From The Daily Beast:

The world of UFO conspiracy theorists has been torn apart by dueling lawsuits, pitting a prominent UFO influencer against a conspiracy-minded streaming video company valued at more than $200 million over who has the right to discuss their experiences with a benevolent species of blue alien.

The battle taking place in a federal courthouse in Colorado centers on Corey Goode, a UFO promoter and self-proclaimed deep-space traveler who consorts with benevolent aliens, and his former employer, Gaia, a publicly traded streaming platform whose videos blend yoga instruction with stories about “deep state” villains and benevolent aliens.

After leaving his Gaia show in 2018, Goode engaged in a long-running feud with the company. In March 2020, Goode sued Gaia, alleging that the company had engaged in an elaborate conspiracy against him. On Monday, Gaia filed a countersuit, accusing Goode of defamation and concocting various schemes to sabotage the company.

Attorneys for Goode and Gaia declined to comment.

Much of the lawsuit centers on who has the right to talk about a bird-like species of alien called “Blue Avians,” as well as a covert space agency that are, in Goode’s telling, both supposed to be real things.

I suppose that everyone has their sensitivities. Mine, oddly enough, isn’t that this feud exists. It’s that the company involved, Gaia – which I can only hope isn’t associated with Dr. Lovelock of the Gaia Hypothesis fame – is worth over $200 million.

Are you kidding me?

Or are these people who are the consumers of this trash simply enjoying a good story and know it’s all silly?

I suppose we could compare it to Star Trek. It actually halfway makes sense then.

A couple of days ago I was discussing the collapse of political morality occurs when a political party would rather defeat the legitimate aims & responsibilities of governing rather than give a rival party a victory. Perhaps it’s petty, or perhaps Senator McConnell is correct in suggesting that a victory for the Democrats endangers the Republicans, but there it is.

And here we have an example. The Des Moines Register wrote an editorial to Senator Grassley (R-IA), imploring him to support the Democratic plan for expanded funding for the Internal Revenue Service:

In fact, leaders like Sen. Chuck Grassley, who say they champion rooting out fraud and abuse, should be leading the charge to ensure tax scofflaws are pursued.

Iowa’s senior senator attended an April Senate Finance Committee hearing with testimony from IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.

He certainly heard Rettig estimate the federal treasury is losing approximately $1 trillion in unpaid taxes each year, more than the annual defense budget. He certainly heard Rettig say that additional mandatory, predictable funding from Congress would “absolutely” help the agency plan, hire workers and catch tax cheats.

Grassley understands a starved agency cannot do its job, whether that job is guarding against fraud on a child tax credit crafted by Democrats or implementing tax cuts crafted by Republicans.

Estimates that an increase in funding of $80 billion would lead to collection of more than $700 billion – a magnitude profit on investment, for those prone to the monetary approach to evaluation.

And, I might add, an IRS unable to conduct appropriate audits, answer questions, or even pick up the phone – the Register estimates the IRS only answers 25% of the calls it receives, and whether those are satisfactory transitions is not at all clear –  has more than a monetary impact. Discontent is a powerful force in electoral politics, and while underfunding the IRS may not be visible, or meet with knee-jerk approval, the suspicions that the big corporations are underpaying their obligations, or the wealthy are getting away with ignoring there obligations, leads to an unhappy electorate.

So the Register’s editorial is important.

And Senator Grassley’s response? After citing what are basically Band-Aid responses and irrelevancies, such as claiming that Congress has given the IRS more funding than it requested recently – a response lacking context, such as what happened before 2020, when Trump tried to strangle the IRS – he turns his response into a political attack:

The Biden administration claims more money for enforcement would allow the IRS to collect at least $700 billion. Outside experts have disputed this rosy revenue scenario. Even if this pipe dream is realized, the extra revenue is dwarfed by the Democrats’ $6 trillion spending agenda. And businesses of all sizes would incur new and burdensome compliance costs and reporting requirements along the way. Instead of promising a chicken in every pot, Biden’s plan promises an auditor at every kitchen table.

The IRS also has a trust deficit. During the Obama administration, the IRS was weaponized to target conservative political organizations, and wasted millions in taxpayer dollars on elaborate conferences, and bonuses for IRS employees who failed to pay their own taxes. The IRS also burned through tens of millions of dollars on software that never got off the ground. Americans are right to be wary about further investment in the IRS without significant controls.

It’s hard to know where to begin. This is definitely a scare-mongering response, between kitchen auditors and the fictitious weaponization of the IRS during the Obama Administration. Even if these are true, and at least some of his reasoning relies on studies from Forbes, a reliable right-wing, tax-skeptical media source, increased funding has nothing to do with abuse of the function of the IRS.

The bottom line: An inefficient, underfunded IRS becomes a very leaky boat for the funds it’s supposed to collect and account; those leaks by turns scare and infuriate us, the passengers; and all of this leads to, counter-intuitively, a discontented populace in which it appears the elite, fixated as much of it is on its wealth & position, has passed on fulfilling its responsibilities.

And this isn’t hard stuff to figure out. Grassley should, and probably does, know all this. But he’s in a Party devoted religiously to lower taxes and paranoia of the government. Yes, we could have a happier populace. But Grassley can’t let that happen. It goes against his political/religious tenets.

When you’re just making shit up so that people look up to you, introducing Cirsten Weldon:

“Yeah, [Hillary Clinton] passed a long time ago,” Weldon said in a video shared on Friday by Right Wing Watch, a project of the progressive group People for the American Way. “I don’t think it was 2018, I think it was about 8 months ago, she died of kuru. And that was not from… she wasn’t hanged or anything, she just expired… Hillary was on stage four, they couldn’t help her. She was barely taking a breath a minute.”

Weldon added that German Chancellor Angela Merkel also suffered from kuru, but was “stage three,” and went on to claim that Clinton’s former campaign manager John Podesta “has been seized a long time ago.” She added that she believed infrequent appearances in the media were evidence that several others, like former Clinton aide Huma Abedin and former FBI Director James Comey, had “obviously” been seized as well. [Newsweek]

Seized? Beats me. In any case, another sad case of power before ethics. But this part’s a bit puzzling for a non-Q like me:

She also bragged about knowing “the location of every NASA office” and said she would be delivering speeches at “each and every” one of the space agency’s offices once “our POTUS,” former President Donald Trump, “comes back” into the White House.

I don’t doubt she thinks she knows about all those NASA offices, but why in the world would anyone care if she gave a speech at them or not?

While those of us in the United States busy ourselves with either ignoring politics or indulging in it, the outside world is having its own frightfulness – and I’m not talking about Covid-19. No, this is all about people slinging old fashioned weapons at each other. From April 22:

A loud explosion caused by a missile strike was heard in Israel early Thursday morning, followed by reports of Israeli airstrikes in Syria.

People in Jerusalem reported hearing a loud explosion on social media at around 2:00 am local time. Israeli media outlets said rocket sirens went off near Dimona in central Israel, where Israel’s nuclear reactor is. A missile landed near the nuclear site, which is located in the Negev desert, The Associated Press reported.

A video from the Hamas-affiliated Shehab Agency showed an explosion and a large flash of light in the sky. [AL-Monitor]

Lovely. I’m not sure what a Syrian missile hit on a nuclear plant might do, but it wouldn’t do it any good, I feel sure. And if the plant was put out of commission, the retaliation would be major.

He can’t help but dribble out some more every time he opens his mouth:

[former President] Trump was asked in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity set to air Monday night whether GOP congressional candidates should run on the so-called make America great agenda.

“If they want to win, yes. We’ve expanded the Republican Party,” he said, citing the electoral gains he made among Hispanic voters in the 2020 presidential election. “If you want to win and win big, you have to do that. You have to do it.” [The Hill]

[Bold mine.]

Wah Wah Wah …

Yes, that would be the Republican Party’s popularity plunging under President Trump.

Regarding today’s earlier post regarding Rep Gaetz (R-FL), a reader points to a Rachel Maddow segment on Gaetz’s political ally who’s now in trouble of all sorts:

And notes:

You should watch this video clip. I think Gaetz is guilty as hell, given the company he keeps.

And it could be both guilty as the rumors charge and a victim of a political hit job. Greenberg seems to be quite the arrogant slimebag, and, while I haven’t paid that much attention to Gaetz, his behavior during his tenure in office has not inspired feelings of wellness. He feels more like a wind-up attack dog than a mature legislator.

Just like a political machine member.

In an item I didn’t get around to covering over the weekend due to the need to recover from the Covid-19 jab, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) takes a different tact in his quest for the title Clown of the Senate – frantic fantasies concerning the Insurrection of January 6th:

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., described the pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 as people who “truly respect law enforcement” and “loved this country” in a radio interview Friday and expressed worry if the mob had been Black Lives Matter protesters or Antifa members.

Johnson said he “never felt threatened” as thousands of rioters broke through barricades, forcing Congress to evacuate parts of the building and abruptly pause a ceremonial event affirming that President-elect Joe Biden won the November election. In one dramatic moment, police officers drew guns as rioters tried to break into the House chamber. The day left several dead, including a police officer, and more than 100 other officers injured. [NBC News]

While Johnson may have been honest in suggesting he was not alarmed at the sacking of the Capitol – more fool him – the suggestion that the mob was respectful in the face of video evidence of the murder of one officer and the desecration of the Capitol in the form of defecation simply renders Johnson’s comments ludicrous. Shitting in someone’s office cannot be twisted into the belief that the mob greatly loves their country.

Good luck, Senator, on your quest for the title.

Incidentally, the Senator will be up for reelection in 2022, and his intentions are not yet known. With five GOP Senators planning to retire in 2022, no doubt there’ll be pressure on him from the RNC and quite probably former President Trump to run for reelection.

Don’t do it, Senator! You don’t want to reach the depths of notoriety currently inhabited by the late Senator McCarthy (R-WI)!

A couple of years ago I ran across an intriguing notion to combine the blockchain with art, and now it appears someone has gone, done it – and financial magic is happening:

On Thursday, a digital collage of hundreds of weird, brightly colored images made by a South Carolina artist known as Beeple sold at the prestigious Christie’s auction for $69.3 million. The staggering price is the third highest ever for a work by a living artist, second only to pieces sold by art-world giants Jeff Koons and David Hockney.

But unlike Koons’s balloon dog sculptures and Hockney’s acrylic paintings, the collage, known as “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” is entirely digital. In effect, the buyer — a blockchain investor who goes only by the name of MetaKovan — bought a file that is not very different from the photo posted at the top of this article.

What sets it apart, though, is that this specific file is an NFT, or non-fungible token. Using the same principles behind cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, NFTs allow people to claim ownership over specific digital files, be they songs, videos or static images. Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, is the latest beneficiary of a rush into NFTs that’s a side effect of the fast-growing interest in digital currencies and the technology behind them. [WaPo]

But it’s a bit of a fudge:

An NFT is a type of digital crypto asset. They represent a specific version of any digital file — whether it’s a song, a video game or a simple image. Using the same technology that bitcoin uses, people can “mint” NFTs, creating a record of ownership that’s spread across thousands of computers around the world that cannot be changed by anyone except the owner. It’s a way of turning a digital file into something that can be bought and sold like a physical object.

NFTs are not tangible — you can’t hold them or touch them (unless, of course, you decided to print a copy of one, like you might print out an art image). The knowledge in the owner’s mind that they own the original or “real” version of the digital file is what makes them valuable.

That is, the analogy between digital and tangible art breaks down when it comes to copies. The last paragraph suggests the art isn’t encrypted, which means it can still be copied and manipulated by anyone who can get a copy of it in an agreeable format in the first place.

Not that an original Pollock, say, cannot be copied – but the permission of the owner is required, not optional, in order to make, distribute, and even manipulate a copy. This real-world requirement, sloppy and possibly ill-defined as it is, makes the Pollock materially different from the Beeple, at least until the real-world copy is perfect.

On computers, it’s almost more difficult to do a bad copy than a good copy, at least of a static artwork. (A non-static artwork might be a visual representation of a neural network implementing some sort of machine learning task.)

It’s also worth noting that since this was sold using bitcoin as the exchange currency, the exact price fluctuates in relation to dollars and other tangible currencies – which, given recent movements, could means it’s worth twice as much a month from now – or half. And while inflation caused by printing more money bitcoin won’t be happening, fluctuations caused by investors trying to cash in on bitcoin movements does make it a little harder to assign a real value to Beeple’s work.

But assigning value to art is always a chancy business.

Perhaps most interesting is a quote I grabbed from two years ago from Oliver Roeder of FiveThirtyEight, which I’ll repeat here:

A new order is emerging in the art world. But will it be any different than the old one? People like [John] Zettler make me think not. He and Rare Art Labs may be handling a new type of art, but what they’re doing with it is nothing new; in fact, it’s exactly what the critic Hughes warned us against: the fetishization of art’s prices and the emptying of its higher virtues. As a result, the relationship between art and the blockchain, which seems symbiotic for the moment, could soon become parasitic. Artists can only avoid the art establishment’s capitalistic maw for so long.

Is that what’s happening here? Last year, Beatriz Helena Ramos addressed the issue of crypto art’s economics for SuperRare:

The crypto art ecosystem defines success by sales, the assumption being that the more money that goes to artists, the better. Milestones are measured by how much collectors spend. Every time an artwork gets a high price or sells immediately, everybody celebrates it. I understand the initial need to attract collectors and prove the market. In this sense, SuperRare’s million-dollar milestone is indeed a remarkable achievement. One million dollars went to artists and that is a wonderful thing. SuperRare’s well-deserved success brings validation to the entire ecosystem.

By understanding the system we can tweak its design to make it more equitable. It has become clear to me that as long as we reproduce traditional economic models, no amount of technical innovation (NFTs or DAOs) will yield any new results.

At its core, blockchain is about economics, but excepting experiments by Simon De La Rouviere, DADA, and a few others, there has been little experimentation in terms of new economic incentives. Instead, there has been an intentional effort to attract traders and speculative collectors.

Ramos is a revolutionary, but whether her revolution will succeed is an open question. But it appears she’d agree with Roeder – blockchain is not yet being used to create revolutionary new systems, only to implement the old system on computers.

But whether that’s acceptable to Ramos isn’t really the issue – that’s up to the crypto art community as a collective.

If you’re not an avid fan of C-SPAN, the non-profit cable network that carries much of the public hearings and business of the Federal government, then you may not know about their potential big new attractions in the Senate.

Real filibusters.

“He made me filibuster this!” shouted a very young Jimmy Stewart.

Once upon a time, the Senate had real filibusters, which Hollywood dramatized in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939). Politicians actually had to take the floor and declaim for hours on end, hoping the legislation they were delaying would lose support, either as a result of their arguments, or from sheer ennui. Meanwhile, if sixty or more Senators responded positively to a cloture motion, then the filibuster was ended and the voting began, no matter how the Senator felt about it.

Then, more than a few years back, the Senate adopted a new rule which stated that any Senator could notify whoever was running the Senate that day that they sufficiently hated a piece of legislation that they refused to let that legislation come to a vote unless, of course, a cloture motion voided their notification.

And all the effort went out of filibustering. It made it into a video game. And not only no effort, but the Senator didn’t even have to open their yap. Sit back, put their feet up on their desk, take a nap, secure in the knowledge that the legislation would never get its vote.

If my reader is unfamiliar with how the Senate has conducted itself in recent years, especially under GOP and sometime-Senate Majority leader Senator Mitch “No!” McConnell (R-KY), but suspects this could bring the Senate to a grinding halt, they’d be right. In the last twenty years, passing legislation in the Senate has required trickery (the “reconciliation process”, which is exempt from the rule and involves budgets and anything else that sneaks past the Parliamentarian) or the invocation of the Ghost of George Washington, and the latter is making less and less impression upon Republicans.

But now one of the Democrats who opposes changing the rules, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), is showing signs of changing his mind:

Sen. Joe Manchin said Sunday he is open to altering the Senate filibuster to make it more “painful” for the minority party to wield, while reiterating his opposition to ending the procedural hurdle altogether.

“The filibuster should be painful, it really should be painful and we’ve made it more comfortable over the years,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Maybe it has to be more painful.”

Manchin (D-W.Va.) has previously supported efforts to require senators to filibuster by talking on the chamber floor in order to hold up a bill, an idea he raised on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“If you want to make it a little bit more painful, make him stand there and talk,” Manchin said. “I’m willing to look at any way we can, but I’m not willing to take away the involvement of the minority.”  [Politico]

While everyone is excited about what’s right in front of their nose, I’m wondering what sort of effects this will have beyond the obvious.

1. Retirements. Filibustering can take quite a toll on a physical body. A surprising five Republican Senators are already planning to retire in 2022. Will other older members, such as Senators Kennedy, McConnell, and Grassley, finding filibustering to be tougher than putting feet up on the desk and snoozing, decide that they can’t meet the new demand? And how about the older Democrats? Will we see some movement among them?
2. Campaigns. This could provide damaging material to competing candidates, not only in that a filibustering candidate can literally be seen to be dedicated to deep-sixing an important and popular piece of legislation – nothing like a visual to rile people up – but who knows what will come out of their mouth? I know when I get tired I’ll occasionally say something I regret. Is this going to become an important part of campaigning?

I must admit, I’m rather hoping that we return to the old form of filibustering, because Senators should be willing to put their political and personal lives on the line if they really dislike some piece of legislation.

And not merely because the legislation was proposed by the opposition.

This has been causing bewilderment. It showed up at the CPAC meeting this weekend, reportedly:

Yep, that’s a statue of former President Trump. Assuming this isn’t a really cool hoax, it’s worth taking a quick moment to understand the elements of this statue.

First, it’s a bit bigger, I think, than life-size, emphasizing Trump’s dominance of the conservative scene these days, and playing to his fantasies concerning superiority. At 6’4″, he’s accustomed to being the biggest guy in the room, especially at his age.

But it does have a goofy grin. I look forward to hearing readers’ commentary on that. Perhaps it’s a reflection of the marketing and charisma chops that some believe he has.

It’s made to look like it’s made of gold. It’s easy enough to write that off as a tribute to his well-known love of wealth, but I think exploring this aspect will add some insight. Readers will recall that Trump grew up in the  prosperity church of Norman Vincent Peale, and that his key constituency is the evangelical community, which contains much or all of the prosperity church community. In prosperity churches, the more wealth you have, the higher your social prestige, so this is just what you think it is: a signal to that community that Trump is so fabulously rich that he might as well be a Saint and sup next to old St. Pete.

Seriously.

Next, we get to what some observers interpret as shorts, but I think is underwear. This flaunting of male sexuality is, according to those studying Christian Nationalism, typical of the specimen, clinging to a sexual stereotype from the 1950s: Him big he-man. Nevermind that he skipped military service, of course. His sexual depravities have only reinforced his position with the Christian Nationalists.

And, finally, those anomalous sandals. Has there ever been a picture of Trump in sandals? Well, I do not have exhaustive knowledge of him and his footwear, but it seems unlikely.

But they do remind me of a movie: The Ten Commandments (1956). This is the archetypcal Hollywood Christian historical blockbuster, and a very good movie – I’ve watched it several times, although not since I started writing movie reviews. And what’s the common footwear in that movie? Sandals. I believe these are a reference to the religious history of Christian Nationalism, no matter how blurry a reference that might be for a prosperity church member to make. It’s a reminder of the tie between Donald Trump and God that has been alleged by the more desperate of the power-hungry.

This is all about reinforcing the bond between Trump and his most fervent admirers, the marks that he’s conned, is conning, and will continue to con for the foreseeable future. It’ll be interesting to hear how much of a legend the statue becomes post-CPAC.

There have been multiple reports in the media of defections from the Republican Party in the wake of the January 6th Insurrection, but there’s nothing like a graph to bring important developments to the fore.

This is reinforced by editorials such as this from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

The Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump should be an opportunity for Missouri Sens. Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley to redeem themselves for blindly supporting a man whose conduct was indefensible. Instead, they continue bringing additional embarrassment to the state after having flirted with the abolition of democracy in favor of keeping a dictator wannabe in the White House.

Hawley, of course, is the Senate’s biggest cheerleader when it comes to asserting that Trump won the Nov. 3 election and that Trump shouldn’t be held accountable for directing a mob to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6. Blunt had the gall to tell reporters that, until a 13-minute video of the Capitol attack was shown to senators on Tuesday, he had never taken so much time to watch what occurred on that “truly a horrendous day.” Both voted against allowing the trial to proceed.

Missourians must not allow themselves to be fooled by the weak boilerplate defenses by Hawley and Blunt. Hawley tweeted on Tuesday: “Today Democrats launched their unconstitutional impeachment trial while President Biden cancels thousands of working class jobs across this country. Americans deserve better.” In fact, a bipartisan majority of senators have deemed the proceeding to be constitutional. And the attempt to divert attention to Biden, who has not canceled a single job, is pathetic but oh-so-typical of Hawley.

These are symptoms of the clash of morality systems. In one corner we have the morality of democracies, wherein we build our secular morality around truth, justice, and a vote per person. The rest is negotiable and contingent on how reality works out.

The other? It’s a quasi-religious authoritarianism, a semi-redundancy seeing as the Divine is rarely elected, and its representatives only somewhat more so. Not that I’m condemning religion in general, but only certain sects that have succumbed to the lure of worldly wealth, power, and prestige, and have melded the opposition to democratic (small-d) pillars inherent in their religions to their view of how the world should be run, despite, in the dominant case, admonitions in their theological texts against application of those very principles to worldly matters.

This is not a matter of utter clarity. The general voter, not particularly interested in the shades of gray, sausage grinder that is politics, may not recognize where the Republican Party has been headed. Indeed, outside of a few precocious members and ex-members, the Party itself didn’t realize that its toxic chemistry of fall-into-line and amateurism would lead to a Party that brays for an autocratic outcome, all in the name of, well, winning. Winning in the name of the Divine. Which leads to the consequence that Any behavior is acceptable in the Name of the Divine.

Editorials such as that of the Post-Dispatch seek to remind Senators far gone in the authoritarian morality system that the system in which they are flourishing is not the one they desire, and that to which they are aligned is not friendly to democracy. I fear such editorials will go for naught, at least so far as the Senators themselves are concerned; there may be more impact on voters, who may or may not be important in the future of the United States of America.

Why? Those Senators are so certain of their righteousness that they do not commit to ideals of democracy, but to the ideal that the Party must win. In this scenario, the desires of voters is ignored. We saw this in the pathetic lawsuit Texas v Pennsylvania.

But they fail to think ahead. Consider this description of yesterday’s Impeachment Trial proceedings from Benjamin Wittes and Tia Sewell:

Ted Lieu of California builds on this point by arguing that Trump’s behavior after the attack indicated a dangerous lack of remorse. Lieu states that “not even once” did Trump condemn the attack on the day it occurred, despite the pleas of numerous lawmakers who experienced the violence firsthand. Rather, when the president told insurrectionists to go home—three hours after the attack—he also stated “we love you” and repeated his false claims about a stolen election. Lieu claims that Trump was “eerily silent” on Jan. 7, until finally—nearly 30 hours after the attack—he released a video condemning the Capitol breach. But notably absent from this video, Lieu notes, was the instruction to never do it again. Nor has Trump shown any remorse or taken responsibility in the weeks since: The House managers show a video from Jan. 12, in which Trump states that his speech on Jan. 6 was “totally appropriate.”

DeGette describes how extremist groups were emboldened by Trump—warning that unless there is action now, “the violence is only just beginning.” According to U.S. intelligence community bulletins, she shows, there was a great increase in violent online rhetoric and credible threats following the Capitol breach. She covers the price in dollar terms to both state and federal governments associated with increased security measures following the riot and argues that constituents have also suffered from a lack of regular access to their representatives. DeGette also notes that experts who study domestic extremist violence in the U.S. have stated that the “perceived success” of Jan. 6 will foment future attacks, which pose a specific threat to racial, ethnic and religious minorities in the United States. [Lawfare]

Now what happens? I alluded to it here:

FLASH MOB: You stole your election! You stole your election!

[REPUBLICAN ELECTED] OFFICIAL: I did not!

FM: You stole your election! You stole your election!

OFFICIAL: I did not!

FM: PROVE IT, THEN! PROVE IT, THEN!

OFFICIAL: I don’t have to! You have no proof!

FM: JUST LIKE YOU DON’T ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, YOU HYPOCRITICAL, LEG HUMPING, PANTS WETTER! WE DON’T NEED ANY!

Imagine that happening for every election. And then the flash mobs are replaced by violent mobs. And then, in 2024, candidate Cruz, smoothly thinking the Republican nomination for President is in the bag, is suddenly assaulted and torn apart by Hawley’s mob.

And then Hawley is never seen in public, seized as he is by terror at the death threats issued by Cruz’s partisans.

A scenario such as this should have been described to the Senate, a reminder to Cruz and Hawley that autocracies and theocracies are extremely dangerous, not only because of ambitious politicians, but to ambitious politicians. One of the great strengths of democracy is the peaceful transfer of power, so touted from the latest November until January 6th. The riot run by the ambitious and the wretched in Trump’s thrall attempted to destroy that tenet of democracy, but it only magnified its importance to those citizens – many in number – who are happy with democracy.

And so the decline in the popularity of the Republican Party. Gallup may try to make this seem a typical part of the ups and downs of the political parties:

Sub-40% favorable ratings for the Republican Party are not unusual. The last such measure was 38% in January 2019 amid the partial federal government shutdown related to a dispute over funding for Trump’s proposed southern border wall. From 2013 through 2018, the average favorable rating for the GOP was 39%.

In contrast to those generally weak ratings, in January 2020, a slim majority of Americans viewed the Republican Party favorably while Trump was in the process of being acquitted in his first impeachment trial, and the U.S. economy was strong.

The current GOP image reading is still significantly above the party’s historical low rating of 28% from October 2013, when disputes over funding the Affordable Care Act led to a partial government shutdown. Gallup also measured a low 31% reading for the GOP in December 1998 after Bill Clinton was impeached by the Republican-led House of Representatives.

But the Insurrection of January 6th is unique in modern American history. The fact that it has not been definitively rejected by the Republican Party marks the Party’s alleged adherence to democratic ideals as suspect, and as most Americans would prefer to live in a democracy rather than a theologically seasoned autocracy, I suspect the Republican Party will continue its descent into triviality.

What could stop it?

Determined leadership by the Republican leadership. Rep McCarthy (R-CA), House Minority Leader, has already definitively failed that test, acting like a toady for Trump since the Insurrection.

But Senator McConnell (R-KY), the leader of the GOP Senators, still has an opportunity to save his Party from diminishment and extinction. He’s reportedly still undecided as to whether he’ll vote guilty or innocent.

If he votes guilty, he leads most of the other GOP Senators into voting guilty as well. By repulsing Trump at long last, he communicates to the public that the Republican Party may be open to the morality of democracy, rather than than of authoritarianism – true or not.

If he votes innocent, then the independents and the reported thousands of Republican defectors will read that as an endorsement of the Insurrection, an endorsement of fallacious election challenges, an endorsement of the unimportance of truth and facts.

And they’ll vote accordingly.

The coordinated Reddit investment army of which I wrote yesterday continues to stir up comment and trouble. First, though, the markets had a mild recovery today, so either they don’t realize there may be a danger here, or have discounted it.

Now, Gamestop (GME) and AMC (AMC) stock prices slid down the greased rope towards their old (that is, of 6 business days ago), and possibly proper, values today during normal trading, but as I type this, it appears that in after hours trading the army is making a play to prop GME back up. After a 44% drop today, it’s back up 49%. Keep in mind those two percentages are off of consecutive baselines, not the same baseline, so look up the numbers for yourself – they’re changing until after hours trading closes up. The AMC share price is exhibiting a similar behavior. There were five stocks listed by news services as being part of the action, and the other three are Bed, Bath, and Beyond (BBBY), Nokia (NOK), and Blackberry (BB), all notable as formerly sexy stocks that have lost their luster. I have not checked their share price behavior today.

The most interesting bit of news to me is the report that Robinhood, the app that permits free buys and sells of stocks and is reportedly the app of choice for the coordinated army, has restricted trading in these stocks:

GameStop traders sent the stock on a wild ride Thursday. The stock plunged more than 40% Thursday after surging nearly 40% at one point earlier in the day. Adding to the drama? Robinhood said it was restricting trading in the red hot stock as well as several others.

“We continuously monitor the markets and make changes where necessary. In light of recent volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only,” Robinhood said in a statement, adding that it was also doing so for AMC (AMC), BlackBerry (BB), Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY), Nokia (NOK) and three other stocks.

“Amid significant market volatility, it’s important as ever that we help customers stay informed,” Robinhood added.

The backlash was swift, and hours after implementing the restrictions, Robinhood appeared to backtrack, saying it would resume limited buys on those securities starting Friday. [CNN/Business]

I’d be interested in knowing the nature of the backlash. The army threatening to take its 2.2 million members and go somewhere else? Legal action? This latter reason is particularly interesting because I’m a little concerned that Robinhood’s action, while perhaps legal, is probably not ethical in the larger scheme of things. By that I mean the right to shut down trading in a stock without authorization from a higher authority amounts to trading manipulation, an old suspicion among amateur – and perhaps professional – traders towards the big market makers, firms responsible for the implementation of the market..

A reader writes:

From my reading, it appears that Game Stop was actually well positioned for success and growth, but that the short sellers were wrong but then sought to save their positions by further depressing the stock by buying more shorts. Then the long buyers on Reddit pushed it up, making it impossible for the shorts to cover their positions (short positions can be had for more than 100% of the stock available). So in this case, I don’t think the long buyers were artificially inflating Game Stop so much as pushing back against a fake downward pressure. I kind of like that some of the shorts got caught out.

From the above CNN/Business link:

Although the retailer reported decent holiday results and now has the backing of Chewy (CHWY) co-founder Ryan Cohen, GameStop is still losing money as the sales of video games have increasingly shifted from buying a cartridge in a box at a physical store to a download model.

I owned GME years and year ago, did decently, but got out for the same reasons as CNN cites – I didn’t see GME having a future with its then-business model, which I assume hasn’t changed much if they’re closing stores and losing money.

All that said, if the Internet were to suddenly collapse, GME would be an interesting opportunity.

And then there’s Erick Erickson, who sees everything through his far-right vision:

American history is full of stories of small entrepreneurs with good ideas displacing pre-existing giants in the marketplace. Over time, however, that has become less the case. Now, Goliath hires an army of lobbyists who help shape the regulatory code, the tax code, and draft legislation to provide competitive advantages for themselves or disadvantages for would be competitors.

The little guy cannot become the big guy because the big guy has lobbyists. It is no coincidence that Democrats are decrying the wealth gap and the inability of the little guy to become the big guy at a time the big guy is engaged in shaping federal policy and funding the Democrats. The Democrats’ solution is to make the little guy more comfortable, but also punish him if he dares to get too successful. The Republican solution has largely been to prop up the big guys and bail them out when they falter, equally ensuring there can be no competition.

The advent of the Web heralded a brand new wave of creative destruction – it hasn’t slowed it down. There’s a host of dead and dying retailers lying in the wake of Amazon and its competitors – of which there are a few.

And, somehow, the Democrats are the thumb puppets of Big Business.

But Erickson is stuck in his metaphor of David vs Goliath:

CNBC, the stock regulators, the business press, and various state Secretaries of State declare the regular Davids the bad guy for driving Goliath to a bail out. According to all of them, it is bad for David to slay Goliath because David might get hurt in the process. Ironically, these sorts of regular people trading are CNBC’s core audience and CNBC is vilifying them and protecting the hedge fund guys.

These guys on Reddit know that. They do not care. They know, with a subreddit called WallStreetBets that they are gambling on the stock market. They are not using it for a long term growth and income strategy.

But the system favors the existing large institutions. In the name of stability and paternalism, the regular guys driving up the prices are bad because they are destabilizing a system and possibly costing themselves money.

They have every right to do it, but the system is against them, which pushes the financial press against them, which makes me root for them even more.

The market will settle to the fair market value price. GameStop stock will go down. People will lose money. But I’m unsure why any of us should care that a group of multimillionaires or billionaire hedge fund guys lost their shirts to the regular guys when usually it is the regular guys losing their shirts and jobs to the hedge funds.

Or will it? He seems blind to the possibilities of this phenomenon – possibilities that have little to do with traditional stock markets. But I mentioned that in my prior post.

For Erickson it sometimes seems like every post is a chance to slime the Democrats and the left while propagating a political narrative, rather than exploring possibilities.

But readers are used to that.

But there’s even more politics related to this incident!

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday accused Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of “trying to get me killed” during the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol and called for his resignation from the Senate, after the Texas Republican appeared to agree with her on the need for an investigation into Robinhood following chaos on Wall Street.

“I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where there’s common ground, but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out,” the New York congresswoman wrote in a tweet directed at the Texas senator Thursday. “Happy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren’t trying to get me killed. In the meantime if you want to help, you can resign.”

She continued, “You haven’t even apologized for the serious physical + mental harm you contributed to from Capitol Police & custodial workers to your own fellow members of Congress. In the meantime, you can get off my timeline & stop clout-chasing. Thanks.” [CNN/Politics]

And she’s certainly justified in that comment. Make it clear he’s no longer welcome in polite company, eventually he’ll clear out in shame.

There’s been a lot of chatter about the difficulties various former Trump White House employees are facing in finding new jobs commensurate with their expectations. Evidently, former Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has decided to go for a job where there’s really very little evaluation of past efforts:

Wikipedia

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, President Donald Trump’s former press secretary, announced Monday that she is running for governor of Arkansas.

“With the radical left now in charge of Washington, your governor is your last line of defense. In fact, your governor must be on the front line,” Sanders said in a nearly eight-minute video posted on Twitter. “So today, I announce my candidacy for governor of Arkansas.” [CNN/Politics]

The daughter of former Arkansas governor, pastor, and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (R-AR), I’d say she has a leg up on her primary challengers, whoever they may be, and then a quick run to the governor’s mansion in this deeply conservative state.

It’ll be interesting to see how her opponents deploy her Trumpian – and admitted at least once – lies against her, and how she responds. If her opponents are unable to make the case that lying is simply part of the Trumpist way, or that constant lying is undesirable in a governor, she’ll win.

Because she won’t win on personality. She certainly didn’t show any charisma during her time as Press Secretary.

But I’d put my money on her. Her family has a history of political success, so she’s seen how it’s done. I’m not saying it’s not a sordid history – Mike Huckabee apparently left some controversy in his trail – but she knows the requirements, she’s high profile, and she’s picked the right audience.

Because voters don’t have an HR to thoroughly vet candidates, unlike a commercial employer. Or, rather, they do, in the free press, but they don’t use them much.

A family of anti-vaxxers is exhibiting a bit of … well … grasping arrogance:

A group of Missouri parents told an Eighth Circuit panel on Tuesday that the state requires them to go through a forced indoctrination session to religiously opt out of vaccines required for their children to attend school.

“This is a hybrid rights case,” plaintiffs’ attorney Linus Baker told the three-judge panel via a teleconference hearing. “It has many fundamental rights. These parents cannot raise these children the way they want, they cannot provide informed consent, the children’s bodily integrity is violated. The parents have to violate their own religious beliefs, and they have to speak, they have to communicate, and all that together says that neutral generally acceptable law does not apply.” [Courthouse News Service]

No, of course … These parents cannot raise these children the way they want. Being part of a society means there are out-of-bounds areas in the field of raising children. How about if someone wants to raise their children such that they should kill at least one cop per year?

Yeah, that wouldn’t go over so well, either.

That there’s even a religious exemption for vaccination is a weird bit of madness. I vote the United States should buy an island and let smallpox reign free on it. Whoever wants to be vaccination-free is sent to the island, becomes infected, and long videos taken of the righteous, ummmm, victims.

Let anti-vaxxers deal with that. OK, so they’d just deny the authenticity of the video. Sorry, sorry, I’m feeling a bit peevish today, and I’m at work, which means I’m staring at detail, so when I read this article, this attorney’s argument tripped the red flag wire.

In case you want a current snapshot of the Trump Organization empire, here’s WaPo with an article entitled “Backlash to riot at Capitol hobbles Trump’s business as banks, partners flee the brand,” which more or less summarizes their incoming disaster:

Where reason and debate couldn’t reach them, it appears that outright violence is finally proof enough – at least for some.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Friday that Donald Trump should resign the presidency immediately and that if the Republican Party cannot separate itself from Trump, she isn’t certain she has a future with the party.

“I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage,” Murkowski, R-Alaska, said during an interview from her small Capitol office, steps away from the Senate chambers that were invaded by pro-Trump rioters on Wednesday.

“I think he should leave. He said he’s not going to show up. He’s not going to appear at the inauguration. He hasn’t been focused on what is going on with COVID. He’s either been golfing or he’s been inside the Oval Office fuming and throwing every single person who has been loyal and faithful to him under the bus, starting with the vice president. He doesn’t want to stay there. He only wants to stay there for the title. He only wants to stay there for his ego. He needs to get out. He needs to do the good thing, but I don’t think he’s capable of doing a good thing,” she said. [Anchorage Daily News]

Granted, Murkowski has been a leading member, in my mind, of the rational Republican caucus. Perhaps more impressive is this broadside from the National Catholic Reporter:

But also among those with some culpability for yesterday’s failed insurrection are more than a few leaders in our church. Catholic apologists for Trump have blood on their hands.

Many Americans expressed shock as they watched the violent mob smash glass and scale the walls while members of Congress cowered under desks or rushed to secure bunkers.

We were not surprised.

This is the culmination of what this presidency has been about from the beginning — and some Catholics have remained silent, or worse, cheered it along, including some bishops, priests, a few sisters, right-wing Catholic media and too many people in the pro-life movement.

We’re talking to you CatholicVote.org, Attorney General William Barr and other Catholics in the Trump administration, Amy Coney Barrett, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, rogue prolifer Abby Johnson. Sadly, the list goes on.

And what about the everyday Catholics — some 50% of them — who voted for Trump this year, after four years of incompetence, racist dog whistles and assaults on democratic norms? Not all were at the “protest” in Washington, but many have supported organizations that fanned the flames. Too many Catholic voters were content to cozy up to Trump in exchange for tax breaks, or Supreme Court judges, or subsidies for Catholic schools.

Waving a finger in shame isn’t really enough though, is it? The moral and intellectual flaws which led to the widespread willingness to vote for Trump – 74 million voters, for God’s sake!^[1] – indicate that either the American Catholic Church has fallen down badly – given its abysmal moral failings when it comes to pedophilia in the ranks, this is no surprise^[2] – or the American penchant for monetizing anything that moves and much that doesn’t, will render them irreparable.

The American Catholic Church had better be preparing plans for clergy reformation for both pedophilia and the support of Trump by the clergy, and then moving on to the butts in the pews. If you lose a few congregants who can’t stand the thought that they were wrong, hey, too bad. Reform the great majority.

Because this country depends on it.

But, given the natural weaknesses of any church, I shan’t be surprised if they fail. The willingness to believe in a Divinity for which there’s no apparent evidence, to throw yourself into a frenzied study of sacred texts which were, nevertheless, penned by humans, does not lead to a rational mind that is sensitive to the difficulties of understanding epistemological issues, much less the challenges of detecting con men, grifters, psychics, quacks, and all that crew – and I say that without any sense of humor! Many scientists are taken in by just such sly and cunning people.

We’re all weak in one way or another, and the wolves in sheeps’ clothing are adept and sensing it and using it as a weapon. It can be a grim world out there.

In any case, expect a number of other organizations to scold their members. I only hope they have more than scolding in mind.

And then there are those who are lost, such as the MAGA-ites who have to decide if they now hate Trump, or if he has one more trick up his sleeve:

¹ A bit of humor that works on a few levels.

² Ditto.

If you like it when a partisan admonishes their fellows concerning their shared delusions, Erick Erickson delivers just such a lesson, and I finally clicked that damn button in his mail so I could deliver the link to you. His conclusion?

To admit you were played and he lost and there was no deep state conspiracy or theft of the election would actually make you look bad at this point. So it’s better to double down on the lies and blame everyone else from the Trump-appointed Attorney General to the Trump-appointed FBI Director to the Trump-appointed CIA Director to various Trump endorsed Governors to the GOP establishment to corporate America, the Carlyle Group, the Rothschilds, the Russians, and the Chinese, along with Fox News that spent four years letting the President have nearly uninterrupted air time. …

It really is remarkable how everyone always fails President Trump in the end. From Jeff Sessions to John Kelly to Mick Mulvaney to General Mattis to William Barr to John Durham to Brian Kemp to Doug Ducey and the list goes on and on, all these people just fail or betray the President, allegedly. I just suspect when the failures are so complete and so thorough and so widespread among people he chose, hired, or endorsed, that maybe they are not the ones failing.

But the entire rant is entirely predictable and could be written by anyone who’s been paying attention and is not a Trump cultist. The Lincoln Project’s anti-Trump videos, all of the Biden endorsements from current and former Republicans, even from Trump Administration officials, former and serving – they have all served to make Erickson’s rant, necessary as it is, nearly pro forma and almost boring.

But Erickson has to write this because of the right-wing epistemic bubble. They talk to themselves only, they convince each other that the mainstream media is fake, and when the bubble develops a hole – they don’t think, Maybe we were wrong. No, their leaders tell them God is on their side, it’s all cheating by the other side, their campaign officials, OUR campaign officials (welcome to the bus, Raffensperger!), and just keep on being … un-American assholes. Indeed, Erickson has been complicit in tarring mainstream media as being fake.

And that’s the real challenge facing America today. We’ve allowed greed to run rampant, and now we’re reaping what we’ve sown.

For those who can’t think of any reason not to have a theocracy, try this on for size:

Addiction is pursuing activities that make you feel better even in the face of contraindicating factors like, oh, death. So reading Friendly Atheist’s remarks on Pastor John Magee made me realize that, in some essential regard, everyone connected with his church is an addict:

Just over a month ago, we learned that John Hagee, the senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, tested positive for COVID.

His son Matthew made the announcement at the time: [Tweet omitted – HW]

Notice that Matthew said his father was “receiving extremely good medical treatment.”

He’s lucky he can afford it. That’s not necessarily true of the congregation he’s putting in danger by hosting in-person, indoor, mask-optional, not-very-socially-distanced services.

Yesterday, the elder Hagee was back in church. He said he spent 15 days in the hospital with “double pneumonia” but he was better now. But you can see from the video below [link added – HW] that the church hasn’t made any adjustments for COVID. It’s still in-person, indoor, jam-packed, and mask-optional.

Let’s enumerate.

• We have the congregation. They’ve received the news of their pastor becoming ill, thus making Covid-19 immediate and real. Are they addicts? Sure. They go to a church rich in superspreader potentiality, and they know it. But it makes them feel good to go and participate in services, because that makes them part of the Chosen.
• And we have the clerics. They are all vulnerable; even Hagee, who presumably was told by hospital staff that reinfection is quite possible. But there he is, up and preaching. He knows the risk to himself, his fellow clerics, and his congregation. All it takes is one asymptomatic shedder of the virus to infect attendees. But Hagee? He’s popular, powerful, he has prestige. History teaches us that power is as much a drug as meth, and often just as hard to shake. He’s an addict.

It’s a classic depiction of addiction, willfully pursued in the face of danger to both self and others. I wonder if it would help to keep that in mind when communicating with clerics and their congregations. I’m sure they’ll dislike the characterization. Perhaps it doesn’t apply to all congregations – although I suspect those that are not addicts are also not putting themselves and their fellows at risk.

Professor Richardson puzzles – perhaps she really understands but is funnin’ us – over very recent governmental moves by President Trump:

In other words, Trump is cleaning out the few national security leaders who were not complete lackeys and replacing them with people who are. It’s funny timing for such a shake-up, especially one that will destabilize the country, making us more vulnerable.

Today Washington Post diplomacy and national security reporter John Hudson noted that a source told him that the “Trump administration just gave Congress formal notification for a massive arms transfer to the United Arab Emirates: 50 F-35s, 18 MQ-9 Reapers with munitions; a $10 billion munitions package including thousands of Mk 82 dumb bombs, guided bombs, missiles & more….” This deal comes two months after the administration’s Abraham Accord normalizing relations between Israel and the UAE opened the way for arms sales.

The UAE has wanted the F-35 for years; it is the world’s most advanced fighter jet. They cost about $100 million apiece. The president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has secretly been pushing for the sale of the arms to the UAE in the face of fierce opposition by government agencies and lawmakers.

It’s not hard to connect the dots. As Trump’s own children have testified, Trump is motivated by money, and a recent report from The New York Times has indicated he has a shitload of debt about to fall right on his neck.

So what does he do? A few weeks ago the Arab nation United Arab Emirates (UAE) agreed to normalize relations with Israel. My speculation is that the deal is this:

1. UAE normalizes relations with Israel.
2. The United States Executive, despite the vociferous objections of lawmakers and intelligence agencies, agrees to sell the most advanced fighter aircraft, the F-35
3. Under the table, UAE also agrees to cover Trump’s imminent debts, and maybe even his long-term debts.

That much has been agreed to, as evidenced by the Administration announcement.

The real danger here is not that Trump escapes his debts by cheating at playing government. The real danger is that UAE has the F-35 and its technology.

It can sell it to Russia.

It can sell it to China.

You’ll notice that covering Trump’s debts won’t cost UAE a thing, as Russia and/or China can easily supply the funds in exchange for F-35 technology.

It can sell or otherwise share it with other Arab League countries which are still actively hostile to Israel. So much for Trump being a big friend of Israel.

And this takes me all the way back to why Trump is so ill-suited for his attainment of the Presidency. He doesn’t understand the big picture. He’s trained and practiced the art of making and losing^[1] money all of his life, but he has apparently no clue about international relations.

And that’s a large portion of the Executive.

If Israel, or even ourselves, find ourselves in the middle of a shooting war in a few years, and our F-35s are suffering large losses, we’ll know who to blame. President Trump, his supplicating Republican Party, and 62 million voters who voted him in 2016, all supported by a conservative disdain for expertise.

And Paul Ryan will be right down there in a Hellish circle next to Trump.

And our options? Limited. Fortunately, delivery takes time, and Biden may simply cancel the deal the moment he comes into power, leaving UAE high and dry.

¹ Reportedly, he’s better at losing money than making it.

Media organizations are now projecting Joe Biden has finally won the Presidency, his third try for the ultimate political plum. I don’t mean to demean him; I believe him when he says he ran to begin the long, hard process of uniting the country.

So what comes next? There are at least two paths. The first one everyone knows.

The first path is Trump lights up the sky with lawsuits. But will this work? He’s already been working the legal system, but outside of one trivial victory, he’s suffered continual failure. Although I haven’t been tracking the details of these suits, at least one, involving the Texas GOP, was rebuffed by a far-right Federal judge, after the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court also bounced it. This reminds me of this 2018 lawsuit brought following the November election, in which the Republican loser for a House seat claimed the election was invalid because ranked choice voting was used, and a Trump-appointed Federal judge disagreed.

My point? That a Federal judiciary packed by Trump is still no guarantee that Trump will win. This isn’t the private sector, where loyalty can be bought or blackmailed. Sure, we’ll find Trumpy Trumpist Trumpian cultists among the many judges he nominated and Senator McConnell (R-KY) rubber-stamped, but remember that Trump didn’t personally select them in many cases. Some will be qualified judges who put the law above personal preference.

Add in to the mix the third-rate legal team employed by President Trump. Rudy Giuliani might have been a legal genius in his prime, but now he’s a decayed wreck of what he used to be, reduced to constructing fake scandals, and even failing at that. Jay Sekulow? His background is unsuited to this work, and his victory in the impeachment trial had little to do with actual legal ability, and everything to do with Republican Senators unwilling to condemn the toxic political culture which had placed them in positions of preeminence and wealth. Most of my reading suggests this is not a team of distinguished legal theorists.

And, finally, the SCOTUS conservatives, who may end up being presented with these lawsuits, must be conscious that this will be a test for them. If they accept and find for the President, after all the other judges refuse to do so, in multiple suits, they’ll reveal themselves as nothing more than partisan hacks.

Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett. Third-raters. That’s what they risk, being known as craven loyalists, not respecting the will of the people. Indeed, every news media outlet, if presented with the opportunity of at least some conservative Justices whining that these suits should be heard, if they arrive as Trump appealing yet another loss, should TRUMPET that whining, identifying them, implicitly, as nothing more than partisan hacks.

So much for their legacy.

But I said I saw two paths, and here’s what happens: the conservatives begin to realize that tearing the nation to pieces is not to their advantage. Literally, if this nation goes to pieces, then there goes the free markets that enrich them, there goes their healthcare, there goes civil peace – who wants riots literally in front of their houses?

So here’s leading Fox News Trumpian Laura Ingraham (look at the second video, not the first):

Laura Ingraham prepares her audience for the likely possibility that the President will lose the election pic.twitter.com/tG50EIHj60

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) November 7, 2020

Yeah, a lot of that sounds like utter nonsense. But keep in mind: she’s implicitly speaking to an audience of one: President Trump. No, he looked like shit at the town hall with Savannah Guthrie. His record is worse than undistinguished – he’ll be considered a bottom five President by historians. He’s a leading example of why being a businessman isn’t a qualification for any elective office.

But she knows: he’s a man-child that must have his ego soothed in order to properly instruct him.

So, we may see Trump finally give up and attempt to accept the loss with good grace. It’ll be clumsily done, with many asides alluding to cheating and that sort of crap, insulting the election workers who put their honor, their health, and even their lives on the line in order to implement this basic part of American democracy. But he may do that.

And then, in order to avoid American justice, he’ll flee to another country.

In the arena of trying to take control of their political fates, I see Senator Graham (R-SC) is going to try the scary task of separating himself from President Trump by just a small hair:

Strongly recommend all my colleagues and President @realdonaldTrump look at the House Problem-Solvers bipartisan $1.5 trillion stimulus relief package.

It has many good things for individuals and businesses.
https://t.co/M7HvwCv9MS

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) October 7, 2020

Is that President Trump once again signing blank sheets of paper? I wonder if Senator Graham is employing some sort of sly dig – which this illness of mine doesn’t permit me to discern – in order to tell his constituent that he is really independent of the President.

And not just my second-favorite lickspittle.

Outside of the scale of these numbers, why am I not surprised?

They made a list of more than 30 celebrities including Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift and Billy Joel to appear in their ad campaign to “inspire hope” about coronavirus, but they ended up with only Dennis Quaid, CeCe Winans and Hasidic singer Shulem Lemmer.

The health department’s $300 million-plus, taxpayer-funded vehicle to boost confidence in President Donald Trump’s response to the pandemic is sputtering. Celebrities are refusing to participate, and staff are arraying against it. Some complain of the unstated aim of helping Trump’s re-election. Others point to an ill-prepared video team and a 22-year-old political appointee who has repeatedly asserted control despite having no public health expertise, according to six people with close knowledge of the campaign and documents related to its operations.

Interviews with participants and others in the Health and Human Services Department paint a picture of a chaotic effort, scrambling to meet an unofficial Election Day deadline, floundering in the wake of the medical leave of its architect, Michael Caputo, and running up against increasing resistance among career staff. [Politico]

I hope that not all the money has been spent, but I suspect it has been. And this is what turns it into probable corruption for me.

A central problem: The video firm recommended by HHS to execute the campaign has struggled to meet deadlines, retain staff and even find the contact information of celebrities to participate in the videos, said three people with knowledge of the operation and documents reviewed by POLITICO.

That firm, DD&T, is led by a filmmaker who had no prior experience making U.S. public health campaigns and is also the business partner of Caputo, the Trump loyalist who served as the health department’s spokesperson before taking leave this month.

“They had no reason being the people working on this campaign,” the person involved in the process added. “They did not have any connections to filming crews, companies or anything.”

But they had connections to Caputo. That’s all it takes, doesn’t it?

I see some of the most desperate Republicans incumbent Senators are trying to build separation from the Administration on one of the hottest rails of the season:

Senate Democrats’ largely symbolic bid to cut off the Trump administration’s support for a Supreme Court challenge to Obamacare failed as expected Thursday, but several Republicans facing tough reelections crossed party lines to back the measure.

Sens. Martha McSally of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who are trying to reassure voters about their defense of insurance protections for preexisting conditions, backed the Democrats’ measure. Another Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who opposed Obamacare repeal efforts three years ago, also supported the bill.

But the bill fell 51-43, short of the 60 votes needed to advance. [Politico]

It’s interesting that Senator Graham (R-SC), who has authored some pathetic calls for campaign donations, was not in the list of Senators declaring a small shred of independence. Does he see his allegiance to Trump as his ticket back to Congress?

Less surprisingly, Senator Loeffler (R-GA), who has clung to Trump even though he’d prefer to see Rep Collins (R-GA) occupying the Senate seat, is also not on the list. Nor is her colleague in the same state, Senator Perdue (R-GA), who is considered a close ally of Trump’s. Much like Loeffler, he is in a hot race, and it’s important to remember that Georgia went to Trump by only 5 points in 2016. Republicans may be in danger of losing the state and both Senate seats to the Democrats in November.

It all comes down to where the Republican Senators see their political fortunes tied – to Trump, or to, well, competency.

This is an early step in the desperate fight to survive politically for these Senators (Murkowski is not up for reelection this year, but I think it counts for her next reelection effort). Will they dare take another step, and what will it be? Party loyalty can only go so far when your Party is shrinking. It’s too late for any of them to switch parties, so some of their options are gone. But they can still express disloyalty to Trump by denouncing his anti-democracy statements. Will they dare?