So let’s take a step back and consider what the long game here is.
Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, lackeys, cronies, and slaves have launched their Blitzkrieg against the American republic and are rapidly careening through the Fascist playbook toward absolute dictatorship. In the last week or so we’ve seen multiple assertions of power he does not legally possess, daring patriots to push back against him. We’ve seen purges, not only in the federal government in general but in law enforcement in particular. He’s nominated a bizarre slate of suck-ups, fuck-ups, incompetents, and assholes for key government positions, some of them Cabinet level and some of them not, creatures wholly dependent on his whim and possessing no other qualification than a deep and callous willingness to inflict cruelty on command. We’ve seen the deliberate targeting for extinction of entire groups of vulnerable Americans – and if you’ve ever wondered how the Holocaust happened, by the way, this is it. He’s antagonized our allies, launched utterly stupid trade wars that he’s already lost even though he’s claimed victory because he’s too stupid to see past the next fifteen minutes, threatened military invasions, exacted petty revenge against anyone who has ever crossed him, and generally demonstrated exactly why every thinking human being on the planet was screaming at the American electorate to shitcan this halfwit.
Yeah, the American electorate can be stupid. It’s a gift.
It can be hard to keep up with it all, as noted earlier in this space. But in a very real sense that’s the point of it.
Very little of what he’s done so far has been designed to stick. He’s simply testing to see what he can get away with.
Violating the Separation of Powers? Not yet. Maybe next time. The spineless lickspittles that make up the GOP majority in Congress don’t seem to mind being sidelined out of their Constitutional roles and certainly don’t have the gumption to impeach him as the Constitution already requires.
Installing a blind drunk loyalist at the top of the US military? Accomplished. The US military is trained to refuse unlawful orders, but when they come from the SecDef that distinction might be hard to make so it’s going to get interesting when (not if) Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump decides to unleash lethal force against American citizens for the crime of not being part of his minions, lackeys, cronies, and slaves.
And so on.
The point of a Gish Gallop is to overwhelm, demoralize, and distract.
Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump does not want you to see that he is systematically gutting the federal government, turning it into an instrument of his own aggrandizement and removing the guardrails that the Founding Fathers installed to protect the republic from tyranny.
Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump does not want you to see how he has handed over day-to-day policy decision-making to Co-President Elon “Seig Heil” Musk, who has already demanded that federal employees resign en masse and infiltrated the US Treasury’s payments system to shut off federal funds to anyone not subject to Co-President Elon “Seig Heil” Musk’s approval, which is pretty good for a guy who should have been deported decades ago.
Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump does not want you to see that once he’s finished destroying the people you hate he’s going to come after you because that’s just how Fascism works.
You’re supposed to be distracted. You’re supposed to be demoralized. You’re supposed to be overwhelmed.
But forewarned is forearmed, after all, and once you know what the magician knows it isn’t magic anymore. We know what his strategy is, and therefore we can take it into account and respond appropriately.
Do not obey in advance.
Do not forget that Fascism requires submission from more people than can be controlled.
We are Americans. We are perhaps the most stubborn, ungovernable bastards on earth. If we do not wish to be ruled by Fascists, we do not have to be ruled by Fascists.
Remember that in the coming chaos. Remember the larger picture amid the flurry of assaults on all that is worthwhile and sacred.
Remember, and resist.
Friday, January 31, 2025
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
On the Current Gish Gallop
Duane Gish was one of those right-wing morons who rode the idea of “creationism” to notoriety back in the 1970s. Because of the modern American belief that Truth must lie exactly halfway between any two opposing viewpoints, no matter how vacuous or toxic one of those viewpoints might be, he was often invited to “debate” actual scientists regarding evolution. His signature style in these confrontations was to start speaking and never stop, spewing a continuous rapid-fire stream of bullshit designed to overwhelm and discourage whoever had the misfortune to hear it. He’d vomit words with no particular regard for logic, common sense, provable fact, or connection with objective reality and while everything he said was nonsense he never gave anyone time or space to point this out – and even when someone would try, by the time they did Gish would be a dozen lies further down his road.
This is called a Gish Gallop.
The right wing lionized him for this tactic, which is what happens when a group recognizes they have empty and unpopular ideas and must rely on cheap tricks and overwhelming force to get their way.
Not surprisingly, therefore, this is what Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves are doing to the American people right now. The firehose of catastrophic decisions, impeachable offenses, Fascist orders, and callous cruelty that has spewed out from the capital in the nine (NINE!) days since Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was installed into power is specifically designed to disorient and demoralize any coherent opposition while at the same time cementing his authoritarian dismantling of the American republic.
Once you know this, you can protect yourself and others from it. And you can figure out effective responses, rather than spinning wildly after each new outrage.
Because there have been a lot of outrages perpetrated in a very short amount of time. These include:
Attempting to repeal a Constitutional amendment by fiat in order to deny the birthright citizenship that is clearly and explicitly outlined in the Fourteenth Amendment, an amendment ratified in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War to avoid having white supremacists and insurrectionists decide who gets to be an American. If you’ve ever wondered why the American right wing loves to cite the Dred Scott decision (universally regarded by as the worst Supreme Court decision ever made, which is saying something in the target-rich environment that is the Court’s history) it is because that was the decision the Fourteenth Amendment was specifically designed to overturn.
Declaring that he had fired more than a dozen independent Inspectors General – officials whose job it is to root out corruption, abuse, and criminality in federal agencies – in clear violation of the law governing how that process works.
Impounding all grants and loans given by the federal government, a brutally cynical violation of the Separation of Powers and as such a direct assault on the Constitution itself, because – as one observer pointed out – if the President can unilaterally decide how much of or even whether money designated by Congress can be spent then you don’t need a Congress and all you have left is tyranny. There is nothing in the Constitution that says the President has any say whatsoever in this matter or any role other than to do what Congress has told him to do. For Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump to attempt to arrogate this power to himself is therefore an astonishingly serious crime that should have already produced an impeachment vote. A court blocked the impoundment and then apparently some Real Lawyers explained to the Trump Lawyers exactly how much shit was about to hit the fan and magically the cryptic two-page memo purporting to undo the basic structure of American government was “rescinded,” but the offense was still committed and should still be punished.
I’m not even going to go into the long list of agencies and programs that this assault on America would have crippled except to note that most Americans have no idea how much they depend on those agencies and programs.
He has issued Executive Orders by the dozens – the weakest and least effective form of federal power – in large part because he recognizes that not even the spineless buffoons masquerading as Republican Senators and Representatives would consent to them, an avalanche of cruelty, illegality, counterproductive backsliding, and/or petty vengeance.
Some things these Executive Orders have accomplished so far include raising costs for medications for Americans (something Biden had capped); restricting voting access; cutting funding for public health; protecting workers safety; unleashing the jackbooted thugs of ICE on the population – including, apparently, American citizens who just happen to have brown skin, as news reports have repeatedly demonstrated; directing his administration to seek vengeance against any official or state or local government who dares to protest this; suspending American participation in the Global Tax Deal (an international agreement designed to prevent multinational corporations from evading taxes); declaring several specious “emergencies” allowing him to expand the use of executive power; eliminating policies designed to reduce fossil fuel dependence and climate change; eliminating the professional civil service and replacing it with more minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves; canceling sanctions against right-wing Israeli groups; removing guardrails preventing the abuse of AI; forbidding any federal agency from making public comments unless approved in advance (did you know we are currently in the middle of the largest outbreak of tuberculosis in recent American history? No? Do you wonder why you don’t know?); and pardoning the treasonous insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the government the last time Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was in power.
This is just a selection, by the way. There’s more.
He’s also more or less eliminated any mention of – let alone protections for – anyone who is not a straight white man. He has officially declared that – contrary to all understandings of biology – there are only two genders and anyone who says otherwise will be punished. Bottom line, anyone who is LGBTQ+, non-white (especially if they speak Spanish), or female is now a target for official persecution from their own government.
He’s pulled out the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization. He’s put tariffs of 25% on Mexico and Canada, two of our largest trading partners and the source of much of our food and energy. He’s threatened trade wars with countries that refused to do his bidding and threatened actual wars with countries whose land he’s decided he wants, some of whom are NATO allies. He’s interfered with the census in order to reshape the Electoral College. He’s declared he can give security clearances to anyone he wants for six months, a profoundly threatening move given the collection of rubes, foreign puppets, and security threats he’s assembled for his administration.
He even revoked the Equal Employment Opportunity order issued by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, freeing up the federal government to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, and gender.
So far, though, he has done nothing to reduce the price of eggs. We’re all waiting for that.
The bottom line of all of this is that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump is doing everything he can to turn the American republic into a tin-horn dictatorship with him at the center. Everything he has done so far has been to move power into his own hands. It’s a playbook we’ve seen before with dictatorships.
If the US Capitol mysteriously catches fire in the next few months, don’t say you weren’t warned.
The way to defeat a Gish Gallop is simply to wait it out until opportunities arise. Swat down the most obvious and harmful parts, but don’t run around madly trying to deal with it all at once. Soon enough it will run down. The wave of cruelty and sedition will crest, and there will be a period where Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves will try to consolidate their gains.
And this is when they will be vulnerable. This is when the counterattack in defense of the republic begins.
Stand firm. Do not be baited. Protect those who need to be protected and actively minimize harm whenever possible.
And then when the opportunity to respond effectively arises, take it.
This is called a Gish Gallop.
The right wing lionized him for this tactic, which is what happens when a group recognizes they have empty and unpopular ideas and must rely on cheap tricks and overwhelming force to get their way.
Not surprisingly, therefore, this is what Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves are doing to the American people right now. The firehose of catastrophic decisions, impeachable offenses, Fascist orders, and callous cruelty that has spewed out from the capital in the nine (NINE!) days since Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was installed into power is specifically designed to disorient and demoralize any coherent opposition while at the same time cementing his authoritarian dismantling of the American republic.
Once you know this, you can protect yourself and others from it. And you can figure out effective responses, rather than spinning wildly after each new outrage.
Because there have been a lot of outrages perpetrated in a very short amount of time. These include:
Attempting to repeal a Constitutional amendment by fiat in order to deny the birthright citizenship that is clearly and explicitly outlined in the Fourteenth Amendment, an amendment ratified in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War to avoid having white supremacists and insurrectionists decide who gets to be an American. If you’ve ever wondered why the American right wing loves to cite the Dred Scott decision (universally regarded by as the worst Supreme Court decision ever made, which is saying something in the target-rich environment that is the Court’s history) it is because that was the decision the Fourteenth Amendment was specifically designed to overturn.
Declaring that he had fired more than a dozen independent Inspectors General – officials whose job it is to root out corruption, abuse, and criminality in federal agencies – in clear violation of the law governing how that process works.
Impounding all grants and loans given by the federal government, a brutally cynical violation of the Separation of Powers and as such a direct assault on the Constitution itself, because – as one observer pointed out – if the President can unilaterally decide how much of or even whether money designated by Congress can be spent then you don’t need a Congress and all you have left is tyranny. There is nothing in the Constitution that says the President has any say whatsoever in this matter or any role other than to do what Congress has told him to do. For Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump to attempt to arrogate this power to himself is therefore an astonishingly serious crime that should have already produced an impeachment vote. A court blocked the impoundment and then apparently some Real Lawyers explained to the Trump Lawyers exactly how much shit was about to hit the fan and magically the cryptic two-page memo purporting to undo the basic structure of American government was “rescinded,” but the offense was still committed and should still be punished.
I’m not even going to go into the long list of agencies and programs that this assault on America would have crippled except to note that most Americans have no idea how much they depend on those agencies and programs.
He has issued Executive Orders by the dozens – the weakest and least effective form of federal power – in large part because he recognizes that not even the spineless buffoons masquerading as Republican Senators and Representatives would consent to them, an avalanche of cruelty, illegality, counterproductive backsliding, and/or petty vengeance.
Some things these Executive Orders have accomplished so far include raising costs for medications for Americans (something Biden had capped); restricting voting access; cutting funding for public health; protecting workers safety; unleashing the jackbooted thugs of ICE on the population – including, apparently, American citizens who just happen to have brown skin, as news reports have repeatedly demonstrated; directing his administration to seek vengeance against any official or state or local government who dares to protest this; suspending American participation in the Global Tax Deal (an international agreement designed to prevent multinational corporations from evading taxes); declaring several specious “emergencies” allowing him to expand the use of executive power; eliminating policies designed to reduce fossil fuel dependence and climate change; eliminating the professional civil service and replacing it with more minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves; canceling sanctions against right-wing Israeli groups; removing guardrails preventing the abuse of AI; forbidding any federal agency from making public comments unless approved in advance (did you know we are currently in the middle of the largest outbreak of tuberculosis in recent American history? No? Do you wonder why you don’t know?); and pardoning the treasonous insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the government the last time Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was in power.
This is just a selection, by the way. There’s more.
He’s also more or less eliminated any mention of – let alone protections for – anyone who is not a straight white man. He has officially declared that – contrary to all understandings of biology – there are only two genders and anyone who says otherwise will be punished. Bottom line, anyone who is LGBTQ+, non-white (especially if they speak Spanish), or female is now a target for official persecution from their own government.
He’s pulled out the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization. He’s put tariffs of 25% on Mexico and Canada, two of our largest trading partners and the source of much of our food and energy. He’s threatened trade wars with countries that refused to do his bidding and threatened actual wars with countries whose land he’s decided he wants, some of whom are NATO allies. He’s interfered with the census in order to reshape the Electoral College. He’s declared he can give security clearances to anyone he wants for six months, a profoundly threatening move given the collection of rubes, foreign puppets, and security threats he’s assembled for his administration.
He even revoked the Equal Employment Opportunity order issued by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, freeing up the federal government to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, and gender.
So far, though, he has done nothing to reduce the price of eggs. We’re all waiting for that.
The bottom line of all of this is that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump is doing everything he can to turn the American republic into a tin-horn dictatorship with him at the center. Everything he has done so far has been to move power into his own hands. It’s a playbook we’ve seen before with dictatorships.
If the US Capitol mysteriously catches fire in the next few months, don’t say you weren’t warned.
The way to defeat a Gish Gallop is simply to wait it out until opportunities arise. Swat down the most obvious and harmful parts, but don’t run around madly trying to deal with it all at once. Soon enough it will run down. The wave of cruelty and sedition will crest, and there will be a period where Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves will try to consolidate their gains.
And this is when they will be vulnerable. This is when the counterattack in defense of the republic begins.
Stand firm. Do not be baited. Protect those who need to be protected and actively minimize harm whenever possible.
And then when the opportunity to respond effectively arises, take it.
Sunday, January 26, 2025
News and Updates
1. There is much to discuss regarding der Sturmtrumper and his Blitzkrieg assault on everything of moral value in the American republic and the larger world, but part of his goal is to overwhelm and disorient so I am going to take this post to discuss other things. Rest assured that my contempt for him and his minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves remains unlimited, my rage at their calculated evil is unabated, and my plan to stay malevolently well informed regarding their moral, legal, and political failings remains intact. But sometimes you have to talk about other things.
2. The Eagles are going to the Super Bowl, which is a marvelous thing if you are a fan. Somewhere my dad is smiling. My interest in football has declined over the years, but I will always support the Birds. As of this writing I don’t know who they will be playing but I’m really hoping it’s Buffalo because the Chiefs are this decade’s Patriots and nobody needs to see them win anything again for a very long time. Fly, Eagles, fly.
3. I have now acquired a Reddit account. It has been deeply underwhelming so far, but perhaps this is because I still haven’t figured out how to make that site work. I’ve joined a forum (something about 1920s vintage photographs) and tried to browse it but it seems to repeat the same two dozen photos on a loop so I’m not sure what good it’s for. People insist that I can find anything I want on this site and maybe they’re right but at the moment it’s just another task.
4. I’ve also returned the Sleep Machine as it was not for me. I promised that I would give it an honest effort and I did – even swapped out the mask at one point – but I never did manage to make it work for more than 90 minutes. When not using the sleep aid provides better rest than using the sleep aid, it’s really not much of an aid, is it?
5. Classes start up at Home Campus tomorrow. On the one hand I’m pretty set for them – I’ve only got one class to prep (in addition to the one that never actually ends) and that’s set to go. I’ve gotten my advisees as prepped as I can at this point and now it’s just a matter of getting them in for appointments. And yet on the other hand, it feels like I’m going in blind. I suspect that the catastrophic avalanche of current events is just poisoning the air a bit, but we’ll see.
6. Last week we had a demonstration of a new software system that will replace some of (but not all of) another software system and we were assured that it is Amazing and Zowie and All Things To All People and I gotta say I didn’t leave that demonstration thinking that but perhaps that’s just me. Wouldn’t be the first time.
7. Sometimes you just have to drive an hour to go to an Italian deli and clean the place out, because the only way we’re going to get through the next few years is by treating ourselves and each other well. One must fight the revolution, but one should also have snacks if they are available to you.
8. We weren’t going to make very many plans for the summer, but it looks like plans are being made anyway. I will enjoy them, I have no doubt. I will be glad I took part in them. But at some point I will rest.
9. I really need to sit down and make a list of all the personal projects that I am trying to accomplish because yesterday I remembered a whole other project that I’d completely forgotten about and it’s not good to let them disappear like that. Either do them or dismiss them.
10. When all is said and done, we will remember the people who stood up for others, and we will remember the people who didn’t.
2. The Eagles are going to the Super Bowl, which is a marvelous thing if you are a fan. Somewhere my dad is smiling. My interest in football has declined over the years, but I will always support the Birds. As of this writing I don’t know who they will be playing but I’m really hoping it’s Buffalo because the Chiefs are this decade’s Patriots and nobody needs to see them win anything again for a very long time. Fly, Eagles, fly.
3. I have now acquired a Reddit account. It has been deeply underwhelming so far, but perhaps this is because I still haven’t figured out how to make that site work. I’ve joined a forum (something about 1920s vintage photographs) and tried to browse it but it seems to repeat the same two dozen photos on a loop so I’m not sure what good it’s for. People insist that I can find anything I want on this site and maybe they’re right but at the moment it’s just another task.
4. I’ve also returned the Sleep Machine as it was not for me. I promised that I would give it an honest effort and I did – even swapped out the mask at one point – but I never did manage to make it work for more than 90 minutes. When not using the sleep aid provides better rest than using the sleep aid, it’s really not much of an aid, is it?
5. Classes start up at Home Campus tomorrow. On the one hand I’m pretty set for them – I’ve only got one class to prep (in addition to the one that never actually ends) and that’s set to go. I’ve gotten my advisees as prepped as I can at this point and now it’s just a matter of getting them in for appointments. And yet on the other hand, it feels like I’m going in blind. I suspect that the catastrophic avalanche of current events is just poisoning the air a bit, but we’ll see.
6. Last week we had a demonstration of a new software system that will replace some of (but not all of) another software system and we were assured that it is Amazing and Zowie and All Things To All People and I gotta say I didn’t leave that demonstration thinking that but perhaps that’s just me. Wouldn’t be the first time.
7. Sometimes you just have to drive an hour to go to an Italian deli and clean the place out, because the only way we’re going to get through the next few years is by treating ourselves and each other well. One must fight the revolution, but one should also have snacks if they are available to you.
8. We weren’t going to make very many plans for the summer, but it looks like plans are being made anyway. I will enjoy them, I have no doubt. I will be glad I took part in them. But at some point I will rest.
9. I really need to sit down and make a list of all the personal projects that I am trying to accomplish because yesterday I remembered a whole other project that I’d completely forgotten about and it’s not good to let them disappear like that. Either do them or dismiss them.
10. When all is said and done, we will remember the people who stood up for others, and we will remember the people who didn’t.
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
The Week That Was
It’s been an absolutely horrifying week to be an American and it’s only Wednesday.
For those of you who live under rocks or who have somehow managed to remain in a drunken stupor since 2015, on Monday a twice-impeached convicted felon who somehow managed to escape the only proper punishment for treason was inexplicably sworn into office as this nation’s 47th president on a platform of revenge, bigotry, and open Fascism.
He wasted no time in proving the worst fears of patriots true.
He’s decided that he can unilaterally rewrite the Constitution and has announced the repeal of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. For those of you keeping score at home, that was put into the Constitution in 1868 to drive a stake through the poisonous heart of the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision – the one that declared that only white people could ever be citizens of the United States because that’s how the white supremacists liked it. By making American citizenship dependent on the simple observable fact of being born here, the Constitution denies any attempt to make that citizenship dependent on the whims of assholes. Naturally, Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves wish to undo that so they can be the assholes who decide who gets to be an American. In any normal year this would be seen as the steaming bag of horseshit that it is but remember that we currently have a Supreme Court that has already declared that “it’s not illegal if the President does it,” which Richard Nixon would have killed for, so who knows whether their blind partisanship will be enough to give even more absolute power to this authoritarian bigot. It will be a close call, I suspect. This unilateral declaration of absolute authority is the kind of tyranny the Founding Fathers started a revolution over.
Although, there is the fact that the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship is the only place in the Constitution where American citizenship is defined and thus provides the link that makes the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. And should it be overturned, I expect to see individual states imposing gun bans immediately.
He’s declared that he’s going to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act – a law that the Federalist Party foisted off on John Adams as a way to destroy the Democratic Republican Party and which Adams was smart enough never to use – as a tool to deport millions of immigrants in violation of the plain text of that law. We are not in a “declared war” with any foreign nation and there is no “invasion or predatory incursion … perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government.” Not that laws ever stopped this guy or are important to his minions, cronies, lackeys, or slaves.
He's decided he’s going to “take back” the Panama Canal because reasons. This would be a war of aggression against a sovereign state very similar to the grotesque violation of international law that Putin’s Russia is engaged with in Ukraine and would serve only to destroy the international order and what good standing the United States may still have across the world.
He’s pardoned over 1500 insurrectionists from the Trump Insurrection of 2021, some of whom murdered cops (so much for the party of law and order, I suppose). This is unbridled lawlessness and a sign of far worse to come. An insurrection that goes unpunished is called a dress rehearsal, after all.
He’s declared that there can only be two genders, as if that’s any of his concern and in blatant disregard of biology. Anyone who has studied biology past middle school knows that sex and gender are far more complicated than that, and it’s not anyone else’s concern what people want to call themselves anyway. Although he and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves are sufficiently stupid that the actual text of his executive order means that biologically that all Americans have been defined as female since male sexual organs don’t emerge until at least six weeks into pregnancy and it defines gender to be what it is “at conception.”
He’s removed all of the Spanish language web pages from the White House site, so congratulations all you Latinos who voted for him – you got played. FAFO.
He’s withdrawn from the World Health Organization, a spectacular own-goal in an age where Covid is still thriving and new epidemics are emerging on a regular basis. He understands that his supporters see preventative medicine as the enemy and are happy to volunteer to die in bulk from easily curable problems. They've served their purpose now that he's been elected and are now expendable, after all.
Just in case they prove more resilient than he thinks, he’s rescinded Biden’s executive order capping prices for medications. So enjoy not being able to pay for lifesaving drugs again, I suppose. Did he not get the message last month? Most Americans cheered when a health insurance executive was assassinated in broad daylight, after all.
He’s attempted to fire anyone in the federal government who dares to acknowledge that there are more people in the world besides straight white men.
At his inauguration his co-president gave the Nazi salute not once but twice, prompting exactly zero shame or remorse. When people show you who they are, believe them.
When an Episcopal bishop addressed the issue of mercy in her sermon while Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was in attendance he responded by howling in outrage and calling for vengeance against her, thus proving her point. Frankly, the fact that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump set foot in a church and was not instantly reduced to a smoking cinder is fairly conclusive proof of the non-existence of God.
There’s more. Lord above, there’s more.
It is going to be a vile and grotesque four years and I put the odds of the survival of the American republic at about 20% during that period. But I will be damned if I am going to let that asshole and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves do it without resistance.
It’s my country. They can fuck off.
For those of you who live under rocks or who have somehow managed to remain in a drunken stupor since 2015, on Monday a twice-impeached convicted felon who somehow managed to escape the only proper punishment for treason was inexplicably sworn into office as this nation’s 47th president on a platform of revenge, bigotry, and open Fascism.
He wasted no time in proving the worst fears of patriots true.
He’s decided that he can unilaterally rewrite the Constitution and has announced the repeal of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. For those of you keeping score at home, that was put into the Constitution in 1868 to drive a stake through the poisonous heart of the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision – the one that declared that only white people could ever be citizens of the United States because that’s how the white supremacists liked it. By making American citizenship dependent on the simple observable fact of being born here, the Constitution denies any attempt to make that citizenship dependent on the whims of assholes. Naturally, Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves wish to undo that so they can be the assholes who decide who gets to be an American. In any normal year this would be seen as the steaming bag of horseshit that it is but remember that we currently have a Supreme Court that has already declared that “it’s not illegal if the President does it,” which Richard Nixon would have killed for, so who knows whether their blind partisanship will be enough to give even more absolute power to this authoritarian bigot. It will be a close call, I suspect. This unilateral declaration of absolute authority is the kind of tyranny the Founding Fathers started a revolution over.
Although, there is the fact that the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship is the only place in the Constitution where American citizenship is defined and thus provides the link that makes the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. And should it be overturned, I expect to see individual states imposing gun bans immediately.
He’s declared that he’s going to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act – a law that the Federalist Party foisted off on John Adams as a way to destroy the Democratic Republican Party and which Adams was smart enough never to use – as a tool to deport millions of immigrants in violation of the plain text of that law. We are not in a “declared war” with any foreign nation and there is no “invasion or predatory incursion … perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government.” Not that laws ever stopped this guy or are important to his minions, cronies, lackeys, or slaves.
He's decided he’s going to “take back” the Panama Canal because reasons. This would be a war of aggression against a sovereign state very similar to the grotesque violation of international law that Putin’s Russia is engaged with in Ukraine and would serve only to destroy the international order and what good standing the United States may still have across the world.
He’s pardoned over 1500 insurrectionists from the Trump Insurrection of 2021, some of whom murdered cops (so much for the party of law and order, I suppose). This is unbridled lawlessness and a sign of far worse to come. An insurrection that goes unpunished is called a dress rehearsal, after all.
He’s declared that there can only be two genders, as if that’s any of his concern and in blatant disregard of biology. Anyone who has studied biology past middle school knows that sex and gender are far more complicated than that, and it’s not anyone else’s concern what people want to call themselves anyway. Although he and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves are sufficiently stupid that the actual text of his executive order means that biologically that all Americans have been defined as female since male sexual organs don’t emerge until at least six weeks into pregnancy and it defines gender to be what it is “at conception.”
He’s removed all of the Spanish language web pages from the White House site, so congratulations all you Latinos who voted for him – you got played. FAFO.
He’s withdrawn from the World Health Organization, a spectacular own-goal in an age where Covid is still thriving and new epidemics are emerging on a regular basis. He understands that his supporters see preventative medicine as the enemy and are happy to volunteer to die in bulk from easily curable problems. They've served their purpose now that he's been elected and are now expendable, after all.
Just in case they prove more resilient than he thinks, he’s rescinded Biden’s executive order capping prices for medications. So enjoy not being able to pay for lifesaving drugs again, I suppose. Did he not get the message last month? Most Americans cheered when a health insurance executive was assassinated in broad daylight, after all.
He’s attempted to fire anyone in the federal government who dares to acknowledge that there are more people in the world besides straight white men.
At his inauguration his co-president gave the Nazi salute not once but twice, prompting exactly zero shame or remorse. When people show you who they are, believe them.
When an Episcopal bishop addressed the issue of mercy in her sermon while Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was in attendance he responded by howling in outrage and calling for vengeance against her, thus proving her point. Frankly, the fact that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump set foot in a church and was not instantly reduced to a smoking cinder is fairly conclusive proof of the non-existence of God.
There’s more. Lord above, there’s more.
It is going to be a vile and grotesque four years and I put the odds of the survival of the American republic at about 20% during that period. But I will be damned if I am going to let that asshole and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves do it without resistance.
It’s my country. They can fuck off.
Monday, January 20, 2025
Thoughts on the Inauguration
In just a couple of hours, the United States will once again be governed by a grossly unqualified, deeply corrupt, easily manipulated conman who slid into the Oval Office on the votes of a minority of Americans for the second time in eight years and who has openly vowed to spend his time enriching his minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves while using the powers of the federal government to persecute anyone who has ever crossed him – a group that will, given enough time, eventually include everyone.
It's going to be a long four years.
The Founding Fathers understood that republics were fragile things. Historically, they tended not to last very long for reasons that they saw as obvious. Republics have to meet very high requirements in order to survive, and in the end those requirements are not all that compatible with the whims and desires of the powerful.
Perhaps most importantly, they understood that a republic required leaders with virtue, which was defined very differently in the 18th century. We see virtue as a private moral quality today, often having to do with sexual matters though sometimes taken more broadly to mean a person’s individual ethics overall. This would have made no sense to the Founders, who saw virtue as a public quality. Virtue, to the Founders, was the ability of a man (always a man – there is a reason why “virtue” and “virile” are so similar) to rise above his petty, private interests and work for the common good of the whole. A proper leader was one who did what was best for the country, even at personal cost.
The paragon for this, of course, was George Washington. Washington was by no means a perfect person and there are legions of modern critics who delight in pointing this out, often at great length, but he was by the standards of the day virtuous. Twice in fifteen years he walked away from absolute power and returned to his home as a private citizen, and the United States owes him more than we could ever repay just for that precedent. He refused to enrich himself or his friends through his office, and the idea of using the powers of the federal government to persecute his enemies never occurred to him because he was neither contemptible nor petty.
We’ve come a long way since then.
Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump will come to office already disgraced by his actions and character, and he has promised to continue that trend during his regime. He plans a barrage of executive orders for his first day in office, a sign of someone who knows very well his agenda couldn’t survive even a Congress theoretically controlled by his own party and who has little if any use for Constitutional government anyway.
He is, as many of his own former administration members including high-ranking military officers were screaming at the American people to understand before the election, an outright Fascist who plans to rule as an absolute dictator. He has openly vowed to be the worst president this country has ever seen, and 49.8% of the 64% of American voters who bothered to cast their ballots in November will no doubt be cheering him on.
I will not.
I will do whatever is in my power as an American citizen and an American patriot to block his reign of terror. I fully expect that, given long enough in power, his administration will eventually turn its attention even to small fry like me and I will not survive that. Fascists do not tolerate dissent. Perhaps I will simply outlast him, though. Perhaps we may even win in the end, though nothing is guaranteed. But here I stand. I can do no other.
During World War II the United States of America gave medals to my ancestors for shooting Fascists, and I will not disgrace their memory by supporting it here at home now.
It's going to be a long four years.
The Founding Fathers understood that republics were fragile things. Historically, they tended not to last very long for reasons that they saw as obvious. Republics have to meet very high requirements in order to survive, and in the end those requirements are not all that compatible with the whims and desires of the powerful.
Perhaps most importantly, they understood that a republic required leaders with virtue, which was defined very differently in the 18th century. We see virtue as a private moral quality today, often having to do with sexual matters though sometimes taken more broadly to mean a person’s individual ethics overall. This would have made no sense to the Founders, who saw virtue as a public quality. Virtue, to the Founders, was the ability of a man (always a man – there is a reason why “virtue” and “virile” are so similar) to rise above his petty, private interests and work for the common good of the whole. A proper leader was one who did what was best for the country, even at personal cost.
The paragon for this, of course, was George Washington. Washington was by no means a perfect person and there are legions of modern critics who delight in pointing this out, often at great length, but he was by the standards of the day virtuous. Twice in fifteen years he walked away from absolute power and returned to his home as a private citizen, and the United States owes him more than we could ever repay just for that precedent. He refused to enrich himself or his friends through his office, and the idea of using the powers of the federal government to persecute his enemies never occurred to him because he was neither contemptible nor petty.
We’ve come a long way since then.
Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump will come to office already disgraced by his actions and character, and he has promised to continue that trend during his regime. He plans a barrage of executive orders for his first day in office, a sign of someone who knows very well his agenda couldn’t survive even a Congress theoretically controlled by his own party and who has little if any use for Constitutional government anyway.
He is, as many of his own former administration members including high-ranking military officers were screaming at the American people to understand before the election, an outright Fascist who plans to rule as an absolute dictator. He has openly vowed to be the worst president this country has ever seen, and 49.8% of the 64% of American voters who bothered to cast their ballots in November will no doubt be cheering him on.
I will not.
I will do whatever is in my power as an American citizen and an American patriot to block his reign of terror. I fully expect that, given long enough in power, his administration will eventually turn its attention even to small fry like me and I will not survive that. Fascists do not tolerate dissent. Perhaps I will simply outlast him, though. Perhaps we may even win in the end, though nothing is guaranteed. But here I stand. I can do no other.
During World War II the United States of America gave medals to my ancestors for shooting Fascists, and I will not disgrace their memory by supporting it here at home now.
Sunday, January 19, 2025
Birthday Birds
The Eagles managed to hold on and beat the Rams today for the right to play at home next week in the NFC championship game. It was an ugly win in an occasionally blinding snowstorm, one that came down to the second-to-last play in large part because the Eagles kicker managed to miss not one but two extra points, but any win counts in the playoffs. It will look like a blowout in tomorrow’s papers.
Somewhere my dad is smiling.
My dad was a huge Eagles fan. They were his team the way the Phillies belonged to my grandfather and the Flyers belong to me. Whenever I hear people talking shit about Eagles fans I automatically think less of them, because he was the finest man I ever knew and they’re trying to talk shit about him. This does not fly with me, though today the Eagles did.
My dad would have been 86 today. The world has become a different place in many ways since he died in early 2016, some good and some not, but there are a lot of things have remained constant over that time.
I’m still an Eagles fan, just as he was.
And he is still the finest man I ever knew.
Happy birthday, Dad.
Somewhere my dad is smiling.
My dad was a huge Eagles fan. They were his team the way the Phillies belonged to my grandfather and the Flyers belong to me. Whenever I hear people talking shit about Eagles fans I automatically think less of them, because he was the finest man I ever knew and they’re trying to talk shit about him. This does not fly with me, though today the Eagles did.
My dad would have been 86 today. The world has become a different place in many ways since he died in early 2016, some good and some not, but there are a lot of things have remained constant over that time.
I’m still an Eagles fan, just as he was.
And he is still the finest man I ever knew.
Happy birthday, Dad.
Saturday, January 18, 2025
A Birthday on Ice
We had the last of my birthday celebrations for the current birthday cycle last night, and a good time it was.
My birthday present from Lauren was tickets to see the Madison Capitols, the minor-league hockey team that plays there. I looked it up and they’re roughly the equivalent of a top-tier Single-A team in baseball, which means that you have a lot of guys playing who are at the very beginning of their careers and still learning some of the basics but are capable of flashes of great play. They’re one notch above the team that plays here in Our Little Town. Lauren even got an extra ticket so Kim could come along with us and make it an evening. We had to schedule it for after all of the various holiday trips and travels were over – the Movable Feast Tradition in our family says that holidays happen when you have time for them, after all – and yesterday was the day.
But first there was dinner, because nothing in my world happens on an empty stomach. Wouldn’t be seemly. Probably wouldn’t end well. And since I got to choose and my tastes run toward the “order at the counter and go sit down” end of the restaurant spectrum, we went to a place called Stadium Takeout which has the best cheesesteaks in Wisconsin.
This is, of course, a relative term.
By Philadelphia standards these rise to the level of “acceptable,” but here in Wisconsin that is high praise indeed. I don’t know why, in a state full of beef and cheese, you can’t find a good cheesesteak, but there it is. I tried this place last summer and liked it enough to come back when my cheesesteak yen got big enough, and they were tasty enough to satisfy that craving and thus a good way to start a birthday celebration, especially when in good company.
My birthday present from Lauren was tickets to see the Madison Capitols, the minor-league hockey team that plays there. I looked it up and they’re roughly the equivalent of a top-tier Single-A team in baseball, which means that you have a lot of guys playing who are at the very beginning of their careers and still learning some of the basics but are capable of flashes of great play. They’re one notch above the team that plays here in Our Little Town. Lauren even got an extra ticket so Kim could come along with us and make it an evening. We had to schedule it for after all of the various holiday trips and travels were over – the Movable Feast Tradition in our family says that holidays happen when you have time for them, after all – and yesterday was the day.
But first there was dinner, because nothing in my world happens on an empty stomach. Wouldn’t be seemly. Probably wouldn’t end well. And since I got to choose and my tastes run toward the “order at the counter and go sit down” end of the restaurant spectrum, we went to a place called Stadium Takeout which has the best cheesesteaks in Wisconsin.
This is, of course, a relative term.
By Philadelphia standards these rise to the level of “acceptable,” but here in Wisconsin that is high praise indeed. I don’t know why, in a state full of beef and cheese, you can’t find a good cheesesteak, but there it is. I tried this place last summer and liked it enough to come back when my cheesesteak yen got big enough, and they were tasty enough to satisfy that craving and thus a good way to start a birthday celebration, especially when in good company.
The birthday card made it even better, as Lauren had gotten a number of friends to send birthday greetings and then combined them all into a short video. It was an astonishingly lovely thing, really.
After dinner we headed over to the ice rink, which is technically outside of the city by a small bit and thus has actual parking. It’s the little things!
The joy of minor league sports is that you can almost always get good seats right up on the action, and we certainly did. We were in the second row, maybe four feet from the ice, and right up on the action.
If I turned to my right, I was staring directly into the opposing team’s bench. Their backup goalie was maybe an arm’s length from me, though the chain link fence between me and him kept us both honest, I suppose. This seating meant I couldn’t really see the near corner of the ice to my right, but then very little of the game seemed to happen down at that end anyway. It also meant that when the opposing team pulled their goalie at the end of the game he came over and stood more or less next to me and I could read the back of his helmet – “My goal is to deny yours” it said, and I hope that kid makes it to the NHL someday just for that.
It was a pretty good game. The home team led 1-0 after the first period and 3-0 after two, and Lauren and I agreed that this was a good margin to be ahead by since less than that was worrying and more than that was kind of rude. And then the third period started and suddenly goals were everywhere – there were three goals scored in the first two minutes of the period – and when it was all over the Capitols had won 6-3 thus preserving the three-goal margin after all.
After the game we met up with Maxim at the cocktail bar where Lauren works and sampled some of the roughly three thousand different kinds of martinis that they make there. I can personally attest to the fact that the Chocolate Cherry Martini was wonderful. Since we were, technically, celebrating my birthday, they also threw in a half-size vanilla martini for me and it was similarly tasty. Add in a plate of mixed stuffed olives, a chicken pesto flatbread, and a lovely evening of conversation and it was a fine birthday celebration indeed.
Happy birthday to me, once again!
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