There is exactly one week until the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia hears oral arguments on the claim by Donald Trump that he has absolute immunity against prosecution for crimes committed while in office.
Arguably Trump's sole virtue flows entirely from being a terrible example, a walking warning of the costs of chaotic neo-fascism openly proclaimed by Herr Gropenfuehrer: vicious, violent threats, defamatory torts he's unable to rein in, and constant declarations of his criminal plans to sort out his enemies - that is, us, all American citizens who at the very least insist on equal justice under law to the extent it's possible to have it.
We either heed all of this - Trump's open, nearly prima facie statements of sedition presented as proud accomplishments he aims to repeat if necessary, or else.
Well said, Richard. Terrible that the others would pardon him if they become president
Remember while he was president everyone was saying a sitting president can't be prosecuted until after he leaves office? That's all forgotten now. Same with "No one is above the law."
Trump is now saying the 2024 election will be the "final battle"
That's more or less the heart of what I am very charitably and sarcastically calling Trump's virtue, he "shrieks the embarrassingly totalitarian part from the rooftops"!
No one who is paying attention at all has any excuse for not comprehending he's an imminent, ongoing, ambulatory threat to the rule of law and our democracy, it's part of his strategy to overawe weak-minded people who are susceptible to that quasi-Hitlerian appeal, and Trump knows it.
The Authoritarian Personality is a 1950 sociology book by Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford, researchers working at the University of California, Berkeley, during and shortly after World War II.
The Authoritarian Personality "invented a set of criteria by which to define personality traits, ranked these traits and their intensity in any given person on what it called the 'F scale' (F for fascist)."[1] The personality type Adorno et al. identified can be defined by nine traits that were believed to cluster together as the result of childhood experiences. These traits include conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception, superstition and stereotypy, power and "toughness", destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and exaggerated concerns over sex.[2][need quotation to verify][3]
Though criticized at the time for bias and methodology,[4][5] the book was highly influential in American social sciences, particularly in the first decade after its publication: "No volume published since the war in the field of social psychology has had a greater impact on the direction of the actual empirical work being carried on in the universities today."[6]
******* The wiki article may be of interest, it does take into account criticisms of the book as well.
And here, in breaking news from my home state of Iowa with the GOP primary circus arriving in less than two weeks, is a court decision just issued that tracks those "exaggerated concerns over sex" expressed in book bans:
DES MOINES, Iowa —
When U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher handed down his ruling on Friday, it blocked two of the three provisions of an Iowa law that bans some books from school libraries and forbids teachers from raising LGBTQ+ issues.
The one that will remain in place is the section that requires notification to parents if their child requests an accommodation to gender identity.
In the lawsuit, student plaintiffs claim the law caused them to "close off forms of expression in which they used to engage." The judge ruled that those plaintiffs did not have the legal standing to challenge this specific provision because all of them are already reportedly "out" to their parents.
Stack of books on table at library
LGBTQ+ rights group sues over Iowa law banning school library books, gender identity discussion
With this provision still in place, teachers will have to inform parents if their student decides to use a pronoun different from the one they are registered as.
The judge did decide to place an injunction on the two other sections of the law.
Locher calls the provision banning books with sex acts "incredibly broad."
He says under this rule, many history books, award-winning novels and even books that appear in Advanced Placement exams would fall under that classification — even sex acts that played major roles in political campaigns or those that served as the basis for impeaching a sitting president.
The judge claims the confusion has led school districts and educators to err on the side of removing books out of fear of being penalized for failing to do so.
Locher says this provision is unlikely to satisfy the First Amendment under any standard when the case goes to trial.
The judge had a similar interpretation for the part forbidding programs, promotions and instructions of gender identity and sexual orientation — writing it is "wildly overbroad." ****** The article continues:
He means to belatedly establish his idea of hitler’s Third Reich. (Of course his utopian crazy world would include a McDonalds on every corner and gallon bottles of ketchup.)
Frightening, Patris, but funny too about the McDonalds :) I was just imagining a mirror reality, where everything that is going on is reversed, Trump still president and our guy doing all the things Trump did and is still doing - all the hate rhetoric, turning his wild dogs loose on innocent poll workers; vilifying government officials for just doing their jobs, etc., triggering death threats to all kinds of decent people from his fanatical uneducated unwashed followers. Trump would be screaming for justice as would the entire Republican party. And imagine if our man said, hey! I am immune from prosecution, All hell would break loose. But members of his party won't even criticise him for his hateful rhetoric, let alone his many crimes.
And worse, Robert, they’re seduced by nothing less than hollow anger unfocused until he tells them who to blame. Sometimes humans are just goddam exhausting.
Mr. Turnbull! If you have not already started the process to copyright "gropenfuhrer," with or without those pesky umlauts, you are missing out on what could be a revenue stream. Given the gropenfuhrer's documented past as a sexual predator, is it any surprise that he sees the United States of America as just another pussy to grab and penetrate?
Ze com-pu-ter (think Peter Sellers talking in his Dr. Strangelove German accent) just went ever-so-quickly to the U.S. Copyright Office, which shows no record of registration or attempted registration for "gropenfuhrer." Plus, it appears that "Trumpenstein" is available. According to a expert, speaking in a definitive source (Vincent Vega in "Pulp Fiction"), you're referring to a "royale with cheese." My one and only experience with McDonald's was in 1959, with two equally broke college classmates (19-cent cheeseburgers!), resulting in three immediate "protein spills." Therefore, the notion of any self-respecting fly choosing that food is a bit outside my culinary imagination.
It was a somewhat alliterative and more refined way of saying flies on shit. Your reference to protein dumps would explain the orange gibbon's alleged use of adult diapers. I agree with your assessment of McD's. Personally, I hope said Gropenfuhrer's continued consumption of such fare results in the epithet "Eat Shit and Die" becoming a reality. Soon. BTW, loved the Strangelove and Pulp Fiction references.
Maybe the guy or gal or whoever they are (might be more than one person, who knows?) should do that, I didn't hit on it first, though. But yeah it's sardonically funny but also emphasizes what a %$#@! Trump is, the woman-hating lout.
Yeah I would be sued for plagiarizing it or however that works! I spotted it "somewhere online," and if MICROSOFT'S WINDOWS 10 "UPDATES" aka "Ad Hoc Tech Fixes That Might Goof Up Your PC" - badly enough that you opt for a new one rather than mess with one on its last legs anyway - I could cite the person (although he or she was using a screen name, something like (this is a GUESS, it was about SIX YEARS AGO!) ...ok, thinking process is that I think they also posted routinely on "Global Climate Change / Global Ecocide"...wow, too bad no German in their username...no, wasn't nearly as memorable as "HerrGropenfuehrer," either,I THINK they were posting then from Kansas, that it was on Washington Post when I still subscribed, and there was some weather related term, not "TwisterDorothy'sEcoSister" either (I just made that up) ok I give up, anyway it's not original with me. Oh btw YES AND YES AGAIN to the content of the rest, Lawrence!
Edit: : Let me clarify -sued IF it's copyrighted, but I won't engage in claiming "I wrote that! I wrote that first!" it's bad karma /bad juju / bad habit / bad for self-respect / bad like in Gresham's Law bad if done by truly epic great writers while I am just on my third(?) Substack post of my own but don't want to set a bad example for people whose writing is painful to your ears.
I suppose you are right Richard, if it’s possible for the insipid clown to have any virtue, which until I read what you wrote I didn’t think was possible, in a perverse way he might actually do something good. Thanks for the mind stretch.😎
Sure thing - it occurs to me that a far more subtle and moving literary development of a similar idea is in the film adaptation of Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny, where both Captain Queeg (Humphrey Bogart, in a brilliant performance) and the crew's leadership - played masterfully as well by Fred MacMurray and Van Johnson, overreach or fail for different reasons, we can see right away that the Captain has been traumatized by combat experiences, but there's no sign of even halting attempts by the Captain's staff to see if they are able to usefully apply some methods short of mutiny, that is, they immediately move to seeking out symptoms of Queeg's unfitness to command to assemble a legal defense for their evolving mutiny, in case they act and want it ready for the board of review.
So we have two examples of missing the mark to learn from. Oh wait, one more step and of course Aristotle got here first thousands of years ago! Hamartia:
What disgusts me most about the whole Trump legal struggle is the inequity and gross manipulation that rich people of means (the redundancy is deliberate) are able to execute in our legal system. Trump is doing everything in his power to avoid punishment. While there is nothing wrong, per se, with someone accused to profess and work to achieve his/her innocence, his egregious behavior in which he successfully receives money from followers to pay for legal bills he is capable of paying himself, is an indictment of the incapability of our legal system to confront, control, and condemn such a rogue.
Tort reform?? Not so loud, the Repubs have pretty much forgotten about that after the trial lawyers have done tons of lobbying to beat it back. That and their own hypocrisy when they or a family member or friend suffers a horrible injury, then they look for ways around it. A prime example is Gov. Abbot in Texas. Abbot was a law student out jogging in 1984 when a tree limb fell on the sidewalk causing him to suffer spinal injuries. He hired a prominent tort lawyer who sued the landowner on some negligence. theory and made a huge recovery. Abbot has received a total payout of 8.9M. Abbot being the fair-minded guy he is has since done everything possible to limit recoveries for others in Texas, and has signed laws capping med mal verdicts at $250K for non-economic damages, i.e. pain and suffering, disability, permanency etc. Abbot of course continues to try to pass more laws limiting lawsuits in Texas.
Humph...that does seem to be a universal Repubbie impulse, doesn't it? I mean the desire--indeed, the drive--to pull up the ladder that allowed that access to the next levels to prevent those behind from also ascending the ladder.
Dwight, I’ve thought the same thing. His constant appeals and legal maneuvering to extend any and all trials to hold him accountable, his changing lawyers, and his repeated messaging to his cult members are not something we everyday folk can engage in if we were facing trial. It makes me sick...
And all the while he is raking in the money for his legal defense, he continues to rant and rave and add even more fodder for prosecutors. I'm wondering if any on his legal team have seen a penny for their efforts.
Early on it became evident that those who seek attention at all cost, often get it at considerable risk to the rest of us. Those who follow the premise that all publicity, notorious or not, is desirable, are incapable of self-reflection. Delusional to the bitter end, Captain Ahab is going down with the whale!
This profoundly disheartening chapter in American history will show future generations the strength of the compact that holds this nation together. Meanwhile, following this saga to its conclusion will require nerves of steel. Brace yourselves, darlings!
“When it is laid down as a maxim that a King can do no wrong, it places him in a state of similar security with that of idiots and persons insane, and responsibility is out of the question with respect to himself.”
– Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, Conclusion (1791-2)
And the BS nightmare just never ends. A traitor is supposed to get 25 years or execution. This slime ball committed treason with the world watching. No consequences. None.
I also concur that He Who Manifests No Bleedin' Nous, is a clueless. ketchup-launching mook, and we can anticipate a host of tantrums when he loses this case!
Edit: I deleted two less complete and relevant comments on Trump's wild antics, it is astounding that future generations are bound, some of them, to encounter the key events in Trump's mad career and wonder if it can possibly be true!
Oh here we go, what are the truths about Trump that you deny exist? Please clarify, thanks!
Or is there, on your view, no standard at all - and thus Trump's version of any given fact is just as truthful or false as any other?
The key events happened, they can be truthfully and accurately described, or falsified, lied about, denied altogether, and there's a crucially wide gulf between those approaches and the resulting information derived from them.
Maybe you can guess that if you want to sell any version of epistemological nihilism, or "Global Skepticism," I ain't buyin' it, but feel free to explain why your packaging should be any more acceptable that what's been on offer since Cratylus* the Sophist, fair enough?
After over two thousand years to polish the merchandise, it's not as if you can plead for more time.
The short version of Cratylus at work are the following theses:
(1) Nothing truly exists (meaning whatever is claimed to exist is so ephemeral it's incorrect to even apply "existence" to it as a predicate!)
(2) If anything did truly exist, we couldn't know anything about it. (You can work out his arguments for yourself, probably).
(3) Even if anything truly existed, and we could know something accurate and true about it, we couldn't share that knowledge with anyone else (!).
While it's great fun and a worthwhile topic to get students or just people sitting around a bar to start considering a huge number of connected philosophical issues, it has never convinced anyone enough (outside of people afflicted by serious delusions, extreme mental stresses including PTSD, or under the influence of powerful psychoactive drugs) to make them refuse to take reasonable precautions against injury or death, based on learning true versus false descriptions of toxic substances, or the dangers posed by leaping out of tall buildings without a parachute, or driving 150 mph on a twisting highway with no seat belt, etc.,
In other words, I figure you can't really be suggesting a theory of truth that claims to abolish the conceptual distinctions between true and false descriptions of poisons, or various life-endangering activities, so why should it apply to descriptions of Donald J. Trump, from his birth in 1946 in Queens, to his current status as someone facing 91 felony counts? We both understand Trump has lied constantly about all manner of things, and continues to do so, but that's not what you're getting at, is it?
So please clarify what you are talking about, thanks!
Perhaps I was too oblique for your interpretation.
In future generations historians (and hopefully the public) will perhaps wonder if the madness brought upon our nation by Trump and his henchmen will be proven to have really happened, therefore his collective, insane acts will be a truth, since this all is happening and destroying our national fabric.
However, no amount of his lies or any of the miserable tricks, stories, lies or revisionist history that Trump will pull to [a] convince his (blindly acting) followers that he is the real deal will actually be found to be "true" and [b] that given almost any thing he did that was in fact even remotely true, it will be found to have been only for his personal betterment or to aid those that he was illegally rewarding and [c] that no amount of his antics will be found to be anything else but the workings of a very demented madman who managed to convince a portion of his countrymen that he was acting for them - that will never be a truth, as his acts are only to enhance his self grandiose fantasies.
PS. he is a bigot, a leech, a fake, a philanderer and a disgrace to the office he held. He will go down as the cause of a dark period in our countries history and hopefully always be seen as the failure he so fears - that alone will kill him.
Yeah! Upvoted / Liked a thousand times, for clarifying you're deploying a functioning moral compass.
I was wondering if you were reaching for a result about "truth" which Trump and his ilk would actually find quite agreeable - that historical facts and truths are THEMSELVES entirely dependent on the political successes or failures of, in this case, his machinations. You know, that bogus, sweeping claim that "history is written by the victors," which has never been true, as texts are suppressed and censored, and a dominant view can be served up with relentless propaganda outlets churning out that viewpoint and attacking or ignoring all others, sure, but both dissenting oral traditions and historical texts the "victorious censors" themselves publish as proud declamations of their wonderful successes subduing "the savages and Christianizing them" (or in the case of Islam, "conquering the infidels in the name of Allah," in the case of other conquerors - Stalin, Mao, Franco, the British Imperialists, you name it, just alter the template!) are reinterpreted by their successors, and sometimes even fail to get off the ground while in their infancy -Trotsky on Stalin is the best recent example in Russian politics. Even a Trump victory followed by some real - but inevitably temporary - collapse in resisting him. and attempts at more Trump hagiography won't allow Trump to significantly alter the excoriating critique you summed up!
I mean, it's correct his most obstinate cultists "have their truths," but that's a loose, very dubious if not completely misleading path to Kelly Ann Conway's notorious "alternate facts," isn't it? People are sometimes just mistaken, wrong about what's true and what's false.
We can be charitable with people who are misinformed, but remain open to changing their opinions when they are supplied with correct information, but that's not at all the same thing as granting them their "truth" as if their bogus misinformation is as good as a fair and accurate account of the same material! It really matters that LKTIV and others are working to keep doing that.
That's the "epistemological nihilism" I was wondering about - people show up out of the blue on websites all the time, and I for one can't always tell immediately if they are diffident about Trump and his supporter s ("Oh give him a chance, he might grow in office," I fell for that for a few months and then realized he's incorrigible and just gets worse) or even support him, and are just on here as "iconoclasts" out to "Own the Libs," to prove that they will never stop supporting him.
If nothing else, the filings by the Trump team expose yet another one of his pack of lies - they claimed to want to "drain the swamp" - of course only until such time that the muddy water became part of their shield. Let's hope the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has clear eyesight as to the endless multitude of travesties that the Trump camp promotes to fuel his minion's anger.
"You know Joe, we are almost brothers. After all we shared the same bedroom..." SNL here we come. On second thought, even SNL could not make up an insane narrative like the the past 7-8 years of this national Trumpster-fire.
Last week I heard a reporter interviewed on BBC America (WNYC-FM) about Putin's chances in the next Russian Presidential "election". The reporter preceded to list all the reasons it's in the bag for Vlad - political enemies imprisoned, control of the media, support of religious leaders, loyalty of military commanders etc etc. None of it was a surprise. But what suddenly struck me was everything he was saying about Putey & Russia was a "blueprint" of Donny Ivan's plans for the US if 2024 goes his way. Chilling.
If we're to now live under a "Divine Right of Presidents" to do anything they want at any time, I don't know why we had to have an American Revolution at all. Might as well have forgot all that trouble and stayed under the British Crown, at least now we might have wound up more like Canada. Could have been win-win.
Haley is such a disgraceful shill. How can she say she would pardon Trump before she even sees the evidence? These knuckleheads are turning the entire pardon process into a joke to get elected.
Ans: Because Rs/cons are married to time tested slogans and platitudes. In this case "for the good of the country." Same hollow reason Ford invoked yet history has found the Nixon pardon to have harmed the nation by not holding a President legally accountable, effectively putting a president above the law and claiming don't worry no other President could ever be as bad as Nixon. That too is another tell of Rs/cons, wishful thinking.
Lucian -- another great piece. Of course, Defendant Trump has already found what "sticks to the wall," --- ketchup. One other thing: you asked a question, in italics, can Trump read? From every evidence, not very well, unless what he is reading is directly about him, and in relatively simple language.
Plus more than a dash of what would have to be renamed The Manichean Candidate. In the update, the Asian mind-alterers would be replaced by Defendant Trump's father, Fred Trump, who did a remarkable job of training his son...without having to resort to a deck of playing cards as a trigger.
We have to insure that none of the repugnicans (i.e. Nikki Hailey et al) who would give orange jesus even so much as a sideways glance, much less a fucking pardon, gets into any position of power where they might let the slippery insurrectionist off the hook in any way, shape or form. And that means - VOTE.
Arguably Trump's sole virtue flows entirely from being a terrible example, a walking warning of the costs of chaotic neo-fascism openly proclaimed by Herr Gropenfuehrer: vicious, violent threats, defamatory torts he's unable to rein in, and constant declarations of his criminal plans to sort out his enemies - that is, us, all American citizens who at the very least insist on equal justice under law to the extent it's possible to have it.
We either heed all of this - Trump's open, nearly prima facie statements of sedition presented as proud accomplishments he aims to repeat if necessary, or else.
Well said, Richard. Terrible that the others would pardon him if they become president
Remember while he was president everyone was saying a sitting president can't be prosecuted until after he leaves office? That's all forgotten now. Same with "No one is above the law."
Trump is now saying the 2024 election will be the "final battle"
. I dread to think what he means by that.
That's more or less the heart of what I am very charitably and sarcastically calling Trump's virtue, he "shrieks the embarrassingly totalitarian part from the rooftops"!
No one who is paying attention at all has any excuse for not comprehending he's an imminent, ongoing, ambulatory threat to the rule of law and our democracy, it's part of his strategy to overawe weak-minded people who are susceptible to that quasi-Hitlerian appeal, and Trump knows it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Authoritarian_Personality
The Authoritarian Personality is a 1950 sociology book by Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford, researchers working at the University of California, Berkeley, during and shortly after World War II.
The Authoritarian Personality "invented a set of criteria by which to define personality traits, ranked these traits and their intensity in any given person on what it called the 'F scale' (F for fascist)."[1] The personality type Adorno et al. identified can be defined by nine traits that were believed to cluster together as the result of childhood experiences. These traits include conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception, superstition and stereotypy, power and "toughness", destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and exaggerated concerns over sex.[2][need quotation to verify][3]
Though criticized at the time for bias and methodology,[4][5] the book was highly influential in American social sciences, particularly in the first decade after its publication: "No volume published since the war in the field of social psychology has had a greater impact on the direction of the actual empirical work being carried on in the universities today."[6]
******* The wiki article may be of interest, it does take into account criticisms of the book as well.
That ANYONE would be supporting this guy, I just can't get my head around. Roger Ailes is laughing down in Hades!!
And here, in breaking news from my home state of Iowa with the GOP primary circus arriving in less than two weeks, is a court decision just issued that tracks those "exaggerated concerns over sex" expressed in book bans:
DES MOINES, Iowa —
When U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher handed down his ruling on Friday, it blocked two of the three provisions of an Iowa law that bans some books from school libraries and forbids teachers from raising LGBTQ+ issues.
The one that will remain in place is the section that requires notification to parents if their child requests an accommodation to gender identity.
In the lawsuit, student plaintiffs claim the law caused them to "close off forms of expression in which they used to engage." The judge ruled that those plaintiffs did not have the legal standing to challenge this specific provision because all of them are already reportedly "out" to their parents.
Stack of books on table at library
LGBTQ+ rights group sues over Iowa law banning school library books, gender identity discussion
With this provision still in place, teachers will have to inform parents if their student decides to use a pronoun different from the one they are registered as.
The judge did decide to place an injunction on the two other sections of the law.
Locher calls the provision banning books with sex acts "incredibly broad."
He says under this rule, many history books, award-winning novels and even books that appear in Advanced Placement exams would fall under that classification — even sex acts that played major roles in political campaigns or those that served as the basis for impeaching a sitting president.
The judge claims the confusion has led school districts and educators to err on the side of removing books out of fear of being penalized for failing to do so.
Locher says this provision is unlikely to satisfy the First Amendment under any standard when the case goes to trial.
The judge had a similar interpretation for the part forbidding programs, promotions and instructions of gender identity and sexual orientation — writing it is "wildly overbroad." ****** The article continues:
https://www.kcci.com/article/iowa-book-ban-in-schools-law-why-district-judge-blocked-provisions-in-bill/46269687?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%20-%20Local%20Breaking%20News&utm_source=6594a9ead7d92c1259ba7ee958f2b44c&brzu=88994fd47e4b826d5314a64a4cfb8cb7f793fb5cb315c56dc34d20596700b125&lctg=5d77a530d41f6e5f6441f745
He means to belatedly establish his idea of hitler’s Third Reich. (Of course his utopian crazy world would include a McDonalds on every corner and gallon bottles of ketchup.)
Frightening, Patris, but funny too about the McDonalds :) I was just imagining a mirror reality, where everything that is going on is reversed, Trump still president and our guy doing all the things Trump did and is still doing - all the hate rhetoric, turning his wild dogs loose on innocent poll workers; vilifying government officials for just doing their jobs, etc., triggering death threats to all kinds of decent people from his fanatical uneducated unwashed followers. Trump would be screaming for justice as would the entire Republican party. And imagine if our man said, hey! I am immune from prosecution, All hell would break loose. But members of his party won't even criticise him for his hateful rhetoric, let alone his many crimes.
And worse, Robert, they’re seduced by nothing less than hollow anger unfocused until he tells them who to blame. Sometimes humans are just goddam exhausting.
Made me laugh "...sometimes humans are damned exhausting" But you're right :).
It’s unbelievable isn’t it
Don't forget KFC outlets! :-)
I think I will casually ask my insurrectionist neighbor for his take on what "the final battle" will be.
Mr. Turnbull! If you have not already started the process to copyright "gropenfuhrer," with or without those pesky umlauts, you are missing out on what could be a revenue stream. Given the gropenfuhrer's documented past as a sexual predator, is it any surprise that he sees the United States of America as just another pussy to grab and penetrate?
Absolutely! I'd have a copyright on gropenfuhrer quicker than flies on a Quarter Pounder.
Ze com-pu-ter (think Peter Sellers talking in his Dr. Strangelove German accent) just went ever-so-quickly to the U.S. Copyright Office, which shows no record of registration or attempted registration for "gropenfuhrer." Plus, it appears that "Trumpenstein" is available. According to a expert, speaking in a definitive source (Vincent Vega in "Pulp Fiction"), you're referring to a "royale with cheese." My one and only experience with McDonald's was in 1959, with two equally broke college classmates (19-cent cheeseburgers!), resulting in three immediate "protein spills." Therefore, the notion of any self-respecting fly choosing that food is a bit outside my culinary imagination.
It was a somewhat alliterative and more refined way of saying flies on shit. Your reference to protein dumps would explain the orange gibbon's alleged use of adult diapers. I agree with your assessment of McD's. Personally, I hope said Gropenfuhrer's continued consumption of such fare results in the epithet "Eat Shit and Die" becoming a reality. Soon. BTW, loved the Strangelove and Pulp Fiction references.
Maybe the guy or gal or whoever they are (might be more than one person, who knows?) should do that, I didn't hit on it first, though. But yeah it's sardonically funny but also emphasizes what a %$#@! Trump is, the woman-hating lout.
LOL! Thanks for that, Tom!
Yeah I would be sued for plagiarizing it or however that works! I spotted it "somewhere online," and if MICROSOFT'S WINDOWS 10 "UPDATES" aka "Ad Hoc Tech Fixes That Might Goof Up Your PC" - badly enough that you opt for a new one rather than mess with one on its last legs anyway - I could cite the person (although he or she was using a screen name, something like (this is a GUESS, it was about SIX YEARS AGO!) ...ok, thinking process is that I think they also posted routinely on "Global Climate Change / Global Ecocide"...wow, too bad no German in their username...no, wasn't nearly as memorable as "HerrGropenfuehrer," either,I THINK they were posting then from Kansas, that it was on Washington Post when I still subscribed, and there was some weather related term, not "TwisterDorothy'sEcoSister" either (I just made that up) ok I give up, anyway it's not original with me. Oh btw YES AND YES AGAIN to the content of the rest, Lawrence!
Edit: : Let me clarify -sued IF it's copyrighted, but I won't engage in claiming "I wrote that! I wrote that first!" it's bad karma /bad juju / bad habit / bad for self-respect / bad like in Gresham's Law bad if done by truly epic great writers while I am just on my third(?) Substack post of my own but don't want to set a bad example for people whose writing is painful to your ears.
I suppose you are right Richard, if it’s possible for the insipid clown to have any virtue, which until I read what you wrote I didn’t think was possible, in a perverse way he might actually do something good. Thanks for the mind stretch.😎
Sure thing - it occurs to me that a far more subtle and moving literary development of a similar idea is in the film adaptation of Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny, where both Captain Queeg (Humphrey Bogart, in a brilliant performance) and the crew's leadership - played masterfully as well by Fred MacMurray and Van Johnson, overreach or fail for different reasons, we can see right away that the Captain has been traumatized by combat experiences, but there's no sign of even halting attempts by the Captain's staff to see if they are able to usefully apply some methods short of mutiny, that is, they immediately move to seeking out symptoms of Queeg's unfitness to command to assemble a legal defense for their evolving mutiny, in case they act and want it ready for the board of review.
So we have two examples of missing the mark to learn from. Oh wait, one more step and of course Aristotle got here first thousands of years ago! Hamartia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamartia
My head is exploding!
What disgusts me most about the whole Trump legal struggle is the inequity and gross manipulation that rich people of means (the redundancy is deliberate) are able to execute in our legal system. Trump is doing everything in his power to avoid punishment. While there is nothing wrong, per se, with someone accused to profess and work to achieve his/her innocence, his egregious behavior in which he successfully receives money from followers to pay for legal bills he is capable of paying himself, is an indictment of the incapability of our legal system to confront, control, and condemn such a rogue.
What ever happened to the republican demand for tort reform??
Tort reform?? Not so loud, the Repubs have pretty much forgotten about that after the trial lawyers have done tons of lobbying to beat it back. That and their own hypocrisy when they or a family member or friend suffers a horrible injury, then they look for ways around it. A prime example is Gov. Abbot in Texas. Abbot was a law student out jogging in 1984 when a tree limb fell on the sidewalk causing him to suffer spinal injuries. He hired a prominent tort lawyer who sued the landowner on some negligence. theory and made a huge recovery. Abbot has received a total payout of 8.9M. Abbot being the fair-minded guy he is has since done everything possible to limit recoveries for others in Texas, and has signed laws capping med mal verdicts at $250K for non-economic damages, i.e. pain and suffering, disability, permanency etc. Abbot of course continues to try to pass more laws limiting lawsuits in Texas.
Humph...that does seem to be a universal Repubbie impulse, doesn't it? I mean the desire--indeed, the drive--to pull up the ladder that allowed that access to the next levels to prevent those behind from also ascending the ladder.
I hate Abbott...another repub hypocrite!!
Dwight, I’ve thought the same thing. His constant appeals and legal maneuvering to extend any and all trials to hold him accountable, his changing lawyers, and his repeated messaging to his cult members are not something we everyday folk can engage in if we were facing trial. It makes me sick...
And all the while he is raking in the money for his legal defense, he continues to rant and rave and add even more fodder for prosecutors. I'm wondering if any on his legal team have seen a penny for their efforts.
Early on it became evident that those who seek attention at all cost, often get it at considerable risk to the rest of us. Those who follow the premise that all publicity, notorious or not, is desirable, are incapable of self-reflection. Delusional to the bitter end, Captain Ahab is going down with the whale!
This profoundly disheartening chapter in American history will show future generations the strength of the compact that holds this nation together. Meanwhile, following this saga to its conclusion will require nerves of steel. Brace yourselves, darlings!
I hope so. So far "rule of law" is a bad joke.
“When it is laid down as a maxim that a King can do no wrong, it places him in a state of similar security with that of idiots and persons insane, and responsibility is out of the question with respect to himself.”
– Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, Conclusion (1791-2)
WELL..... now that you bring it up, Donny-Boy does qualify on several of the points - idiot and insane, while being fully irresponsible.
multi-tasker!
And the BS nightmare just never ends. A traitor is supposed to get 25 years or execution. This slime ball committed treason with the world watching. No consequences. None.
Have people also forgotten about the million people who died because of his "handling' of the Pandemic???
I have not forgotten! That means there will be that many fewer votes for this ass!
Not yet.
Legally there doesn't seem to be a good case for treason with respect to Trump.
The anticipation…is not just what will happen in court but how much ketchup HWMNBN will hurl against the walls wherever he is.
I also concur that He Who Manifests No Bleedin' Nous, is a clueless. ketchup-launching mook, and we can anticipate a host of tantrums when he loses this case!
Edit: I deleted two less complete and relevant comments on Trump's wild antics, it is astounding that future generations are bound, some of them, to encounter the key events in Trump's mad career and wonder if it can possibly be true!
Oh it is true in that it is happening. What it is not is truth.
Oh here we go, what are the truths about Trump that you deny exist? Please clarify, thanks!
Or is there, on your view, no standard at all - and thus Trump's version of any given fact is just as truthful or false as any other?
The key events happened, they can be truthfully and accurately described, or falsified, lied about, denied altogether, and there's a crucially wide gulf between those approaches and the resulting information derived from them.
Maybe you can guess that if you want to sell any version of epistemological nihilism, or "Global Skepticism," I ain't buyin' it, but feel free to explain why your packaging should be any more acceptable that what's been on offer since Cratylus* the Sophist, fair enough?
After over two thousand years to polish the merchandise, it's not as if you can plead for more time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cratylus
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-cratylus/
The short version of Cratylus at work are the following theses:
(1) Nothing truly exists (meaning whatever is claimed to exist is so ephemeral it's incorrect to even apply "existence" to it as a predicate!)
(2) If anything did truly exist, we couldn't know anything about it. (You can work out his arguments for yourself, probably).
(3) Even if anything truly existed, and we could know something accurate and true about it, we couldn't share that knowledge with anyone else (!).
While it's great fun and a worthwhile topic to get students or just people sitting around a bar to start considering a huge number of connected philosophical issues, it has never convinced anyone enough (outside of people afflicted by serious delusions, extreme mental stresses including PTSD, or under the influence of powerful psychoactive drugs) to make them refuse to take reasonable precautions against injury or death, based on learning true versus false descriptions of toxic substances, or the dangers posed by leaping out of tall buildings without a parachute, or driving 150 mph on a twisting highway with no seat belt, etc.,
In other words, I figure you can't really be suggesting a theory of truth that claims to abolish the conceptual distinctions between true and false descriptions of poisons, or various life-endangering activities, so why should it apply to descriptions of Donald J. Trump, from his birth in 1946 in Queens, to his current status as someone facing 91 felony counts? We both understand Trump has lied constantly about all manner of things, and continues to do so, but that's not what you're getting at, is it?
So please clarify what you are talking about, thanks!
Perhaps I was too oblique for your interpretation.
In future generations historians (and hopefully the public) will perhaps wonder if the madness brought upon our nation by Trump and his henchmen will be proven to have really happened, therefore his collective, insane acts will be a truth, since this all is happening and destroying our national fabric.
However, no amount of his lies or any of the miserable tricks, stories, lies or revisionist history that Trump will pull to [a] convince his (blindly acting) followers that he is the real deal will actually be found to be "true" and [b] that given almost any thing he did that was in fact even remotely true, it will be found to have been only for his personal betterment or to aid those that he was illegally rewarding and [c] that no amount of his antics will be found to be anything else but the workings of a very demented madman who managed to convince a portion of his countrymen that he was acting for them - that will never be a truth, as his acts are only to enhance his self grandiose fantasies.
PS. he is a bigot, a leech, a fake, a philanderer and a disgrace to the office he held. He will go down as the cause of a dark period in our countries history and hopefully always be seen as the failure he so fears - that alone will kill him.
Yeah! Upvoted / Liked a thousand times, for clarifying you're deploying a functioning moral compass.
I was wondering if you were reaching for a result about "truth" which Trump and his ilk would actually find quite agreeable - that historical facts and truths are THEMSELVES entirely dependent on the political successes or failures of, in this case, his machinations. You know, that bogus, sweeping claim that "history is written by the victors," which has never been true, as texts are suppressed and censored, and a dominant view can be served up with relentless propaganda outlets churning out that viewpoint and attacking or ignoring all others, sure, but both dissenting oral traditions and historical texts the "victorious censors" themselves publish as proud declamations of their wonderful successes subduing "the savages and Christianizing them" (or in the case of Islam, "conquering the infidels in the name of Allah," in the case of other conquerors - Stalin, Mao, Franco, the British Imperialists, you name it, just alter the template!) are reinterpreted by their successors, and sometimes even fail to get off the ground while in their infancy -Trotsky on Stalin is the best recent example in Russian politics. Even a Trump victory followed by some real - but inevitably temporary - collapse in resisting him. and attempts at more Trump hagiography won't allow Trump to significantly alter the excoriating critique you summed up!
I mean, it's correct his most obstinate cultists "have their truths," but that's a loose, very dubious if not completely misleading path to Kelly Ann Conway's notorious "alternate facts," isn't it? People are sometimes just mistaken, wrong about what's true and what's false.
We can be charitable with people who are misinformed, but remain open to changing their opinions when they are supplied with correct information, but that's not at all the same thing as granting them their "truth" as if their bogus misinformation is as good as a fair and accurate account of the same material! It really matters that LKTIV and others are working to keep doing that.
That's the "epistemological nihilism" I was wondering about - people show up out of the blue on websites all the time, and I for one can't always tell immediately if they are diffident about Trump and his supporter s ("Oh give him a chance, he might grow in office," I fell for that for a few months and then realized he's incorrigible and just gets worse) or even support him, and are just on here as "iconoclasts" out to "Own the Libs," to prove that they will never stop supporting him.
"Here's where the thesaurus may be useful: how many words can the D.C. Circuit find for, are you kidding?" This tickled me. This is why I come here.
One day, and I hope it comes sooner rather than later, all I want to read about tangeranus is that he died in jail.
Yup!
If nothing else, the filings by the Trump team expose yet another one of his pack of lies - they claimed to want to "drain the swamp" - of course only until such time that the muddy water became part of their shield. Let's hope the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has clear eyesight as to the endless multitude of travesties that the Trump camp promotes to fuel his minion's anger.
It has been my contention, since he took the oath, that he did, indeed, drain the swamp *into the White House*.
I'm waiting for the SNL skit of Trump calling Biden trying to cajole him into a pardon.
"You know Joe, we are almost brothers. After all we shared the same bedroom..." SNL here we come. On second thought, even SNL could not make up an insane narrative like the the past 7-8 years of this national Trumpster-fire.
Last week I heard a reporter interviewed on BBC America (WNYC-FM) about Putin's chances in the next Russian Presidential "election". The reporter preceded to list all the reasons it's in the bag for Vlad - political enemies imprisoned, control of the media, support of religious leaders, loyalty of military commanders etc etc. None of it was a surprise. But what suddenly struck me was everything he was saying about Putey & Russia was a "blueprint" of Donny Ivan's plans for the US if 2024 goes his way. Chilling.
If we're to now live under a "Divine Right of Presidents" to do anything they want at any time, I don't know why we had to have an American Revolution at all. Might as well have forgot all that trouble and stayed under the British Crown, at least now we might have wound up more like Canada. Could have been win-win.
Haley is such a disgraceful shill. How can she say she would pardon Trump before she even sees the evidence? These knuckleheads are turning the entire pardon process into a joke to get elected.
Ans: Because Rs/cons are married to time tested slogans and platitudes. In this case "for the good of the country." Same hollow reason Ford invoked yet history has found the Nixon pardon to have harmed the nation by not holding a President legally accountable, effectively putting a president above the law and claiming don't worry no other President could ever be as bad as Nixon. That too is another tell of Rs/cons, wishful thinking.
Lucian -- another great piece. Of course, Defendant Trump has already found what "sticks to the wall," --- ketchup. One other thing: you asked a question, in italics, can Trump read? From every evidence, not very well, unless what he is reading is directly about him, and in relatively simple language.
Lucien, the reference to 1964 and the plot of Frankenheimer’s film is chilling.
Plus more than a dash of what would have to be renamed The Manichean Candidate. In the update, the Asian mind-alterers would be replaced by Defendant Trump's father, Fred Trump, who did a remarkable job of training his son...without having to resort to a deck of playing cards as a trigger.
We have to insure that none of the repugnicans (i.e. Nikki Hailey et al) who would give orange jesus even so much as a sideways glance, much less a fucking pardon, gets into any position of power where they might let the slippery insurrectionist off the hook in any way, shape or form. And that means - VOTE.