack-ass to get on the ballot, she just might have a shot.

As I was writing this, I saw some more political news out of Arlington. Governor Abbott has turned down the offer to throw out the first pitch at the Ranger’s game this week, citing Major League Baseball’s opposition to Georgia’s restrictive Voter ID law. I’d wager three jars of El Jefe’s South Texas Pucker Up & Slap Yo’ Knee Bread n’ Butter pickles that Abbott expects to be boo’d out of the stadium by Texans still pissed off about last month’s power grid failure. Besides, no one watches the Rangers anyway. Go ‘Stros!

Trump is a crook – we all know that (at least normal people do); he played his supporters from chumps and they fell for it.  A television game show host who wears heavy makeup, a weird hair weave, and has 5 kids from 3 wives, is accused of 2 dozen incidents of sexual assault, has 4,000 lawsuits against him and who’s being investigated by the NY AG, NYC DA, and the feds for everything from financial fraud, to tax fraud, to cooperating with foreign powers, and even inciting insurrection is not the ideal guy to lead the free world.  His followers, though, were actual chumps and we all paid for it with economic disaster, half a million pandemic deaths, and being labeled a pariah on the world stage.

As bad as all that is, it actually hit Trump’s supporters directly in the wallet, and I’m not talking about just the economy. During the 2020 campaign, Trump’s fundraising actually grifted his most loyal followers.  Trailing far behind the Dems in fundraising, Trump’s campaigned CHANGED the giving option on its website to default to recurring rather than one time.  What that meant was that if a donor wasn’t paying attention, whatever donation they made to Trump, the same amount was charged each week until the election, draining thousands of people’s bank accounts and running up credit card bills.  The only way to opt out was to wade through all the fine print and then check the box for one time donation.  That’s right, folks, Trump actually drained the bank accounts of supporters, using the money to pay for his campaign.

AND, if it’s even possible, it got worse.  Late in the campaign, the opt out box was made more opaque, and even buried another pre-checked box that DOUBLED the contribution. This scheme snagged scores of people including retirees, military veterans, and people couldn’t afford to donate thousands of dollars to anything, much less Trump.  One veteran donated $900, only to have his account drained by $8,000.

The effort was clearly intentional.  Trump grifted money from loyalists in the waning days of the campaign to prop up his spending.  Even worse, after his election loss, Trump’s disinformation campaign where he falsely claimed massive election fraud raised tens of millions of dollars that he then used to refund the money to donors he had defrauded before the election.  The total he had to refund?  Over $122 million.

As if anyone needed more evidence of Trump’s criminality and utter disregard for anyone but himself, this is it.  By deception, Trump shook down his unwitting loyalists for over $122 million to fund his own charade to cling to the presidency.  I’m just thankful the effort ultimately failed.

It’s all so clear, now, ain’t it?

Matt Gaetz has been the loyalist of the Trump loyalists. No matter how low Trump went, Gaetz stood there with a grin on his face and a shovel in his hand to help dig a deeper hole. It all makes sense now that we know the latest accusations about Gaetz and his inability to keep it in his pants.

Here is what they have in common:

Daddy’s money

Don Gaetz made his fortune by convincing the government to allow Medicare and Medicaid to cover hospice services – that his non-profit provided. Once the government started covering these hospice services, he switched the company to for-profit and built the largest hospice company in the country. He made millions using government health care. He then used those millions to buy his son a seat in Congress, which the son is now using to rail against government-run health care. Now he’s using those millions on getting his son a lawyer.

We all know, of course, how Donald Trump’s daddy made his money. Real estate, including government-subsidized housing, like this building in Brooklyn that still nets the Trumps $5 million a year.

Being a Giant Windbag on Twitter

The night before Michael Cohen testified before Congress, Gaetz sent this tweet, meant to intimidate a federal witness:

“Hey @MichaelCohen212 – Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot…,”

There are about a million other examples of Gaetz being a horses ass on Twitter for you to read if you’re a masochist, and I certainly don’t need to prove that Trump is a giant windbag.

Multiple Accusations of Sexual Impropriety

This Wikipedia page lists 26 credible accusations against Trump, most of which you’re already aware, no doubt.

The best proof on this Earth of a devil is that Donald Trump gets away with literally everything he does with no repercussions ever, and the only way that this is possible is that he sold his soul to El Diablo.

Of course, it is this week that the Gaetzgate scandal began to unfold. In my estimation, he just finally pissed off the wrong person. Mr. or Mrs. pissed off leaked the investigation that had been secret from the media for half a year. For six months, the Justice Department has been investigating whether Gaetz flew a 17-year-old child across state lines and paid her for statutory rape. Within hours of the story breaking, GOP Congressmen and women lined up to give the media anonymous accounts of Gaetz sharing naked photos of women on the floor of the U. S. House of Representatives.

He is accused of having a sex contest when he was in the Florida state legislature involving . . . Harry Potter. Lawmakers got points for sleeping with married women, sorority girls, and virgins. The ultimate prize of this contest was one specific woman who they nicknamed “The Snitch” – as in Quiddich, whoever got her to sleep with them won the game outright.
Alright, alright, the Daily Mail reported the last bit there but it’s too damn juicy not to talk about at the beauty salon.

They each have a Creepy Predator Wingmen

Trump’s long documented and often photographed friendship with Jeffrey Epstein allowed him free and full access to many of these women who later accused him of sexual assault. Epstein died in prison after being indicted for running a sex-trafficking ring wherein he abused dozens of underage girls, flying them on his private plane to his private island where they could be abused without the fear of authorities coming to the aid of the children.

Gaetz’s Epstein is named Joel Greenberg. Joel Greenberg is under indictment for a whole host of unbelievably nasty crimes, from posing as a student and writing a letter that he hoped would disgrace his political rival, to using Florida state government offices to print Fake IDs for the underage girls he was sleeping with so he could fly them across state lines. That sounds familiar.

There sure is an awful lot of smoke around these folks.

Alright, jury, I’ve presented my case. Gaetz is Trump’s biggest defender because they’re the same guy. Given every advantage in life, able to purchase anything they’d ever want from women to political office, they openly flaunt their crimes and laugh at the dummies around them that play by the rules and don’t have nearly as many followers on social media as they do. They’re both full of horse shit. We can only hope that the Feds take down Gaetz before he becomes the next President Trump.

Wow.  Twice in one day we talk about Matt Gaetz; first this morning when we talked about him accurately calling “Big Dan” Rodimer a fake Texan.  Now, Axios is reporting that Gaetz is toying with leaving Congress to join Newsmax as a manure shoveler on television.  It fits.  Usually politicians don’t leave a cush job on Capitol Hill unless there is some problem.  What’s Gaetz problem?  Well, as I write this, news is breaking that Gaetz is being investigated in Florida for a sexual relationship with a 17 year old girl.  The investigation is part of a larger investigation into Gaetz pal Joel Greenberg who’s being investigated for sex trafficking of minors.  Well, being Trump allies, that all fits.  The interesting thing is that the investigation was opened months ago while Bill Barr was still AG.  Funny how Barr didn’t trumpet that one like he did the one into how the FBI conducted investigations of Trump before the 2016 election.

There’s been a lot of speculation about Gaetz over the years, especially when he revealed last year that he “adopted” a 12 year old boy from Cuba 6 years ago when he was 32 years old himself.  He kept that relationship secret until last summer when he revealed it in a surprise announcement.  Until then, he had called the boy his “helper” and a congressional page.

Newsmax, being super Trumpist, doesn’t seem to have any problem with pedophilia, but I’m curious if that the offer is going to come through now.

Last week, Trump sent a cease and desist letter to the RNC, NRCC, and the NRSC, ordering these organizations to stop using his name in their fundraising campaigns.  His takeover, and ultimate destruction of the GOP is now unavoidable.  The Republican party that we came to know and disagree with no longer exists; in 2016, the party handed trump the keys to the kingdom and he’s now burned the whole thing down.  He’s coopted the entire organization with all of its members, and now has cut off the money they were using to perpetuate themselves.

Think about it – CPAC this year was nothing short of a Trump coronation.  Every single speaker worshiped him, and declared him the only brand the GOP had.  Hell, they even had a golden idol of Trump and everyone wanted to be photographed standing next to it.  No Republican will oppose him on any policy or even publicly disagree with him.  Trump has so amassed support for himself with a radical (and violent) base that he’s cowed the entire Republican delegation at the local, state, and federal level.  After handing the party over to Trump, he’s now cut off the money so he can take it all for himself.

After coopting the party, he’s now using the same tactics he’s always used in life – lawsuits.  Trump’s primary tool, besides prolific lying, is to use lawsuits as a bludgeon to force capitulation to his demands. That didn’t work as president, but it most certainly works in private life, and now he’s turned it on those who have handed him their party and their fundraising apparatus.  Trump’s plan is now crystal clear – when he announced at CPAC last week that he’s not starting a third party, what he meant was there was no need to, because he was taking over the GOP.  Now party leaders have a decision; start a new party to siphon people away from Trump, or just lay low, hoping that one of the criminal cases against Trump sticks enough to take him out of the limelight.

This will be interesting for those of us on the outside of this soap opera to watch.  I can only hope it continues to weaken the GOP and its really bad ideas.

Must read this morning from Dana Milbank – We’ve finally found the fraud in the 2020 election – It’s Ron Johnson.  Milbank describes the Senate hearing shit show Johnson held this week.   It was a parade kooks, Trumpists, and, of course, Ron Johnson spewing a mountain of lies and innuendo about the non-existent massive fraud.  Completely missing the irony that this clown show was actually destroying our democracy, he spewed lies about non-existent massive fraud that supposedly is destroying our democracy.

Milbank hits Johnson hard in this piece which make for good reading.