Yesterday, I witnessed the most shocking and yet amazing transformation in political history.  Donald Trump, adjudicated sexual abuser, defamer, and fraudster, convicted felon, indicted for felony espionage and election interference, admitted sexual abuser, prolific liar, and all-round shitbag was invited by the French government to sit on the front row of the reopening ceremony of Notre Dame and placed ONE SEAT AWAY from the First Lady, Jill Biden, and BETWEEN Emanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte.  He dominated NBC News coverage as other world leaders normalized him by kissing his ass before and after the ceremony.  He soaked up the adoration, but about an hour and a half into the Catholic service, he demonstrated his trademark attention span of a 6 year-old boy forced to sit through church on a Sunday morning.  He also made a point of exercising excessive manspread, forcing Macron to sit sideways in his seat.  The entire spectacle made me want to vomit.

This drama from going to jail to global spotlight has been like watching a slow motion train wreck crossed with an old episode of The Sopranos.  You don’t want to see, but you can’t take your eyes away.  Trump’s ever present strategy of continuous lying and denial, character assassination, childish name calling, threats to public officials, perpetual judicial appeals, and public defamation of the DOJ, FBI, District Attorneys, jurists, jurors, and all who spoke ill of him succeeded.  Period.  With the assist from the SCOTUS, he ran out the clock.  Add to that strategy the incompetence, institutional rule following, and foot dragging by Merrick Garland, as well as said abject corruption in the SCOTUS, here we are again, facing an existential threat to US and world peace.  This reinvigorated, disgusting excuse for a human being is once again in the global spotlight, inflicted on decent people the world over.

The one term we need to stop using is “guardrail”.  There ARE NO guardrails.  Period.  All three branches of the US government have utterly failed at maintaining the rule of law.  Worse, there are no laws to keep this from happening.  Centuries-old rules and traditions don’t mean anything to those who don’t give a shit about rules and traditions.  The courts have also bent reality to protect one individual, Trump.  The laws we have that apply to everyone else don’t apply to Trump.

The news media also failed. It failed to accurately report the threat, preferring to only focus on the horse race, and a new ecosystem, funded by billionaire oligarchs, has arisen, choking off the Fourth Estate.  It focused on Trump’s attacks on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s age while almost completely ignoring Trump’s age, cognitive decline, and the massive corruption that pervades his entire family including Jared Kushner’s multi billion dollar deal with the Saudis and his own daughter’s capitalization on her last name.  Even now, it’s going apeshit over Hunter’s pardon while completely ignoring Trump’s legion of pardons of criminals, shitbags, and personal friends.  Convicted felon Charles Kusher’s nomination as Ambassador to France was given passing coverage before the media returned to Hunter.  You thought Fox Noise was bad?  Spend 30 seconds on Twitter X, and it will shake whatever is left of your belief in humanity.  Owned by Musk, X is a literal open sewer of bullshit, lies, hate, Russian and Chinese propaganda, and advertorials for Dogecoin, SpaceX and Tesla.

We’re in deep shit, and most Americans can’t see it or even care.

We all remember Oprah Winfrey shouting “You get a car and you get a car!” right?  Well, we need her again, except this time we need her to shout “You get a pardon and you get a pardon!”  This strategy has been suggested by some customers of the salon and a few pundits on the teevee.  I like it, especially as it would be a big Fuck You to Trump.  It goes something like this:

On January 18, 2025, Biden issues blanket federal pardons for all acts committed by the listed people between the dates of January 20, 2017 through January 20, 2025.  Those on the list will include all US officials who were ever involved in investigations or prosecutions of Trump, his family, friends, associates, and all of those who prosecuted the January 6th insurrectionists.  It would also include all federal personnel in the various departments of the government who have been involved in any program that Trump opposes.  At the top of the list would be past and present Joint Chiefs, especially Mark Milley, and the entire officer corps of all 5 branches of the military.  The pardons would also go to Biden’s family and staff, Kamala Harris, her entire family and staff, as well as all Biden Whitehouse staff.

Also on the list would be all all Democrats and the few Republicans who spoke out against Trump during that period as well as journalists who factually reported on Trump’s corruption between those dates and all of the staff of those new organizations.  Jeff Bezos would not make the list.

Then, on January 19, 2025, Biden would resign the presidency and Ketanji Brown Jackson would swear Kamala Harris in as 47th president of the US.  (Just think of all the Trump 47 merch that would be unsaleable after that!)  Kamala would then issue a blanket pardon to Biden covering the period from January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2025.

Biden and Harris would then issue a joint statement of explanation stating that these extraordinary pardons had become necessary because of the clear and present danger Trump poses to these thousands of people who would be otherwise unprotected.  The explanation would include citing the continuous stream of public threats made by Trump and his nominated cabinet members specifically stating that they will use a weaponized DOJ to exact retribution against anyone who has even TALKED ABOUT Trump’s criminality and corruption.  Hunter would be included in that group.

This would be the first salvo in the flame thrower war that the Dems and Biden must wage to protect everything they can from Trump’s infestation of the Whitehouse beginning on January 20th.  Trump must be frustrated at every turn.  This must be a continuous effort on everyone’s part if we stand any chance of actually saving the country from the dictatorship Trump and his goons are planning.  Basically, we’re turning McConnell’s strategy against Obama and Biden against Trump with flamethrowers added for effect.

Let flamewar commence!

To all you pearl-clutchers, just stop it.  The election is over, and Kamala lost.  BIG TIME.  She lost because of Biden’s own poor judgement by staying in the race, his relentless institutionalism, Chuck Schumer’s maddening dawdling and insistence of following calcified rules, and the Democrats obsession with nose counting and identity politics.  Well bucko, THAT DIDN’T WORK.  AGAIN.  For fuck’s sake, people, STOP IT.

Half of the American electorate just voted for a convicted felon who ran on one thing – destroying what’s left of our society.  He’s poking decent people in the eye with his picks for top government jobs, intentionally trying to piss people off by nominating drunks, perverts, weirdos, rapists, criminals, and assholes to critical leadership roles.  He’s thumbed his nose, AGAIN, at every norm and law that presidents have followed for over 240 years. He doesn’t give a flying fuck about rules, the law, country or you. Period.  He’s in it for himself, and with the foot dragging of law enforcement, the Congress, and now the courts, he’s doing what he wants, when he wants.  He’s in the process of weaponizing the DOJ to turn us into 1933 Nazi Germany, and what are you doing?  Handwringing over Biden’s pardon of Hunter.

To be clear, Hunter is a broken, morally bankrupt person whose own personal life provided Trump a gigantic target for him and his goons, but you know what?  I don’t give a shit.  Trump actually got Republicans to mount an unrelenting attack on Hunter for the last 7 years to the point of Merrick Garland bending to political pressure and allowing a prosecution over crimes he had already confessed to and prosecuting him for a violation that is NEVER enforced.  It was nothing short of weaponizing a federal agency against a political enemy, ironically the EXACT thing Trump is howling about that supposedly happened to him after he tried to overthrow the US government, steal a national election, and violate a literal legion of federal and state laws.  He did all that while fucking Mitch McConnell twiddled his thumbs and miserably failed at his number one job of protecting the Constitution.

It’s time for handwringing progressives and Democrats to fucking stop it.  Getting pissed off about Biden’s pardon of Hunter is like an HOA going after someone who hasn’t mowed their lawn while ignoring a serial arsonist setting fire to the house across the street.  I’m sorry, but fretting over your pronouns and nose counting doesn’t help a goddam bit when the winning side is in the process of actually destroying what’s left of our society.  It’s time to get out the fucking flame thrower and start fighting fire with fire.  The reason that vulnerable members of our society are even at risk is that the bad guys are in control, and in the case of Texas, have been in control for 30 fucking years.  They’ve been in control for 30 fucking years because the leadership of the TDP are incompetent and/or bogged down in reams of silly rules and traditions instead of fighting for Texans.

The only way you fight an out of control fire is with fire.  It’s time to get out the flamethrowers, and fight dirty.  You can’t follow arcane rules and maintain decorum when your political opponent wants you in jail, or worse, dead.  Wake the fuck up, and put your pearls away.  Pick up the flamethrower and light it up.

After 9 years of incendiary rhetoric, inciting actual violence, and personally threatening dozens of perceived enemies, TFG has certainly demonstrated that he can dish it out, but sure can’t take it.  He has spent years vilifiying everyone from Haitian immigrants to Dems to Taylor Swift, but when someone starts shooting at him, he’s shocked and appalled when the tables are turned.

Let’s be clear – violence is NEVER appropriate in any instance, political or otherwise.  But this monster of escalating violence has been wholy created by TFG and his sycophants repeating his vicious lies about everything from “the deep state”, to immigrants, and to anyone who happens to disagree with him.  He’s even inciting violence against schoolkids in Springfield, Ohio, FFS.  His social media accounts drip with hate, authoritarian declarations, threats, and lies against millions of people and entire classes of society, fabricated from whole cloth.  He even incited thousands of knuckleheads to attack the US Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the US government.

I find it pretty rich that TFG and Vance are now denouncing the very violence they’ve been inciting, but only because that violence has been turned on him.  If they want a reduction in violence they need to start that at home and turn down the heat, but I’m not expecting any of that.  A little self-awareness would be useful right now.

As you already know, Biden announced today that he was stepping aside from his candidacy for president as expected.  It was the right decision, and even though I believe he should have never tried to run again, I appreciate him coming around.  He’s been one of the most consequential presidents in modern US history and his legacy is secure.  He’s endorsed Kamala Harris as his choice for president.  As I think about it, she’s probably the wisest choice for now, though personally not my first choice to run against TFG.  However, she has the qualifications and the moxie to take the fight to him.

Kamala will need the right VP choice to have her back and to bring votes from the battleground states.  I have two picks: First, Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania.  He’s taken on TFG’s election lies directly as an AG, and is super well spoken like Kamala.  My second pick is Roy Cooper of North Carolina.  He’s also a former AG, and has fought (and beaten) Republicans on the own ground.   A third possible in my view is Mark Kelly, senator from Arizona, husband to Gabby Giffords, and retired astronaut, but his election could cost us the Senate through a special election.  All of these guys are stronger than dirt, and, at the risk of pissing off some customers, they’re white guys, which is going to be important to help bring in votes from a broader base of voters.  Sorry, but it’s a fact.

Anyway, good on Joe for stepping aside.  It was a tough, but correct decision.  Nate Silver and other analysts won’t have numbers for a week or so; then we’ll have an idea how uphill the battle the Dems have.  But at least they now have a chance.

Biden is still isolating at his beach house in Delaware recovering from his latest case of Covid.  While that goes on discussions are still swirling about his ultimate decision about his candidacy at pretty much all levels from party leaders, talking heads, WH staff, and the rest of us.  His numbers are terrible and getting worse as this controversy drags on.  Here are few interesting items this morning:

The Washington Post has an interesting infographic about how a new nominee would be elected by convention delegates describing different scenarios should Biden step aside.

Federal staff is already dusting off their resumes preparing for a Biden loss.  This is not unusual in election years or during times of serious uncertainty but is pretty urgent right now.

Here is a graphic of the changes in battleground states from 2020 to 2024.  The outlook is nothing more than dismal for Biden:

Finally, the NYTimes has an article about the what if question of Kamala Harris as the nominee should Biden pull the plug on his campaign.

I believe this will be decision week for Biden.  TFG/Hillbilly are already ramping up attacks against Kamala anticipating she’ll be the nominee.  His laughable “unity” reset lasted something like 28 minutes during his speech at the RNC;  he’s already in full TFG bullshit mode while Hillbilly is calling for DOJ investigations of writers and researchers who dare criticize the Dictator Wannabe.  It’s a snapshot of what the world would become should the unthinkable happen.  I’ll post a link about this when CBS posts the video about it from Face the Nation this morning.