Burned Out

 Just taking a break.  Burned out by Trump and his fascist Republican boot lickers.

Rush Limbaugh Dead - Good Riddance

The United States and, in fact, the entire world is a better place with today's death of right wing hate monger, Rush Limbaugh.  The former "top 40" radio DJ practically invented hate talk radio and spawned dozens of like minded right wing liars who pollute the airwaves with despicable lies and misinformation.

Using his sizable platform, Limbaugh advanced conservative ideas, though he often waded into conspiratorial waters and generated controversy for hateful commentary on gender and race. During the course of his career, Limbaugh started a number of fires with his commentary.

Limbaugh offered a conditional apology after he accused actor Michael J. Fox of exaggerating his Parkinson's disease and apologized when he insulted law school student Sandra Fluke. He relentlessly attacked President Barack Obama, going as far as to fan the flames of birtherism, the discredited idea that Obama was born outside the United States and therefore not eligible to be president. And, in the last few years, he peddled "deep state" conspiracy theories, providing cover for former President Donald Trump during his term, who he counted as a friend.

More recently, Limbaugh appeared to approve of some forms of political violence in the immediate aftermath of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. He also drew backlash at the outset of the pandemic when he dismissed the coronavirus as the "common cold" and contended that it was being "weaponized" by members of the mainstream press to bludgeon Trump and harm his re-election chances.

Trump - Cultural Guardian

Trump has been labeled a "populist" by the media.  It was argued that much of Trump's appeal was to people with economic concerns.  The reality of Trump's appeal is far different.  Trump's MAGA mob see him as more than a politician.  They see him as a savior who appeals directly to their (and his) three main prejudices.

MAGA is “extremely politically organized and mobilized,” and so has an outsized influence on GOP elected officials even beyond its large numbers. His survey found they overwhelmingly believe voting should be made harder, not easier, and that they overwhelmingly support norm-breaking measures such as overturning the election and the idea of Trump serving as president beyond the constitutionally mandated two-term limit.

“They see Trump as the last thing standing between them and a fundamentally changed world,” Parker said. “They see him as more than a president, he’s a protector and guardian of a culture,” a fundamentally white, Christian culture.

“They want to go backward in time. This is one way they are very different than establishment conservatives.”

Prejudice #1 - Racism: 

Prejudice #2 - Misogynism:

Prejudice #3 - Immigrants 

Economic issues aren't as powerful as hate as motivators.

Losers, Fascists and Racists - Trump's Mob

So, did this mostly middle class, virtually all white mob attack the United States Capitol with the intent to disrupt a valid election because they felt affinity for a psychotic, inept megalomaniac or because they felt that Trump's continual flouting of the basic rules of commerce and society made them kindred spirits?  

I see Trumpism, in large part, as a cult of losers who see the rules and norms of a civil society as the cause of their failures.  Trump's entire career as a business and political failure was only possible because he and his father before him cheated, lied and stole their way to the point where they we accepted as something other than they really were and are.  Trump's mob appears to be made of failures who didn't have the financial cushion and snake oils salesman skill of their leader.

Nearly 60 percent of the people facing charges related to the Capitol riot showed signs of prior money troubles, including bankruptcies, notices of eviction or foreclosure, bad debts, or unpaid taxes over the past two decades, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records for 125 defendants with sufficient information to detail their financial histories.

The group’s bankruptcy rate — 18 percent — was nearly twice as high as that of the American public, The Post found. A quarter of them had been sued for money owed to a creditor. And 1 in 5 of them faced losing their home at one point, according to court filings.

The financial problems are revealing because they offer potential clues for understanding why so many Trump supporters — many with professional careers and few with violent criminal histories — were willing to participate in an attack egged on by the president’s rhetoric painting him and his supporters as undeserving victims.

The rest of the mob appear to be just garden variety racists and proto-fascists. 

Running Out of Water

 

California is remarkable vulnerable to the impact of climate change.  The state's agricultural economy depends on water that is accumulated during the winter rainy season.  The northern and central areas of the state are dependent on snowfall from winter storms that build a deep snow pack in the Sierra Nevada mountains.  The southern part of the state is nourished by some of that water, but also depends heavily on snow pack build up in the Rocky Mountains that feed into the Colorado River.  The forecast for both mountain ranges and the rivers their snow pack feeds is bleak. 

Climate change has shortened California's rainy season by a month since the 1960s.  

This year, the state saw a very delayed start to its annual rainy season, which is typically heaviest from January to March. Wildfires sparked as late as January. It’s a sign that the window of time where rainfall and snow can add to the state’s water reserves is shrinking, says John Abatzoglou, a climatology researcher at the University of California, Merced – and that window may be even narrower in the future.

Most of the state’s water comes from an astonishingly low number of precipitation events – just three to five winter storms do the work of building up the snowpack and filling reservoirs. That makes California uniquely vulnerable. “In years where you miss out on one or two of those, you’re probably going to struggle to get close to normal,” says Abatzoglou.

Without water California's Central Valley, the most prolific agricultural area in the nation will become a dust bowl. Agricultural interests in the valley have long since increased their water demands beyond what seasonal rains and even the state's extensive reservoir system can support.  Instead they have pumped so much water from underground aquifer that the entire central valley is sinking.

For decades, farmers have relentlessly pumped groundwater to irrigate their crops, draining thick, water-bearing clay layers deep underground. As the clays compress, roads, bridges, and irrigation canals have cracked, causing extensive and expensive damage. In 2014, when NASA scientists flew radar equipment over the California Aqueduct, a critical piece of water infrastructure, they found that one section had dipped 20 centimeters over 4 months... Excessive pumping also jeopardizes water quality, as pollutants accumulate within groundwater and the clays release arsenic. Worst of all, the persistent pumping means that, one day, aquifers might run out of usable water. 

Southern California's dependence on the Colorado River watershed will once again create incredible stress on water resources in the most populous region of the state.  Population growth in the seven western states that depend on the Colorado River combined with the expansion of agricultural activity in regions of historical water scarcity are generating substantial demands on a system that depends on the same weather patters that have diminished Northern California's rainy seasons.   

A sobering forecast released this week by the Bureau of Reclamation shows the federally owned Lake Mead and Lake Powell — the nation’s two largest reservoirs and critical storage for Colorado River water and its 40 million users — dipping near-record-low levels. If those levels continue dropping as expected, long-negotiated agreements reached by the seven Colorado River Basin states in 2019 will go into effect, with water deliveries curtailed to prevent the federal government from stepping in and making hard water cuts.

The Bureau of Reclamation’s quarterly report was dire, showing Lake Powell at 42% of capacity and downriver’s Lake Mead at 40% capacity. And there’s not much water coming.

Climate change did not take 2020 off due to Covid-19.   

Also posted at Just Save One.

The Party Of Death

 
Today the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, published a commission study that concluded that Trump and, to a large extent, his fellow Republicans are responsible for as many as 188,000 unnecessary Covid-19 related deaths in the United States over the past 12 month.

The US could have averted 40% of the deaths from Covid-19, had the country’s death rates corresponded with the rates in other high-income G7 countries, according to a Lancet commission tasked with assessing Donald Trump’s health policy record.

Almost 470,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus so far, with the number widely expected to go above half a million in the next few weeks. At the same time some 27 million people in the US have been infected. Both figures are by far the highest in the world.

In seeking to respond to the pandemic, Trump has been widely condemned for not taking the pandemic seriously enough soon enough, spreading conspiracy theories, not encouraging mask wearing and undermining scientists and others seeking to combat the virus’s spread.

What the study is careful to point out that Trump's policies and behavior may have been responsible for the excessive death rate, but government policy at almost every level - local, state and federal - has, since 2002, reduced the resources available to address public health issues in the US.

The commission condemned Trump’s response to Covid, but emphasized that the country entered the pandemic with a degraded public health infrastructure. Between 2002 and 2019, US public health spending fell from 3.21% to 2.45% – approximately half the share of spending in Canada and the UK.

Tax cuts for the rich and corporation, attacks on government health programs such as the affordable care act and persistent racism which leaves minority communities with sadly deficient health care are all characteristics of not just Trumpism, but long term Republican Party policy.  

 

Trump's Fascist Fantasy

During his January 6 rally, prior to sending his red hatted MAGA mob to attack the United States Congress, Trump presented the insurrectionist mob with a well produced fascist video. A productions that included many of the familiar Nazi tropes - "the stab in the back," rampant anti-Semitism ("the International Jew) and, of course, the glorious, heroic leader.

On January 6, Trump supporters gathered at a rally at Washington DC’s Ellipse Park, regaled by various figures from Trump world, including Donald Trump Jr. and Rudy Giuliani. Directly following Giuliani’s speech, the organizers played a video. To a scholar of fascist propaganda, well-versed in the history of the National Socialist’s pioneering use of videos in political propaganda, it was clear, watching it, what dangers it portended. In it, we see themes and tactics that history warns pose a violent threat to liberal democracy. Given the aims of fascist propaganda – to incite and mobilize – the events that followed were predictable.

Change the words fascism and fascist with Trumpism and Trump and this indictment of Trump and his insurrection are shown in their true light - MAGA is a fascist cult of personality built around Trump. 

Fascism is a patriarchal cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by a treacherous and power-hungry global elite, who have encouraged minorities to destabilize the social order as part of their plan to dominate the “true nation,” and fold them into a global world government. The fascist leader is the father of his nation, in a very real sense like the father in a traditional patriarchal family. He mobilizes the masses by reminding them of what they supposedly have lost, and who it is that is responsible for that loss – the figures who control democracy itself, the elite; Nazi ideology is a species of fascism in which this global elite are Jews.

I know it is hard to imagine Trump as the glorious leader of a great movement.  He is a lazy, cowardly bully, who exhorted the crowd by telling them he would "march with them" and then retreated to safety in the White House.  But, Hitler was an obscure Austrian, who prior to a stint in the German army in WW1, was a mostly homeless postcard illustrator.  So... there is no accounting for who will end up as the "glorious leader."

 

The Damage and Destruction Are Trump's Monument

Trump's wall along the US-Mexico border was a linchpin of his 2016 presidential campaign.  It was to supposed to be a signature achievement of his presidency.  There were however some significant issues with his wall.  First, everyone who studies the issue of people illegally entering the US realize that most enter the US through ports of entry not via cross country treks.  Second, building the wall would require substantial eminent domain actions by the US government against US citizens to take their border adjacent land to build the wall.  And, finally, despite Trump's exclamations to the contrary, Mexico would not pay for the building of the wall.  

What all of this meant was that the only quick and dirty wall building Trump could use as evidence of his promised "great wall" was in the refurbishment of existing border barriers and that new wall construction was mostly relegated to public lands along the border.  Public lands that included areas of substantial conservation and cultural value.  None of this mattered to Trump and his wall obsessed MAGAs.

“(The administration) really started to push out into remote, rugged terrain on public lands all across the borderline in Arizona, where the ecological value of those places is so much higher that the damage done by this construction is much more egregious,” said Randy Serraglio, Southwest conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity.

For months now, construction crews have been dynamiting, drilling, pumping, excavating and clear-cutting public land. In places like Guadalupe Canyon in far eastern Arizona, simply building roads to bring in construction equipment involved blasting mountainsides and sending the rubble down to clog drainages. Previously wide-open landscapes where wildlife and water could move freely have been severed by the huge steel barrier. The Sonoran Desert’s iconic saguaros, protected by law, have been found lying in heaps next to construction sites.

“This is damage that will not ever be remediated or mitigated,” Serraglio said. “This is permanent.”

Bill Gates' Microchip

So.... Bill Gates is planning to use Covid-19 vaccinations to implant a tracking microchip into the American public.  Not surprisingly almost half of self-identified Republicans believe this to be true.  Apparently, it is important for Bill Gates to know where everyone is at any given point of time.  

Why has no one ever thought of this idea before.  Being able to track people's movements electronically.  It's a diabolic form of population control for which Republican will no stand.  For example, if such a tool were available, it would be possible to see if the mob that attacked the United States Capitol were somehow incited or inspired by Trump's rally a few blocks away for the Capitol.  Wait, such a tool exists and it pretty clearly shows the movement of MAGA from rally to riot.

Using a trove of leaked smartphone location data, @cwarzel and @stuartathompson identified some of the Capitol rioters.

In this time-lapse animation, smartphones moved from Trump’s rally to the Capitol. https://t.co/MV4foh0Olo pic.twitter.com/iSfdicvXWY

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) February 6, 2021

A Slice of Hope

 The times, they are a changin'...

Trump Owns Them

Maybe her dad will shoot them in the face. Liz Cheney is a hard right conservative who was a reliable vote for every one of Trump's policies. Her father is part of what used to be the leadership of the Republican Party. Well, now the Republicans are the party of Trump and Taylor Greene. They are the QAnon/Fascist party and in Wyoming they want Liz to get out of their party.

Liz Cheney, the third-highest-ranking Republican leader in the House, was censured by the Wyoming Republican Party on Saturday for voting to impeach Donald Trump for his role in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.

The overwhelming censure vote was the latest blowback for Cheney for joining nine Republican representatives and all Democrats in the US House in the January 13 impeachment vote.

On Saturday, only eight of the 74-member state GOP’s central committee stood to oppose censure in a vote that didn’t proceed to a formal count. The censure document accused Cheney of voting to impeach even though the US House didn’t offer Trump “formal hearing or due process.”

Going Over Jordan

While billeted in the Library of Congress while in Washington to protect our capitol some National Guard members showed off impressive musical skills and took advantage of near perfect acoustics.

I am a poor wayfaring stranger

I’m travellin’ through this world of woe

Yet there’s no sickness, toil, nor danger

In that bright land to which I go

I’m going there to see my Father

I’m going there, no more to roam

I’m only going over Jordan

I’m only going over home

I know dark clouds will gather ’round me

I know my way is rough and steep

But golden fields lie just before me

Where God’s redeemed shall ever sleep

I’m going home to see my mother

And all my loved ones who’ve gone on

I’m only going over Jordan

I’m only going over home

I am a poor wayfarin’ stranger

I’m travellin’ through this world of woe

Yet there’s no sickness, toil, nor danger

In that bright land to which I go

Christo-fascism - It's Here!

The "Christian" right wraps itself in the US flag.  They proclaim that the United States is a Christian nation and that as a Christian nation God needs to be in charge.  And, they will kill anyone who gets in the way.  Democracy is the enemy, freedom is an illusion and only the Godly are qualified to make decisions for the masses.  

They very much pushed the idea of a shadowy "one world government", and said that democracy is doomed to fail, has always failed.

And, no Sinclair Lewis did not say "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."  But, it doesn't matter who said it, it's the truth.

 

Republicans - Phonies, Tax Cheats and Grifters

Gun packing, Trump loving and newly elected Member of Congress Lauren Boebert appears to be just as much of a phony business person as Trump himself.  She apparently doesn't believe in paying her fair share of taxes.

Between August 2016 and February 2020, Shooters Grill, the gun-themed Rifle restaurant owned by Boebert, accumulated eight liens for nonpayment of unemployment insurance premiums, according to records from the Garfield County Clerk and Recorder’s office.

The liens, filed by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, indicate that Shooters Grill was delinquent on UI premiums dating back to its opening in 2013. By early 2020, Boebert’s restaurant owed the state a total of $19,552.86, including interest and penalties.

In a surprising twist Boebert payed off all of those liens just two weeks before the November election.  Subsequent financial disclosures from her campaign showed that she paid herself over twenty two thousand dollars as reimbursement for mileage travelled during her campaign.  Interesting...

Boebert appears to be as much of a failure at running a business as Trump himself.  

On a congressional financial disclosure statement that Boebert filed as a candidate in January 2020, she reported that Shooters Grill had posted a net operating loss of $242,347 in 2018. Boebert also disclosed liabilities that included a “business loan” valued at between $15,000 and $50,000.

And, of course, like Trump she doesn't believe in following the rules to keep the public safe during a global pandemic.

In May, public health officials in Garfield County revoked Shooters Grill’s license after Boebert repeatedly opened the restaurant for in-person dining in defiance of state and local coronavirus restrictions. The license was reinstated two weeks later, and Shooters Grill was allowed to reopen under the condition that it followed certain restrictions, including operating at 50% capacity.

Republicans have decided to unleash phonies like Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene on the United States.  As a political party Republicans gave up on truth and honest government back in the Reagan days and gave up on integrity and public service in the 1990s.  Now, it appears that they have given up on the very concept of reality. 

I Wasn't Fired, I Quit

Just like he claims that he wasn't fired as president, Trump has quit the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) just before being expelled by that organization.  

The president's resignation comes after the Screen Actors Guild board voted "overwhelmingly" that Trump violated the union's membership guidelines in the wake of the Capitol riot.

"Donald Trump attacked the values that this union holds most sacred – democracy, truth, respect for our fellow Americans of all races and faiths, and the sanctity of the free press," Carteris said last month. "There’s a straight line from his wanton disregard for the truth to the attacks on journalists perpetrated by his followers."

"Our most important role as a union is the protection of our members. The unfortunate truth is, this individual’s words and actions over the past four years have presented actual harm to our broadcast journalist members," said SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director David White. "The board’s resolution addresses this effort to undermine freedom of the press and reaffirms the principles on which our democratic society rests, and which we must all work to protect and preserve."

As we most things Trump does, his departure from SAG was done in the most classless and clueless possible way.

..."Which brings me to your blatant attempt at free media attention to distract from your dismal record as a union," Trump wrote. "Your organization has done little for its members, and nothing for me—besides collecting dues and promoting dangerous un-American policies and ideas.

Without me, you're nothing.   How can we get by without Trump?

Deus Vult

Trump's MAGA mob includes large numbers of self-described "Christians".   In fact this group makes up Trump's most fervent and, increasingly violent, faction among the various fascists, white supremacists, misogynists and other anti-democratic hoards that have decided to elevate Trump to near godlike status. 

...the Christian right is readying its troops for an escalation of the culture war: a campaign to delegitimize not only Biden’s presidency, but any Democratic election victory. Bachmann, during the prayer call just hours after the insurrection, claimed that Democrats also “stole” control of the Senate when Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won their seats in Georgia – a development Bachmann repeatedly called a “coup.”

That narrative means that Republican lawmakers can rest assured that their most loyal base will have their back as they reject Trump’s second impeachment, obstruct the Democratic legislative agenda and refuse to accept the legitimacy of the Democratic president and Democratic leadership of Congress. The movement’s new jeremiad, a battle against the democratic process itself, is just getting started.

They Are The Storm...

Why do Republicans hate the United States?    Each day they fall more in thrall of various QAnon spouted conspiracies.  

The GOP bears no resemblance to the party of Abraham Lincoln. It is now the party of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who believes in the hallucinatory QAnon conspiracy theory, who has suggested that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton is a child murderer and who thinks 2018's California wildfires may have been ignited by a giant space-based laser somehow controlled by Jews. Also, high-speed rail is involved somehow.

They have apparently decided that free and fair elections are no longer necessary.  Secession from the union whose flag they wrap themselves in is now becoming a core tenant of the party in some states.  

Just look at the party’s state affiliates. On Jan. 4, the Arizona G.O.P. retweeted a “Stop the Steal” activist who’d pronounced himself willing to “give my life” to overturn the election. Said the party’s official account: “He is. Are you?” An Arizona lawmaker has since introduced a bill that would let the Legislature, controlled by Republicans, override the presidential vote of the state’s increasingly Democratic citizenry.

The Oregon Republican Party approved a resolution suggesting that the Capitol siege was a “false flag” attack. The Texas Republican Party has adopted the QAnon slogan “We are the storm” as its motto, though it insists there’s no connection. The chairman of Wyoming’s Republican Party, who attended Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, said he might be open to secession.

If this is how the vast majority of those Americans that register as Republicans think, the United States is doomed.

 

But, Your Honor I Booked The Trip Before I Committed Sedition

Always get trip insurance.  That's an important tip to any MAGAs planning violent insurrection.

One of the rioters who stormed the US Capitol during the January insurrection asked a federal court to let her leave the US for a vacation she booked in Mexico.

...[she] streamed a live video on Facebook after leaving the Capitol where she said that she had attended Trump's speech and went to the Capitol before Trump had finished speaking.

It said she mentioned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office being broken into, saying "We did break down the Nancy Pelosi's office door and somebody stole her gavel and took a picture sitting in the chair flipping off the camera."

And, according to the FBI, she said in the video: "f--k yes, I am proud of my actions. I f---ing charged the Capitol today with patriots today. Hell, yes I am proud of my actions."

Trump's $175 Million Scam

Trump's whole "stolen election" tantrum wasn't really about the election at all. It was a scam. Trump found a way to make a boat load of money crying about the election he lost by millions of votes. His MAGA hoards dumped millions to help with his legal cases and Trump repaid them with a small dollar public relations campaign and the worst (as in cheapest) legal team in history.
Keep in mind that he is even refusing to pay Rudy Giuliani for his efforts. His cult members at the Republican National Committee got 35 cents on every dollar Trump raised so you can see why they were on board with amplifying his lies.

Former President Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party leveraged false claims of voter fraud and promises to overturn the election to raise more than a quarter-billion dollars in November and December as hundreds of thousands of trusting supporters listened and opened their wallets.

But the Trump campaign spent only a tiny fraction of its haul on lawyers and other legal bills related to those claims. Instead, Mr. Trump and the G.O.P. stored away much of the money — $175 million or so — even as they continued to issue breathless, aggressive and often misleading appeals for cash that promised it would help with recounts, the rooting out of election fraud and even the Republican candidates’ chances in the two Senate runoff races in Georgia.

Trump To Act As His Own Attorney

Right now it's clear that Republicans won't convict Trump in his second impeachment trial.  Their cowardice is some rancid that you can smell it around the world.  So, why shouldn't Trump act as his own defense attorney?

Donald J. Trump will act as his own defense attorney at his impeachment trial after receiving a law degree from Trump University.

Trump bestowed the degree upon himself in his capacity as the dean of the Trump University School of Law, where he graduated first in his class.

Let's face it.  So many jurors are in on the crime, there is no way Trump gets convicted.  My dog could defend him successfully.

Ain't No Qualifications For This Job

This woman is this video is highlighting an interesting phenomena.  It's hard to find high paying jobs with gold plated benefits if you don't at least have a high school education.  Unless you are a member of the United State Congress.  If you brought a gun to work against your company's policies, you would probably be fired.  Unless you are a member of the United State Congress.  If you posted (or liked a post) suggesting that you supervisor be shot or hung, you would probably be fired.  Unless you are a member of the United State Congress.

59-seconds of truth bombs on the requirements of elected leaders in America...pic.twitter.com/N2o00KATDC

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) January 29, 2021

Trump - Dumb And Psychologically Vulnerable

The Russians cultivated their relationship with Trump for 40 years. First as an asset of the USSR and then as a Russian asset. They had a clear understanding as to how to get on Trump's good side and the ability to get Trump to parrot Russian talking points. 

“For the KGB, it was a charm offensive. They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery.

“This is what they exploited. They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day: it is people like him who could change the world. They fed him these so-called active measures soundbites and it happened. So it was a big achievement for the KGB active measures at the time.”

The Money Behind American Fascism

Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah are two billionaires who have put their money behind their prejudices.

[Rebekah] Mercer has been financing a host of right-wing individuals and groups involved in the storming of the Capitol, The Intercept reported earlier this month, from Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward to “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander, in addition to her role as a financier of news website Breitbart and the social network Parler. In 2020, Mercer’s father, Robert Mercer, donated $1.5 million to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, and the Mercers donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican National Committee.

The Mercers money insulates them from the vagaries of life that face over 99% of the rest of America's population which gives them a unique position from which they can judge others.  In their view Democrats are rabid Marxists (a human species that has been on the endangered list for decades) and Black Americans had it much better before the out of control government started giving them the same rights as white Americans.  

And no matter what you do, don't mention the media to them.

Mercer is indefatigable in her critique of the media. “Today, journalists of the mainstream media are little more than the Machiavellian foot soldiers of the progressive left, unethical to their very hearts, shameless about writing lies and defaming people, and assiduously filtering the stories they print through a prism of partisan prejudice,” Mercer writes. 

These are Trump kind of people.   

Coat Industry Taking Our Rights Away One Sleeve At A Time

The horror show that is the "coat industry" or as they are called by insiders, the "big coat".   Coats are just one of those items of clothing that people (sheeple) are being forced to wear.  What about hats?  Socks?  Underwear?  Come on people!  Wake up?

If people talked about coats the way they talk about vaccines. By @jpscattini #COVID19 #CovidVaccine pic.twitter.com/HnNkPLcwPO

— Walter Masterson (@waltermasterson) January 27, 2021

Don't get me started on face masks. 

Trump's Petty Vandalism

Trump is a tiny, insignificant person.  He has no redeeming qualities, just a gut full of rage and a head filled with grandiose fantasies that he is intelligent and powerful.  He is a petty bully and a weak, insecure little man.   And, let's face it Melania is just as small and petty as her husband.

"The Trumps sent the butlers home when they left so there would be no one to help the Bidens when they arrived," the official said. "So petty."

Other knowledgable sources confirmed to the Journal that chief usher Timothy Harleth, a former executive of Trump Hotels hired by Melania Trump, was summarily fired by the outgoing president and first lady -- and not by the Bidens, as was widely reported afterward.

Harleth was already gone by the time Joe and Jill Biden arrived at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, leaving no one in place to open the doors for their inaugural entry and leading to an awkward pause.

Trump's Insurrectionist Pals

Kentucky's other senator, Rand Paul, has hurt feelings.  He thinks that President Biden was talking about him and his fellow Republicans in his inaugural address.  

“If you read his speech and listen to it carefully, much of it is thinly veiled innuendo,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said during an interview on Fox News, “calling us white supremacists, calling us racists, calling us every name in the book.”

Paul also apparently objected to Biden’s saying that “there is truth and there are lies, lies told for power and for profit.”

“Calling us people who don’t tell the truth,” Paul continued. “ ‘And going forward we’re not going to have manufactured or manipulated truth.’ That’s another way of saying ‘All of my opponents manufacture or manipulate the truth and are liars.’ ”

Guess what, Rand?  He was talking about the racist wing of the Republican Party - which is massive.  He was talking about the Republican members of Congress, who amplified Trump's lies about the election and refused to recognize that Biden's election was not just free and fair, but also a rejection of Trumpism and the cozy relationship that Paul and his fellow Republicans in Congress have with Trump's lies and corruption.

The crowd that formed on January 6 to listen to Trump's lies included quite a few Republican office holders and officials.  

In the crowd that day were 13 members of state Houses or Assemblies; three state senators; a county commissioner; a city council member; a GOP congressional district chair; a district director; and a co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party. The group also includes a QAnon conspiracy theorist; a self-described member of a fascist militia; and a man who once declared that “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.” 

These GOP officials, after all, were taking part in, and lending credence to, the finale of a months long campaign to falsely discredit the results of a fair election. All were eager participants in a nakedly anti-democratic ploy to keep their preferred president in power, and helped whip a fascist mob into a frenzy.

Trump's January 6 rally wasn't a spontaneous demonstration, it was the culmination of two days of carefully orchestrated events,  designed to foment an insurrection to stop Congress from doing its Constitutionally mandated duty.  The funding and organization of the Trump's rally came from an array of right wing  organizations.

The two days of rallies were staged not by white nationalists and other extremists, but by well-funded nonprofit groups and individuals that figure prominently in the machinery of conservative activism in Washington.

Organizing warm-up events is not the same thing as plotting to invade the Capitol. But before the rallies, some used extreme rhetoric, including references to the American Revolution, and made false claims about the election to rouse supporters to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Unless Congress responds to the protests, “everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building,” tweeted Ali Alexander, a former CNP fellow who organized the “Stop the Steal” movement. “1776 is *always* an option.”

Events included a “Patriot Caravan” of buses to Washington, a “Save the Republic” rally on Jan. 5 and a “Freedom Rally” on the morning of Jan. 6. A little-known nonprofit called Women for America First, a group run by Trump supporters and former tea party activists, got approval to use space on the Ellipse for what they called a “March for Trump,” according to the “public gathering permit” issued on Jan. 5.

Nearly a dozen political activists — including former White House, congressional and Trump campaign staffers — served as on-site rally coordinators and stage managers, the permit said. A spokesperson for Women for America First did not respond to requests for comment.

The list of right wing organizations and Republican groups involved includes almost all of what used to be the far right fringe of American politics.  Now, those groups - the racist, the fascists, the adherents to "alternate facts," the Christian Dominionists, the QAnons - they are the beating heart of the Republican Party.  

Is it any wonder why Rand Paul is so defensive about being called racist and a liar?  If the shoe fits.

Lots Of House Cleaning To Do

Tough first day on the job.  It will take a long time to repair the damage Trump has done.

Goodbye You POS

 It's new day.

No Plan, No Stockpile, No Clue

Declaring you have a plan (the best plan ever) isn't the same as actually having a plan.  Trump approach to Covid-19 was to say stuff, but do nothing.  So, instead of a grand plan to get the approved vaccines to everyone in the country, Trump and his team had just a notebook filled with Trump's doodles.

In what must be a shocking revelation for everyone … Trump lied. The military was never put in charge of vaccine distribution. Instead, it was contracted out to private companies. But that wasn’t the end of the problems with the distribution. While Trump and former HHS Secretary Alex Azar talked up a “federal stockpile” of vaccine that they were handing out carefully to make sure everyone got their prescribed two doses, it took until just before Azar’s departure before the truth came out. There was no stockpile. 

It’s now clear that President Joe Biden isn’t just walking in to find the vaccine cupboards bare, but absolutely no real plan for handing out vaccine. Biden’s team is starting from scratch.

Thank God!

 Awake after a four year nightmare.

The Whole Truth

     Just watch this.  

Don’t know who this dude is but he broke that shit DOWN!! Listen especially the ones that need to hear it!! pic.twitter.com/gSZno2yaRh

— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) January 17, 2021

Putin's Puppet's Last Day

Trump is the most successful weapon the Russians ever developed.  A tiny investment of time and effort did more damage to the United States than 30 years of "cold war" with the Communist state (USSR) and its autocratic successor.  Perhaps the most profound success of the Putin's efforts was to turn the Republican Party from "cold warriors" to collaborationists.

...Over four polarising years Trump accomplished many of the KGB’s longstanding goals. These included estranging the US from its western allies and Nato; deepening domestic strife; and waging a Putin-style disinformation campaign against the 2020 result.

Manchurian candidate or not, Trump did more than any previous president to discredit US democracy and suck up to the Kremlin. Back in the 1980s the Soviet government invited Trump to Moscow. Seemingly it identified him early as a person without scruples, one perhaps capable given time and opportunity of bringing down the republic.

The invasion of the Capitol was the culmination of this cold war fantasy; a perfect series finale.

Will Trump get his Moscow hotel now?  He's earned it.

The Money Behind The Coup

The MAGA mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th were the "shock troops" of a group of right wing ideologues, billionaires and greedy corporations.   The insurrection against the Constitutional government of the United States was fomented by Trump and his Republican political allies, but it was built on a foundation of racism and vulture capitalists, who prefer autocracy to democracy.

The Capitol siege was just one battle in an ongoing, decades-long assault on democracy. Racist ideologues have served as the vanguard, but they have long been supported (sometimes openly, often tacitly) by a wide swathe of capitalists. The ultranationalist Maga diehards, Qanon cultists, and various fascists that stormed the Capitol are shock troops searching for a leader. Trump will likely prove too self-absorbed, too cowardly, and too lazy for the job. But no matter how many arrests are made or officials fired, the tide of history has returned us to the rocky shores of political violence and mass upheaval.

Covid-19 has been a major contributor to the wealth of America's billionaires - this group has gained one trillion dollars of wealth in the last year.   This increase in wealth has often been built upon the backs (and bodies) of low wage workers.

...the racialized distribution of labor in the United States – the concentration of workers of color in both essential industries, where they are more likely to be exposed to the pandemic, and service and hospitality industries, where layoffs have been rampant – means that Black, Latino, and Native Americans are significantly more likely to be hospitalized and die of Covid-19 than non-Hispanic white Americans. This serves as a stark reminder of the white supremacist character of the decades-long effort to defang and declaw the American labor movement – an effort funded and organized by the same far-right capitalists who laid the groundwork for 6 January.

What groups are invested in bringing an authoritarian government to the United States?

...the secretive and influential [Council] for National Policy (CNP), which author Anne Nelson describes as “connecting the manpower and media of the Christian right with the finances of western plutocrats and the strategy of right-wing Republican political operatives,” called for state legislators in six swing states to reject Joe Biden’s election victory. 

...the Judicial Crisis Network, which has contributed millions to the Republican Attorneys General Association (Raga), listed as one of the participating organizations in the rally. Raga’s fundraising arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, sent robocalls encouraging Trump supporters to march on the Capitol ahead of the 6 January rally...

...major donors to Raga include not only rightwing bogeymen like Koch Industries, Walmart, or the Adelson family but also household corporate names like Comcast, Amazon and TikTok.

Koch Industries is the single largest corporate donor to Republican representatives who pledged to try to overturn the election results, the next biggest contributors included defense companies like Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon, as well as tech (Amazon) and finance (Goldman Sachs) and insurance (Aflac), according to the Center for Media and Democracy. 

Dick Uihlein, the chief executive of the Uline shipping company and a contributor to the Koch donor network, spent at least $2m getting Josh Hawley elected to the US Senate and has contributed more than $4m to the Tea Party Patriots, another one of the 11 groups listed as participating in the Stop the Steal coalition.

In 2019, more than $20m was funneled through DonorsTrust, a donor-advised fund that disguises the source of major giving to nonprofits, to a dozen organizations that would ultimately contest the integrity of the 2020 presidential election...

Our country is under attack from the right.  From groups and individuals who have no interest in forming a "more perfect union" and, instead have a vested interest in perpetuating a racist, wealth driven, stratified society.  Trump demonstrated how quickly once reasonable people could be radicalized by "big lies" and how their frustrations and anger could be turned against their own government.