The Inevitable Day Came

I can't claim I was the first to warn us that this crew might well have a coup in mind. More informed people were speculating about it. But this was the result of four-plus years of tolerating Trump. It was the result of people like the Wall Street ranter who sent out a neswletter that Trump was great for the Street and thus there was no doubt he'd be re-elected and that that was the only result anyone with brains wanted.

It's also time to regret feeling that Hillary Clinton blew it when she called the scum that invaded the Capitol yesterday "the deplorables". She was being too restrained. I still blame Hillary's overpaid, cocky, and totally out-of-it senior staff for screwing up her campaign. And she gets the blame for not listening to Bill even if she didn't want him out there on the trail in 2016. He could bring out the best in people who feel they've been mistreated, instead of the worst that the present incumbent draws out.

Until now, I hadn't even taken much notice of the little punk, Josh Hawley of Missouri. This is the best Yale Law School can give us, along with Clarence Thomas. And Harvard Law can answer for Ted Criz, too. Hawley really thought that he could pick up Trump's filthy legacy to ride to the White House in four years. Even after yesterday's riot, he still was trying to push Trump's baseless nonsense. I wish Claire McCaskill, who was the Senator he ousted by Missouri's resident idiot voters, had been free on MSNBC to describe this pompous jerk.

This all shows that the ends justify the means to most of these people: the pols like McConnell and McCarthy., Pence and Graham. And yes, that Wall Street clown I mentioned earlier. "He's good for business...and for us" was their credo. "Where's mine?" Presidential relatives have long been mostly embarrassment for past White Houses. Billy Carter, Roger Clinton, Don Nixon, Eisenhower's older brother (not Milton), Bush's cousin who was chortling with Trump that time about grabbing women by the youknowhat. But Trump Jr. and his siblings or half-siblings or whatever really stand out as the lowest of the low. n they

All these smart guys who got burned by the spectre of power they traded their integrity for when they signed on for this administration. They all were burned or disgraced or just rendered ineffective at best. Mattis, who finally broke his silence; Sessions, who figured he could satisfy his desires for the attention that eluded him on the Hill; all the hangers-on with warped values.

The law enforcement people who stood aside and ler returnedt these marauders into the Capitol. It's been noted how they would have launched howitzers at a similar group of invaders if they were black. People like Mitt Romney have emerged with new lustre--even G.W. Bush provided a fine statement yesterday: And yes, Dick and Liz Cheney rose to the occasion--wow! it's hard to believe how bad he was in office and yet how favorably he compares with the incumbent.

Will life ever return to normal after COVID? Will the old norms of political behavior ever re-emerge after this profane period? I hope for the best but I expect the worst. The rich filth have seized control and they will spend whatever it takes to keep on stealing through tax breaks and outright handouts from the public trough. It will take a lot more than outrage at the spectacle we witnessed on TV yesterday to effect change. 

We need a complete housecleaning and the country missed its chance in November--sure, Biden got in but they returned all those sleazebag GOP Senators who should have been beaten. It was encouraging that owing to the work of people like Stacey Abrams, Georgia gave us the two Democratic Senators to make the new VP provide the majority. I would have made her the Attorney General. 

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Things Get Curioser and Curioser

 The trendiest words I've encountered over the past few years are "evidence-based" plans, programs, or findings. Although like most concepts that achieve great popularity, evidence-based started out as a genuine effort to bring some reality to project planning and other programs, its limitations have grown evident as it has gradually been incorporated into the lexicon of grantmaking and plannng.

However, I'm not entirely sure anyone expected to see the rise of argument without any evidence. This is what the legions supporting Trump have presented us as their crowning legacy. The American rejection of Trump by seven million votes (roughly 81 to 74) is being opposed by a campaign that has failed to present any evidence that the election was in any way "rigged" or otherwise stolen. 

This in itself is unusual--there's usually been chicanerr y in every election but it hasn't affected the result all that frequently. It's enough to make one admit after years of denial that the leftists of the 60s may have had it right after all: those ensconced in power will do anything to avoid relinquishing any of their suzerainty. 

We are facing on January 6 the spectatcle of a large number of Republicans in Congress object to certifying the electoral vote for Biden based on nothing. And we have a president encouraging armed supporters to come to Washington. He's also installed cronies at the head of the Defense Department and other powerful agencies. If you don't start thinking that a coup is possible and that some preparation to resist it is in order, I suggest you are delusional.

This whole totally false post-election protest has left our political structure and constitutional government hanging by a thread. A few individual members of state canvassing board have held the line against throwing out millions of votes just on someone's say-so that there was malfeasance or that rules weren't followed.

If anyone was messing with the system, it was the Republican-dominated legislatures that are successfully practicing voter suppression. Closing polling places, limiting mail-in voting, and restricting early balloting are all such suppression devices. Photo ID is another. No one has present any credible evidence that there have been violations of the rules to justify any of this vicious attempt to disenfranchise legitimate voters.

But we have top-of-their-class Harvard and Yale law grads like Cruz and Hawley demanding an audit where no one has shown any basis for needing one. We are depending on Pence not to throw a monkey wrench into the certification process. They even cite the 1876 electoral commission which was a totally corrupt fraud. Democrats went along with GOP theft of the presidency in return for the end of Reconstruction.

Like banana republics and other states we have often scorned, the U.S. may have to take on another pitched battle against the real enemy within--the reactionary right that has found its demagogue to lead both the unthinking and those dedicated to maintaining the 1% in control by any means.