I predicted somewhere (I’m not sure if it was here) that the gambit of using the 14th amendment to bar Trump from appearing on the ballot was not going to work ultimately. For the time being we are going to ignore the obvious pollicization of the court and just look at the law before them. My fears were realized when the attorney general of Missouri pulled the stunt I had been waiting for all along.

For those that don’t want to go down the rabbit hole, the attorney general is threatening to hold Joe Biden’s name off of the ballot in Missouri. Has Biden participated in an insurrection or done anything illegal? Of course not. He all but admitted as such.  When the provision for the 14th amendment was written, it was written in such a way for a specific purpose. Belonging to the Confederacy was by itself proof that you had participated in an insurrection. So, the authors of that amendment left it up to the states and ultimately the attorneys general to make the call.

The problem is two-fold. First, what mechanism does that person use to determine whether someone can legally seek the office? Donald Trump has not been charged with insurrection and was officially found not guilty by the Senate. So, how does one reach that determination? Forget the fact that we all watched it unfold in front of our eyes on national television. Forget that the January 6th committee has already uncovered more than enough evidence to show that it happened and that he spearheaded it. Forget that the majority of the 91 counts that he has been charged with in three of the four jurisdictions are directly or indirectly related to it. Is there actual proof in a court of law? If not, who decides on the facts and what they mean?

While what Missouri (or one man in Missouri) is proposing is preposterous, it does highlight a problem. It is a human one. You can write all the laws you want and you can write them as carefully and clearly as you like. It still relies on someone or a group executing that law.

This fundamental failure is on two groups of people. The first guilty party is the Republican party. They could have stopped this nonsense at any point. They could have done it in 2015 when he decided to run. They could have done it any number of moments during his reign of terror. They could have done it immediately after he left office at the second impeachment trial. They could have simply said you aren’t running anymore. They could do it now. I’m not sure what the Democratic party would do under the same circumstances. I really can’t say because there has never been a Donald Trump before. It is a uniquely Republican problem at this point in history. The Democrats have tried to bail them out in multiple instances and they refuse to take the lifeline.

The second group of people are the voters themselves. This isn’t about liberal or conservative anymore. Values are values after all and he is a man that has none. I remember talking to a former colleague (that I have snoozed on Facebook) that argued that he was a honorable man with a ton of positive qualities. I dared him to name one. He couldn’t. He couldn’t because you can’t. It was never about him or the positive qualities he supposedly possesses.

The Supreme Court will likely strike down Colorado’s decision. They will do it for craven and political reasons, but they will also have legal and ethical ones. In a democracy can we allow one person to determine someone’s fitness for office? Wouldn’t that be antithetical to what we are at our core? I know people want to find some way to save us from ourselves. I get that completely. Unfortunately, there is no easy way out. We will have to vanquish this pit stain of a human being the old-fashioned way. The GOP certainly isn’t going to do it. Our courts might catch up to him one day, but ultimately it will have to be us. Buckle up folks. It will be a bumpy ride.

The House of Representatives has opened up an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. I am suddenly reminded of an old episode of the “Dukes of Hazzard” where Boss Hogg quipped that they would throw the Duke boys in jail. When asked the charge he just said they would come up with something later. Jurisprudence was set back a few centuries that day. Thank God it was just poorly written fiction.

Fiction has become reality as the Republicans in the House have no idea what crimes Biden committed. They just assume he has done something. His brother repaid a loan. His son repaid a loan. He was on the speaker phone once with someone his son worked with to say hello. These are all horrible crimes and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The trouble is that there isn’t a law against any of those things. I suppose the House could pass such a law on the fly to make it illegal, but they couldn’t pass gas at a family function. They’ve been the second least productive Congress in the nation’s history. They passed 22 bills in the last calendar year. The Congress between 1931 and 1932 passed the least with 21. Congratulations Kevin, er Mike er who is in charge now?

This is how things are going in Washington. Donald Trump was impeached twice and had a majority vote for conviction both times. Only two other presidents had been impeached previously. None have been convicted. The general idea is that Trump can then go on the campaign trail and argue that Biden was also impeached, so they really are just the same at the end of the day. Nihilism is defined as “the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.” In other words, there are no rules and there is no discernable moral code. It is an old Soviet mind trick. Essentially, if everyone is evil then my evil really doesn’t matter. Sure, there are degrees of evil, but that is just a thought experiment. We then can compare Edwin Edwards to Ted Bundy and put them on the same pedestal of evil.

The folks in the House GOP are hoping that you don’t notice the difference. You won’t notice the difference between a man charged 91 different times in four different jurisdictions and a guy where criminal plots are being thrown out like a pitch meeting at the WB Network. The ever-relevant Hunter Biden offered to testify at a public hearing and James Comer made it sound like Biden had kicked his dog. How dare you expose our bullshit in front of God and everyone?

The sad thing is that this actually works on some people. Thankfully, it won’t work on enough to make a big difference. Most of his voters know Biden isn’t really a crook. They know their guy is. They just don’t care. He is a crook fighting for them. At least he’s fighting the same people they fight with on a regular basis. Well, maybe he’s just using a bunch of fighting words.

It’s going to be entertaining though. Forget about anything getting done. We have another budget crunch coming in February and this particular Congress seems incapable of focusing on two things at once. Do we focus on the fake impeachment and manufacturing evidence of a crime that isn’t really a crime? Do we focus on actually funding the government and making sure essential services are met? Damn this is hard.

Project 2025 has a ton in it. There is a mention of detention camps for certain people. I will simply quote his own words from his crappy little app and let them stand on their own.

“2024 is our final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the Deep State, we wll expel the warmongers from our government, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our Country, we will rout the Fake News Media, we will evict Joe Biden from the White House, and we will FINISH THE JOB ONCE AND FOR ALL!”

It gets worse from there. I could go on and I’m certain we will hear more in the coming weeks and months, but instead I wanted to ask a series of rhetorical questions. This isn’t just for conservatives or just for liberals. Everyone needs to be asking themselves these questions.

Are we taking him seriously?

The answer for most is likely no. He is a known liar and for those that follow him they will talk about the fact that we really can’t take everything he says seriously. He is inartful in his speech. He doesn’t use precise language.

Admittedly, there is an aspirational nature to it all. He wouldn’t be competent enough to do this. Some people might consider it more than aspirational. Some people might want to do it and not just talk about it. Would a second administration have the constraints of the first?

Would he do that to me?

The quick and easy answer is no. I’m a white guy. Obviously, he’s not talking about me right? The trouble is that there is frequent talk of vanguishing enemies. Who exactly are those enemies? Are we talking about just recent immigrants? Are we talking about all non-white people? Are we talking about anyone in the LGTBQ+ community? If you don’t think someone would be perusing these pages to find people aligned against him you’d be nuts.

If I don’t want that to happen to me then what am I prepared to do? This is the scary part. Do I buy a red hat and a bumpersticker just so I can pass as an ally? Would more be required of me down the road? Would I need to help round up “undesirables” for these camps?

What do we do now?

Most people are not evil. Even if there are people we don’t like, few of us would ever dream of doing something like this. So, hearing someone else talk about this has to be somewhat jarring. Even if we acknowledge that he is most likely not serious, there is some stuff you just don’t joke about. You certainly don’t do it in public speeches in front of people. So, there is an element of honesty here woven within the lies and farce.

This is quite literally a fight or flight situation. If we are not prepared to fight on the political arena or maybe even the real one then we better be prepared to find a new home. Obviously, in the political world it means beating Trump at the polls. This is where we get a ton of disagreement. Is Joe Biden the best fit to beat him? Are there any other options at this point?

The worst thing we can do right now is divide our forces. A vote for Joe Mancin (for instance) only works if it were someone that would have voted for Trump but decided not to. He has a solid 35-40 percent ready to vote for him. So, you only beat him by uniting behind one man (or woman) that can get more than that.

“Tuesdays with Morrie” just might be the greatest book I’ve ever read. Mitch Albom began as a sports writer, but has morphed into an author that is somehow relentlessly positive. The book I am thinking of here is “The Five People you meet in heaven.” That book got me thinking in a round about way about death. Each of us reaches of moment of mortality when we realize we will die someday. More importantly, we realize that those that are closest to us will also die one day. One way or another we have to come face to face with our own mortality and the mortality of those we love.

This isn’t about the five people you meet in heaven, but the three people you actually want to die. It could seem like these three folks are all the same, but they aren’t. The first kind is one we have all run into at one time or another. They are suffering. They are in incredible pain or their life is not nearly what it once was. Sometimes they are suffering from physical ailments or disease. Sometimes it is psychological or spiritual in nature. We want them to no longer feel any pain. A wish of death in that moment is not intended with malice or anything other than the love we feel for that person.

The other two aren’t that. The other two might be a reflection of us as much as them. The first is the rich uncle, aunt, or distant relative each of us imagines that we have. We don’t know them or don’t really care about them, but we each imagine them leaving their millions to us for some reason. They would put us on easy street and we don’t lose anyone we particularly care about. That is pure fantasy. We somehow convince ourselves that their money and inheritance is worth more than their lives as it pertains to us. Again, any of us that honestly feel this way are not exactly living our finest moment.

Then, there’s the third kind. It has nothing to do with money and it has nothing to do with mercy. Simply put, our lives would be better and easier if they were not around. We hate to create it like a balance sheet, but the net negatives greatly outweigh the net positives. In most cases, we can’t necessarily even see net positives. They may or may not be there based on the person, but we have all come to that calculation at some point.

The cruel irony is that those of us that have that feeling have it because we are better than that. We recognize that our existence impacts others’ existence. We make people’s lives better or worse on a daily basis. Some don’t have that internal struggle. They just don’t care. Other people are not independent entities into themselves. They exist only to enrich that person’s life. They are an extension of them and not their own person. When that person goes, the people in their life are just happier. A weight has been lifted. I can’t think of a more soul crushing thing to say about anyone.

So, when I say that no one will shed a tear when the ex-president goes I don’t do it gleefully. I can’t. Melania will definitely be happier. His children will likely never admit it, but their lives will become easier. Those in his orbit will breathe easier. The entire GOP might throw a private party for themselves. Anyone that actually knows the ex-president personally will be happier when he goes than they are now. I can’t think of a sadder commentary than that. I know Mitch would be disappointed in me that my mind went to the dark. Maybe I will come up with something more positive next time.

When we were in high school, the school experimented with something called Channel One. One of the challenges schools have across the board is what to do with extra time they have during the day. Most schools have class periods that are the same length except for lunch and maybe one other period during the day because home room or advisory is connected to it. Channel one was a way they filled the gap when we were in school. It was a group of teenagers that were covering the news of the day. The news of the day when Channel One started was the saga over the Branch Davidians.

Over the years, there has been a huge debate over who fired the first shot and who was really responsible for how this ended. Some blame the Davidians and some blame the feds. Beyond that, these cults ended the way these cults always end. Jim Jones and Jonestown ended the same way. Charles Manson’s cult ended the same way. We can’t literally say that every cult ends exactly the same way, but they usually end in disaster.

The dictionary defines a cult as “a small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous.” Trumpism doesn’t fit that specific definition, but a growing number of people are considering it a cult. Are they off-base? We have seen a recent poll referenced in a number of places where more people who consider themselves Trump loyalists believe him than people from their own family, their religious leaders, or other right wing politicians. We have seen other loyalists say that they will back Trump no matter what until the day he dies.

So, how does all of this end? This is what worries me. If Jonestown ended in mass death and Waco ended in mass death then how does this all end? If it were a point of just cultists perishing then that would be one thing. We would do what we could to save our family and friends caught in the cult and let the rest of the lemmings jump off the cliff. Several agents died in the standoff in Waco. Jonestown even claimed the life of a member of Congress. It isn’t the plight of cultists that concerns me. It’s what happens to the rest of us. How many innocent victims go down when this finally ends?

We have already seen some of these isolated events go down. We have seen mass shooting events that were based on his rhetoric. We have seen a few loose nuts perish in showdowns with FBI and other agencies. The good news is that every time Trump calls for his followers to protest on his behalf it seems that fewer and fewer people show up. This is what happens in traditional cults. Members peel off when the trance breaks. As Trump gains more felony indictments, more and more members peel off. They may still vote for him, but they aren’t going to stick out their neck for him.

All it takes is one though. Who knows where the next crazy person will come from? Who knows what they will have up their sleeve or how many damage they could wreak if they are successful? Some of us could very well be collateral damage. That’s what frightens me. The trick is balancing that fear with the negative impacts of giving into it. We have to finish this thing. We can’t let the Freedom Caucus blackmail us into dropping charges. We need to finish it, but it doesn’t change my terror of what will come of it.

Decades of unbalanced coverage and a profound misunderstanding of the job of media has finally come home to roost. As you’ve probably heard by now, Donald Trump has been indicted again. I won’t belabor that point specifically as we have covered this over and over again, That’s a large part of the problem. What we have is an intersection of lack of proportion with a steady diet of misinformation to create what apparently appears to be our collective decent into nihilism.

Those are big words. That’s also part of the problem. Conservative America and conservative media have managed to pull off a dumbing down of society in general which has led to a whole separate universe. So, the House of Representatives continues to go after Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. Hunter Biden has almost certainly taken short cuts in life and traded on his name to get ahead. Of course, that pales in comparison with what the Trump children have done, but that is an example of the problem we will get to. Did Joe Biden use his influence to help his son? Perhaps he did and if he did that’s a bad thing, but we certainly haven’t seen proof of it yet.

Let’s compare that with a president that literally committed treason. Let’s compare that with his children that made money hand over fist from foreign governments while actually working in the White House. Let’s compare that with a president that has now been found liable for rape, indicted for paying off a porn star to keep the story from impacting the election, been indicted for illegally possessing documents in his bathroom, hiding it from the authorities, and apparently showing them off to any Tom, Dick, and Harry that came to see him in his office.

Anyone other than someone like Trump would be standing before a firing squad. This is not hyperbole. This is literally true. We haven’t even gotten to his efforts to subvert the election and end our democracy. We haven’t gotten to him being on voice mail openly asking the Secretary of State in Georgia to find him enough votes to win. He will literally be indicted in four different jurisdictions and will be held civilly liable for defamation in another one.

The problem is perfectly plain. We do not live in a balanced world. There is no “well your guy did some stuff so it is okay for my guy to do stuff.” Even if that were remotely true, there is no comparison between the two things. They want you to believe it. They want you to believe that all politicians are overwhelmingly corrupt. They want you to understand that Biden has committed impeachable offenses. They aren’t quite sure what yet. They can’t prove it and they’ve spent the better part of a year trying, but by God it’s true.

The problem is that it all sounds like a fantastical conspiracy theory. It sounds similar to the yarns that are spun on the right. So, it all becomes political theatre, They say stupid stuff without any facts to back it up, so the seemingly bizarre truth that happened before our very eyes has to be equally nuts. Except it isn’t. We saw it with our very eyes. We heard it plainly with our ears. We aren’t stupid. Except maybe we are. Sometimes some things are so over the top and so up front that it is nearly impossible to believe. Would someone really be that stupid to do something that blatant? Well, the answer is yes.